August 25th, 2022. Special Brief: The Fight in Ukraine.
It’s August 25th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. Your morning intel starts now.
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Welcome to this Special Edition of the PDB.
This week marks the six month anniversary of war in Ukraine. We have seen so many twists and turns, so many developments, that it’s been overwhelming at times. And maybe that’s why polls show Americans are kind of losing interest.
A mid-July Fox News poll showed 69% of us were concerned about Russia’s invasion, but that’s down from 82% in March. In terms of overall concern, the issue of Ukraine ranked sixth of eight issues tested.
But it’s still a major story, with one clear reason: it’s costing you billions of dollars — at least $13.5B so far. To give you a sense of how shocking that is, when we were fighting in Afghanistan in 2019, we committed around $5B. Again, $13.5B for one year in Ukraine, $5B in Afghanistan.
Plus, there’s a very real concern that this war could escalate and cause us to fight a much bigger war with a nuclear-armed Russian. That would mean your friends and neighbors would be involved in the most horrifying battle that the globe has ever seen.
So, we are going to remind ourselves of this complicated story this morning. We’re going to do a recap of the past six months. But don’t worry, I’m going to use an analogy to help us through it. This is going to be a little unconventional, so hang with me.
I want you to think of this brief like you’re watching a boxing match. So get out those maps, fire up some theme music from Rocky, settle in for six months of punches and counterpunches.
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