i had mentioned shannon pettypiece, nbc news digital white house reporter. we did get shannon to join us. shannon, the next question for you, as the president is preparing to wrap up his trip to europe. he has this major address coming up, how does the success of a speech like this get measured? >> well, the white house is certainly hoping that this is a message that's going to not go to a domestic audience but an international audience. you can see behind me, there's quite a crowd gathered in warsaw behind me to listen to this speech, to see the president. there's a lot of support in this country for the president right now. so a lot of people enthusiastic about this trip. so a domestic audience as well as an international audience, and what the whole goal of this trip the white house has said is to build unity, and of course it feels like there's unity right now, but sustained unity and to rally support for what they think is going to be a long haul conflict that is going to need support not just for a few weeks or a few months but for potentially six mont

shannon pettypiece, josh letterman is in brussels. a lot to unpack here. n, before i get to you, our lester hold had a few minute with his president zelenskyy after his address to congress. here's what he said to lester hold on questions regarding some of the biden's hesitations about fulfilling every every request that zelenskyy wants. >> president biden has been very clear, he's worried about provocations that could trigger world war iii. do you understand his concern there? do you agree that it wouldn't take much to end up in world war iii in. >> translator: nobody knows. it may have already started, and what is the possibility of this war if ukraine will fall -- in case ukraine will fall? it's very hard to say. we have seen this 80 years ago when the second world war had started, and there were similar tragedies in history. nobody would be able to predict when a full-scale war would start and how it would end, and who will end putin to that. in this case, we have the whole civilization at stake. >> shannon, he has much moral clarity now for a reason. he

shannon pettypiece is covering the white house. ali arouzi is in ukraine. t's start with this new announcement, shannon, from president biden to try to, you know, cut back on the pain that a lot of people are feeling when they head out to get gas. the big headline, that he's tapping the strategic petroleum reserves for a million barrels of oil every day for the next six months. could add up to something like 180 million barrels of oil. this is the biggest release from the stockpile in history. p he's calling on congress to put in place fees on oil companies who are not using their leases to drill on federally owned land. and he also plans to invoke the defense production act to boost clean energy by basically getting raw materials that electric cars need. we're talking about stuff like lithium and nickel and cobalt. as you might expect, there's already been some partisan pushback. mitch mcconnell calls this whole thing a drop in the bucket. steve daines calling it a band-aid on a bullet wound. shannon, bring us up to speed on where the white house is on this

. >> and shannon pettypiece, it seems like president biden has been in constant contact with his european contacts over the past couple of weeks. he had another call this morning. do we know what came out of that? >> reporter: we haven't gotten a readout. i expect that to come out in the press briefing in about an hour from now. the g-7 is a very significant group for the president to be talking to again. a few years ago during the trump administration, then president trump was talking about having putin join the g-7, to join this group of leaders that is now talking about how they can economically from a humanitarian standpoint, militarily come together and support ukraine and fend off this russian invasion. of course the president is going to be, as you noted, in europe next week. he will not only meet with th g7 leaders but european leaders and nato allies. the white house has signalled those meetings are going to be about this coordinated response and what more these world leaders can do as we approach one month of this conflict. but it is also very much, they say, about showing a uni

speaking of the white house, let's go to shannon pettypiece covering that angle of things. of the attacks that we have heard is widely criticized for being misleading and that is coming from missouri senator josh hawley who is making claims that the way that judge jackson has ruled previously on some sexual offense charges, if you will. the associated press, for example, although you had senator hawley claim she went lighter, it was prosecutors calling for these lighter sentences in some of these child pornography cases in question and judge jackson did in fact do what prosecutors in essence had asked for. how much is the white house watching that line of questioning, shannon? i know they have been working, it seems, to try to prebutt them, if you will. >> yes, they certainly are prepared for that. there is an awareness. today was the soft open, a lot of people made their opening remarks, but the real sort of meat is going to begin tomorrow and that's where they expect this issue about her past sentencing and these accusations of her being soft on crime to come up. one of t