moscow where putin spent this morning trying to justify his war in ukraine to the russian people. you know, keir, for his part, president biden seemed to speak directly to the russian people, saying putin chose this war. the west was never planning to attack russia, but my understanding is russian tv didn t air biden s speech. so what did the russian people hear from their president? reporter: for president putin, it was an uncompromising and at times, hard to comprehend speech, chris. he used the word, war, a number of times and folks who pay close attention will know that s usual for putin. he calls the invasion of ukraine his special military operation and described this as a war with the west. a war for russia s survival. suppose you could say in that one respect, one word, there was agreement between president biden and putin. the word war. and i suppose you could also say some agreement that this is more now than a conflict over territory. it s a conflict over ideas.
moscow where putin spent this morning trying to justify his war in ukraine to the russian people. you know, keir, for his part, president biden seemed to speak directly to the russian people, saying putin chose this war. the west was never planning to attack russia, but my understanding is russian tv didn t air biden s speech. so what did the russian people hear from their president? reporter: for president putin, it was an uncompromising and at times, hard to comprehend speech, chris. he used the word, war, a number of times and folks who pay close attention will know that s usual for putin. he calls the invasion of ukraine his special military operation and described this as a war with the west. a war for russia s survival. suppose you could say in that one respect, one word, there was agreement between president biden and putin.
moscow to ask their opinion of president putin s speech. again and again, they said we don t want to talk about politics. opinions here are the front line and many are keeping their heads down. thank you for that. later this hour, we re going to talk to someone who helped negotiate the nuclear arms treaty putin suspended today. michael mcfaul. now to the selloff on wall street gaining steam today with the dow down more than 600. 642 points right now. cnbc s bob pisani is with us from the new york stock exchange. what the heck is going on? well, chris, there s two problems. we re down 2%. this is the lows for the day. today we had earnings from some big retailers. home depot was a disappointment. this is a big bellwether for the u.s. economy. particularly people fixing up their homes. earnings were dispointing and the guidance, the indications of future profits were disappointing as well, indicating the consumer might be slowing down and the consumer
the word war. and i suppose you could also say some agreement that this is more now than a conflict over territory. it s a conflict over ideas. but as you rightly suggest, one of the differences in president biden s speech, he spoke about putin directly. about what putin has said, pushing back on the idea that the west started this war as putin alleged. in putin s speech, he never once mentioned president biden or president biden s trip to ukraine yesterday or any of the ideas that president biden has been putting forward, except that he attacked what he calls the collective west. we were told putin wouldn t watch biden s speech, but be briefed on it later and the russian people, well, they can see it if they want to online if they have that capability, but president putin s speech was shown on television screens across moscow and russia. i ll tell you one thing, chris. we just went out tonight in