i might have said of course we re not talking about regime change. we are saying to the russian people, you have to take control here, you have a role to play here. having been in that position, i think they felt like the most immediate need was to make sure our allies were comfortable. let s switch gears for a minute to president putin. i want to play something that he said this past week that was odd. i ll just leave it there. we ll talk about it. translator: children s book writer j.k. rowling was canceled because she, the author of books spread far and wide and hundreds of millions of copies did not please the fans of the so-called gender freedoms. today they re trying to canceled a thousand-year-old country, our people. i m talking about the increasing discrimination of everything related to russia, about this trend that is unfolding in a number of western states. obviously on its face, the idea of the russian president saying he s a victim of cancel culture is ridiculous.
looked for the truth. her dedication kept her there to report what s going on, many things russians are denying. she is doing everything possible to speak loudly and not let journalism be silenced. we ll see you back here this time next week for more reliable sources. be not afraid. strong words from president biden in his speech near ukraine s border. brutality will never grind down the will to be free! as russia signals a possible strategic shift. we ll speak to the u.s. ambassador to nato, julianne smith, and the top republican on senate foreign relations, senator james risch, next.
ambassador, it is not the u.s. policy, the administration policy for regime change and the white house did try to walk it back moments after the president ad-libbed that. i want to ask what s going on on the battlefield. russia claims it s moving toward a more limited mission, only focused on the donbas region. president biden said he isn t sure russia has really changed its strategy. you re not only the top republican on foreign relations, you re also on the intelligence committee. what are you seeing? what do you believe? well, again, i think the jury is out on that. you can t believe anything they say, so i don t put any stock in the fact that they re announcing that they re changing the policy. look, they re losing this war. if anybody who is involved in operating obviously needs to change direction or the whole thing is going to fall out from underneath them. so i m not surprised to hear them say they re going to do something different. you can just keep pounding
to regime change. that is not the policy of the united states, and that was not in the speech, as you know. that was an ad-lib of him at the end of a good speech. whoever wrote it did a good job, hit the right notes. to have that at the end, the sour note at the end was unfortunate, to say the least. as you just heard from the ambassador, it is not the u.s. policy, the administration policy for regime change and the white house did try to walk it back moments after the president ad-libbed that. i want to ask what s going on on the battlefield. russia claims it s moving toward a more limited mission, only focused on the donbas region. president biden said he isn t sure russia has really changed its strategy. you re not only the top republican on foreign relations, you re also on the intelligence committee. what are you seeing? what do you believe? well, again, i think the jury is out on that. you can t believe anything they say, so i don t put any stock in the fact that they re anno
trying to pound a square peg in a round hole and it doesn t work. that s what they ve been trying to do day after day. it s not working. things are getting more dire at home in russia. so i m not surprised to see them announcing something, and i won t be surprised to see them try something differently. how resolute the ukrainian people have been is just awesome. i mean it s awe-inspiring. they re doing what our patriots did in 1776. they re fighting not only for their future, their kids, their grandkids, they re trying to pass a gift off to the next generation to the ukrainians that is invaluable. they re committed to it. the russians have found out how committed they are to it, and it has been incredibly costly for the russians at this point. president biden said this week that the decision about whether to cede donbas to russia is up to ukraine, but he said i don t believe they re going to