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
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
global consumption of president biden s speech, i think you also want to make sure that your core message isn t altered by something that happened during the day because that s the whole point here. absolutely. we have a strategy we re going to carry out no matter what happens. one more question, i know i have to let you go, nato has made clear ukraine is going to decide for itself what it is willing to agree to in negotiations to try to get this conflict over and done with. should, though, nato be more involved in trying to mediate? could nato have influence in any sort of a deal between russia and ukraine? well, first of all, i think the basic principle that the ukrainians decide what they re willing to accept and not accept has to be the principle that everybody abides by. i think and the reality is nato is inevitably involved in these negotiations. one of the things that s clearly on the table is a statement from the ukrainians that they are not going to intend to join nato
president of the united states across the border in poland is today meeting with refugees about to make a major address to the world, to our country and to the world about nato, about the future of democracy versus authoritarianism, and right as he s about to do that, hours before what appears to be a russian air strike on a field depot, inside what had been a relatively safe city to this point, happened as we were talking to you on the air. this is a city where hundreds of thousands of refugees, transited on their way to the countries of the nato eastern bloc, the eastern flank, i should say, and now here in lviv, a city that has been a sense of security, a sense of safety, a place of relative peace, although there has been targeted strikes outside of this city center, on military installation, on an airport maintenance facility, on several facilities that were used by the ukrainians in
thousand ukrainians. republicans have been very very hard on, you know, keeping the border controlled, closed in certain places. are republicans on board with this move? most are, alex. you re going to have fringe elements that as usual are going to stir up controversy and politicize this, but because the country is so united behind the people of ukraine, so united behind president zelenskyy, you re not going to see a whole lot of republicans, especially not republican leaders going out there and criticizing the decision to accept refugees, which of course is very different from what we heard during the four years of donald trump s presidency, a big priority was to limit the number of refugees coming into the united states. those people who really in many cases tried to create doubt, sow fear, xenophobia about people coming into our country, they re out of business these days because there s so much public