Did President Zelensky and the Ukrainian armed forces not listen to US Vice President JD Vance’s warnings and request after all?

On Wednesday a “massive” Ukrainian drone and missile strike was unleashed on Russia’s port city of Novorossiysk, which badly damaged grain export terminals at what also constitutes the the last major Russian naval base on the Black Sea.

Three were killed, including an eight-year-old child, and also 24 people were injured in the Wednesday nighttime attack.

Zelensky acknowledged the rocket and underwater drone attack in what he hailed as a “unique operation” to strike the Russian naval base at Novorossiysk.

It seems Zelensky is distinguishing this instance as a hit on a purely ‘military target’ given he did not mention the grain export terminal aspect to the destruction.

“The occupying fleet and all the infrastructure that supports it will not be safe as long as Russian aggression continues,” Zelensky said.

Many Russian assets previously docked at the longtime Russian fleet’s home base of Sevastopol were forced to vacate during earlier phases of the war, given the frequent prior targeting of the historic Crimean naval hub. Some ships have even been relocated as far away as the Caspian Sea in order to protect them.

The attack could seriously impact global food supplies, particularly in the African continent.

Reuters has said shutdowns resulted: “Two of Russia’s biggest grain terminals at the southern port of Novorossiysk have suspended operations as a result of overnight Ukrainian drone strikes, four industry sources told Reuters on Wednesday.”

“Russia is the world’s ​largest wheat exporter and most of those exports are shipped via its Black Sea ​ports like Novorossiysk. Russia’s main grain lobby group warned last month that Ukrainian ⁠drone attacks could shut down grain exports via the Black Sea in the near future, ​pushing up prices and causing hunger in Africa and the Middle East,” the report added.

Novorossiysk is also home to vital oil export ​infrastructure. Kiev has essentially declared open season on Russian oil exports, arguing that proceeds fuel Russia’s military machine.

A state of emergency has been declared in Novorossiysk after a Ukrainian drone attack

Due to the rupture of two water mains, the city’s water supply system has been damaged, and water delivery to residents has been restricted.

The Novorossiysk port area is covered in thick… pic.twitter.com/nWpeIfcf5Q

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) August 12, 2026

We reported earlier that at the urging of Vice President Vance, Ukraine indicated that it has suspended attacks on oil tankers using Novorossiysk. The request was made in late July, but first reported today by the Financial Times, citing Ukrainian officials. 

Vance’s plea sprang from the Trump administration’s worries that Ukraine’s attacks were creating dangerous instability in global fuel markets. There were also concerns that strikes on vessels transporting Kazakhstan crude oil to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal at Novorossiysk were detrimental to American companies. 

So it will be interesting to see if in the wake of this latest Wednesday attack, Washington ramps up the pressure on its Ukrainian ally – or whether such attacks will continue and be met with US silence.

Authored by Nick Ward via BitcoinMagazine.,com,

If you’ve scanned headlines over the last year, you’ve likely seen the prevailing market narrative: Bitcoin miners are abandoning their operations and pivoting to AI data centers, signaling a retreat from proof-of-work.

To casual observers, this looks like a surrender.

Proof that Bitcoin was just a temporary placeholder until a “better” compute workload arrived.

However, if you look through the lens of power infrastructure and thermodynamics, that story gets the reality completely backwards. The migration isn’t a sign of bitcoin weakness; but a long-overdue, structurally bullish rebalancing of global energy pricing.

Here is the underlying reality that the market completely misunderstood.

AI vs. Bitcoin: Why Big Tech and Bitcoin Rigs Need Totally Different Data Centers

The misconception stems from assuming all digital workloads are created equal. In reality, Artificial Intelligence and Bitcoin Mining require completely opposite physical and digital environments:

An AI training cluster is fragile. If a 100-megawatt facility drops power mid-run, millions of dollars of training state are destroyed. It demands high-grade baseload power, ultra-low latency fiber, and 99.999% continuous uptime.

Bitcoin mining, by contrast, is completely indifferent to latency, location, or uptime. ASICs can operate in a remote desert, next to a stranded hydro dam, or on an off-grid flare gas pad. If grid power prices spike, a miner can shut down in seconds without losing data or damaging its hardware.

The Power Grid Eviction: How AI Is Pushing Bitcoin to Stranded Off-Grid Energy

For the past decade, Bitcoin miners operated on major electrical grids simply because that was where power substations already existed. But using prime, grid-connected baseload electricity to run an interruptible, location-agnostic program was always an economic inefficiency.

Now, AI hyperscalers are running into a massive bottleneck: getting new 100+ megawatt grid interconnections approved by utilities can take 3 to 5 years.

Hyperscalers are buying up every megawatt of prime, grid-tied power real estate they can find. In doing so, AI is pricing Bitcoin off the main electrical grid.

Far from destroying Bitcoin, this eviction restores it to its ideal thermodynamic role. Pushed off the grid, miners are forced to seek out energy that no one else can use: stranded wind in West Texas, flared natural gas in remote oil fields, or off-peak hydro in mountain ranges.

AI takes the expensive grid power; Bitcoin captures the world’s wasted energy at the edge, and acts as the buyer of last resort for stranded, wasted, or curtailed energy sources.

Eliminating the Miner Sell Pressure

The primary structural weakness of pure-play Bitcoin mining companies has always been balance sheet volatility during bear markets. When hash price drops, debt-heavy miners are forced to dump their mined Bitcoin reserves onto the open market just to pay electricity bills and corporate overhead. This forced liquidating creates artificial downward pressure on Bitcoin’s price.

The AI pivot fundamentally fixes this balance sheet flaw:

1. Fixed USD Cash Flow: Multi-year hosting leases signed with AI companies generate steady, high-margin dollar income.

2. Eliminating Forced Sales: With corporate overhead and debt service fully covered by AI lease revenue, operators no longer need to liquidate their Bitcoin treasury at market bottoms.

3. The “Mullet” Data Center: Forward-thinking operators run a hybrid model, using high-margin AI workloads on grid-tied power to pay fixed bills, while maintaining flexible Bitcoin operations to monetize off-peak power and balance local grid loads.

The Big Tech Paradox: Why AI Hyperscalers Will Eventually Hold Bitcoin

The final piece of this puzzle is a paradox that tech hyperscalers are only beginning to confront.

Big Tech is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to build an AI infrastructure that makes intelligence and digital content infinitely abundant. But when a digital good becomes infinitely abundant, its marginal cost trends toward zero.

How do you protect a multi-trillion-dollar tech balance sheet when your primary product, digital output, is unconstrained?

While AI makes digital intelligence infinite, Bitcoin imposes absolute, unalterable digital scarcity (capped strictly at 21 million units). Furthermore, Bitcoin is the only monetary asset whose issuance is directly bound to the same thermodynamic laws of work and energy that run data centers.

Consider the staggering opportunity cost already compounding on hyperscaler balance sheets. Data from Bitcoin for Corporations reveals that if Amazon (AMZN) had allocated its $123.03B cash reserve to Bitcoin over a 3-year period instead of cash and short-term Treasuries, its treasury productivity would have surged from 12.21% to 119.55%—a 10x increase in capital efficiency representing over $132 billion in unrealized gains.

(Try the Bitcoin Treasury Simulator with any stock ticker)

Just as a tech company signs a long-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to lock in electricity costs, holding Bitcoin operates as a PPA for monetary value. By sitting on massive cash stockpiles that yield nominal paper returns while spending billions fighting for physical energy, Big Tech leaves hundreds of billions in value on the table.

The shift taking place across data centers isn’t a trade-off where one technology wins and the other loses. It is a market optimization.

AI gets the high-speed, grid-connected real estate it needs to build synthetic intelligence. Bitcoin gets pushed further into the wilderness to capture cheap, wasted energy, backed by miners who no longer have to sell their coins to keep the lights on. And as the opportunity cost of holding depreciating fiat cash becomes too massive to ignore, hyperscalers will realize that securing the power grid is only half the battle: the ultimate reserve asset for an empire of infinite compute is physical digital scarcity.

The IEA slashed its 2026 global oil supply forecast, with output now expected to plunge 4.3 million barrels per day this year as the failure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz pushes the market deeper into deficit, OilPrice reported.

The latest forecast is considerably worse than the 3.7-million-bpd decline the agency projected just last month and would leave global supply at 102.02 million bpd, its lowest forecast for 2026 yet.

Supply is now expected to fall 1.27 million bpd short of demand for the year, compared with an 860,000-bpd deficit implied by the IEA’s July forecasts.

The squeeze will be even more severe this quarter. The IEA now expects a 1.8-million-bpd deficit between July and September, a 1-million-bpd downward revision from July and the deepest quarterly oil deficit since the fourth quarter of 2021.

According to the IEA, Middle East oil flows briefly returned to pre-war levels in early July, with loadings reaching 20 million bpd, before falling to 12 million bpd later in the month. Middle East production remained 8.3 million bpd below pre-war levels in July.

The IEA cited the Hormuz shutdown, the U.S. blockade of Iranian exports, attacks in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and reduced Kazakh CPC Blend exports among the forces keeping global supply below demand.

The supply shock is also destroying demand, with the IEA now expecting global oil consumption to contract by 1.6 million bpd this year, compared with a roughly 1-million-bpd decline forecast in July, as high prices and restricted supplies of refined fuels force consumers to cut consumption, particularly in Asia and the Middle East.

Refining is also becoming a major constraint, with global crude processing falling 5 million bpd year-over-year in July, while Russian refinery runs remained near a 20-year low of 3.9 million bpd following Ukrainian drone attacks. Russian fuel exports plunged to 1.4 million bpd, nearly half their July 2025 level.

The prolonged shortage is eating away at inventories. The IEA estimates global stocks have fallen by 410 million barrels since the Iran war began, while observed inventories dropped below 7.9 billion barrels in July for the first time since April 2025.

The agency forecasts supply could exceed demand by 4.61 million bpd in 2027, but that outlook assumes Middle East hostilities de-escalate and disrupted oil flows recover.

The latest IEA assessment adds to evidence challenging U.S. claims that Middle East oil flows have returned to normal. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Tuesday that total regional oil flows were averaging about 15 million bpd and exceeded pre-war levels on Sunday. Kpler said its vessel-tracking data could not be reconciled with those figures, while the EIA said Hormuz transits remain severely constrained.

To be clear, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives drew heavily on radical Marxist theory and systematically displaced merit-based standards with unproductive, identity-driven politics. What corporate America marketed as a governance priority proved to be a short-lived ideological fad. Most S&P 100 companies are now dumping explicit diversity criteria from their board-selection policies amid growing recognition that mandates conceived in far-left academic institutions prioritized social engineering over productivity, competitiveness, and preserving America’s economic dominance.

Bloomberg News cited a new report from research firm ESGAUGE that showed that 61 S&P 100 companies have removed explicit diversity requirements from their director-selection policies, marking a sharp reversal from three years ago.

This means these companies have removed explicit references to gender, race, ethnicity, and underrepresented groups from their board-selection criteria. Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Starbucks, and Wells Fargo are among those that eliminated the woke provisions.

The reversal suggests that DEI’s cancer-like spread across corporate America during the Marxist riots of 2020 was less a durable governance reform and more an act of corporate self-sabotage.

The retreat signals growing recognition that policies rooted in radical Marxist ideology weakened merit-based decision-making and proved more destructive to corporate cohesion, productivity, and competitiveness.

Beyond corporate America, the Trump administration has stripped toxic DEI programs from federal agencies, the military, universities, and government contractors.

The very people who pushed this radical Marxism in corporate America are much of the same activists aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America who quite literally say they want to “destroy the nation from within.”

The United States has successfully confronted Marxist attempts to derail it from its historic path of economic success, liberty, and order. Right now marks yet another point in history when the far left is attempting to systemically dismantle the nation. It is not just us saying this…

…DSA leaders say it in their own words.

And even in their own agenda, in which they want to seize power of the largest corporations. 

Should make sense now. 

Via American Greatness,

The Trump administration announced Tuesday that Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program will no longer pay for sex-change procedures for minors, ending the use of federal taxpayer dollars for treatments officials say carry potentially irreversible health risks without sufficient evidence of clinical benefit.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said the new rule applies to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and sex-change surgeries for children. Mental health treatment for gender dysphoria and other conditions will remain eligible for coverage under Medicaid and CHIP.

CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said the policy reflects the administration’s effort to protect children from medical interventions whose long-term effects remain uncertain.

“Children deserve our protection, not experimental interventions that pose serious risks and convey no proven benefits,” Oz said.

“By cutting off federal funds for these sex-rejecting procedures, we’re following the science, saving taxpayer dollars, and, most importantly, protecting children from potentially irreversible harm so they can truly flourish.”

The decision marks a significant reversal of federal policy on transgender medical procedures for minors and follows years of conservative opposition to using taxpayer money to finance medical transitions for children.

The Department of Health and Human Services said the affected procedures can cause lasting consequences, including infertility, impaired sexual function, reduced bone density and other physiological effects.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the administration’s decision followed a review of domestic and international research into medical interventions for minors experiencing gender dysphoria.

“Today, we are ending federal taxpayer funding for sex-rejecting procedures on children,” Kennedy said.

“These interventions carry serious risks and can cause irreversible harm.”

The administration said its review found substantial gaps in the evidence supporting the treatments, along with safety concerns that officials concluded did not justify continued taxpayer funding.

CMS cited the United Kingdom’s Cass Review as part of the evidence underlying its decision. The independent review, led by Dr. Hilary Cass and published in 2024, found limited evidence concerning the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors and concluded that medical practices had developed faster than the supporting evidence base.

“The Trump Administration is drawing a clear line: America’s children will not be subjected to life-altering interventions on the taxpayer’s dime without reliable evidence of safety and clinical benefit,” HHS Press Secretary Emily Hilliard said.

The funding restrictions will not take effect immediately for children already receiving hormone treatments. CMS will provide a six-month transition period after the rule takes effect, allowing Medicaid and CHIP funding for existing hormone treatments to be gradually phased out.

The policy represents the administration’s latest effort to restrict federal support for medical gender transitions involving minors while preserving coverage for mental health care.

When discussing yesterday’s stellar 3Y auction, we said that the impressive demand for 3 year paper indicated that nobody was worried about today’s CPI print… and as we learned this morning, that was justified, since the CPI came in right as expected. And since inflation is tame, and the labor market is not overheating, virtually nobody were worried that today’s 10Y auction would have any issues finding new holders. Well, they were right: moments ago the US sold $42 billion in 10Y coupons, the week’s second refunding auction. It priced at a high yield of 4.683%, up from 4.586% a month ago, and just wide of the 4.682% When Issued, translating to the first tail since May. Perhaps more notably, today’s 10Y auction priced at the highest yield since 2007.

The bid to cover was virtually unchanged from last month, and in line with where it has been for much of the past decade: plus or minus 25bps of 2.50%. Sure enough, at 2.532, the bid to cover was a bit lower than the 2.592 a month ago, but above the six auction average of 2.47.

Internals were also solid, if hardly great, with Indirects awarded 76.73%, down from 81.49% in July – one of the highest ever – but above the recent average of 71.33, as foreign buyers once again park their excess cash in the US. And with Directs awarded 14.67%, up from 10.73% in July and the highest since May, Dealers were left holding 8.6%, one of the lowest on record.

Overall, this was a solid auction, and following yesterday’s impressive 3Y, we expect tomorrow’s 30Y sale to have no problems finding buyers.

At first, the Hormuz lockdown was supposed to last a few weeks, tops. Not any more: the US now expects oil supply disruptions stemming from the US-Iran war to reach about 600,000 barrels per day through the end of next year as the conflict continues to crimp shipments via the critical Strait of Hormuz.

Oil transported through the waterway averaged 4.9 million barrels per day in the second quarter of this year, according to estimates from the US Energy Information Administration’s Short-Term Energy Outlook. That compares to an average of 21.6 million in the last quarter of 2025, before the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran.

The figures indicate that a brief intermission in fighting, when a so-called memorandum of understanding was signed, did little to blunt the impact of one of the worst disruptions to global energy markets in history. A deal between Iran and Oman to reopen the strait remains elusive, though officials indicate talks are progressing.

“The ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz and elevated fuel prices continue to weigh on oil consumption,” the Paris-based IEA said.

As the conflict extends into a sixth month, consumers around the world are once again facing the prospect of higher fuel prices and inflation. The EIA hiked gasoline and diesel price forecasts for 2026 by 3.7% and 5.4% respectively and increased its 2027 forecast for retail gasoline prices by 6.5% from its estimates a month earlier.

The volume of oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz remains difficult to pin down in real time, as vessels going dark obscure shipping activity, leading to discrepancies in estimates among market participants. About 9 million barrels of oil a day exited the strait on average over the past week, according to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, however independent tanker tracking services put the number far lower. 

The agency also estimates that Middle East production shut-ins eased to average about 5.5 million barrels a day in July, compared to 7.5 million barrels a day in June. The volume of oil shut in is expected to swell again to 6.6 million barrels a day in the third quarter.

Multiple Middle Eastern countries have been forced to curtail output as limited access to global markets strains available storage capacity.

The report assumes that recent threats to vessels carrying Saudi Arabian crude through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait have not resulted in additional production shut-ins. If that assumption holds, the agency expects most production and trade flows to take until early 2027 to return to pre-war levels.
 

Venezuela and Israel have agreed to restore consular relations, in a major historic shift, following the US orchestrated overthrow of longtime leader Nicolas Maduro back in January.

Interim President Delcy Rodriguez, who was Maduro’s VP, is at the head of a state system that is still fundamentally the same – which can be summed up as Chavismo Socialism – except the government now serves to do Washington’s bidding from opening up oil access to foreign policy realignment. 

This external realignment has been seen most on the world stage on issues where Caracas was once among the most outspoken Global South countries condemning ‘Western hegemony’.

Venezuela’s minister of foreign relations, Felix Plasencia Gonzalez, announced on X on Tuesday: “The Governments of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the State of Israel report that they have agreed to continue bilateral technical cooperation derived from the emergency and recovery efforts following the double earthquake, as well as to establish a coordination mechanism for the provision of consular services to their respective citizens residing in both countries.”

Caracas had severed ties 17 years ago in light of Israeli bombardment of Gaza at the time. Venezuela had also very openly aligned itself with America’s longtime foe Iran, in addition to Russia and China. 

The former Maduro government had even pursued military cooperation with these countries, and hosted some of their military deployments over the years.

For its part, the Israeli government announced on X on its Spanish-language account that “both governments recognize the importance of the bond between the State of Israel and the Jewish community residing in Venezuela, which constitutes an important historical bridge of friendship between the two countries.”

And a group called the Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela announced that “After 17 years without consular relations, Venezuela and Israel are advancing in a confidence-building process that began with the various Israeli and Jewish organizations that came to Venezuela on the occasion of the double earthquake that struck the country on June 24, and which on that occasion provided great technical and humanitarian aid in the face of the tragedy and devastation.”

Consulates are expected to open up in each country, to facilitate travel and help deepen relations to between the countries, now that relations are moving toward normalization again.

Venezuela and Israel have agreed to start offering consular services for each other’s citizens.

There is still no talk of sending diplomats or opening permanent missions, however. pic.twitter.com/zuOQS5UEz5

— Elias Ferrer (@FerrerBreda) August 11, 2026

Since the Spring, American consular activity has been up and running, along with presumably the Caracas CIA station, also as even the Pentagon has held military drills in and around the Venezuelan capital.

Via American Greatness,

Dozens of migrants who entered the Spanish territory of Ceuta during last month’s massive border surge have reportedly reached mainland Spain, contradicting the socialist government’s insistence that none had left the North African enclave.

Sky News reported Tuesday, citing Spanish police sources, that about 75 migrants who entered Ceuta in late July had reached Andalucía in southern Spain.

“Spanish sources in Andalucía said that around 75 migrants out of the estimated 72,000 who entered Ceuta illegally in a mass rush to the border at the end of July had reached the mainland,” Sky News reported.

The report directly conflicts with assurances from the government of socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

“Nobody has left the city towards the peninsula, nor can they do so,” Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said Tuesday during a visit to Ceuta.

Tens of thousands of mostly male North African migrants entered Ceuta on July 30, overwhelming the territory’s law enforcement, migrant processing facilities and other public services. Estimates have placed the number of arrivals between 60,000 and 80,000, approaching Ceuta’s normal population of about 80,000.

The surge followed a Spanish judicial ruling preventing authorities from immediately returning migrants who reach Spanish territory by land and requiring a longer legal process before removal.

Ceuta President and Mayor Juan Jesús Vivas has sharply criticized Madrid’s response and disputed the government’s portrayal of the crisis as under control.

“Ceuta has suffered and continues to suffer an invasion,” Vivas said Tuesday.

“We calculate that 10,000 immigrants are still in Ceuta and this creates an unsustainable situation.”

“The reaction of the government has not been on par with the demands of what occurred,” he added.

“A violation of the territorial integrity of Spain has occurred.”

The numbers provided by Madrid and local officials have also raised questions about the whereabouts of thousands of migrants. El País reported that the Sánchez government says 70,000 people entered Ceuta and 7,000 have been deported. El Mundo reported Monday that local officials estimate about 11,000 remain in Ceuta out of roughly 80,000 who entered.

Police sources told Sky News the crossings to mainland Spain represented a “worrying reactivation” of the migration route across the Strait of Gibraltar.

Albares nevertheless maintained Tuesday that the government would ultimately remove those who entered illegally.

“Up to the last person who entered irregularly into Spain will return to Morocco,” he said.

El País noted that Albares did not provide a specific timetable or mechanism for carrying out those removals.

The reports that migrants have reached mainland Spain add to mounting questions over Madrid’s handling of the crisis and whether the Sánchez government has accurately accounted for those who entered Ceuta.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday addressed the persisting issue of European governments and navies seizing what they deem Russian ‘shadow fleet’ vessels off Europe’s coast.

The past year alone has seen several examples, sometimes involving French or Swedish commandos descending onto a tanker’s deck from helicopters and arresting crew members. The seized vessels are then taken to nearby European ports.

The latest European Union sanctions package passed last month stipulates that EU members can sell the oil or any seized cargo obtained from these ‘shadow fleet’ vessels.

Putin has reiterated Kremlin outrage at this scheme, condemning it as “piracy and banditry”. This after Sweden has lately declared its intent to hand seized Russian grain over to Ukraine.

The Russian leader’s patience has reached its limit, apparently, as he is now putting European governments that their own ships become at risk of seizure in return.

“We will be forced to respond in kind,” Putin said while overseeing naval drills in Russia’s Far East, aboard the Russian cruiser Varyag off the island of Sakhalin.

Russian forces will act “wherever we ourselves deem necessary and appropriate — anywhere,” he added.

According to some of his fuller remarks as translated and presented in Reuters:

“We can see that the authorities of certain countries, in violation of international maritime law, are attempting to restrict the movement of our economic operators’ vessels…, and ​have recently gone so far as to consider the possibility of seizing our vessels and selling off ⁠the ⁠property they have plundered from ⁠us,” said Putin.

“Naturally, ​this is nothing less than piracy and robbery. And if this begins to be put into ​practice, we shall be forced ⁠to respond in kind. And not necessarily in those waters where raids on our ships and vessels are planned, but wherever we ourselves deem it necessary and appropriate.”

So while Russia would not likely act in European waters, such a scenario would be more likely to go down in places like the Black Sea or Baltic region, or perhaps the faraway Indian Ocean.

Russian President Vladimir Putin threatens to seize ships belonging to European countries in retaliation for plans to intercept and seize Russian vessels suspected of being part of Moscow’s “shadow fleet.” pic.twitter.com/k6Dig6bvni

— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) August 12, 2026

Putin also took the opportunity to address broader tensions with NATO and spillover from the Ukraine conflict, but also as it specifically impacts the Pacific and Arctic regions…

“We can see that, unfortunately, the potential for conflict is growing here; NATO is making inroads here; new military-political blocs are being formed; and new weapons systems are being deployed here, or are planned for deployment, which ​also pose a threat to our country,” the president said.