bank making it the second largest bank failure in u.s. history. third mid size bank to go under in less than two months in the u.s. the president insists taxpayers are not going to be footing the bill for this. white house correspondent peter doocy starts us off tonight live from the north lawn. good evening, peter. peter: good evening, bret. tax day played a big role here. the treasury secretary is saying that they looked at recent federal tax receipts and realized that the u.s. is not going to have as much have enough money to pay its bills possibly as soon as june 1st. so, president biden did phone the big 4 congressional leaders they are requesting to have a meeting about this a week from tomorrow as the white house separately attempts to stabilize a shaky banking system. today s actions ensure the continued resilience of the banking system. the president had to update a script at a small business event to reassure markets about the fdic taking over first republic
has already failed in the sense that what they were trying to publish initially was to erase ukraine from the map. to assume it into russia. to say eliminate its existence as independent state. that s failed and it s not going to succeed. we know that the ukrainians are contemplating a counter offer in the weeks to come. let s see what happens with that. and ultimately its success on the battlefield is the best way and quickest way to actually get to a negotiation that produces a just and durable. ben: very interesting interesting to see president xi. chinese diplomats going to ukraine at the moment. are you open to china becoming the peacemaker here? i think we are open to any country engaging in responsible efforts to try to advance peace. and that begins with a couple of things. it begins, first of all, with a recognition that what is fundamentally at stake is the territorial integrity and sovereignty and independence of ukraine. so any peace agreement has to
taking americans. we have taken a number of measures including sanctions across the years and across cases. but i think what you are seeing, again, is maybe the biggest sanction of all, is to further russia s isolation. ben: but that hasn t stopped them from taking americans. well, at some point, along with the isolation, along with measures that we can take that others can take and, by the way, we are working with other countries to build an even stronger coalition to make sure that there are strong consequences for any country that engages in these practices. ben: moving on to ukraine now which is something that i think a lot about at the moment. but it does appear if there is a bit of a stalemate at the moment on the battlefield. i wonder what that says the fact there is a stalemate after all the international support that s where we are right now? well a few things on this. first, as you know better than anyone because of your deep engagement in ukraine, russia
in there. the spring offensive and what the secretary is saying about that, are they encouraged about what they are seeing? it seems like there is and you talked about this in the interview. a stalling of the operations. ben: yeah, there has been a stalling. everything including secretary blinken himself talking about the spring offensive. we think that will start in the next few weeks. some of the papers that were released from the pentagon recently showed they only expect the ukrainians to make modest gains so i asked secretary blinken today about whether or not how he would define success in the spring offensive? and, again, his answer was a bit vegas. it as long as ukraine take back territory it. does ask serious questions about the level of support that the u.s. and other nations have given to ukraine and whether or not it is really enough to push back the russians as far as they need to go. so, it s very interesting to watch. we will know far more the next few weeks when th
to receive a free kohler® toilet with the purchase of your walk-in bath. and take advantage of our special financing, no payments until 2024. how s it going? are you well? nice to see you. welcome back. let me just. [applause] benjamin hall receiving a standing ovation at the state department briefing room today as he continues his come back from a devastating injury suffered last year in ukraine. he joins us live right now. ben, so great to see you and that moment was, i m sure, pretty interesting for you since you covered that place before going to the front lines. it was. it was very important today. one of the things you do in recovery is you have a goal and somewhere you want to get for me getting back to work. going to the state department today was achieving that and of