bombing russia. i have signed legislation that will outlaw russia forever. we begin bombing in five minutes. all right. joe biden s remarks were far more tame, but likely still put the kremlin on its heels. a lot more tame. which some argue is a good thing. it is a good thing. this morning we gauge the impact of biden s proclamations in poland. good morning and welcome to morning joe. it is monday, march 28th. a special day for me. it is my dad s birthday, really symbolic. we have former ambassador to russia, now director for the institute of international studies at stanford and nbc news international affairs analyst, michael mcfaul. author and columnist at the daily beast david rothcoff. retired navy admiral james stavridis, analyst for nbc news and msnbc. also with us in just a moment, u.s. national editor of
if they prevail this speech will be considered historic. if they don t and if we don t do enough to help them, the speech will not be remembered. i think that s the key thing. i agree rhetorically it was a great speech, explained the narrative. i completely agree with david. it was the best explanation of what the stakes are that we ve heard from the president so far. i also agree with admiral stavridis, not one inch, don t touch nato. that statement also needed to be made. but the other phrase i think was very important is he started by quoting pope john paul ii when he first came to poland, communist poland. he said, be not afraid. that i think was a message to our allies, but i think it was also a message to us because all of this nuclear rattle, you know, sabre rattling and we have to be afraid of escalation from vladimir putin, that was not a position of strength in my view. that was them overstating things
sacred obligation speech. he talked about our sacred obligation to nato, and it will also be the don t-even-think-about-it speech. kind of the american vernacular, don t even think about it vladimir. i think a strong speech delivered in context in warsaw, a city destroyed in the second world war and rebuilt. we don t want that again. i think it was a strong speech and sent the right messages. david, you wrote some beautiful words about this speech afterwards, but the clear lines that it drew. it is so interesting though. a lot of the bad-faith actors on the trump right who have been criticizing joe biden for being too weak now criticizing joe biden for being too strong and really revealed themselves after that speech for just how pathetic and how unamerican they are in attacking the american president in a time like this.
place. we cannot go back to that. we cannot. in 1963 john f. kennedy challenged soviet tyranny in europe by declaring all free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of berlin. in 1987 ronald reagan stood at brandenburg gate and demanded- gorbachev tear down this wall. a generation later the 46th president of the united states delivered his own stinging rebuke of russian barbarism and once again divided the world, as david rothcoff writes, between the forces of democracy and those of autocracy, between those who value freedom and those who fear it. in historic old warsaw, president biden again guaranteed that every inch of nato territory would be defended. reached out to the russian people. prayed for the plight of
that there are some sort of frances and germanys that are beginning to hang back a little bit. so, joe, i just we were watching the speech together, of course, and i wonder if some administrations who are very quick to regroup on that off-the-cuff remark might have wanted to wait a beat and just say it is what the president felt, because i think the walk back is the weakness. it is what the president felt. again, i just say for everybody that s been criticizing, first of all oh, please. criticizing the president for saying it and then criticizing the staff for walking it back, grow up. this is what we can deal with. david, i m sure you agree with me. creative ambiguity is a really good thing right now. i see. because we ve been hearing lavrov say something and the west races after those remarks, and then three hours later putin