vladimir putin has so far not been willing to meet with you. do you have a message for him? it s not about i want to talk with putin. i think i have to talk with putin. the world has to talk with putin because there are no other ways to stop this war. howard: as all this plays out on tv screens and social media around the world, the journalist debate in this country has dramatically shifted. most of the voices that scoffed and said is ukraine isn t important to american interests have changed their tune and are agreeing now that russia is a pariah state. in fact, some journalists are pushing the biden white house to do more as a matter of conscience. administration has made it clear there will be no boots on the ground. what will it take, will anything change that? will we stand by and watch innocent people continue to be killed here? well, gayle, you re absolutely right, it s heart wrenching, it s heartbreaking.
invasion? certainly most of the media, howard, i think the great question much of the where is most of the american public. my assumptioning is most of the american public is behind economic pressure on vladimir putin, but i think america is filtering the story through the prism of american interests. and i think that our government and by extension then our media needs to thread a very tight need on balancing america s interests. what i mean is you want to respond with strength to vladimir putin. i think western world has. i think his nose has been bloodied. we want to send a deterrent message against further invasions into other countries. i think economic sanctions have played a role in that, howard. but also you don t want to back vladimir putin into an inevitably desperate situation where economic war leads to real war, the japanese, by the way, decided to attack pearl harbor months after economic sanctions
operating, and the chief editor has fled the country with his family fearing for his safety. we re back with gillian turner. is it surpriseing to you that putin would extinguish the last flick pers of a free press, and what were they reporting that the kremlin found so offensive? well, there was hardly an independent media thriving in russia, which you re right to point out. that s an important point here, the fact that there were two independent outlets for putin to shut down, he started with those. he accused them, to your question, of being critical of the invasion by which they weren t using pre-approved kremlin talking points to talk about how russia was going after nazis inside ukraine howard: right. he then kicked, he then shut down all foreign outlets including those run by the united states. he s now shut down most of the national outlets that were operating inside the country. this is what autocrats do when
jets over into ukraine which could really risk broadening the conflict. so what i noticed yesterday was a dramatic shift in the thinking, and we now understand that the state department and nsc are talking about how they can help poland get those migs to ukraine. but, again, the few migs isn t going to make a difference against the entire russian militaries, and there are real dangers involved in setting up a no-fly zone. we ve seen in 1991 in the first gulf war that that really put, that would put u.s. war planes into a direct conflict and war with russia, and russia s a nuclear power which is different from any other situation that the u.s. military has had to set up no-fly zones. howard: no question about it, and getting those weapons through poland is going to be a race against time. we talked about the russians obliterating any semblance of an independent press. i m told there are efforts to get independent information to
patting ourselves on the back about that and saying how much we support the ukrainians while we watch them get slaughtered. so we ve got it completely wrong. and, honestly, we ve continued to get it wrong ever since. saving the civilized world? come on. that s absolutely not kamala harris job. that was our assumption. but as a noted, we were wrong. biden has fully exposed vladimir putin for what he is, a brutal and maybe even mental dictator who is incompatible with the free world. and let s face it, a republican president with the same facts on offer would surely have received immense credit including in the press. howard: joining us now from new york, will cain, cohost of fox & friends weekend, and here in washington gillian turner the fox news anchor and correspondent who worked on national security interests for the bush and obama white house. will, do you see a shift where most of media and most of the country are now fairly united on trying to further cripple russia s econ