will start with paula reid. let me air the bite from kamala harris really quickly. the comments made by the prosecutor, gratuitous, inaccurate, and inappropriate. the way that the president s demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts and clearly politically motivated. we will start with paula reid , how is the white house responding to the report today beyond what we heard from vice president harris? what do we know about the interview between president biden and special counsel hur s team. reporter: damage control, spokesperson answered question for the white house press corps. the one shepherding the press through the investigation and knows that well. he fielded questions including a lot of questions about the timing of this interview with the president. was he distracted ? the way the white house is spinning this, no, we did not want to delay it or put up roadblocks, we wanted to give special counsel everything they needed. there
To you? reporter: in large part i do think that it is almost a flexing of their capabilities in the leadup to may 9, which is victory day and very important holiday that the kremlin sort of centers a lot of its narratives around. as well as likely they are having to bring in new capabilities that they may not have originally deployed for this war as it has gone on certainly longer than the kremlin has wanted and they are having to use these new munitions with surface warships possibly running out of their own stores or being threatened by ukrainian defenses. and i want to talk about the ukrainian counter offenses. we re seeing russia escalate, but we ve also seen a lot from the ukrainian counteroffenses being able to push russia back and make russia change its war strategy. tell us about that and how effective they were particularly in mykolaiv where that was so important. sure. so just today and in the last 48
Been readying itself for today. further west measures. by drawing down its dependence on the us dollar and its economy, by upping its foreign reserves, international reserves of foreign exchange and gold. they are now at record levels of more than $630 billion which is money that can be spent on things by propping up its currency if it comes under pressure or simply by keeping the economy going. russia is also sort of changed its trade and investment model, not really looking west as much any more. much more looking east towards china and other markets in the east and it is also really shrunk its budget over the last three years, almost preparing, if you like, a war economy. prioritising stability rather than growth in the economy, to make it, if you like, more hardened and more ready forfurther west if you like, more hardened and more ready for further west are measures which have begun today. so it could be quite difficult, i think, to make a russia change course and when you think a
Let s course based on the information. let s get course based on the information. let s get some straight. if you covered me from the big beginning i did not say sanctions would deter them. sanctions never detour, you keep talking about that. sanctions never deter. the maintenance of sanctions, the increasing the pain and the demonstration of why i asked for this nato meeting today is to be sure that after a month we will sustain what we are for the remainder of this entire year, that s what will stop them. you think you will have an impact on making you think you will have an impact on making russia change? making russia change? that s not what i making russia change? that s not what i said- making russia change? that s not what i said. you re making russia change? that s not what i said. you re playing - making russia change? that s not what i said. you re playing a - making russia change? that s not| what i said. you re playing a game with me. the answer is no. i think wh
Personal sanctions. sanctions, it s a blunt instrument. it is not a silver bullet that will guarantee removal of putin and russia returning to the normal path of development. they don t have a short term effect. if you sanction and oligarch today, it is naive to expect that he will make an appointment with putin and persuade him to end the hostilities in ukraine. and that everything will go back to normal situations. but the sanctions create a motivation for people in the elite to come up with a plan to change things in russia. because only after things in russia change, will people who ve amassed billions during the putin era, can expect