Year One: A Political Odyssey (2022) - full transcript

It is a
stunning moment, Dana.

The disgraced 45th President
of the United States

and First Lady Melania Trump

walking to Marine One
for their last ride.

Ladies
and gentlemen,

the President-Elect
of the United States,

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.

And Dr. Jill Biden.

There was huge
security issues that day.

Fears after January 6th

and a lot of steps
and precautions



that were being taken.

We couldn't even
get close enough

to drive here on our first day.

So actually, all
of the senior staff

all met at the zoo

and we got on buses,

and we all were watching the
inauguration on our phones.

Please raise your right hand

and repeat after me.

I, Joseph Robinette Biden
Jr., do solemnly swear.

I, Joseph Robinette Biden
Jr., do solemnly swear.

That
I will faithfully execute...

I was
not out on the mall

watching the speeches,



but rather sitting
in the situation room

watching the secure monitors
where we had up on the screen

the command centers
for DHS and FBI,

because we were worried
about the potential

for unrest or violence.

This is America's Day.

This is democracy's day,

a day of history and hope,

of renewal and resolve.

Even in that
moment of joy, of renewal,

people were extremely conscious
of the inheritance we had.

Thinking about the challenges
we were facing at home,

I knew that as
Secretary of State,

I would have to be in
some way explaining that

around the world.

We'll press forward

with speed and urgency,
for we have much to do

in this winter of peril,

and significant possibilities.

Much to repair, much to restore,

much to heal, much to build,

and much to gain.

Hello, Cathy.

Hello, sir.

Good evening, everyone.

On behalf of the
White House Office

of Presidential Personnel,

I am delighted to welcome you

to the swearing in of
the day one appointees

of the Biden-Harris
administration.

We are joined by hundreds
of White House staff

and hundreds more agency
appointees, all of us here...

There was a
nervousness about COVID,

even among us, and we were
pretty informed people.

So many of our meetings
were done over Zoom.

I'm looking at all
your photographs

and I'm supposed to be
looking straight ahead,

but I want to take a look at
you while I'm talking to you.

You know, this was
not business as usual.

This was not normal.

It was an incredibly
challenging week around here.

Good evening, everyone.

Thank you for joining
us on this historic day.

I was doing a briefing for
the first time that day,

which also was not
typically done.

We just felt it was important

to do a briefing
on that first day

to send a message to the
world we were going to return

to respect for the freedom
of press and that engagement.

President Biden also
officially appointed

a COVID-19 Response Coordinator,

a position and team we had
already previously announced,

but made it official today

to create a unified
national response

to the pandemic.

On day one,

the first full day
of the presidency,

we only had the
small core of a team

here at the White House.

The few of us
that showed up in the building,

and I was one of,
like, four people

on the COVID team that
showed up in the building.

We couldn't even be,
uh, near one another.

We all knew that this was going
to be a race against time.

Hospitals were full.

Only two percent of the
public had been vaccinated.

In December,

as we started to
make the transition,

we kept asking for the plan,

and there wasn't a plan.

So the team came together

and put together a plan.

On that first day,

we knew we were meeting
with the President.

Within a couple of hours,

the President was
announcing the strategy.

And we didn't have the ability
to sign on to our computers.

We had to figure
out where to print.

And then the hardest
thing was the binding.

So, we had
a loose-leaf folder,

notebook, alternative
or backup plan,

and at the last minute,
one member of the team

figured out how to get it bound.

So, just in time, we walked into a
press conference where the President,

you know, rolled out the plan.

Mr. President, how are you?

You're going to be
doing a lot of talking

for the next while.

- Nice to see you.
- Nice to see you.

Good afternoon.

Today, today, I am unveiling

the National
Strategy on COVID-19

and executive actions
to beat this pandemic.

Our plan starts with
mounting an aggressive,

safe, and effective
vaccination campaign

to meet our goal of
administering 100 million shots

in our first 100 days in office.

We're on day one.

I'm going
down to the White House

for the first time
since Biden was elected.

I covered the White
House for years

under the end of the
Clinton administration

and then through the first
six years of George W. Bush.

Then I've been off
for a number of years

working on big national
security projects.

- Good morning.
- How are you?

But I'm coming back to
the White House this year

and doing it mostly to see

how this team come together

to try to pull the United States

out of the hole that
it finds itself in

around the world.

Today, uh, the
administration announced

a historic new donation

in the global fight
to defeat COVID-19.

This is a period
of such remarkable division

in the country.

From the racial reckoning

that was playing
out in the streets

in the summer of 2020

to President Trump's big lie

that he had been cheated
out of the election

to the rioting and
horror of January 6.

It all played into a Russian
and Chinese narrative

that America was in
terminal decline.

For Biden,
the biggest challenge

is to make clear that
democracy could be

a winning formula for everybody.

And to do that, he brought
back the people he knew best.

Alright.

His chief
of staff, Ron Klain,

has been with him
for years and years,

including as Chief of Staff
when he was vice President.

Here or here. Here?

He ended up picking as
his National Security Adviser

Jake Sullivan, who at 44

was one of the youngest
people ever to be in the job,

but had already been his
National Security Adviser

as Vice President.

Where do
you guys want me?

- You're gonna be right here.
- Alright.

His Secretary of State
is Sullivan's predecessor,

Tony Blinken, who
had served for years

as the National Security
Adviser to Biden

while he was in the Senate.

Blinken was also the
Deputy Secretary of State

under John Kerry, Obama's
Secretary of State.

And Biden brought Kerry
back as his climate czar.

Do you mind
taking off your mask?

You know, we've
grown nervous of it today

because we're
hearing about cases.

They put Kerry in
the White House

because putting him in
the State Department

would have been a little
bit uncomfortable.

He would have been reporting
to his former deputy.

Okay. You guys gonna sit?

- Yep.
- Yep.

For his
Secretary of Defense,

Biden chose Lloyd Austin,

a retired general he
had known for a decade

and who had been a friend
of Biden's late son Beau.

Vice President Kamala
Harris: I, William Burns.

I,
William Burns...

And finally, as
his director of the CIA,

Biden chose Bill Burns.

Burns had been ambassador to
Moscow under President Bush,

and there's no one
in the administration

who knew Vladimir Putin better.

I spent the first
decade of my career

as a diplomat at the
end of the Cold War.

I would never underestimate in
dealing with President Putin

over the last couple of
decades, his risk appetite.

Vladimir Putin!

President Biden has a
history with President Putin.

They had met when President
Biden was Vice President,

a very memorable meeting

that I was part of in the dacha

that, uh, that
President Putin had

just outside of Moscow.

Then-Vice President Biden
was in the study with Putin.

They were very
close to each other.

And Vice President Biden
looked at him and said,

"I'm looking in your
eyes, and I can't say

that I can see your soul."

And Putin laughed and said,

"Good, we understand
each other."

Good afternoon. It's
great to be here with you today.

So first, what happened?

Hackers launched a broad
and indiscriminate effort

to compromise the network
management software

used by both government
and the private sector.

An advanced persistent
threat actor,

likely of Russian
origin, was responsible.

Biden has an immediate
problem with Russia,

one he's going to
have to deal with

in the next few weeks.

And it's called SolarWinds.

The hack of the
federal government

and more than a hundred
American corporations

was the deepest, most
sophisticated hack

of the United States

that's ever been accomplished.

Russians managed to slip
in through this software

that was put out by this
company called SolarWinds.

What
was remarkable about this

was its sophistication

and the residency, the
duration of the residency,

of that intrusion in
government systems.

These Russian hackers have
been in these US governments

since March and remain there.

This is an ongoing, widespread
espionage operation.

The alarm, I think, was
quite, um, significant.

It was an alert
that we're entering

into a new chapter

in our relationship with Russia.

What are we
going to do about it?

Three things.

First, finding and
expelling the adversary.

Second, building back better
to modernize federal defenses

and reduce the risk of
this happening again.

And finally, potential
response options

to the perpetrators.

They're in
a tough spot here.

We know that in
the next few weeks,

the United States
is going to begin

a series of sanctions
against Russia.

But Jake Sullivan, the
National Security Adviser,

has made clear sanctions
alone are not enough.

And then the question
is, can they establish

some kind of deterrent,

which so far has
failed completely?

When you think about the
challenge that Biden faces,

he's in the position of being
in adversarial relationships

from the start with the two
other major nuclear superpowers

in the world, Russia and China.

And the only way he's going
to be able to make that work

is if he can organize
the allies with him.

Because of the past four years,

what I heard from my
colleagues was, "Welcome back."

Thank God you're back.
We're so happy to see you.

It was a love fest

my first few weeks
here in New York.

With our fellow
democracies having experienced

the US retreat for four years,

there's a sort of a
sense of, "Okay, phew,

uh, now we can actually
build these alliances again."

But there's also a sense
that democracies need

to, to pull together, that
we need all hands on deck.

We are
really in a global struggle

between democracy and autocracy.

And in the last decade,
autocracy has been on the rise.

The way we view it,
and the President views it,

is that it is an ongoing fight,

and it will continue to be,

because there will
always be powers

pushing for autocracy.

The problem
is the United States

is in a particularly
weak position

to have that argument.

I mean, in terms of how you
want a political system to run,

there are, there are countries
around the world that would say,

"I might want my country
to run like Germany

or Japan or Canada."

There's no one around the world

that looks at the
United States and says,

"I wish my political system
would run like that."

USA! USA! USA! USA!

USA! USA!

USA! USA!

USA! USA!

Well, thank you very much.

And hello, CPAC, do you
miss me yet? Do you miss me?

President
Trump's behavior this year

as an outgoing President
is certainly unprecedented

and very different than
what the other 44 people

who held this office had done.

Remember how quiet

Obama was when
Trump first came in?

He said, "Look, you know,
he won. This is his time.

I'm not going to be here
criticizing him at every turn."

Trump did no such thing.

Joe Biden has had the most
disastrous first month

of any President
in modern history.

That's true.

When you look at the
polls of Republicans,

you still get a very
substantial number,

nearly a majority, who
believe Biden is not

legitimately elected
President of United States.

I don't know how
you get past that.

This
election was rigged.

And the Supreme Court
and other courts

didn't want to do
anything about it.

I will say it's
probably what we expected.

His behavior as President
was unprecedented,

and so there was no reason to think
his post-Presidential behavior

would be unprecedented,
I suppose.

Keep going up.

- Okay.
- Okay.

We made a
conscious decision

when the President
came into office

that we didn't want
to make his presidency

a continued campaign and
battle with Donald Trump.

Alright, guys.

The lesson we took from
the American people

was that they wanted to take
the venom out of our politics.

Okay, what are follow-ups?

Follow-up on Abbott, and Mexico,
on the other side of the border.

The migrants arriving
from Texas...

President
Biden wanted me

to take the temperature
down in the country.

There's concern about
their treatment.

I don't think we need to,
like, change our posture

because it's not everything.

After years
of questioning

the legitimacy of the press,

not having normal
briefings, lying,

I mean, returning to
a version of normal.

I don't think we have
any update on that,

although maybe we can check
and see what the status is.

I think what people have seen is

after the four years that
predated President Biden

is, um, you know, US...

What US leadership
should look like

and what it looks like to
stand up for democracy.

I'll
find an answer for that.

Relations between
the United States and China

will face a new test

as officials from both
sides meet in Alaska.

The discussions are
expected to be frosty,

with Beijing warning
that compromise

is not on the cards.

We went
to Anchorage,

myself and Secretary
of State Blinken,

to meet with our counterparts

from the People's
Republic of China

for a multi-hour session

to go through the
full range of issues

in the US-China relationship.

Bitterly cold, not
exactly a shock.

It was Alaska in
the late winter.

On behalf of

National Security Adviser
Sullivan and myself,

I want to welcome Director Yang,

State Councilor Wang, to Alaska.

And thank you very much

for making the journey
to meet with us.

We wanted to be able
to tell them directly

our concerns about
some of the actions

that China has taken recently,

challenging not just our
interests but our values.

Our administration is committed
to leading with diplomacy

to advance the interests
of the United States

and to strengthen the
rules-based international order.

The transition identified
a few basic propositions

about what we
expected from China.

We believe that the
Chinese government

had made a decision that
they were going to attempt

to surpass or displace
the United States

in terms of being the
world's leading economic

and military power.

That this next decade
was a decisive decade,

and that we were going to have
to deal with a more assertive,

more aggressive China

and that we had to tool-up

and be prepared for
this competition.

We've said to them,
you want to play,

you want to be a superpower.

With being a superpower
comes responsibility.

Uh, with that, there are
certain rules of the road

that you have to abide by.

We'll also discuss our deep
concerns with actions by China,

including in Xinjiang,
Hong Kong, Taiwan,

cyber attacks on
the United States,

economic coercion
toward our allies.

We wanted an
opportunity to explain

how we see the world,

what America's interests are.

And I would say that we
actually accomplished

all of those objectives.

Now, there were some of
the public fireworks.

This is not
supposed to be the way

one should welcome his guests.

We wonder if this is a decision
made by the United States

to try to gain some advantage
in dealing with China.

But certainly this
is miscalculated

and only reflects the
vulnerability and weakness

inside the United States.

I see a confidence level
among my Chinese colleagues

that over the years I
had not seen before.

They have come in with
a, with a sense of power

and a sense of strength.

They came up with this
term "Wolf Warrior"

to describe their diplomats.

When you're talking about your
diplomats as Wolf Warriors,

that says something.

And that's what was on
display in Anchorage.

We hope
that the United States

will do better on human rights.

The challenges facing
the United States

in human rights are deep seated.

They did not just emerge
over the past four years,

such as Black Lives Matter.

It was a kind of
classic whataboutism that we saw

from the Soviet Union
back in the day.

It didn't work then. We don't think
it's going to work for the PRC either.

It was, "You want to talk
to us about human rights.

We're going to tell you about
human rights" kind of thing.

So part of my reaction was,
we've seen this movie before.

Part of my reaction was,

uh, "Man, they're
really going for it."

The United
States has never seen

an adversary like this before.

Biden knew that for ten years,

Washington was trying
to make a pivot to Asia,

but something always
got in the way.

And he was determined that he
was going to execute on it.

Good afternoon.

I'm speaking to you
today from the Roosevelt,

the Treaty Room in
the White House.

I'm now the fourth
United States President

to preside over American
troop presence in Afghanistan.

Two Republicans. Two Democrats.

I will not pass this
responsibility on to a fifth.

We have to focus on the challenges
that are in front of us.

We have to shore up
American competitiveness

to meet the stiff
competition we're facing

from an increasingly
assertive China.

It's time for American
troops to come home.

You go
back to when we came in,

a deal had already been struck

that our forces were going to be

out of Afghanistan by May.

The Taliban had said,

"Hey, if you're not out
of the country by the,

"by, by, by May 1st,

then we're going to start
attacking you again."

So this really doesn't
give President Biden

a long time to work
through this process.

His choice is to either increase

our footprint significantly

or he can make a choice
to, uh, decide to leave.

It's time to end
the forever war.

Thank you all for listening.

May God protect our troops.

May God bless all those families

who lost someone
in this endeavor.

If you listen to the
speech, it sounded pretty simple.

We were just going to pick those
forces up and bring them home.

Very popular among Americans,
Democrats and Republicans alike.

But what was important
about that announcement

is what's missing.

There's no plan for
bringing out the people

who had helped the
American troops,

had helped journalists,
had helped contractors,

and who will be
targets of the Taliban.

The pace
of the vaccine rollout

slowly picking up.

The federal
government sending out

an additional one
million doses this week

to 6,500 select
pharmacies across the US.

The main event was
vaccinate more people more quickly,

period, no matter what.

We felt that we were
racing against an enemy.

We quickly deployed
the Defense Production Act,

worked with the
vaccine manufacturers,

helped them get
additional equipment,

raw material.

So we were able to lock in in the
first few weeks of the presidency

enough supply for all
Americans by July.

And then we were able
to accelerate that.

And actually by April 19th,

all Americans were
eligible for the vaccine.

In my first full day in office,

I outlined for you a
comprehensive strategy

to beat this pandemic.

We've spent every day since
attempting to carry it out.

But that wasn't the only
problem. Not just supply.

There weren't
enough vaccinators.

We're mobilizing
thousands of vaccinators

to put the vaccine in one's arm.

There weren't enough places
for people to get vaccinated.

Calling
active duty military,

retired doctors and
nurses, administrators.

We stood up these
big federal FEMA sites.

We created a Web
text line for people

to be able to find a
place to get vaccinated.

Things
are slowly changing.

32.8
million Americans

have received at least one dose.

That's about 10 percent
of the population now.

Nearly
90 million Americans

have received at least
one dose of the vaccine.

The President
had set a goal for us

of 100 million
shots in 100 days.

We did 100 million
shots in 58 days.

President Biden's ability
to get the country vaccinated

and back to work, that's
democracy delivering.

And that is the debate
that we have struggled

to have in recent years,

because we weren't able to do

in the last four or five
years those, those big things.

If we do this together,
by July the 4th,

there's a good chance you,
your families, and friends

will be able to get
together in your backyard

or in your neighborhood
and have a cookout

and a barbecue and
celebrate Independence Day.

When we came in, of course,

the most dominant
thing has been COVID,

and that certainly
changed the way

that, uh, that we
were doing business.

Well, good morning.

Well, good afternoon.
Good evening.

Let me start by thanking China
and Foreign Minister Wong

for initiating this
critical discussion.

COVID has been an enormous
crimp on diplomacy.

Hey, folks.

Diplomacy is always better

person-to-person,
country-to-country like that.

Thank you very much,
President Fernandez,

for your leadership

and thank you for convening
this timely conversation.

Thankfully, we got to the
place where we could start to,

to get out there,
actually see people.

Good morning.

Good morning. Great,
great to see you.

We've had the opportunity
to see each other

and work together
in Brussels at NATO,

but it was mask-to-mask and
now it's finally face-to-face.

So that's really, really
good news. So a lot...

When you think about any of
the challenges that we face,

whether it's COVID, whether
it's climate change...

Lots to talk about. I'm just
grateful for the opportunity

to be able to spend
some time today.

Not a single one of them
can be effectively addressed

by any one country acting alone.

Even the United States.

With Russia, the way President
Biden sees it is this,

it makes the most sense for us

to see if we can have

a stable, predictable
relationship.

Please, have a seat.

On the other hand, we've
also been equally clear

that if the Russian government
chooses to act aggressively

or recklessly challenging
our interests,

challenging our values,

threatening friends or
partners, we'll respond.

In late March,
heading into April,

we began to see indications

of a massive Russian
military buildup

around Ukraine.

The President received
multiple briefings

from his intelligence
community, his military experts.

Our concern is
that nations respect

some measure of a rules-based
international order

where countries don't
arbitrarily attack

other countries and
change the borders.

I mean, we've heard
Putin say before

he thought the fact that the
Soviet empire broke apart

was one of the worst things

that he had ever
witnessed in his lifetime.

So does he have a desire to,
to reconstitute something

that looks like that?

I mean, that could be the case.

We made clear that these
actions are simply unacceptable

and are not going
to go unanswered.

They're not going to be allowed
to happen with impunity.

You saw the
international community

in many countries stand up
and raise concern and alarm

about the buildup of Russian
forces on Ukraine's border.

And in the weeks after that,
we saw Russia pull back

many of its forces and
much of the equipment.

Not all. It still
represents a real concern.

I think at that
point the Russians were surprised

at how quickly,

now that we were actually
talking to our allies again,

we were able to pull together
a more united response.

But they sometimes
tactically de-escalate.

It doesn't mean that they
strategically de-escalate.

I think it remains to be seen.

This is
the second stop

on a very carefully
choreographed

first foreign trip
for President Biden.

The Group of Seven meeting
that just took place

in Western England

was really about demonstrating
that the alliance is back.

The meeting here in NATO
is to play the anti-Trump.

To say that our obligations
to our NATO allies

to come to their aid,
is what Biden has called

a sacred obligation
of the United States.

The change is obvious.

After four years of
an administration

which had shaped the
foreign policy of the US

in a way which made the
functioning of alliances

quite challenging,

it has created
positive expectations.

I want America to be

the leading nation in the world.

But the Biden
administration faced

a potentially very
large challenge.

Allies were looking
at them very warily.

Even among
the European leaders.

You're hearing
this set of doubts

about whether or not Joe Biden,

who they're delighted
to meet here in Europe,

is actually the
blip, not the change.

But each of these officials
have their own dynamics

that are keeping them

from fully signing on
to the Biden agenda.

They're willing to
stand up to China,

but not so willing that
they're going to cut off

all their trade in
luxury German cars.

Yeah, they're willing to go
stand up to Vladimir Putin,

but not so willing that they
will cut off the pipeline

that's bringing them natural gas

direct from Russia and
routing around Ukraine.

So everybody's engaging in
their own hedging strategies.

And meanwhile,
President Biden wants

to show up at Putin's doorstep

and basically say,
"You're outnumbered."

Tonight,
President Biden in Geneva,

just hours before that critical

face-to-face meeting
with Vladimir Putin.

A major test for President Biden

who requested this summit.

It's
important to recognize

how this summit came into being.

President Biden
called President Putin

and said, "I'm going to impose
a series of sanctions on you

"for what you've
done with SolarWinds

"and what you've done with
election interference.

But I want to sit
down and talk."

So they arrive
at this beautiful estate

where the conference
was to be held.

They have this stiff
greeting at the entrance way.

And then there was this
scrum of Russian reporters

pushing American reporters

as they tried to
get into the room.

Everyone, take a
step back! We're not going in!

One of my colleagues telling
me that one of the Russians

put his hand right
up to his throat

to get him up out of the way.

So, I would say that
the press corps behavior

wasn't all that different
from the national behavior.

It was a calm,
determined atmosphere

on both sides of
the table in Geneva.

There was a sense in the room
of we're going to have harsh,

in some cases,
unrelenting differences

on various issues.

But this is a channel
where we can talk plainly

to one another and come
to some understandings.

I would say that the two men

had a depth of familiarity
with one another.

Kind of understood where
the other was coming from

in terms of their perspective,

even though they disagreed
vigorously on things.

Now, those
understandings could be,

"You're going to do X,
and I'm going to respond,"

or they could be, "We
can work through this."

But that's really what
you felt in the room.

Donald Trump could not get
his head around the idea

that Ukraine was an
independent state.

Biden and all of his
team come in and reaffirm

the traditional threat

of the US-Ukrainian
relationship.

We have visits by the Secretary
of Defense General Austin.

We have more exercises going on

between Ukraine and NATO forces.

For Putin, this is
not just an affront,

but it's a bit of a shock.

Did you commit in these meetings

to stop threatening Ukraine?

From the Russians' perspective,
Ukraine may not end up in NATO,

but NATO is ending
up in Ukraine.

And that becomes
impermissible for Putin.

I communicated the United
States' unwavering commitment

to the sovereignty

and territorial
integrity of Ukraine.

I did what I came to do,

communicate directly, directly,

that the United States
will respond to actions

that impair our vital interests
or those of our allies.

Now, here's the
interesting question:

Did Putin believe him?

Putin might think that
the United States,

at the end of the
day, is going to come

to the conclusion
that it can't risk

getting on an escalation
ladder that it can't control.

Ladies and gentlemen,

the President of
the United States.

As we moved
to summer, we had gone

from hundreds of
thousands of cases a day

to 10,000 cases a day.

We'd gone from thousands
and thousands of deaths

down to 200 deaths a day.

We were doing four million
vaccinations in a day.

Variants were emerging
in other countries,

but there seemed to
be a reasonable case

that we would have
a limited amount

of case growth come back,

and it would be isolated and
targeted in regions of the country.

Just think back to where
this nation was a year ago.

Think back to where
you were a year ago

and think about
how far we've come.

We'd seen
cases go down.

We had vaccines available
for everybody in the country.

We had a lot of resources,
um, to fight the pandemic.

Today, all across this nation,

we can say with confidence,

America is coming back together.

But we didn't have
a sense clearly

of, uh, the impact
of new variants.

Residents
and officials here

are confused about an outbreak

that is stemming from
large July 4th celebrations

that happened here just
a couple weeks ago.

Out on the
Cape, an uptick in COVID cases

serving as a reminder
that while the vaccines

are highly effective,

they're still not 100
percent protective.

It became clear that we
were going to be dealing

with much higher case
counts than we thought.

The Delta variant
is now taking hold in the US

Ten percent of new cases now
and doubling every two weeks.

It took this sort
of very clean story

of vaccinated and unvaccinated,

um, and it said, you know
what, it's vaccinated, yes,

but with an asterisk.

There was a wall we were hitting

of people willing
to get vaccinated,

and that's when we
started to get concerned.

Some states
are pushing back,

blocking health officials
from promoting the vaccine.

COVID had been a
politically divisive issue

around the issue of
masks before we got here.

But I believed that
when you had a vaccine

that President Trump had
boasted that he had developed,

that the FDA under
his leadership

had approved the vaccine,

the idea that his supporters
would refuse to take a vaccine

that was developed on his watch,

that was approved on his watch,

was something that
I did not expect

in the numbers
that we have seen.

Good afternoon.

Earlier today, I was briefed
by our senior military

and national security leaders

on the status of the
drawdown of US forces

and Allied forces
in Afghanistan.

When I announced our
drawdown in April,

I said we would be
out by September,

and we're on track
to meet that target.

Excuse me.
Our military mission...

The assessment
across the government

was that even in
worst-case scenarios,

as our forces withdrew
from Afghanistan,

that the Afghanistan government,
the Afghanistan security forces,

would hold well into
the following year.

Is the
Taliban takeover

of Afghanistan now inevitable?

No.

I believed strongly that
we were going to have

a robust embassy,

an embassy presence
in, in Kabul,

certainly through the year,
well into the next year.

There's going to be no
circumstance for you

to see people being lifted
off the roof of a embassy

in the, of the United
States, from Afghanistan.

Everything that
we planned and did

was based on that assumption.

To Afghanistan,
the Taliban seizing control

of more and more territory.

Taliban militants
blast their way into Kunduz.

The Taliban
has captured the capital

of Baghlan province.

It's the
eighth province now

to fall in a short
number of days.

On
Wednesday, August 11th,

the President convened
us in The Situation Room

for an update.

Some of the outlying
provincial capitals

had begun to fall,

and he was
increasingly concerned

about what might
happen in Kabul.

The President posed a
series of direct questions

to his national security team

about whether we had to activate

the contingency planning
that we had put in place

over the course
of several months.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

and the Secretary of
Defense recommended to him

that we put the forces

that we had already
set in place,

that we put them
on what's called

a "prepare to deploy" order.

Afghanistan was the first
big international issue

that dominated the airwaves
and was on everybody's minds.

Okay. A lot going on today.

We are closely watching the
deteriorating security conditions

in parts of the country, uh,

but no particular outcome,
in our view, is inevitable.

- Jen.
- Jen.

We were
playing catch-up

from the moment the
President took office.

Middle of the
night on Wednesday night,

or in the early hours
of Thursday morning,

I was woken up by a phone
call from Chairman Milley,

the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs.

He informed me that the Taliban
had taken a city called Ghazni,

which is on the highway
approach to Kabul.

And he said, "It's
now my judgment

"that it's gone past 'prepare
to deploy.' We need to deploy.

And that would be my
recommendation to the President."

To the other breaking news,
President Biden announcing

he is sending additional
troops into Afghanistan

to help evacuate US
embassy personnel

and Afghan visa applicants.

Biden defending the
drawdown in a statement writing,

"One more year or
five more years

"of US military presence

"would not have
made a difference

"if the Afghan military cannot

or will not hold
its own country."

You keep changing the subject

to whether or not we
should be there forever.

And I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about whether or not

this exit was done properly.

Taking out all the
service members,

and then you have to
send people back in.

That's the definition of,

oh, we shouldn't have
taken those troops out

because now we have to
send twice as many back in.

The thing that we were up
against in that time period

was a very basic tension.

And it was a tension
between moving fast

to fly people out

before instability
had really set in,

thus potentially triggering
that instability,

triggering panic,

um, or standing
by the government

who was asking us
not to do that.

We were in
intense conversations

with the Afghan government
throughout this period

of August and, and into
the middle of the month

to help organize a
peaceful transfer of power.

And President Ghani said to
me on the phone that Saturday,

"If the Taliban doesn't agree
and engage in good faith,

then I will stay and
fight to the death."

That was Saturday.

He fled the country
the next day on Sunday.

- No notice?
- No notice.

We begin
with Afghanistan

and the dramatic
fall of the capital.

Helicopters and black smoke,
visible American diplomats,

including the ambassador,
evacuated to the airport.

At least 500 staff leaving
the country so far.

The embassy shuttered.
The flag coming down.

My God. Not only were people
pulled out of the embassy,

we were pulling people
off of the tarmac.

Chaos
at the airport

as thousands of Afghans
desperate to get out.

Afghan civilians
desperately fleeing the airport.

Packed commercial
flights fully booked.

Many who work for the US forces
searching for visas to get out.

One former translator pleading
for Americans to help.

Tonight,
the worst predictions

for Afghanistan's
future coming true.

This country now
under Taliban rule.

It's an embarrassment.

It's a stain on our
national reputation.

Imagine if there were
hundreds or even thousands

of effective American hostages

that are trapped in Afghanistan

because of Joe Biden's chaotic,

disorganized, ill-planned
evacuation from that country.

Let me
lay out the current mission

in Afghanistan.

I was asked to authorize,
and I did, 6,000 US troops

to deploy to Afghanistan

for the purpose of assisting
in the departure of US

and Allied civilian
personnel from Afghanistan.

Operation Allies Refugee has
already moved 2,000 Afghans

who are eligible for
special immigration visas

and their families
to the United States.

In the coming days,

the US military will
provide assistance

to move more SIV
eligible Afghans

and their families
out of Afghanistan.

We were executing
this incredibly complex,

incredibly difficult,

historic evacuation

of civilians from Afghanistan.

He's a friend.

It had gone beyond,

I think, anyone's expectations

in terms of the size and scope.

US. US.

The thing we
thought about every day

was would Americans wind
up giving their lives

in the service of that mission?

We knew it was a risk. The President
knew it was a risk every single day.

We knew there were
terrorists in Kabul.

We knew there were terrorists
trying to kill Americans.

To try and
ensure that the Taliban

weren't going to in any way

obstruct the evacuation
that was underway,

the President asked
me to go to Kabul

to meet with Mullah Baradar

and some of the other
Taliban leadership.

We met at the old
civilian terminal

at Kabul International Airport.

The setting was quite
tense around the room

in which we were meeting
over a couple of hours.

You know, we had both of our
security detachments outside

kind of eyeing each
other very warily.

Mullah Baradar reaffirmed that
the Taliban were not going

to obstruct the
evacuation effort.

Certainly shared the concern

about ISIS threats
in that period.

They were seeing much
the same threat stream

that we were seeing.

We had incredible intelligence

about attacks by ISIS-K
that were in the offing.

Of course, we didn't
have the specificity,

but honestly, this was like
a, a slow-motion nightmare.

You know it's happening, but
you can't do anything about it.

A couple of days after,
I was in The Situation Room

with the other
principals getting ready

for a National Security
Council meeting

with the President.

General McKenzie, the
commander of CENTCOM,

was on the video screen
from his headquarters

and mentioned just
before the meeting began

that he had just gotten handed
a report about an attack

at Abbey Gate at Kabul
International Airport.

President came into the
room shortly thereafter,

and at that point, General
McKenzie informed him.

You know, we didn't have, uh,

all the facts all at once.

They kept coming
in, and we heard...

the casualty count

go up through the
course of the meeting.

We have just
learned from the Pentagon.

This is their statement.

"We can confirm that a number

"of US service
members were killed

"at the Kabul Airport.

"A number of Afghans fell victim

to this heinous attack."

It causes you to stop
and reflect for a minute

and, and think about, you
know, what you just heard.

I felt it intensely because

the men and women
of my department

had been at those
very same gates

for almost two weeks,

helping to pull
people to safety.

I remember the
President just paused for,

you know, at least
30 seconds or so

and put his head down
because he was absorbing,

you know, the, um,

you know, the
sadness of the moment

and the, and the
sense of loss as well.

This
is not surprising

to this White House and to
the Biden administration

because they've been
warning publicly for days

that it could happen.

But regardless, a
nightmare scenario.

Something they've
been very sensitive

to the possibility of.

And it has now happened.

Unquestionably, that
day was the hardest day

of the first year,
no question about it.

And, uh, you know...

he is the President
of the United States.

He is the Commander-in-Chief.

He is also a father and someone
who sent one of his sons

to go serve in the Middle East.

I believe...

this is the right decision,

a wise decision

and the best
decision for America.

We're engaged in a serious
competition with China.

We're dealing with
the challenges

on multiple fronts with Russia.

The world is changing.

I've known
Biden's cabinet,

most of them for many years.

These are not stupid people.
They're experienced people.

They're smart people. And
they got this really wrong.

Suddenly, they're seen
to be incompetent.

Had Biden, after he
made the decision in April

to pull out of Afghanistan,

immediately begun
speeding up the withdrawal

of the Afghans who
had helped Americans,

then I think August could have
played out very differently.

Instead, by the
end of the summer,

there was a sense that things
were really falling apart.

Delta was raging.

In April,
almost 70 percent of voters

said they approved of the
President's performance on COVID.

That number has
fallen to 53 percent.

The disapproval has
risen to 44 percent.

A dramatic change.

The number
of new COVID cases

is higher now than during
last summer's peak.

Weekly hospital admissions
are up more than 40 percent.

We had
an opportunity,

and I really do think
it was an opportunity,

to show that we, too, could
sacrifice for one another.

And I think the question that
I most underestimated was,

would we be willing
to say that none of us

are more important
than all of us?

Or would we fall
into the pattern

that most people
would have thought

we would have fallen into,

which is to say

that, no, we each individually
are more important.

And I think it's one of the
reasons we've suffered so greatly.

700,000 Americans now
have lost their lives to COVID.

One person
is dying in America

every 43 seconds.

One
in 500 Americans

are dead now.

Biden's first
year could be defined more

by COVID than anything else.

Remember, Biden is the guy
that said by 4th of July,

if you just stick with
me and wear the masks,

we're going to, we won't
have to do that anymore.

And that's just not the case.

World leaders
gathering in Scotland

this morning following
G20 sit-downs

in Italy over the weekend.

The summit is being billed as
the world's last best chance

to curb the climate crisis.

More
than 100 heads of state

have been arriving in
Glasgow this morning.

But in addition
to world leaders,

dozens of corporate CEOs,

fund managers, and
venture capital firms

will be here over the two weeks.

Noticeably absent will
be China's President Xi

and Russia's President Putin.

There's a
lot at stake here.

In 2018, the IPCC
scientists told us

that we really have 12 years

within which we must
make and implement

the key decisions to avoid
the worst consequences

of the climate crisis.

And, unfortunately,
we lost three years

during the Trump administration

where we pulled out of
the Paris Agreement.

I do believe that this
is our last, best chance

not to solve it all
in one blow here,

but to get on the track

where we keep 1.5 degrees alive

as the limit of the
raising of temperature

on the planet.

Hello, Senator.

Good to see you've
made it out, sir.

How are you doing?

Do you think we'll
be successful?

I do indeed. Yes, I do.

Keep your fingers
crossed then, eh?

Yes, sir. Thank you.

By and large,
the Biden administration

has been highly disciplined,
highly coordinated.

I love it,
I love the accent.

- I loved that. I love that.
- "Keep your fingers crossed."

But John Kerry is a
former Secretary of State,

a former presidential
nominee himself.

This is the last big
job of his career.

And he felt like he could
say what he wanted to go say.

And so on China,

they were not at times
on the same page.

I think it's been a big mistake,

quite frankly, for China,

with respect to
China not showing up.

The rest of the world are
going to look to China and say,

"What value added
are they providing?"

It came as a
surprise that Biden offered

really strong criticism to Xi

for not coming
himself to Glasgow

because the Kerry
strategy on China

was largely to work
behind closed doors,

avoid sort of any
open conflicts.

I have to imagine
it was strategic.

What we know now is
that they were brokering

this sort of last-minute
US-China pacts

the last days of Glasgow.

And so one has to assume

there was some pause,

rift, something
in the discussions

that would have led

this administration to
think this will help.

The US
and China have struck

a deal on climate change.

The announcement came during
the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

The United States and China have

no shortage of differences,

but on climate...

And climate cooperation is

the only way to
get this job done.

This US-China
announcement is both huge

and kind of small.

You know, it's
small in the sense

that none of this stuff
is truly groundbreaking.

But I think in that moment,

just the two of them
coming out publicly

and saying, we're going to
work together, we're committed,

it was a big deal.

The Biden
administration came in

as the Trump
administration went out,

with a clear focus on China.

China is definitely in
that old Cold War terms

of a system challenge,

saying that its system
is better than ours.

But Russia's saying, "Hey,
it's not just about China.

"We're here and we matter,

and you'd better pay
attention to us."

In the fall,
we began to pick up

a variety of indications

that the Russians were
conducting a significant...

Significant would be
an understatement...

Massive military
buildup around Ukraine.

They have so much
forward firepower

that they are assembling.

Um, it's on a level
that is not comparable

to what they did in April.

The President
decided that we would begin

down a dual track

of deterrence on the one hand
and diplomacy on the other.

So we asked Bill Burns

to go to Moscow quietly.

The President
asked me to go to Moscow

to convey to President Putin

and some of his
most senior advisers

our serious concern about
what we were seeing.

This was in the midst
of the fourth big wave

of the COVID pandemic in Russia.

So Moscow was locked down.

President Putin was in isolation

in Sochi at that point.

I found President Putin
to be quite measured

but unapologetic

about Russian concerns
about Ukraine.

I think over time his
confidence has grown.

In some ways, his appetite
for risk has grown.

I think his sense
of personal legacy

has probably deepened over time.

I conveyed on the
President's behalf

a message of
serious consequences

that would flow from
a Russian decision

to renew military
aggression against Ukraine.

We wanted to communicate that
if Putin moved on Ukraine,

there would be
severe consequences

from the United
States and our allies.

If Putin wanted to go
down the diplomatic road,

the United States was prepared
to travel that road with him.

President Biden holding
a high-stakes virtual meeting

with Russian President
Vladimir Putin right now.

The two leaders speaking
via videoconference today

as a potential
geopolitical crisis

is currently unfolding.

Hello.

Good to see you again.

I, unfortunately, we didn't get
to see one another at the G20.

I hope next time we
meet, we do it in person.

The buildup that
Russia was engaged in

was continuing.

We had to have, and we did
have, deep, deep concern.

Like all the conversations between
President Biden and President Putin,

there have now been several
in person in Geneva,

by video conference
on the phone,

they're very direct,
they're not polemical.

There's not a lot
of wasted time.

And President Biden made
very clear to President Putin

that if Russia
committed renewed acts

of aggression against Ukraine,

there would be
significant costs.

Biden is
confronting the question

of how does the United
States support Ukraine

without getting its troops

directly into an
old-time border conflict

in defense of a country
that isn't even a NATO ally?

And when Biden had his
teleconference with Putin,

the two men knew one thing:

Whatever Putin did next,

whether he rolled
his troops or not,

the US was not going
to put its own military

into harm's way
to defend Ukraine.

They never were on the table.

And are you ready to send
American troops into war

and go into Ukraine to fight
Russians on the battlefield?

Look, here's the deal.

I've made it absolutely
clear to President Putin,

it's the last thing I'll say,

that if he moves on Ukraine,

the economic consequences
for his economy

are going to be devastating.

Devastating.

We have proceeded
very deliberately

but also, in some
cases, quietly.

For example, in December,

the President
approved $200 million

for additional defense
equipment to Ukraine.

We didn't advertise
it at the time.

We just went forward
with doing it

because one of the plays
in the Russian playbook

is to create, invent,

point to some kind
of provocation,

and to use that as justification

for something they'd
been planning all along.

And we did not want
to play into that,

at least not in any overt way.

The question
haunting the White House

is whether this is enough.

Because if Ukraine falls,

Russia will, for the first time

since the collapse
of the Soviet Union,

be redrawing the map of Europe.

And more importantly,
it will be showing

that it believes it can
push back on a world

that was dominated
by the United States

from the Soviet
collapse forward.

On
this January 6th,

solemn ceremonies
at the US Capitol

replaced the violent
scenes of rioters

ransacking the
building one year ago.

There is still

a political divide
that's very apparent

and even with today's
ceremonies as well.

Among my many
reactions on January 6th

was just mortification

at how we appear to
the rest of the world.

This day is a reminder

that Trumpism is
very much with us

and that our democracy
remains very much at risk.

Let us acknowledge today

our fallen heroes of that day.

I ask all members to rise

for a moment of silence
in their memory.

What else are
Democrats going to talk about?

They gonna talk about
30-year-high inflation.

They gonna talk about
the fact crime is up

in every major urban area.

They gonna talk
about 1.7 million

illegal immigrants
coming into this country.

They gonna talk about the
attacks on the First Amendment.

Um, what are they
going to talk about?

Oh, so, January 6th.

That today
there are members of Congress

trying to act like
that wasn't a big deal,

we should just move on,

I find hard to be
reconciled with.

And there's
not much more we can say,

but we'll keep background names

off the record, any reporters...

We started discussing
in the fall

what that day would look like

and what that should
mean for the President

and what he should have
to say on that day.

We all agreed that it was
an important moment for him

to be more direct about
what that day meant,

what former President
Trump's role

in that day meant for history,

and why we need to prevent
it from ever happening again.

Alright, guys, um, we will
catch up with you soon.

Thank you, thank you, thank
you for all your stuff.

Uh, big day.

We
saw with our own eyes

rioters menace these halls.

What did we not see?

We didn't see a former President

who had just rallied
the mob to attack.

Sitting in the
private dining room

off the Oval Office
in the White House,

watching it all on television

and doing nothing for hours.

It didn't mean that it
was the start of every day

President Biden
was going to go out

and talk about Donald Trump.

But that day felt like
it uniquely required

President Biden to go
out and really be direct

and call out the former
President for his role.

Those
who stormed this Capitol

and those who called
on them to do so

held a dagger at the
throat of America.

Make no mistake about it.

We're living at an
inflection point in history.

We're engaged anew in a struggle

between democracy and autocracy,

from China, to
Russia, and beyond.

They're betting that
democracy's days are numbered.

Good
afternoon, everyone.

Very good to see folks here.

And to those I
haven't had a chance

to say this to, Happy New Year.

Um, this morning, NATO's
North Atlantic Council

met to discuss our
coordinated response

to Russia's military buildup
along the Ukraine border

and its increasingly
sharp threats

and inflammatory rhetoric.

No one should be surprised

if Russia instigates a
provocation or incident,

then tries to use it to
justify military intervention,

hoping that by the time the
world realizes the ruse,

it'll be too late.

We were working
overtime to organize

allies and partners
throughout Europe.

They also wanted to make
sure that we were proceeding

in a deliberate way
and not being perceived

as fueling a fire in any way.

Vladimir Putin didn't
pick Ukraine for nothing.

He knew that it wasn't
a member of NATO.

And I think deep down he thought

the NATO alliance
would be splintered

on the question of

whether or not to
gather together

to push him back.

When he went into
Crimea in 2014,

it took about a year for
the allies to get together

and decide on some sanctions.

And by that time, the
sanctions were so weakened

they had basically no effect.

Eight years later, Putin
was still in Crimea.

Biden wasn't going to
make that mistake again.

Blinken sure as hell wasn't
going to make that mistake again

because he remembered
it vividly from the time

that he was in the
Obama administration.

So when they first saw
this massing of troops,

they made a very
important decision,

which was to declassify
their intelligence

as quickly as they
could and publish it.

We have information
that indicates Russia

has already pre-positioned
a group of operatives

to conduct a false flag
operation in Eastern Ukraine.

Sometimes they
went out and announced it.

Sometimes they leaked it to us.

The US National
Security Adviser says

more details will be revealed

within the next 24 hours.

In a few cases, they
called a few of us in

and did show some
sources and methods

just so that we understood
they weren't making it up.

They knew it would take a while

to convince the Europeans
that this was no bluff.

By mid
to late January,

not only was Russia
still building up forces

to the east and the south,

but it was engaged in
a buildup to the north,

particularly sending
30,000 forces to Belarus

under the guise of exercises
that gave it the option

to really hit Ukraine
virtually from all sides.

It was becoming so clear,

including to allies
and partners,

that this was happening.

Our view is this is an
extremely dangerous situation.

We're now at a stage where
Russia could at any point

launch an attack in Ukraine.

We said that one of the
purposes of our foreign policy

was to defend this
rules-based order,

because it comes with
certain principles,

certain norms,
certain expectations

that grew out of two World Wars.

If you let an aggression
against those rules

go forward with impunity,
then you open a Pandora's box.

And you're going to see
potentially conflict

and war everywhere.

And that's one way or
another going to draw us in.

You've seen country
after country

coming together, standing up.

I think it has
been a reassertion

of American engagement,

American leadership...

and a recommitment
by many countries

to defend this
rules-based order.

The discussion today
with Mr. Lavrov

was frank and substantive.

We've made it clear
to the Russians

that not only would there be

severe economic and
financial consequences,

but they would also
see more support

to build up NATO's
defensive capacities.

As we've
continued to see

the accumulation of combat power

and as we have now seen

that, so far anyway,

Mr. Putin has not
elected to de-escalate,

all that combined has led
us to want to contribute

more capabilities to the
Ukrainian armed forces

and be ready to contribute more
capabilities to our NATO allies.

Who knows what's
going on in Putin's mind.

Whether or not he believes that
the international community

will carry through is one issue,

uh, but what I believe is that
our President is very serious.

I believe that other leaders
in the region are very serious.

I believe that the
world will take this

as a, as a very,
very serious issue

if he invades Ukraine.

We just hope that he
makes the right decisions.

And, uh, and I'll
leave it at that.

As Putin was
building up his forces,

he went off to the opening
of the Beijing Olympics.

The very fact that he was
going there was remarkable

because he'd been in
complete isolation.

When Bill Burns went over,

he made Burns go over to a
Russian government office

and call Putin on the phone.

But he was willing
to go see Xi Jinping

and the day that they met,

the two countries turned out

this extraordinarily
long document

describing their
common interests,

their dedication to working
together in the future,

their joint pushback
on an America

that sets the rules,

on a West that
expands its influence.

A lot of people speculated

that Putin would not
begin the invasion

while the Olympics were on

because he wouldn't want
to anger the Chinese

by interrupting their big event.

And he held true to that.

Oh!

It was unprovoked,

but Russian President
Vladimir Putin

unleashed on Ukraine.

We have
heard air raid sirens,

loud sirens here in Lviv.

This is in the west
of the country.

Wednesday night was a
really pivotal night for us

as we were looking at what
was happening on the ground,

and we were talking a
lot internally about

when would we call
it an invasion?

When was it the right time
to send the President out?

When was it the right time
to do a written statement?

The President spoke with
President Zelenskyy,

who basically asked him to
condemn what was happening

and to keep rallying the world.

I mean, those were
his primary asks,

and that's exactly
what he went out

the next day and did.

Sorry to keep you waiting.

Good afternoon.

The Russian military has
begun a brutal assault

on the people of Ukraine.

Without provocation,
without justification,

without necessity.

This is a premeditated attack.

Vladimir Putin has been
planning this for months,

as we've been saying all along.

The Biden administration
learned a lot of lessons

from the mistakes they
made in Afghanistan.

By the time that the
Ukraine crisis came along,

they had a better-oiled machine,

and they responded

by getting out ahead of events
instead of being behind them.

For weeks, for weeks,

we have been warning
that this would happen,

and now it's unfolding
largely as we predicted.

It will be difficult
for any intelligence agency

to predict the
outcome of this war

or how the Russian army

or the Ukrainians will
ultimately perform.

But on the timing
of the invasion,

they got everything right.

As murky as they were
about how quickly

the Taliban would
take over Afghanistan,

they had the Ukraine
thing dead on.

I want to be clear.

The United States is
not doing this alone.

For months, we've been building
a coalition of partners

representing well more than
half the global economy.

The German chancellor,
Olaf Scholz, says

that he is suspending

the Nord Stream 2 pipeline
project with Russia.

The European Union
remain resolutely united

as it takes the next step

in close coordination
with its partners.

You know, for the
first half of the year,

we heard Biden talking about
reestablishing old alliances,

listening to people,

building up what Donald
Trump had tried to shatter.

And, you know, I think
to most of the country,

that sounded like
diplomatic gobbledygook,

like, yeah, sure, it's nice
to get along with allies.

But Biden knew something,
which was the moment would come

when you would
need that alliance.

It came with Ukraine.

The United
States and our allies and partners

will continue to respond

to Russia's actions with unity,

with clarity, and
with conviction.

How many White House
staffers does it take...

To open a package of gum?

Don't tell Dr. Fauci how many
pieces of gum I've swallowed.

This last week, because
of the confluence

of a number of events

that in many ways
were unrelated...

- Hi!
- Hi there. How are you?

it was a wild,
crazy, exhausting week here.

One of the more
challenging weeks,

uh, since we started.

Madam Speaker,

the President of
the United States.

Six days ago,

Russia's Vladimir
Putin sought to shake

the very foundations
of the free world,

thinking it could make it
bend to his menacing ways.

But he badly miscalculated.

He thought he could
roll into Ukraine,

and the world would roll over.

Instead, he met with
a wall of strength

he never anticipated
or imagined.

He met the Ukrainian people.

He thought he could divide
us in Europe as well.

But Putin was wrong.

We are ready. We are united.

And that's what we
did. We stayed united.

Hang on. I was just
about to call you.

I'm just disentangling
my headphones.

Hang on just a second.

What's the biggest thought

that we're taking
away from this?

So when Biden first raised,

you know, autocracy
and democracy

at his first press conference
a year, a year ago,

uh, this wasn't, this wasn't
the battle he had in mind.

- Yeah.
- Right.

Ukraine is going
to be a constant diplomatic

and military effort.

It will haunt the next three
years of his presidency.

What do you do if
this ambitious,

deadly gambit by Putin succeeds

and no one really knows

what the world will look like

5 or 10 or 15 years from now.

Will this stick?

Now is the hour.

Our moment of responsibility,

our test of resolve
and conscience,

of history itself.

We'll meet the test,
protect freedom and liberty,

and we will save democracy.

Others are watching.

Others are listening.

Others want to see
how we're responding

to this challenge,

including China.

And so the potential
repercussions

go well beyond Ukraine,
well beyond Europe.

That's why this is important.
That's why it matters.