on reforming the nation oil sector, counting the costs on al jazeera. ah ah, ah . hello, i'm marianne m. i z in london. a quick look at the main stories now. ukraine's president is urged the west not to panic over the likelihood of a russian invasion, which he said is damaging his country's economy. despite the huge build up for russian troops, new ukraine. volume is lensky said, he does not consider the situation now. any more tense than before, earlier the russian president, my team of pushing said he doesn't want a situation to escalate any further. blaming the u. s. in nato. these concerns for

his boss, nato's actory general warm the russian aggression could come in different forms like a cyber attack, attempted coup or sabotage. police just stop based and as we're grateful to the united states for their ongoing support for our sovereignty. but i'm the president of ukraine and i'm based here and i think i know the details more than any other. we do understand what the risks are. it's important that the president should know the situation from me, not the intermediaries. we do not see a bigger escalation. yes, the truth numbers have gone up, but i was talking about the same thing in 2021. when there were drills in the russian federation, there was a big build up. we were supported by the us europeans called on russia to pull back . i don't think the situation is more intense than that time in early 2021. there was no such coverage of ukraine at that time. out there as child stratford is, and don bass and east in ukraine, which is controlled by pro russian set persist. ukraine's president vladimir

zalinski has been speaking to the media, both international and local journalists in kia. it seems very much that the ukrainian prison is trying to stamp is all 40 on this crisis mentioning that sir, ukraine would not accept any kind of agreement made solely between the us and russia. he blamed the media for blowing up the situation for inflaming the situation. seemingly he said that the crisis was no worse than what had happened in 2014, obviously a time where he was not president. but bear in mind that that was a time when ukraine lost crimea to russian control, indeed lost control of these areas in don barza in eastern ukraine. and it seems as if certainly, as i say, the ukranian present very much try to stamp his authority on this crisis. and bear in mind that vladimir zalinski at the moment is suffering some of the worst

popularity ratings since he became president more than 2 years ago. he is a man that promised in his election campaign to return control of crimea, and this area of don bass to the ukraine. something that he has thus far failed to do. king, a hassle has been suspended by the west african block eco ass. after monday's coo but it stopped short have new sanctions, at least until representatives all talked with the new military gentle on saturday and take her has been condemned by regionally does a fair father destabilization in the country. oh, let's do this at a local deal. i liked his speech about the fight against armed groups. we hope that he succeeds in stopping violence, and that everyone can return to their villages. because when we say widows and orphans on the streets, begging it is so sad. given the new lady's words, that's all we want for people to go back to their hearts. tell you that i go

with the fact that he spoke about returning, displaced people to their homes, to please me. if we manage to do that and people have no problem feeding themselves than we can thank god. and if there is no discrimination, we will be delighted at group age groups are saying that any 4 and 10 people and if you have his tag why region of suffering and extreme lack of food, you as well. food programs surveyed almost a 1000 families in the region and found 3 quarters a using extreme coping strategies. like cutting the number of niels they eat, it says no aid convoys, bible to reach tag rice. in the middle of december, the u. n. is urging each national purity to increase pressure on man was military gentle over the campaign of violence against its own people. it says citizens of described to regime of torture, attacks, arbitrary arrests, sham trials and intimidation. i was the headlines this. i will have more news you later on, including the news out. it's coming up at 2100 g m t that lay shown in the evening

. now it's time for the bottom line. ah hi, i'm steve clements and i have a question. after losing on bill back better, inflation surging key voting rights legislation stalled in america and vladimir putin staring down. joe biden like a cheshire cat on the border of ukraine. is biden's agenda dead? let's get to the bottom line. ah, he's facing pressure from the left and the right, and that's just in his own party. and his approval ratings are in the dumps a year into his presidency. joe biden has delivered on many of his campaign, promises, like not tweeting at 3 a. m and becoming a white house with less drama. he's also gotten huge spending bills like the american recovery act through congress. but the democrats were unable to agree on

the bill back better act, which includes biden's, big social and economic overhaul for america. and they couldn't pass the freedom to vote, act so year one of the bite and white house kind of smells like a failure right now. bite. and promised to tackle the corona virus epidemic. better than his predecessor. but the surge of the arm across variant exposed a lot of holes in his strategy and disrupted work in school across the country. and as russia puts its foot down on ukraine, biden's response has been hesitant, giving many republicans a chance to paint him as weak on foreign policy. so before this year's mid term election, can he turn a corner and recharges party and his own popularity? the clock is ticking to day, we're talking to 2 democratic strategist simon rosenberg, president of the new democrat network whose political career includes work on democratic presidential campaigns and no mickey cones whose work for the democratic national convention and for our revolution, the political action group inspired by former presidential candidate senator bernie sanders, mickey, it's great to see you. i'm great to see you as well. let me just ask you both and

start with no mickey. i mean, at the beginning, i'm going to show you a poll here of, of the president's approval rating gallop has been monitoring this on an annual basis. in january 2021, joe biden was at 57 percent of the country. it's pretty good number, but now it's fallen one year in to 40 percent. what has happened from your perspective? i enter this, this is often happens when you're coming out of the disaster often created by the other party. the republican party is same, you know, same things happen historically. with that being said, we're still in the middle of, of this economic crisis. and there are, it's not that the democrats can't come to terms and get this deal, pass the b b. b is that 2 democrats are completely out of line with the party. basically siding with republican senator cinema was greeted on the floor of the senate shaking hands with republicans. nothing can show who you are more than that . so i think the frustration that democrats like ourselves have right now is that

the democratic party is not organized is not focused. it does not strategize. it is not mobilized. and more than anything it seems appears to be out of touch with the concerns in the pains that every day americans are facing right now. no, most americans are worried about inflation. but i think that is a reflection of other concerns underlying concerns, whether it's children going to school. when we have a pandemic that still exists, whether it's the omicron, you know, spreading across this country and still sending people to hospitals, whether it's pe being historically low. i mean, we weren't able to pass a $15.00 minimum wage as inflation eggs, as is occurring and, and our record a level right now. so it's, it's the everyday pains of people had before the pandemic that if only accelerated and exacerbated, and it doesn't seem like democrats are responding because of these 2 people on capitol hill i that are, are putting on theatrics that show, you know, washington once again, can't do anything to solve your everyday needs. who, simon,

let me ask you, is this a challenge that the biden white house is experiencing, has fallen, its numbers the falls of senators, mansion and cinema? or is this a white house that hasn't figured out how to get ahead of these big tech tonic issues that are scaring americans right now and they're giving them anxiety. ah, and, and kind of even going be a bitter so compelling that to senator, who's in your party might include even a few republicans as, as there's no, there's no doubt that america as well. so i, i'd just like to get your take as well. and, and responses omitted. so i think it's actually simple, right? is that the 2 issues that have dominated our politics over the last year or 2 years have been covered in the recovery. those are the things that pull the highest and all the polling. it's where voters attention are, as they should be given that were in the midst of a once in 100 year pandemic. it was, it obviously was going to be the big challenge for the binding ministration. and when the public thought jo button was doing a good job and coven, his numbers were high. and when the public started believing he wasn't doing

a good job uncovered, his numbers went down. and where we are today is that job martin. busy is now under water, you know, where more people don't think he's doing a good job on both coven and the economy. and that's what we've got to do with democrats going forward. is that if we can't get those numbers up, right? if we can't be competitive and coven and competitive on the recovery, we're going to have a tough mid term in voters think we did a good job on those 2 things, right? because at the end of the day when you're the incumbent party, the thing that matters is have you made my life better, more than anything else. if people feel the economy is good and we've done a good job uncovered, we'll have a competitive election in the whole summer. let me ask you this. i mean, you know, a lot about economics. you've worked in the kind of, you know, the central pragmatic economic oriented area of the democratic party. you know, i've interviewed all of the players and spend time with them. whether it's, you know, folks in the white house or even folks like sen, mansion, and talk to them. and mansions, been pretty consistent from the beginning when it came to his fiscal conservatism,

right, which is a key element. and when we began to see folks like former treasury secretary, larry summers say that inflation is coming. and then you saw the numbers, right? this is before we had numbers and new you saw serge up to 7 percent. and mansion is saying, look, we've got high inflation and americans have inc. anxiety about that because they can't buy the, the food that the, the transportation at the same level. they were in no meek. he said said this, i mean, they feel that you've got a geo political crisis developing that may spike fuel prices around the world, you know, and you have another variant. and and so, so man's has been saying this, but the bite and white house seems have said we're going to pass this bill no matter what. and so the rigidity, if i may seem to be more on the white us, i haven't seen how they're responding to inflation. i haven't seen how they're responding, you know, to the, to the russia crisis as of yet. so where is that narrative wrong in your view?

so i think that we have to give the, by the ministration credit for they made a tough to say they made a tough call. last march with the american rescue plan. and by making it as big as they did, they wrist inflation. but look, what worked the positive that's happened right. we just had one of the strongest economic performance as the american economy and the post world war 2 era, right? we've had g d p growth at over 5 percent at 6000000 jobs created. real wages for the bottom half of workers is actually gone up despite high inflation, right? we've seen more new jobs, more is new business formation last year than any year in american history. so this was a banner year for the american economy and it, and the cost of that, that very rapid growth, getting us back close to full employment has been higher than anticipated inflation . and i think that whether or not, i mean the, uh, the alternative steve would have been to have the economy grow slower. right. and i think that's why i think we made the right decision, which now going to be important now that inflation has showed itself to be more

durable in large part because of the, the factors that you were describing, right? global supply chain problems. the services, you know, the fact that cobit has gone on longer than we anticipated the fat is stepping in and they're going to do their job in the next few months. will the economy stay strong for the democrats? i think that you know, the estimates are we're still going to be over 3 percent g, d, p growth, still millions of new jobs, millions and new people, beginning health insurance. i think we can defend this economic record as we go into the mid terms. but we have to defend it, and i don't, i think we spent the last 6 months talking about things other than what we've done . and if we can't get credit for what we've done, we're never going to get credit for things that we didn't do. and so i think that what's really important now is we've got to defend what we have already achieved. so it to the american people as hard as we possibly can and hope for the best. i mean, it's just a basic fact of politics that if you can't get credit for what you've already done, you're not going to get credit for things that haven't happened yet. no me,

he let me show you some other data that's come out and it's about how americans feel about their country. ah, and you've got those that think we're in the right direction. 22 percent of the nation. those that are going the wrong direction. 72 percent mix. not sure about 6 percent. so most people have a view and this is an n b c news poll. this is from n b c. and so i just wanna say, you know, i, i have remember vividly january 6th and from january 6 and the insurrection in the united states capital, i sort of thought any direction, but that would be applauded in hope by americans. so something is happened and i, i just wanna put something else in the table because i know you feel the plight of a lot of struggling americans. joe biden once did an interview with me, and he said the democratic party had become a party of snobs that we had lost connection with people struggling that were facing. ah, you know, they were working hard, but getting less for it. they were, they were having a problem with their kids in school. and so joe biden was going to d snob,

the democratic party and get it reconnected with working americans and do that. and i just love to hear you is that has he succeeded in that if he's failed, is that helping to drive some of the wrong track numbers here? yeah, i think i think you, when you look at those numbers, there are folks who think we're going further in the direction of january 6 that it's getting worse on. i mean, you can just open up twitter and see what's happening, whether it's it's folks who are questioning them at vax mandates and holding morales like they did this week on capitol hill. there is that segment of the population on that. i think hanks because joe biden hasn't been able to deal of the democratic party. i and, and champion bigger things that are gonna affect their lives. i mean, listen whether or not those numbers, those numbers that simon mentioned are true. is it enough? i don't think it's enough for the economy that we're in right now. you have strikes popping up all over the country of people organizing unions all over the country of people quitting their jobs all over the country. and there's a component inflation, which is artificial inflation in which you have bosses who realize, oh,

i have an opportunity to make some money. i'm going to spike a, you know, the costs of these products and see what i can get. now these are areas where joe biden can do something, he can also, i mean b, b, b, a is, is pretty much dead. but of course, if you break it apart into pieces, there might be opportunities to, to, to revive some of the economy. i'm from that perspective as well as the pen. if he were to eliminate federal student debt, i can bet you that young people, which he is down in numbers with at shocking level right now. young people would turn out and vote for him. he could pass a few big bills that impact people's lives at it at a very, in a very real way that, you know, perhaps he could turn this round and when the election, those are the same kinds of things that you need to champion, you know, since the american recovery act, which was very early in his presidency. no since then, his number started to dip with afghanistan. i mean, this is that since afghanistan i'm, i think he made the right call here when we got there. but since afghanistan,

which he was not able to adequately defend, he has been dipping, dipping, dipping the republicans are an attack, and they will blame everything, make an anja biden. and the repeat repeat, repeat so that other americans independence, working people, young people, people of color who rely on the democratic party to survive. that they're going to start to hear what the republicans say and believe it. and not that they're going to vote republican. they just may not turn out. so, you know, i think that president biden right now has the opportunity to, to do some big things that keep the house, keep the senate and keep the proud boys who are running for local office right now from winning. another thing that he could you probably i'm tell our audience, the proud boys are well known as white nationalists, some of whom are in the i sites in headlights of attorney general mary garland right now just marked me for audience who the proud boys were but a sorry to interrupt. no, this is this. they denounce dough that they are running for local office. they're

gonna run for school boards around the country and for city council. now what have i heard in response to this from the democratic party? 0 in 2016 i there was a committee i was on as are going to commission to reform the democratic party. and one of the big issues that pretty much every single elected member agreed on was that the democratic party needed to put money back into local parties. they have not done so they've released small little grants. but as a result, you don't have a pipeline. you don't have people organizing on the ground in every corner of this country to defeat these people. these prod, boys in the far right. but even more so you don't have the democratic message. so if you want to champion what you've done, you need people out there advocating, right, that there's no democratic party in most communities in this country. and that's a real problem. and he has the power. he has the power to move that money away from the snobs in washington back to the local activists. simon ah, no meek, he just talked about build back better in a way i sort of see it, which is it's a big conglomerate and it to get it through. you're going to probably after break

it up is going to be be one build. there'll be be 2 back, they'll be be 3 better. i don't know which, which be will be a preeminent. but the political reality is i know that both of you were in different parts of the democratic party, but both of you were shrewd realists about what can be done. and if you're looking at a sen mansion who's basically, he said, you know, he gave president of a version the bill that had a lot of the previous bill back, better in it. but if you were a to, to advise ron clean, the white house, chief of staff and president biden. and steve were shady as to how to move forward . and indeed, conglomerates saying, you know, build back better into pieces. what are the pieces where you find enough overlap that simultaneously get mansion on board? and by the way, i, you know, gives the democrats a reset. well, you know, i think it's very hard for all of us outside the white house in the senate to really understand what happened over the last few months. i mean, there were obviously lots of private communications between mansion and cinema and

the white house and how things went arise. very difficult, right? because these are the small number of people and, and how we got here, it's very hard to know. so how we fix it is also very hard to know or keep a lot of this as to depend on what mansion and cinema are willing to do. you know, i, so i, it's very hard for me to answer that question. i mean, i do think my opinion about what matters most that we need to get done is that all the climate em pieces of the, of the bill. i mean, i think there's a lot of important stuff in here. but if i had to wave my magic wand and just do one thing, it would be climate. and i think the climate pieces are not only important to the economy, but it's also important as a signal him how we're going to counter russia. and i think it now that russia has been making it clear that they're going to be an aggressor probably for the rest of buttons, presidency, you know, showing that we are going to dramatically accelerate the di corporatization of the world and the moving away from fossil fuels would be a deep blow to vladimir putin and it's one of the reasons why i think we have to

accelerate now the consideration of the climate provisions which were blocked that, that are still sitting on the shelf of b, b, b. so let's talk russia for a minute. let's listen to president biden on russia. i think what you're going to see is that russia will be held accountable if it invades and it depends on what it does. it's one thing if it's a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do which cetera, what should, ah, this white house do on the foreign policy? because i look at that as a very big self inflicted shot of, of the biden white house. yeah, i mean, look, i think it's a, a momentary blip in what's going to be months and months of, of an intense battle. and i think that if the 2 things i discussed earlier, cove, it in the recover the, that the sort of the politics of, of the democrats have to sort of exist in this framework of cove in the recovery. you could argue that there's going to be a 3rd piece of that now, which is defending our democracy here and abroad in that. we've wanted as democrats,

to elevate up these basket of issues about the need to preserve the west in our democratic traditions and all the things that we've tried to talk about domestically. but there's a real chance, i think, providing to show himself a leader of the free world here and to conduct himself in a way that i think we can all be proud of. it would be great to see the republicans know, joining their president with the unified voice, and we know that may not happen, but i think steve, it really comes down to this basic idea is that joe biden now has an opportunity this year as be if people think he's done a good job on cobit if they think the economy is doing well. if he manages this crisis with ukraine and russia effectively, his stand, he will be restored politically. and so his political standing really, i think, to a great degree comes down to how well he performs as president. and that's why i think if i were advising ron clain. hey ron, there are 3 things you really gotta get right this year. we got to get co behind us . we got to keep the economy growing and you've got a, you know,

you've got to win this battle with food now. and that's with everything else is really secondary. i think that the climate that we discussed earlier can be, as, you know, as my colleagues said, here, can be packaged into a broader set of things we're doing to counter russia. but this is a huge issue. now this is a huge governing challenge, and it gets to the core of everything that joe biden, you know, joe biden. well, right, everything that's happening here with ukraine and rushes, the core of who joe biden is what he wanted his presidency to be about. and now he's got a deliver, this is going to be an extraordinary test of him. i've, i feel good about where we are now, but we got a long way to go in this conflict. i need to ask though, mikey, is there any sense of potential consequence among your friends and colleagues in the progressive wing of the democratic part? that if there were to be a relaxation or an end of the filibuster or a slippery slope, if you will, to getting rid of that. so that in the senate,

you had essentially majority rule. that as soon as you don't have that 5050 balance in the, in the united states senate and the republicans were to be up just one vote. you might get a repeal of the assault rifle ban. you might get an imposition of federal guidelines on abortions at 20 weeks and nothing after you might get of voting id laws that are very, very restrictive across you. i'd say so that you can go through the republican litmus test keystone pipeline could be back another big issue. so i'm just interested in this argument and why no one, this is what joe mansion has been laying out to some people. why is no one responding to him on that? do they not care about these other items coming or, or, you know, just, you know, throw fate to the wind, let it go where it will, it, it, it is a couple issues here. i think number one, it's joe mansion who's making this argument and he is not acted in good faith. clearly he's representing his interests and, and frankly, his interests are personally tied to his wealth. so i think it's the messenger i'm

in that case. i think the history, the filibuster and the racial elements of its intent. i think that people finally understand what, how this tool was used to basically empower out, you know, wealthy white males in this country. and they think, you know, if you really want to get to the root of what the progressives are talking about right now, is there's a real conversation about limiting that eliminate the senate. do i agree with that? no, but i, i have to tell you, like that's how far this conversation is going at this point. i'm, you know, yes, of course there's that concern. this is a weapon. this is a right wing weapon that the democrats have also used. that does not mean it's good, i think it blocks more good than it does otherwise. i think folks are very frustrate that when democrats do have power, they're not able to champion very big bold ideas. that frankly be very hard to reverse in something like a, b, b, b i is, is voting rights protections which is much more than the filibuster. you know that

those are big issues that we were able to champion an era's when the filibuster was not used. this way, so i, i me, i just read harry reads a biography autobiography that he wrote about 1012 years ago. and it was, it was very disappointing to see how often the filibuster gotten the way of, of bills that were really just there to improve every, every american's life republican voters as well. so if i think if there was a better education about the history, the filibuster, people would be against it. let me just ask you both. finally, really short answers. if you wouldn't mind if show by making donald trump more popular right now, let me figure out. so far, joe biden is doing better than donald trump was at this time in his presidency, but not by as much as we like. is he making me? i think he's riling up the base. but sure, you know who did joe? i didn't. i'm sure saw the numbers of donaldson's rally with de la riley and they couldn't fill a stadium in florida. so i, you know, maybe he's not as popular as we think by john printed comes. ideas are spanning, and there are other mini trumps around the country that are running. and that's

what i'm concerned about just real quick as it joe biden. i hope you will have your com shop that i think is a major issue that simon and i could probably agree on is that the communication is coming out right now is really getting in the way. i'm and, and the republicans attacks on him are steering the ship right now. so i, ma'am they gave you the last word. i know they, donald trump is ever going to get elected president, ever again. no, he is his, he's, it has a very low ceiling. people who rejected him and i don't think he's going to come back. however, as i mean, he said that you know, maga has now replaced conservatism as the governing ideology, the republican party, this is spread way beyond trump, and that's what makes it this moment far more dangerous. i mean, there really isn't anything like a moderate republican party that anybody can point to. they've had many off ramps over the last several years as a party which they've refused to take. so we're really dealing with a, radicalized political party and, and it's the challenges in that regard are going to be very significant. which is

why, for democrats, when you worry about our defending our democracy, it may be that the most important thing that we do this year is do everything we can to keep the house and senate from falling into republican hands. and we have to connect these elections to the defending our democracy agenda. that is so animating to the democratic party right now. will simon rosenberg president of the new democrat network and know me counts democratic activists in journalists? really, thanks so much for your candor. and for being with us. sure thing. thank you steve . so what's the bottom line? americans are tense right now. they feel that something's not quite right in the country. and like any white house, the biden team is struggling to put initiatives out there on the table that they believe americans want and need only problem is that so far americans aren't buying what biden's selling their 9 months left until the mid term elections that will determine which political party controls the house of representatives and the senate, and right now things don't look so great for the democrats. what to do you asked,

a wise man once said that the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again. and expecting a different result, the president is going to have to change his orientation and get back to winnie by cutting deals within his own party. and finding a way to make deals with reasonable republicans. that's what successful presidents do. and that's the bottom line ah, counting the cost of run a full run is they were sent in stop markets hate to say the price is a 10 year high where the cost of the cooking become even more affordable. and nigeria is petroleum minister on reforming the nation soil sex at counting the cough. on al jazeera lou, europe's grand capitals are littered with monuments moulding, their imperial passion, and their museums filled with artifact,

spoils of war and occupation uprooted from their places of origin. people in power explores the heated debate, their own rights from ownership, admits activists taking matters to their own out of africa on a, just a, you know, oh, hello, i'm marianne. no, marvin, i'm going to put look at the main stories now. and ukraine's president is the west not to panic over the likelihood of a rush invasion, which he said is damaging his country's economy. despite a huge build up of russian troops, new ukraine volume is landscape, said he does not consider the situation more tense now than before. earlier presently, the person said he does not want to escalate.