Ahead of President Biden’s first official State of the Union handle, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain joined CNN’s Wolf Blitzer to preview the speech.
Biden’s dealing with of Russia’s invasion into Ukraine will be amongst the key subjects.
“What you will hear the President talk about … is what he has assembled … unprecedented coalition: NATO, plus our EU partners — the UK, Canada, Australia, Japan,” Klain detailed during the reside interview.
The purpose of Biden’s assembled coalition, stated Klain, is two-fold.
“To provide all kinds of aid. Some of them providing humanitarian aid, others providing military aid to Ukraine,” stated Klain on the first half of the coalition’s efforts.
Secondarily, stated Klain, is the approach wherein the US and its companions have been capable of hamstring the Russian economic system through sanctions.
“The ruble now, it takes 110 of them to buy one dollar. The Russian stock market’s been closed for days,” famous Klain.
As for Russian President Vladimir Putin particularly, Klain stopped quick of weighing in on Putin’s psychological state. He did, nonetheless, level to the methods wherein Putin has gone additional than ever earlier than along with his latest aggressive acts.
“He has done something now that he has not done to this extent before, which is launch a completely unprovoked, unjustified, invasion of a country as large and as significant as Ukraine,” Klain defined, in the course of praising the President’s capability to assemble the aforementioned coalition and levy the latest sanctions.
“It’s hard to pull everyone together … and I think that’s why you’re seeing both Democrats and Republicans — including people who have not been big fans of Joe Biden previously — saying that this effort, this global effort, to punish Putin and punish his regime is tighter and stronger than they ever expected,” he stated.
On the economic system, Klain says Biden will level to latest successes, whereas additionally recognizing areas that do want enchancment.
“He’s going to tell the American people tonight that we’ve made tremendous progress from where we are a year ago. Our economy’s grown more this year than any time in 40 years,” Klain shared.
However, Klain did reveal that the President “is going to acknowledge that we do have a problem with inflation in this country, and we need to take steps to bring down the prices that Americans play for everyday goods,” together with fuel, in addition to pharmaceuticals.
Finally, whereas talking amongst a crowd that will not be required to put on masks, Klain promised that Biden will handle the present state of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Covid cases are down about 90% from where they were a month ago. Deaths are starting to come down, hospitalizations are down, lower than they’ve been since July. That’s because we’ve gotten 75% of adults fully vaccinated, half of the adults eligible have gotten booster shots,” stated Klain, including that beneath Biden, the US is “taking the next steps to make sure that Covid does not control our lives, and we can get this country closer to being back to normal.”