sent an additional $800 million in weapons to the country. that brings down the total value of military support to more than three billion dollars. i believe it s three point 25. as president biden prepares asked congress for even more money, can the u.s. afford to keep giving this level of support long term? well, the last package that the president has approved is actually really interesting, alex. because it has a lot of weapons and there that we re going to have to train the ukrainians on. particularly our howitzers. but we re looking at now is we re acknowledging that this will be a longer term conflict. so, we re not just so sending tools that they can use right, now we re sending tools that we can train them on and they can train their own military on going forward. so, i think that s a sign of the shift, basically, in terms of knowing that they will be in this fight for a while. and we will be with them every step of the way. it s clear that the russians are not going to stop
you need to know to help grow your business. alicia and gene are back with us. hello back to the set now. alicia, let s start with you. you were starting a new initiative to help advise startups which i think is really neat. point 25 initiative. i think it is great. what is one thing you would advise a growing business or decisionmaker? my top tip is to think of every meeting as an opportunity. and i say this because i work with a lot of entrepreneurs and business leaders that go into the meeting and they re trying to pitch for the big contract or they re trying to pitch for investment, and if they don t get it, they walk away completely dejected. and my whole thing is, think about it in another framework. think about going into this meeting as an opportunity to learn, as an opportunity to build a relationship. so whether you get the contract or not, if you have gone into the meeting and researched the person, and maybe you asked some advice and maybe thought about who they could
i think we probably modestly helped contribute to some public understanding of it. but it is a legitimate question, how much more do we keep talking about it? and i hope the conclusion that most people reach is after today, no more. all right. and now bob, one more thing, of course. as michael says no more, obviously there s now a new batch of conspiracy theories led by glenn beck and sarah palin. sarah palin tweeted out, don t let the white house distract you with the birth certificate from what bernanke says today. beck also had a clip. let me show that to you real quick. today is the day the birth certificate is released. let me just tell you my theory. this is because bernanke is speaking today. okay. so what do we do with these guys? bartuni makes a great point. 25% of the country thinks he was
to the president or secretary. so who knows what went on in that meeting. you know, general mcchrystal at this point may not even know the outcome of his fate after this meeting with the president. we are starting to hear increasing rumors around this building that the president may not even announce his decision today. that he may put it off at least another day before he announces mcchrystal s fate. does that lead us to presume everybody in that meeting is weighing in right now? that could be. and we don t know if mcchrystal is in that meeting. everybody saw him leave the white house off the west exec drive entrance. but nobody saw him return. i guess he could have somehow. i don t know how. but he could have. he he may be in that meeting or he could be participating in that meeting via a teleconference here from the pentagon. nobody saw him return to the pentagon. it is a big mystery as to where mcchrystal is now exactly. and if, in fact, he is in pr taste pating in that meeti
and at this point 25 of whom are assigned 100% of their time to the gulf cleanup operation and we are bringing you bringing in a couple of dozen more as well. we have also been involved from the beginning with bp and with the command on the training that workers are going to need. we have been preparing and working with other groups to prepare educational materials and in a variety of languages, engli english, spanish, vietnamese. basically we have been aggressively assuring bp and the contractors, everyone working down there, are complying with health and safety standards and with any kind of safe working conditions. including being supplied with the appropriate personal protective equipment which may include gloves and coveralls and certain cases respirators. we have been taking samples again of worker chemical exposures on the beaches and swamps, on the boats, everywhere the workers are. and i will just let you know we can discuss this more we have