Sorry to keep you waiting, i've just spoken for some time with president zielinski of ukraine. I told them as i have each and every time we've spoken. The united states stands with the people of ukraine and they're bravely as they bravely fight to defend their country, and they are doing that and as putin continues, his merciless assault of the united states and our allies and partners continue to work in lockstep to ramp up The economic pressures on putin and to further isolate russia in a global stage later today, together with other nato allies in the g7, canada, france, germany, italy, japan, united kingdom, as well as the european union, we're going to jointly announce several new steps to squeeze putin and Hold a more even more accountable for his aggression against ukraine, and i want to speak to a few of those points today. First, each of our nation is going to take steps to deny most favored nation status to russia.

A most favored nation status, designation means two countries have agreed to trade with each other under the best possible terms: low tariffs, few barriers, trade and the highest possible imports allowed in the united states. We call this permanent normal trade relations pntr, but it's the same thing revoking pntr for russia is going to make it harder for russia to do business with the united states and doing it in unison, with other nations. To make up half of the global economy will be another crushing blow to the russian economy. It's already suffering very badly from our sanctions, and i want to thank speaker, pelosi, leader, mccarthy, leader schumer and mcconnell, and senators wyden and crapo representatives, neil and brady, for their bipartisan leadership.

On this in the congress. I would like to offer a special thanks to speaker. Pelosi who's been a strong advocate for for revoking pntr and who agreed to hold off on that in the house until i could line up all of our key allies to keep us in complete unison, unity. Among our allies is critically important, as you all know, and from my perspective at least many issues divide us in washington, but standing for democracy in ukraine.

Pushing russia's aggression should not be one of those issues. The free world is coming together to confront putin. Our two parties here at home are leading the way and with that bipartisan cooperation, i'm looking forward to signing the law, the bill revoking pntr, which is again most people, think of it as most favored nation status. We're also taking a further step abandoning imports of goods from several signature sectors of the russian economy, including seafoods, vodka and diamonds, and we're going to continue to squeeze putin.

The g7 will seek to deny russia the ability to borrow from leading multinational institutions such as the international monetary fund and the world bank. Putin is an aggressor, he is the aggressor and putin must pay the price. He cannot pursue a war that threatens the very foundations which he's doing the very foundations of international peace and stability and then ask for financial help from the international community. The g7 is also stepping up pressure on corrupt russian billionaires, we're adding new names to the list of oligarchs and their families that we're targeting and we're increasing coordination among the g7 countries to target and capture their ill-begotten gains.

They support putin, they steal from the russian people and they seek to hide their money in our countries. They're part of that kleptocracy that exists in moscow and they must share in the pain of these sanctions and while we're going after these uh their super yachts and their vacation homes and worth hundreds of millions millions of dollars. We're also going to make it harder for them to buy high-end products manufactured in our country, we're banning the export of luxury luxury goods to russia. They're.

Also, the latest steps we're taking but uh they're, not the last steps we're gon na take and, as i said at the beginning of all these steps, we're gon na hit putin harder because the united states and our closest allies and partners are acting in the unison Of our sanctions and export controls is crushing the russian economy. Ruble has lost more than half its value. They tell me it takes about 200 rubles to equal one dollar. These days, moscow stock exchange has been closed for fully for two weeks because they know the moment it opens.

It will probably collapse. Credit rating agencies has downgraded russia's government to junk status, its economy to junk status. The list of businesses international corporations leaving russia is growing by the day, we're also continuing to close uh corporations with allies and partners to make sure that the close cooperation we continue to have the ukrainian people are are able to defend their own nation. The united states has sent more than one billion dollars in security assistance to ukraine over the last year, including anti-armor and anti-air capabilities, taking out tanks and planes and helicopters with new shipments arriving every day.

We, the united states, are also facilitating significant shipments of security assistance from our allies and partners to ukraine and the humanitarian front. We're working closely with the un and humanitarian organizations to support the people of ukraine. Who've been displaced by the violence in ukraine, providing we're providing tens of thousands of tons of human supplies. Are you human humanitarian supplies, food water, medicines coming by a truck and train every single day yesterday in poland? Vice president harris harris announced an additional 53 million dollars and additional humanitarian support to ukraine.

That brings the total humanitarian assistance to 107 million dollars in just two weeks. We've joined this effort by more with more than 30 other countries for providing hundreds of millions more and last night. By the great credit, the congress passed a bipartisan spending bill that included an additional 13.6 billion dollars in new assistance to the ukrainian people, and i look forward to signing that immediately. I also want to be clear, though we will make sure ukraine has weapons to defend against an invading russian force.

We will, we will send money and food and aid to save the ukrainian people, and i will welcome ukrainian refugees. We should welcome them here with open arms if they need access and we're going to provide more support for ukraine. We're going to continue to stand together with our allies in europe and send unmistakable message we'll defend every single inch of nato territory of the full might of the united and galvanized nato. We will not fight a war against russia in ukraine.

Direct confrontation between nato and russia is world war iii, something we must strive to prevent, but we already know putin's war against ukraine will never be a victory. He hoped to dominate ukraine without a fight. He failed. He helped to fracture european resolve.

He failed. He helped to weaken the transatlantic alliance. He failed. He helped to split apart american democracies in terms of our positions he failed.

The american people are united, the world is united and we stand with the people of ukraine. We will not let autocrats and would-be emperors dictate the direction of the world. Democracies are rising to meet this moment, rallying the world to the side of peace and the side of security, we're showing our strength, and we will not falter. God bless all of you.

God bless ukraine and god bless our troops that russia use chemical weapons or create a false flag operation to use them. What evidence have you seen showing that and would the us have a military response? If putin does launch a chemical weapons attack, i'm not going to speak about the intelligence, but but uh russia would pay a severe price if they used chemicals. Well, they got him out of there early. We got him out early, all right.

That was it so, for those of you who just joined in here is the recap of what the president just said: numero uno we're hitting them with moa sanctions um, so they are denying them from the most favored nation status, also known as pntr within the u.s Number two uh imports will be banned of seafood, vodka and diamonds from russia banning seafood, vodka and diamonds from russia. We are hitting the oligarchs with orders and going them going against them. Um, sorry that was on a futures. Algorithm sweet just made some money anyway, oligarchs.

We're chasing them down we're hunting them down and number four uh. We are banning the export of luxury goods to russia, so that kind of ties with the oligarchs one and overall last night we did pass another budget update, another budget bill and 3.6 billy of it. Uh for ukrainian um - i guess the ukrainian people, so that's what we have going on right there not too much. I thought he was gon na kind of ruin it all.

I really really did when he started taking questions, but he only took one question and was basically saying: i can't share intelligence with you, but if he uses uh chemical warfare, obviously there will be a price to pay uh. So that's what's going on not too much just more and more sanctions um, i bet charlie gasparino is going to be pissed off. You know him. He loves god country and vodka and i think pull-ups too, but it sounds like he will have to be.

Switching off a vodka for a little bit, you.