about why democracy must prevail over authoritarianism. what we and our allies are going to do to help ukrainians on the front line of the flight. and also preparing people for how difficult this is, and this is not something that we re going to solve in a week or a month. as someone who has had to write presidential speeches about tough issues, nothing on the scale of this war. he has to explain to people, this isn t going away in a week or two weeks or three weeks, millions of refugees is going to be an issue for many years. the consequences of this war are going to be felt around the world for a very long time, and i think you want a speech like this to kind of reset americans expectations for just how long and how invested we re going to be in this conflict. yeah, you know, ben, just before asking another question, i m curious about the logistics of writing a speech like this which of course you ve had a lot of experience with, is this the kind of thing given the attack we re se
that s frightening. and we re just afraid he s going to keep moving. he s going to keep moving. we ukrainian mothers are ready to strangle him with our bare hands to be honest. reporter: and so that is the emotional atmosphere here right now as president biden himself just a few minutes ago called president putin of russia a butcher, alex, and he is expected, when he speaks in about an hour from now at a castle down the street from here, to really lay out for americans in broad terms why this matters, why this is a fight between authoritarianism and democracy that the u.s. and its allies are hoping to be on the right side of. president biden hoping to drive home for people that this is a conflict that matters beyond just ukraine and its neighbors, that really this is about how countries want to conduct themselves in the 21st century. alex. josh lederman in warsaw,
very involved in the negotiations, turkey is playing an important role. france is in frequent contact with president putin. inevitably, discussions between the american government, nato countries, and those parties helping to mediate, never mind the ukrainians themselves who are in close contact with americans. i don t know that you want to bring nato to the table. this is a ukrainian matter in terms of sitting at the negotiating table but the overall focus of nato should be whatever we can do to help the ukrainians in this fight, and whatever the ukrainians need from nato in terms of that negotiation. got you. ben, good to have you on the show. i think you re going to join us after the president s speech coming up in the next hour. i will see you then. meantime, colonel to you now, the explosions near lviv, they are most significant. i was asking about the timing of the attack, given your vast experience, was this something of a message from putin to counter the show of unity that s
thank you so much for that. joining me now, msnbc political contributor, ben rhodes, former deputy national security adviser, under president obama. and former u.s. mc chief of staff to europe, and we hope to get shannon pettypiece, digital reporter to join the conversation. ben, i m going to start with you, what do you think the most important message is for the president to get across in his address today? well, i do think that this has been such an overwhelming month of news and images for americans back home in terms of digesting something that we have not seen on the european continent since world war ii. and i do think that he needs to kind of step back, and explain what is taking place, why it matters to us, what we re doing, but also where this is going. we ve had sanctions imposed, troops deployed to the eastern flank, pouring weapons into ukraine, and i think what the world is looking for is what story president biden can tell