Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

RFK Jr’s ‘history lesson’ on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine flunks the fact test

Election 2024 latest news: Biden back in the battleground state of Wisconsin

In court, Stormy Daniels pulled a Trump on Trump 

In Arizona, election workers trained with deepfakes to prepare for 2024

How Trump’s allies amplify his Truth Social messages to the wider world

Ask Amy: I want to be closer with my brother. He never reaches out to me.

Miss Manners: I’m offended by a golfer’s skirt choice

Carolyn Hax: Family pushes siblings to ‘make amends’ after their mother’s death

A college professor wants to use Section 230 against Big Tech

Commerce Department revokes more export licenses to China’s Huawei

Apple plays up AI potential in new iPads

Social Security has to be fixed. But you still need your own savings.

An I bond is now at 4.28 percent. Are they still a good deal?

Use these 6 points to say no to a college you and your kid can’t afford

Nats go over .500 the hard way by beating the O’s and Corbin Burnes

A look at what has changed since the Nationals were last above .500

Baseball can crush rookies. Why hasn’t it crushed Trey Lipscomb?

Postal worker finds WWII-era letters, drives 5 hours to deliver them

Strangers help Sesame Street puppeteer after heirloom necklace was stolen

Teen grabs wheel when driver passes out and school bus veers into traffic

The Trump-Biden battle over the 2017 tax cut

That time football legend, rig-driving eligible bachelor Biden was arrested

Middle East conflict live updates: WHO says health services in south Gaza will run out of fuel in three days

U.S. signals optimism for Gaza cease-fire as Israel moves into Rafah 

The FTC’s noncompete clause rule goes too far

The next global crisis could come from the sun. We should prepare now.

The crisis Biden and Trump don’t want to deal with

France tries to shed its rude reputation ahead of the Olympics

Don’t be a jerk at the airport: A guide for headphones

The new cure-all for vacation excess: the IV drip 

‘Look at the U.S.A.’: A photographer’s reflection on post-9/11 conflict

In photos: The scene after tornadoes struck Michigan and Oklahoma 

US-VOTE-POLITICS-ECONOMY-BIDEN

Europe

World

National Security

Military

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ukraine-russia/

War in Ukraine

See more coverage in your recommendations

Get the weekly Campaign Moment newsletter

Set alerts for major election developments

Election 2024

The Campaign Moment newsletter

Politics alerts

President Biden on Tuesday issued his most expansive warning yet that there would be a significant price for Americans to pay as a result of the war in Ukraine, one that he argued was worth the cost in the name of supporting a fledgling democracy.

On a day when he announced the next escalatory step — and the one most likely to reverberate in the United States — Biden also called for further sacrifice.

“This is a step that we're taking to inflict further pain on Putin, but there will be costs as well here in the United States,” Biden said as he announced a ban on Russian oil imports. “I said I would level with the American people from the beginning. And when I first spoke to this, I said defending freedom is going to cost. It's going to cost us as well in the United States.”

The remarks came at a time when Americans are experiencing the ripples of a war unfolding half a world away. Companies are disengaging from the Russian economy, shuttering their stores and pulling their products. The stock market has plunged and, in one of the most visible signs, prices at the pump have soared.

Spiking gas prices sting drivers nationwide

But there has also been an outpouring of sympathy, with Ukrainian flags flown next to U.S. ones on highways. Some Americans have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/03/07/ukraine-airbnb-booking-donations/" target="_blank">taken to Airbnb</a> to rent homes in Ukraine that they never intend to stay in as a subtle way to help citizens at war.

But marshaling that collective willingness to sacrifice is still tricky — especially for a country that most Americans can’t pinpoint on a map and has a capital that many still can’t determine how to pronounce.

“Every president in the modern era has demanded some form of sacrifice or buy-in from the American people,” said Robert Citino, a military author and historian at the Institute for the Study of War and Democracy. “That’s hardwired to the American system.”

In Biden’s case, he initially began by rallying the international community to support stiff sanctions packages, an effort that took a significant amount of diplomacy to align disparate European interests. Now, two weeks into the war, he is making a more direct appeal to the American public to convince a domestic audience.

Demetrius Freeman

“I saw it as an interesting gambit to ask the American people to share a burden of sacrifice for a war that is really not on our own doorstep,” Citino said. “It’s on Russia’s doorstep, not ours.”

“It’s very easy to say you’ll sacrifice for a good cause. Until then you figure out just what you’re being asked to sacrifice. Some get off the train and some want to stay on the train. It’ll be interesting to see how firmly public opinion remains aligned.”

A survey released last week showed that 83 percent of American supported the economic sanctions imposed against Russia. <a href="https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/npr-pbs-newshour-marist-national-poll-bounce-for-biden-following-state-of-the-union-march-2022/" target="_blank">The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey </a>also found that 69 percent of Americans said they support the sanctions even if it results in higher energy prices in the United States.

Biden at this point is not asking American lives to be sacrificed, and instead is requesting an economic sacrifice. It’s not the blood he’s asking for — it’s the treasure. He is giving weapons paid for by American taxpayers to Ukraine. He is leading a robust sanctions program that affects American companies.

And, more than anything, he is requesting understanding as Americans experience higher prices to fill up their gas tanks.

Hadley Green

Joshua Carroll

Since Putin invaded Ukraine nearly two weeks ago, the price at the pump has gone up 75 cents a gallon, Biden acknowledged.

“And with this action, it’s going to go up further,” he said on Tuesday.

He took ownership of the decision, but also said his hand was forced by a global foe. He called the gas increase “Putin’s price hike.”

“Russia’s aggression is costing us all,” he said.

His ability to unify the country around some notion of shared sacrifice, however, may be limited.

“It’s economic pain. It’s unfortunate, it’s difficult — but it’s not the sacrifice that brings all the warring factions together,” said Carolyn Marvin, a professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Sacrifice-Nation-American-Cambridge/dp/0521626099/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395691428&sr=1-1&keywords=blood+sacrifice+and+the+nation">Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the Flag</a>.”

13 days: Inside Biden's last-ditch attempts to stop Putin in Ukraine

“I think he’s done well on the score of explaining what’s up,” she added of Biden. “But the kind of sacrifice that really is meaningful to people is loss of life of their own group. And that’s not what’s on the table for Americans at this point.”

In some ways, there comes a time in every war where a president asks for sacrifices.

During World War I, Americans were urged to reduce their consumption of certain foods to help the troops overseas. They had “Meatless Tuesdays” and “Wheatless Wednesdays” so that food could be sent instead to soldiers. A few decades later, American families were given ration cards, and told to limit their purchases of items such as cars, tires and firewood. President Franklin D. Roosevelt imposed a wartime salary cap.

“Ask the women and children whom Hitler is starving whether the rationing of tires and gasoline and sugar is too great a ‘sacrifice,’” <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/fireside-chat-5" target=_blank>Roosevelt said during one of his fireside chats in 1942</a>. “We do not have to ask them. They have already given us their agonized answers.”

Sarah L. Voisin

President George W. Bush called on Americans to come together in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

“Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2005/06/29/bush-says-war-is-worth-sacrifice/310f00a3-2895-45bd-a09b-cb2e99f7bbd6/" target=_blank>Bush said in 2005 as he urged Americans to continue supporting the Iraq War</a>. “Every picture is horrifying, and the suffering is real. Amid all this violence, I know Americans ask the question: Is the sacrifice worth it? It is worth it, and it is vital to the future security of our country.”

President Barack Obama talked of the sacrifice of American troops staying in Afghanistan or Iraq, and Biden, in pulling troops out of Afghanistan, said the sacrifice was no longer worth it.

“Lincoln asked the country to sacrifice in the Civil War, Wilson was asking Americans to sacrifice in World War I, Roosevelt certainly in World War II,” said Robert Dallek, an author and presidential historian. “For a while the fight in Vietnam was popular. It’s forgotten now, but in the beginning it was kind of popular because Johnson was appealing to the idea that we need to make some kind of sacrifice to prevent communist success in Southeast Asia.”

In those cases, though, American lives were at stake.

“It’s a sacrifice of a different order,” Dallek said of the current presidential plea.

But if the conflict escalates — and particularly if it spreads into NATO countries that could require American military involvement — that could make Biden’s challenge more complicated.

“Right now his approval rating is not all that high,” Dallek said. “I don’t think he’s in a powerful position to ask for all sorts of sacrifices.”

Biden had previously noted the potential for domestic impacts, but he often put less of an emphasis on preparing the country to make sacrifices and more on telling Americans what he was doing to protect them from pain.

“To all Americans, I will be honest with you, as I’ve always promised,” he said during the State of the Union address, during which members of Congress wore blue and yellow in honor of Ukraine’s flag, and during which Biden pointed to the Ukrainian ambassador seated next to first lady Jill Biden.

White House explores drastic plans to buffer economy

“A Russian dictator, invading a foreign country, has costs around the world,” he said. “And I’m taking robust action to make sure the pain of our sanctions is targeted at Russia’s economy. And I will use every tool at our disposal to protect American businesses and consumers.”

Biden has also alluded to the costs that could be involved if the conflict continues.

“Defending freedom will have costs for us as well, here at home. We need to be honest about that,” he had said on Feb. 22, days before the Russian invasion. “But as we do this, I’m going to take robust action and make sure the pain of our sanctions is targeted at the Russian economy, not ours.”

Two days later, he said he knew that Americans were anxious about scenes of war. He was aware that prices would continue to rise. But he said that he had little choice but to confront Russia with a raft of economic sanctions that would affect the United States but punish Russia far more.

“This aggression cannot go unanswered,” he said. “If it did, the consequences for America would be much worse. America stands up to bullies. We stand up for freedom. This is who we are.”

White House Correspondents' Association's Aldo Beckman Award for Overall Excellence in White House Coverage, 2023

Gerald R. Ford Journalism Award for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency, 2021

White House Correspondents' Association's Merriman Smith Award, recognizing presidential news coverage under deadline pressure, 2016

Finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists for national reporting, 2014

Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress, 2013, "Broken City" series

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Matt Viser is a White House reporter for The Washington Post. He joined The Post in October 2018, covering the midterms and the 2020 presidential election before moving over to the White House to cover President Biden's administration. He was previously deputy chief of the Washington bureau for the Boston Globe.