they'll discuss today. >> yeah, victor, in just a matter of moments, you're going to see a consider pull up right behind me, president biden step out of the white house to greet president zelenskyy, his first trip out of ukraine in the 300 days of war since russia launched its invasion at the end of february. i think what you're looking at here is two very poignant issues. the first being the symbolic, obviously the first visit out of the country to the by far and away most dedicated ally of ukraine over the course of that war, that matters because the war is at a pivot point right now after two ukrainian offensives that have been successful, time that u.s. officials say they don't have a clear end game or outcome laid out yet. that will be one of the issues that will likely be discussed in the closed door meetings between the two presidents. the substance here is critical, not just in terms of how things will play out going forward, but as you noted, victor, an additional $1.8 billion on top of around $20 billion in

defensive systems over the course of the last nine months and what this tranche of money does more than anything else is expand the capabilities of ukraine adding a patriot missile system, something president zelenskyy has requested for several months. the madministration and presidet biden finally signing off on that, it is a more in depth commitment. a very critical moment for ukraine and the u.s. and western allies supporting them, victor. >> we will stand by to see that historic drive up to the white house as president zelenskyy will be meeting with president biden. will to you now in kyiv, as we discussed, as we just heard from phil, zelenskyy's first trip abroad in months. he's coming with a list of things that he'd like. the president is offering more support. what more is he hoping to get out of this visit? >> i think he wants a commitment for the long haul, victor. he doesn't want to be pressured

to take concessions or to accept concessions and give russia ukrainian territory that was illegally seized going back almost nine years to 2014. here in kyiv and across ukraine, the ukrainian people that we've met, that we've spoken with and leaders as well up to the very top with president zelenskyy say this war that russia started did you want end until they get back crimea, until they get back all the territory in the donetsk region that the russians are currently occupying. they do not see this as a possible cease fire. they want to take back territory, and they're having a hard time doing that right now. it's going to get potentially harder in the next months, one, because you have these mobilized russian troops that are currently training, and yes, they're green, and yes, russia is ill equipped, but they do have large numbers, larger numbers potentially than what they have in ukraine given that it's a much smaller country, although with much better weapons as we've seen and

brilliant generalmanship as well. the russians are learning, and they now have private mercenaries from the vogner group fighting. these are very experienced fighters on the front lines. as a result the lines are essentially holding. the russians are not retaking territory, they haven't retaken bak bakhmut. he was there just yesterday. the fact that he is now there today in washington about to meet with president biden, it is a truly historic and extraordinary moment because this is the president that on the first day of the invasion on february 24th stayed in ukraine, stayed in kyiv in his bunker. his family, his children stayed in ukraine, and that moment instantly made him a symbol of the resistance that has now spread, a resistance that every single ukrainian we've met is taking part in in their own way, whether it be those who are volunteering, those who are fighting, those who are cooking meals for their neighbors because nobody in the neighborhood has electricity and they're cooking over a wood

stove. that strength was really inspired in many ways by this ukrainian president, and he wants a commitment from the u.s. just as hen wants from nato for more weapons. he asks for more because he says this is not just ukraine's fight. he says ukraine is fighting a war against russia, but it's a war that the entire world could have to fight if ukraine loses this war, victor. >> we've seen now the president and first lady jill biden, they are there now waiting for president zelenskyy to drive up. the marines there on the drive, and we're expecting to see the car drive up here. so we will pause for a moment and listen in as the president welcomes president zelenskyy of

ukraine. # . >> we'll see them again in just a few minutes, but quickly from you, fphil, this president entered office saying that this century would be about democracies versus dictatorships. what does this commitment and showing the world his commitment to supporting ukraine in their

fight against russia mean to president biden? >> everything to some degree, and i'm not trying to overstate things, the existential moments the president believes that the united states, really geopolitically the entire world is in has been brought to an acute manner with what they've seen with the russian invasion of ukraine. it's thought to the context of where china is and the competition with china, but this in particular and this moment has been critical. it has really driven the last year from this administration, this white house, and it's gotten at the core of what president biden has long said is so critical. the western alliance that has been in place for 80-plus years that he wants to maintain, victor. >> phil mattingly, you've got to get inside the white house. we'll see you in a couple of minutes as well. will, stay with us, and i want to expand the conversation and bring in cnn's nick payton wall ch, stephen fifer, former ambassador for ukraine. mr. ambassador, let me start with you and then i'll fget thi

from you as well, major. diplomatically, talk about the timing, why now? why this trip, the first one out of ukraine to the u.s. for president zelenskyy? >> yeah, i believe there are several factors. one is to have a face-to-face conversation with president biden. from kyiv's point of view, you know, washington is the leading element of this effort to support ukraine and do things like impose sanctions on russia. so it's a sense for the two leaders to get together. i think president zelenskyy will be expressing gratitude for americans' support. he's also going to be asking for more. he's in a situation where he needs more american arms, if they're going to continue to push the russians back as they have over the last three months. and i think also his address to congress is going to be important. traditionally over the last 30 years, support for ukraine has been bipartisan.

republicans and democrats, but you've seen over the last six months some worrisome signs in some republican ranks. so i think president zelenskyy has an opportunity to make the case for why he needs more help from america but also why providing that help is in the american interests. >> we'll talk about that address that's scheduled for the 7:00 p.m. hour tonight in just a moment. major, let me come to you. militarily, the war has ebbed and flowed for both ukraine and russia. this moment, what are we seeing that gives president zelenskyy the confidence that he can leave his country, come back as well? what do you see on the ground? >> i think it's still a high risk. i think the fact that the russians have retreated on the eastern side of the river, they are foraging that place like tomorrow they're doing everything they can digging in. there's just maybe a slight pause on their part, but they've got offensive operations that they're trying to likely do, the russians are, to take back some of those areas they just lost. counteroffensives, it's winter time, i check my weather app every day to see what's going on

there. it is more difficult for the ukraine side. ukraine doesn't have the river crossing capability to go on the counteroffensive. that would be the united states' military support. give them what they can to go on the counteroffensive. one last point to the north in belarus, there is a risk of russia aligning with the belarusian military and potentially opening another front that could potentially threaten kyiv. that still always hangs out there. lots going on from a ukraine military perspective. i think this leader had to do this now at this point. now is the time to come thank the president and also get more military equipment. >> nick, the thoughts on the welcome here of the president of ukraine. what do you see? what do you think? >> you have to wind back to february when the intelligence was accurately predicting a russian invasion, but saying it could be over possibly in a matter of weeks, because russia would be so vastly superior as a military, and now here we have volodymyr zelenskyy, a reality tv actor before he turned president now getting out of an armored vehicle and being welcomed by the commander in

chief of the most powerful military of the world. images you frankly could simply never have imagined would be the kas. you couldn't really have imagined back in february that zelenskyy would have been so successful as a figure uniting his nation, allowing them to resist russia's invasion and now over the past months take back huge swaths of ukraine that for so long you'd begun to feel might permanently become part of moscow' grasp. when i saw him getting out of that vehicle, joe biden putting his arm around him, you really get a sense of how important the choreography, the symbolism of this trip really is. there is zelenskyy in military fatigues, everyone to be reminded this is a man who daily sends men to the front line to die. ukrainian trident on his sweatshirt there. this is a man clearly having the first moment out of ukraine for a significant period of time. he'll be jet lagged. he'll have a list of things in

his mind of the things he kneads joe biden to understand. this is also about showing the world regardless of the belief you might have about how western nations have limited patience for this fight, that they don't want to spend unlimited resources on supporting ukraine or see the economic damage they're suffering because of the energy crisis go on for years, that essentially washington is doing this because it wants to remind people and this relative lull in the conflict that their patience too is long-term, that they have the capacity for this to go on maybe for month ts lonr than anybody previously expected. the kremlin's logic in all of this is if they wait out the west and they see electoral cycles change in western democracies, this is about a new congress coming into play, the same leader who's remarkably managed to hold ukraine together, finally getting a chance to meet the man who supplied so much of their weaponry and finance over the past months. when i saw him get out of that vehicle and join joe biden, it

was quite a remarkable moment, not something anybody who saw this war began necessarily saw as a moment when the anticipation had been of a swift russian military victory. and it just reminds you of how startling ukraine's resistance has been and also the tens of thousands of lives we've lost over the last months. >> a startling moment indeed seeing a -- a stunning moment to see zelenskyy welcomed at the white house. we will also see president zelenskyy address a joint session of congress in the 7:00 p.m. eastern hour. ambassador, before i get back to will, let me come back to you. obviously he's speaking there to a congress, one chamber of which will soon be led by republicans. the commitment to supporting ukraine has ranged from it is imperative to not another penny. that's one audience. but there's also the audience of the american people. detail what he has to say to an audience who will be watching on television about why it is still

important to support his country as they fight off this russian invasion. >> yeah, i think we're going to see a couple of central points in zelenskyy's speech to congress and also to the broader american public. one there will be gratitude, the united states has been the key partner for ukraine as it fights off this war of aggression that vladimir putin launched on ukraine back in february. but also, i think he will detail the case for continuing to support ukraine and for providing more weapons and making the point that, of course it's in ukraine's interest but that yauukraine is really fight russia in a way that also is important for american int interests. i'll make two points. going back 70 years, it's been in the u.s. national interest to have a stable and secure europe. if russia wins this war, you're not going to have that kind of europe. it's going to soak up much more time and american resources. but the second point is we don't

know how far vladimir putin's ambitions go. when he talks about ukraine, he talks about not a sovereign country but what he refers to as historic russian land. if you look at a map of the russian emempire, the baltic states and part of poland were once historic russian land, and we have to ask ourselves how far do putin's ambitions go? with regards to ukraine, our commitment is to provide money and arms. if it got to the baltic states or poland, those countries are members of nato. at that point you're talking about providing american soldiers. it's better for the united states to stop putin in ukraine. >> has there been some reaction from the kremlin to this e additional support and to this visit? >> yeah, certainly, the patriot missile systems, they've said that they would be legitimate targets, that they would try to find them and hit them with their own missiles if of course that was possible, which is an open question.

a lot of these russian missiles don't miss their targets. they shoot the majority of them down, but those that do make it through are causing catastrophic damage to the civilian power grid. vladimir putin just today had a meeting talking about the need to modernize his military, and if you listen to the things that he was saying, they're really doubling down on almost, you know, moving russia more towards a military state type of s strategy and acknowledging the difficu difficulties, acknowledging the need for training, he basically said whatever the military needs, the military is going to get in terms of resources. why is that frightening? he talked about ukraine being one of many potential front lines. in other words, russia up against nato and the west. this is the unspoken and actually not even unspoken no, it is the spoken intent of vladimir putin. he is not giving up on ukraine, and in fact, doubling down on

beefing up his own military. is that any match for these u.s. weapons and resources being flooded into ukraine? it hasn't been so far in a substantial way, but you mentioned earlier up the northern border with belarus where russian troops are semiling and their numbers have been increasing in three regions of belarus. they had a meeting the other day talking about deepening their partnership. this is potentially another line that could open up. the ukrainians here in kyiv are stating publicly, they said the economists signaling that they think an advance on kyiv is going to happen at some point early next year. grant it both sides as nick has pointed out do use disinformation to their advantage to try to throw off the other side, but could an exhausted ukrainian military, which is fighting fiercely in the east and to the south also have to fight up north? do they have the resources and the weapons to do that? all of these are things that president zelenskyy will be discussing with president biden and his inner circle at the

white house today. >> major, with the addition of the patriot missile systems, does ukraine now have the full arsenal you think they need? or are there additional types of weaponry you think they need to fight off russia? >> patriots are good. they're not game changers. they're going to help them protect their critical infrastructure. until the united states provides offensive weapons. i think that's where the line gets drawn about whether or not we're well into this. the bottom line is zelenskyy still doesn't have leverage over russia to get them to stop fighting. i think ukraine military would have to threaten crimea. i think that is their alamo. they have to have that naval port. they have to have that for the black sea fleet, and if they could somehow figure out a way to go on the offensivings threaten that, then they have some leverage on their side. patriot's good, but not a game changer. >> thank you all. we will see, of course, president biden and president zelenskyy in just a couple of minutes in the oval office. r we're days away from seeing

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the house ways and means committee has voted to publicly release six years of former president donald trump's tax returns. the democrats on the panel also released a summary of their findings, and they revealed that trump paid zero federal taxes in his last year in office. they also found the irs failed to follow its own mandate to properly audit presidents and only began one audit of trump over his term. democratic congressman dan kildee is a member of the house ways and means committee. he joins me now. good to have you back, congressman. those are the headlines i pulled from what your committee has released. what is your top takeaway? >> a couple of things, first of all, thanks for having me on. two significant takeaways for me. one was that i was actually shocked that the irs had not been following its own policy. it has been a practice of the

irs since 1977 to audit presidential tax returns. in the trump era, they simply didn't do it, and in fact, the only audit they initiated was initiated on the very same day that they received the letter from chairman richie neal asking under section 6103 for access to these returns and information about the audits. that was one big shockerme. but then as we examined the returns themselves, we've talked about this, we've speculated about what mr. trump was doing with his businesses to avoid taxes, but to see two years where he paid $750 in income tax to the federal government, one year where he paid zero, and then all the various ways that he obviously used undocumented or unsubstantiated expenses to avoid paying taxes, it became very clear to me that something is dramatically wrong here and

something has to be done, and of course that leads to the purpose of the inquiry in the first place, to produce legislation to correct this problem. >> so your two headlines here, when you say there's something dramatically wrong here, and you highlight how much the former president did or did not pay in federal taxes, did you see any evidence that suggests illegality? >> you know, that i don't know. to me it's hard for me to imagine that it's legal to be one of the richest people in america, according to his own assertions, and to have all sorts of wealth coming in on a regular basis but never have any income and actually have nothing but net losses. so you know, i'm not a tax expert except i see what i see on the page, and i know that there's something not right. it clearly at least points to a situation where there are two tax codes in this country. one for people who go to work every day, and another tax code for the people like donald trump who can hire the professionals to dodge responsibility.

i don't know if any of this was illegal, but i can tell you this, it doesn't look right to me as a person who studied the tax code for a long time, and that's why we felt it was important to send this information to the congress along with recommendations that we act upon it. a and frankly, i didn't think it was sufficient simply to send our analysis. i personally was very much of the view that we have to send the full documentation so that we don't get into a situation where trump's allies who will pick any way they can to defend him will simply say that we selectively pick pieces of his returns in order to highlight the most egregious aspects of it. they can look at the whole thing and make that are own judgments. >> so now on the presidential audit program, democrats have suggested there should be more staffing there at the irs to handle these complicated returns, and as i said, that there was one that was started during the term. that has not been completed according to stacey plaskett, a

representative on the committee. is it clear to you that this was solely a resource problem, that they did not have the people to complete these audits or that there was any avoidance there at the irs during the trump administration to audit the former president's tax returns? >> well, i think the irs generally has a resource problem, but it's difficult for me to take that the irs would use as a defense that it couldn't supply the sufficient manpower to do something as important as auditing the tax returns of the president of the united states, particularly one of the wealthiest people in the country. they asasigned one person with o degree of specialization in this type of tax policy. so look, the irs needs more resources for sure, but i don't think that's a sufficient excuse for them not to have done a job that the american people expect them to do to make sure that their president is held accountable for following the laws of the united states. >> so of course when sending this on to the senate, this becomes public, these six years

of tax returns. you've talked about the legislative, the policy element here. i want to play for you what you said. this is april of 2019 about the goals of, the requests of these returns. >> let's be clear, we're not asking for these returns to be made public. it's not even clear that other members of the committee, myself included will ever see any of this information. this is specific to chairman neal because he needs this information in order to frame the questions that we are trying to answer and the policies that we are trying to potentially enact. >> so now why are they being made public? >> well, because we were able to do the analysis. we didn't ask when we sent the request under 6103 in april of 2019. we didn't ask then for the irs to publicize the documents. we asked them to provide them to us so that we can do the analysis required. after having done that analysis, we made the determination that

the next necessary step was twofold, one, to prepare legislation in order to correct what we saw after a review of these really significant deficiencies, and second, to supply the information that we think is necessary to justify enacting this legislation. and in our judgment, that included disclosing the base information that was yused to form late our judgment in the first place. so it's a distinction of what we were asking of the irs, not so much what determination we made once having done the analysis. >> congressman dan kildee of michigan, thank you. thank. ukrainian president vladimir zelenskyy is meeting with president biden. we expect to hear remarks, we will bring them to you live. rti. man, i love parties. subway keeps refrereshing and refreshing when they're sick, they get comfortable anywhere and spread germs everywhere.

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well, mr. president, it's good

to have you back. i'm delighted you were able to make the trip to be here, and you know, it's an honor to be by your side in the united defense against what is a brutal, brutal war waged by putin. 300 days, hard to believe, 300 days going through this, and putin has waged a brutal assault on the ukrainians' right to exist as a nation, and the attack on innocent ukrainian people for no reason other than to intimidate. and he's escalated his assault on civilians after schools, orphanages, hospitals, landmarks, it's just -- and he's trying to use winter as a weapon, and but the ukrainian people continue to inspire the world. i mean that sincerely. not just inspire us, but inspire the world with their courage and how they have chose their

resilience and resolve for their future, and the american people have stood proudly with them, democrats and republicans together with our allies in europe and japan and other places to make sure you have the financial, humanitarian, and security assistance that is needed. we're going to talk about that today, and we're going to continue ukraine's ability to defend itself, particularly air defense, and that's why we're going to be providing ukraine with patriot missile battery, and training your forces to be able to accurately use it. together with our partners, we're also going to impose costs on the kremlin and will support ukraine in pursuing a just peace. president zelenskyy of the united states stands with the brave people in ukraine. we stand with you, you've been a great leader, and by the way, we have a famous thing that occurs once a year, we pick the man of the year in time magazine, you

are the man of the year in the united states of america. so welcome. we have a lot to talk about. the floor is yours. >> thank you so much. mr. president, great honor for me to be here. thank you so much for invitation. i really wanted to come. mr. president knows i couldn't do it because the situation was so difficult. now i came, we controlled the situation and because of support, and first of all because of your support and i really -- i understand that we have important topics and we'll discuss them everything so many challenges in ukraine, in europe, in the world, and from energy to the situation on the battlefield, but really all my appreciations from my heart,

from the heart of ukrainians, all ukrainians, from our nation, strong nation, all to you, first of all, mr. president for your big support and leadership. because helped us and are helping now because the war is not over. anyway, but that is your leadership. thank you, first of all. thank you so much, mr. president. of course thanks bipartisan support, thanks congress, and thanks from just ordinary people to your ordinary people, americans. i really appreciate. i think it's very difficult to understand what it means when we say appreciate, but you really had to feel it and thank you so

much. great honor to be here. and yesterday i was on donbas, that is the place on the east of our country. you know all the details. we had so many phone calls, and i want to give you something. one guy who's really, really a hero, real captain, and he asked me to pass his award, and he asked me to pass his award to president biden. he will understand he is the captain of heimers battery. he's very brave and he said give it to very brave president, and i want to give you that is a cross for military merit. that is one. >> god love you. >> yes. that is from him, and i have the list, hear all the list.

yes, i didn't read, mr. president. it's in ukrainian language, but here that translation. >> and his name is -- i have his name i could contact him? >> yes, yes. pavlo. >> undeserved but much appreciated, thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, thank you, thank you. >> he said that all -- many his brothers this system saved, so thank you very much. >> well, we have a tradition here, and i will give it to him, my son who fought in iraq, they have what they call a command coin. have you seen those coins we get in the battlefield? i will make sure that he gets one of those. thank you, thank you. >> thank you so much. >> appreciate it. what a great honor. great honor. >> thank you.

>> thank you, press. . >> all right, president biden there welcoming in president volodymyr zelenskyy of ukraine. we saw, of course, president biden continue the commitment of the united states to support ukraine in its fight against this russian invasion that has gone now more than 300 days, and from president zelenskyy bringing, as he said, his appreciation, all my appreciation and all the appreciation of the people of ukraine and then passing on from a captain that he was visiting with yesterday this cross for military merit.

let's bring back in cnn's chief white house correspondent phil mattingly who was there in the room, senior intertional correspondent, will ripley in kyiv, former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, steve pifer and mike lyons. the president said he would send the command coin back to that captain, but also the quite obvious and genuine appreciation from the president of this cross that he received from the president. what did you see there in the room? >> yeah, it was not expected. i can tell you that in terms of bringing folks as we walked out of the oval office, i think it was absolutely as you heard from the president, he said undeserved but very appreciated. it's also a very personal touch to a very real tragedy that president zelenskyy is dealing with on a day-to-day basis in his country. president zelenskyy alluded to the fact that they have a relationship between the two of them.

they speak on the phone constantly. they have video conferences fairly regularly. this is their first face-to-face meeting and adding that personal element to what are expected to be intensive discussions over the next two hours, i think is a level of understanding of i think personally how president biden operates and kind of the depth in which he approaches issues and moments like this, but also, a recognition of the necessity of displaying this to the american public as well. so much of this trip is the obvious symbolism, the obvious parallels perhaps to, you know, the churchill speech to congress in the few days after pearl harbor, but also it underscores the moment that ukraine is in in a war that is very much at a stalemate moment right now where more assistance will be needed, more commitment will be needed at the same time that the western coalition that has stood steadfastly behind them is without question dealing with their own individual domestic issue. there's a very real concern about some level of exhaustion on the side of the coalition's part, and so making sure that

the actual realities on the ground and what he can bring to help demonstrate that i think was critical given not just what's going to happen over the course of the next several hours, which will be incredibly important, but also what's going to happen over the next several months, victor. >> yeah, several months of winter there in ukraine, and that brings me to you, will ripley. the president said that russia is now using winter as a weapon. we've seen for months now in preparation for these colder temperatures russia hitting the infrastructure, knocking the power grid, and the ukrainians there having to suffer through the darkness and the cold as this now goes on into the beginning of 2023. >> every single day, victor, people who lived a life, a living standard in most places in ukraine comparable to the average american, you know, with electricity, running water, the comforts of home that we so easily take for granted, and now they're living with a few hours

of electricity a day in many cases, sometimes the inability to cook, the inability to heat their homes. and they have to go to tents to warm up that the government has set up. times are tough for a lot of people here in ukraine, and that's away from the front leans. of course the front lines are a whole different story where people in their homes at any hour of the day or night run the risk of having russian artillery destroy their home, kill them or their loved ones, but anywhere else in ukraine every city in ukraine is being touched and is sacrificing and suffering because the power grid is operating at such a limited capacity because of these relentless russian air strikes. even as president zelenskyy tweeted that he was on the way to go visit with president biden, the air raid sirens went off across the country. that happens every single day here. i just have to also as i was watching that extraordinary moment and, you know, president zelenskyy giving president biden that hero's medal, all i could think of is that this guy in

many ways appears to be made for this moment, and it would have been improbable to think of that given his background. he was a television comedian. he was very families, probably ukraine's most famous comedian, but he was not a serious, hardened character when all of this began, certainly when his political career began. he was popular, yes, but that popularity has now transcended to this new level. he has inspired people here in ukraine, and he's so confident in, you know, his ability to lead this country through this war that the elections scheduled for next year are still going on. he is still going to run for president. he has not declared martial law and extended his term. he's going to run and the odds are overwhelming that he will win by a landslide because there's really nobody else in ukraine that feels that they could do this better than he's doing it right now. the way that he schmoozes, the way that he deals with hollywood figures, politicians, just watching him in action. it's going to be really fascinating, victor, to watch

him meeting with members of congress and giving that prime time speech later today. >> major, what's your reaction to what you saw there? >> as a former captain of the artillery in combat, didn't show the courage i'm sure that that captain showed. i'm taken by that award and the fact that he's a battery commander, they get up every day and dpeefend their country. they have men and women in that battery they have to survive. that's a weapon system make ago difference on the ground tactically. for what he did there, for what president zelenskyy did to highlight that to me just shows the level of appreciation he has for what the u.s. forces are doing there. but again, that equipment there, that's a difference maker and as a soldier looking at that, i was very moved by it. >> ambassador, as we wrap this to you, we of course have talked in the last sellingment about w president zelenskyy want thes to hear from president biden, what they want to know about the support that will be sustained throughout the rest of this war. what does the u.s. want to hear from zelenskyy while he's here?

>> i think what the president biden would want to hear is to get some idea as to how president zelenskyy sees the next several months playing out, you know. what is zelenskyy aiming to achieve? and that will be useful in terms of framing the kinds of assistance that the united states can provide in the coming months because it is a delicate period. it's now winter. there was, i think, a fairly general expectation among western observers that the pace of fighting might slow down, although some of the ukrainian officials have suggested, no, if they see an opportunity they will go ahead and take advantage of it. i'd just like to comment, one thing that's kind of remarkable here, yesterday president zelenskyy was on the front line, and he does that, he regularly visits the front line and talks to the troops in the field, and yesterday when he was in bakhmut, that's a town that the russians have been trying to take for more than four months now, and they have not succeeded. but when they showed film of zelenskyy presenting awards to ukrainian military personnel in

bakhmut, you could hear in the background the boom of the artillery. he's close to the front. vladimir putin has never gone near to the front, and then a day later, you know, he's in the united states to bring that memento from his visit to bakhmut and present it to president biden. that was a nice personal touch, but i think it also is indicative of the personal bond that president zelenskyy towards president biden because he recognizes that president biden is critical both to ukraine's support but also critical to leading this coalition that has emerged in the last ten months to support ukraine, isolate russia and impose economic sanctions on russia. >> ambassador pifer, phil mattingly, will ripley, thank you. we will see those two men before that address in congress this evening. after an 18-month long investigation, several hearings and stunning testimony, the january 6th committee will release its final report. we'll talk about what you should expect ahead.

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but don't know what to do next? call invent help today. they can help you get started with your idea. call now 800-710-0020. more than 90 million people are under winter weather alerts. a brewing bomb cycle threatens much of the u.s. heavy snow, icy conditions, potentially life-threatening cold are expected over the next few days. more than 80% of the population will see below freezing temperatures. 80% with windchill alerts stretching from the canadian border to the gulf of mexico. blizzard conditions in some areas are expected to make travel impossible during the busy holiday week. several airlines issued travel waivers ahead of the storm. omar jimenez is live at the chicago airport which is supposed to be one of the

hardest hit cities. how well prepared are people there, omar? >> reporter: yeah, victor. one, they're looking at the forecasts. they're looking at what's coming ahead and they're trying to plan around it. most of the passengers are -- not most. i should say some, a good portion of the passengers we talked to today were folks who showed up days earlier than they initially were going to to try and get home or to visit family for the holidays this weekend, including one we spoke to who she was just trying to get her entire family together last minute because she didn't want to take any chances with what is forecast to come. take a listen. >> we were planning to travel on saturday when we saw the storm growing. we decided it would be better to leave before the storm hits because we didn't know what we would be faced with on saturday. so we got online to see if we could actually make it work on monday, and we did. >> the native chicagoan knows you have three terrible months a year and we're coming into them

now. >> reporter: look. i'd argue it's more than three months, but hey, you know, we're here. people in chicago, in the midwest, they're used to snow and ice, things like this, but the national weather service here in chicago said what we're going to see that's not as common is it's not just the falling snow. it's going to be the rapid dropping temperature to negative 30 and below, the blowing snow that will come from wind gusts that could get over 50 miles per hour at points, create low visibility, and of course, all of that combination with the demand of trying to get home for christmas creates a potentially dangerous situation that will affect not just travel by air, but of course, the many people who will be driving or at least attempting to drive home for christmas. convicter? >> yeah. the roads will be a mess. i was trying to figure out, is she saying january, february, march? what about december which can be rough in chicago as well? >> reporter: look. look. i mean, i wasn't going to push

back. she's from here. >> yes. >> reporter: she's got some years and experience on me, but still. i think more than three months. >> more than three months. all right. omar jimenez for us there. thank you, omar. officials along the southern border say they have moved over 9,000 migrants out of el paso over the last week, and the mayor of that city says they absolutely cannot sustain this influx much longer. well, he joins us ahead. adding lysol laundry sanitizer kills 99.9% of bacteria detergrgent alone, can't. my name is joshua florence, and one thing i learned being a firefighter is plan ahead. you don't know what you're getting into, but at the end of the day, u know you have a team behind you that can help you. not having to worry about the future makes it possible to make the present as best as it can be for everybody.

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the house january 6th committee is poised to publish its final report today. it outlines the investigation

into the insurrection at the u.s. capitol. paula reid is with us now. paula, we're expecting to come out at any moment now. what will you be focused on most? >> reporter: well, that's right, victor. here in washington we're still waiting for this report to be released and we're looking for any new information because we know this committee over the past year and a half, they have been gathering an enormous amount of evidence through interviews and documents, and we've gotten a preview. we've gotten some highlights during those hearings over the summer, and even a hearing and a summary of the report that they released earlier this week. we want to see how they expand on that. one thing that we do know, will be new, are transcripts that they're going to release of interviewing that they've conducted behind closed doors with witnesses that conducted nearly a thousand or approximately a thousand different interviews. some of the very senior former trump administration officials and people in the former president's orbit. this -- victor, this is the next stage of this investigation. the committee's work is done. it's expected that the committee will ultimately be