freedom everywhere. it s about the kind of world we want to live in, and the world we want to leave to our children. president joe biden s remarks yesterday announcing that the u.s. will send several tanks to ukraine. we ll dig into this major policy reversal. and what impact the tanks could have on the war. plus, former president trump will soon have more places to post his social media rants. we ll tell you which platforms are reactivating his accounts. also ahead, republican congresswoman marjorie taylor greene s ambitious plan to get to the white house. we ll bring you that exclusive reporting from nbc news. good morning, and welcome to morning joe. it is thursday, january 26th. joe is on assignment this morning. in a few minutes, we re going to explain what he s working on. and along with willie and me, we have the host of way too early, white house bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire, and presidential historian, jon meacham joins us. he s the author of t
will send 14 leopard tanks to ukraine. it follows a dispute between allies. germany earlier suggesting it would not send any tanks unless the u.s. did the same. some u.s. officials argued abrams tanks were too difficult to maintain and operate and worried russia could view it as an escalation. the president was asked if he was forced into the decision. did germany force you to change your mind on sending tanks? germany didn t force me to change my mind. reporter: we pressed the white house about the new shift. what changed? what s changed are the conditions on the ground, and the kinds of fighting that the russians are doing right now. reporter: the white house acknowledging it could be many months before the tanks arrive. still, the move receiving bipartisan support. what happened is a big frig friggin deal, you have the germans and the united states making a decision that s been long overdue.
same with the abrams tanks. the president yesterday said this was coordinated, we did this in concert, but was there pressure from other allies to get in the game? no question, and this move is about allied maintenance, and this is about providing germany some cover. chancellor sholz was reluctance, and the president after meeting with secretary austin decided we ll send ours which will trigger germany to do the same. other countries can then do the same. it s about maintaining the allies. it s also, courtney, to your point, two different tracks, two different time frames. the leopards, the european tanks can get there in a couple of months and hopefully be helpful in the expected russian offensive in the spring. there also is the acknowledgment that the american tanks which won t get there for maybe a year or more, that s because this fight is going to go on far long
bradleys and strikers. the abrams can t get there anytime fast. the leopards, the challengers, these more than 2,000 other variants of tanks that are already there in europe with some of these allies very close in some cases like poland to ukraine, they can get there much faster. they can be in place for a potential coming counter offensive as early as this spring, those are the ones that have the potential to make the difference here, and you just mentioned, ukraine has a hundred tanks that have been dedicated to them. there are assessments they would need somewhere between 250, 350 tanks for the coming offensive. they have some in their arsenal. they have picked up some russian ones off the battlefield they have been able to add to their arsenal, but right now because of this u.s. announcement there s this hope that these other countries are going to start flooding their challengers, their leopards in as well, and that s what could make the difference in the fight against the russian
get the russians on their back heel, and hopefully move both sides towards a negotiated peace settlement. the sub text of everything you laid out and the sub text of the decisions from these countries is that this war is going to go on for a while, and this appears to be a concession by the biden administration, they are digging in for a long war with russia, and they don t expect vladimir putin to look for that off ramp we have been talking about for almost a year now. that s true but you could look at it another way, which this could be defense officials who i spoke with yesterday said this is a sign of their medium and longer range commitment to ukraine. you could actually make the argument that if everything goes the way u.s. officials and some western officials are hoping with this coming counter offensive and this goal that maybe russia would acknowledge some sort of victory domestically and go to the negotiating table. if that goes as planned, it s possible these abrams wo