cycle's" wall-to-wall coverage for the search for missing malaysian flight 370, a search that has narrowed but is far from over. our coverage is far from over. it continues next with msnbc's alex wagner. stay tuned. malaysia's prime minister says flight 370 "ended over the southern indian ocean." but for devastated relatives, another chapter is just beginning. it is monday, march 24, and this is "now." >> this is a major development. >> we've gotten sad news from malaysia's prime minister. >> this is what everybody feared. >> according to this new data, flight mh-370 ended in the southern indian ocean. >> now they believe that that last ping would put it somewhere in this juncture. >> this will come as a devastating blow to those families. >> the past few weeks have been

heartbreaking. >> at this point we have not found any wreckage. >> many of those families simply refuse to believe this news until they come up with a part, any part, some pretty significant developments out at sea. >> we were about six hours into the flight when suddenly the crew got a call to divert immediately because of two possible sightings of debris. >> it's the most promising leads as the search shifted to the indian ocean. >> we need to find that wreckage. i'm confident that we will. there may not be a who, a what, or a why, but the world may finally have a where. this morning in kuala lumpur, malaysia's prime minister offered the most definitive statement yet on flight 370's last-known location and the likely fate of its passengers. >> this is a remote location far from any possible landing sites.

it is therefore with deep sadness and regret that i must inform you that according to this new data, flight mh-370 ended in the southern indian ocean. >> according to the malaysian government, fresh analysis of satellite data by british company inmar sat and the uk's air safety agency has made clear that the missing flight did not take a northern route over land and was instead detected flying south over open water. officials have concluded that the trajectory of the plane has made any possibility of survival highly unlikely. prior to that news conference, this morning relatives of the passengers aboard flight 370 were informed by malaysian airlines that their loved ones are now presumed dead. a text message sent to family members read in part: "we deeply

regret that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that hm-370 have been lost and that none have survived." a few hours later, the airline stressed that family members were notified in person or by telephone. "smss were used only as an additional means of communicating with the families." in either case, there were scenes of inconsolable grief in the malaysian capital and a beijing hotel where relatives mourned openly, some who were so overcome with grief they were unable to walk. two family members were carried away on stretchers. if families are devastated, they are also very, very angry. a representative for the 154 chinese nationals on board said they plan to file a petition against the airline, the malaysian government, and the malaysian military accusing them of lying, of general incompetence, and of deliberately hiding the truth.

in a scathing statement released just hours ago, the families accused the parties of "killing our relatives." today the chinese government also demanded that malaysia hand over all new relevant satellite data. as family members and governments grabble with the latest news, there is no conclusion to the international search efforts as yet but there is increased activity in efforts to locate debris off australia's southwest coast. this morning, spotters aboard an australian plane saw two objects, one gray, green and circumstance la and the other orange and rectangular. chinese planes also reported seeing "suspicious objects" in the area. the australian warship h.m.s. "success" is nearby looking for the objects and u.s. pacific command has protectively sent a

black box locator in the region in case a debris field is identified. but -- and there is always a but in this case -- the search area is far from contained. at this point, ten planes are scouring two search areas that together span nearly 26.5 thousand square miles and time is running out. with each passing day the battery life diminishes on the black box pingers. at this hour, the signal is expected to stop in about 12 days. joining us from kuala lumpur with the latest on this unfolding saga is nbc's keir simmons. keir? >> hey, alex, a somber atmosphere here at the hotel where relatives are staying. as we said, they are staying in a number of hotels across kuala lumpur and in beijing but here we watched a small group of relatives gather in the area behind me to listen to the prime minister's statement. they sat quietly, the father of a 29 year old who was on board

flight 370, stony faced, really, just still as the prime minister made his announcement. next to him his wife, his son's mother-in-law just gently stroked his arm. she was in tears. then at the end of the prime minister's statement, this father couldn't actually speak english, so one of his relatives leaned in and just told him what the prime minister had had to say and he just walked away to try and take it in. disbelief here, and given the distrust of the malaysian government amongst many, many more questions that they will want to ask before they are happy to just accept what's been announced here. alex? >> thank you, keir. joining me now retired nbc news correspondent and aviation specialist bob hager. on the phone from bangkok thailand is patrick nguyen. bob, let me start with you. this back and forth between the relatives and the malaysian government. have you ever seen anything like

this in your years as an aviation specialist? >> it hasn't been tidy. there were difficult times with u.s. investigators and u.s. families. up until there was a crash in pittsburgh -- i think it was about 20 years ago -- and the families were very displeased and the mts be chairman at that point, jim hall, just stepped in and said okay, from now on, we the ntsb are going to take charge of informing the relatives. until then, the u.s. government had said "we'll let the airlines do it." since then, the ntsb has been very careful with relatives knowing how emotional it is. they always brief them and they used to keep us, reporters, standing around waiting for our briefing until they had finished doing the briefing with the relatives. >> given that, were you surprised that there was even a text message sent at one point? regardless of whether there had been some kind of other form of communication saying basically to relatives "we presume that your loved ones are dead"? i mean, how unusual is that in terms of -- >> yeah, that's kind of rough

and it wouldn't happen that way in this country. but i don't know the circumstances of that. and then they did put out that statement later saying they really had had a representative there or phone call at least or something like that. so i don't know enough about it to really knock them over it. >> let me ask you, bob. in terms of the actual investigation here, we have -- there is more debris that has been seen. it seems like there is at least a sort of more concentrated area if not in any way a pinpoint. how optimistic are you this debris can be found before the black box signal stops. >> it's important to know that today's information about the satellite, that business, simply said, yeah, it was on the southern track of the indian ocean. that doesn't tell you any more. that satellite information has nothing about where -- exactly where it is in the indian ocean. so you're falling back on the area where they've been searching. seems to me like they're getting enough reports of seeing things without being able to confirm

yet that they're airplane parts that they probably are in the right area. then it's a big process from there to find out -- i mean, this is where the light parts would have floated. you've got to go back and trace back where you think the plane actually went in the water which could be hundreds of miles away there. and then try to locate the boxes. and far -- you know, they're towing over -- they're sending over there these listening devices now. when they can zero in, they'll have boats trawl around there and trail the listening device out from behind underwater to see if they can get the pinger. >> and that's a slow process. >> yeah, this is all -- boy, to try to figure out where the main part of the wreckage is, that's the big puzzle. and that's weeks after they find -- i'm betting -- after they find this ping. >> patrick, you are in the region and so much of this story seems to be the narrative of regional disputes and sort of territorial concerns. the chinese government is now demanding any new satellite

information from the malaysian government. the suggestion, of course, this morning was that the malaysian government had some sort of new information that allowed them to isolate a southern route versus a northern route. how much of that is really just a tit for tat between the chinese and malaysian government after the chinese several weeks ago released satellite images, much to the anger and the frustration of the malaysian government? >> well, we have to remember that malaysia and china have had a beef relationship? recent years. but in mh-370 situation will worsen it. when you're talking about regional dispute, you're really talking about chinese anger pouring towards the malaysian government and the airline. accusations of secrecy, accusations of flip-flopping on information. one day the plane is suspected to be over here, the next day it's over here. so the chinese have been quite unbridled in their anger in a way that is actually surprising

me. usually with its regional partner it is chinese are fairly diplomatic in their language. but we actually have state-owned media saying that -- you know, withholding information from the public can be dangerous, even lethal. these are very strong statements coming from the chinese. >> and, patrick, in the statement from the representative for the 154 chinese nationals who were on board this flight, the wording is incredibly strong. at one point they say "if our 154 family members lost their lives in malaysian air, the malaysian government and the malaysian military killed our relatives. they are the real murderers." tell us about -- the outpouring of dismay and anger directed to the malaysian government by the chinese public must be so pronoun pronounced that it i guess sort of led to this statement. but in your experience in the region, what is on the ground reality in beijing? >> well, we have to remember the

malaysian government -- if you had asked me before this crisis started "do you think malaysian government would handle a crisis of this magnitude well?" i would have said no. that's knock a knock against the malaysian people. it's an amazing country, better developed than most of the countries in this region. but the government is quasi-authoritarian. when the press -- the press receives information from the government like this. an official says something at a podium, it's not questioned all that much, it shows up in the paper the next day. dissent is not really tolerated. so the messages coming from the government have been contradictory and usually that wouldn't be challenged but now you have the entire world and you have all of these grieving families pouring their attention, turning their gaze like a bright light shining on the malaysian government and the response hasn't been pretty. they haven't really been able to handle in the a way that's not totally chaotic. >> but, do you get the sense that there was any new

information here when you're talking about satellite data that allowed them isolate the southern route or it was just a matter of time? none of the other governments are reporting any sort of radar information or any detection that would have shown flight 370 flying over their skies. >> we can take them at their word, and i would. it's a mathematical calculation and they said in the statement, mysteriously, that it's a calculation that's never been used before. it was done by the british air accident investigation company and the -- not company but government agency and the satellite company. but it's just a calculation. now, they're not working with any new raw information at all. >> patrick, one more question to you. several days ago -- probably ten days ago now -- the thai government only released its data showing that malaysia airlines 370 had, in fact, turned around and they were asked why they held on to this information for so long and the thai government had a fairly glib response which was "we were never asked for this information."

is there -- you were in bangkok. is there a sense outside of china, inn southeast asia, that the malaysian government has handled this badly and for those count these perhaps have a smaller stake in the result of all this? which is to say not as many nationals on board the flight. is there a sense of frustration? >> the other regional governments, they might be looking at malaysia and thinking that they're handling it poorly. i'm not sure that too many other governments in the region would handle it well. we would be having very similar conversations if this had happened with the vietnamese airline, with a thai airline. the governments are not entirely transparent. and i was not at all surprised that it took the thai military ten days to respond. these militaries are secretive. thailand and splalz a decent working relationship, actually, but militaries in general are secretive. they don't like talking about what they can and can't see on their military radar and giving away information that could make their national security appear

more vulnerable. and it probably just took them ten days to figure out what they actually saw, to bring in an exfoert figure it out. these air defenses are not incredibly sophisticated. so that was not a sleight to malaysia, that was just reflection that, look, in the region these other countries, if it had happened there they would haven't responded all that well to this crisis either. >> fascinating history and governments is definitely a context to consider. bob hager and patrick nguyen, thank you both for your time. coming up, a glimpse of tomorrow today? hillary clinton and jeb bush share a stage. details ahead. plus a new report says governor chris christie could be cleared in the scandal. cleared by attorneys with ties to chris christie. (dad) well, we've been thinking about it and we're just not sure.

(agent) i understand. (dad) we've never sold a house before. (agent) i'll walk you guys through every step. (dad) so if we sell, do you think we can swing it? (agent) i have the numbers right here and based on the comps that i've found, the timing is perfect. ...there's a lot of buyers for a house like yours. (dad) that's good to know. (mom) i'm so excited. bob will retire when he's 153,

which would be fine if bob were a vampire. but he's not. ♪ he's an architect with two kids and a mortgage. luckily, he found someone who gave him a fresh perspective on his portfolio. and with some planning and effort, hopefully bob can retire at a more appropriate age. it's not rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade.

just moments ago, president obama wrapped up a key meeting with european allies and the white house announced that the g-8 may go on without russia. we will get the latest details from nbc's chuck todd. the new reap's julia raffi and the president of the council on foreign relations richard haas. that's just ahead. . . before larry instantly transferred money from his bank of america savings account to his merrill edge retirement account. before he opened his first hot chocolate stand calling winter an "underserved season". and before he quit his friend's leaf-raking business for "not offering a 401k." larry knew the importance of preparing for retirement. that's why when the time came

he counted on merrill edge to streamline his investing and help him plan for the road ahead. that's the power of streamlined connections. that's merrill edge and bank of america.

[ mala body at rest tends to stay at rest... while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis, staying active can be difficult. prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain so your body can stay in motion. because just one 200mg celebrex a day can provide 24 hour relief for many with arthritis pain and inflammation. plus, in clinical studies, celebrex is proven to improve daily physical function so moving is easier. celebrex can be taken with or without food. and it's not a narcotic. you and your doctor should balance the benefits with the risks. all prescription nsaids, like celebrex, ibuprofen, naproxen and meloxicam have the same cardiovascular warning. they all may increase the chance of heart attack or stroke, which can lead to death. this chance increases if you have heart disease

or risk factors such as high blood pressure or when nsaids are taken for long periods. nsaids, like celebrex, increase the chance of serious skin or allergic reactions, or stomach and intestine problems, such as bleeding and ulcers, which can occur without warning and may cause death. patients also taking aspirin and the elderly are at increased risk for stomach bleeding and ulcers. don't take celebrex if you have bleeding in the stomach or intestine, or had an asthma attack, hives, other allergies to aspirin, nsaids or sulfonamides. get help right away if you have swelling of the face or throat, or trouble breathing. tell your doctor your medical history. and find an arthritis treatment for you. visit celebrex.com and ask your doctor about celebrex. for a body in motion. chris christie is in the clear according to chris christie's lawyers. the "new york times" reports today that an inquiry into bridgegate has found governor christie was not involved in the closure of access lanes to the

george washington bridge last september. of course, that inquiry was conducted by -- lawyers commissioned by governor christie from an elite firm the times report has close dies to the christie administration. nevertheless, the lawyer running the review, randy mastro, tells the times it is "comprehensive and exhaustive." that, of course, depends on who you ask or don't ask as the case may be. the team's review of a mountain of e-mails and text messages included interviews with more than 70 people related to the bridgegate investigation, including the governor himself. but notably it did not include bridget kelly of "time for some traffic problems in fort lee" fame, nor did it include bill steppian, christie's former campaign manager who was looped in on the lane closures as they happened. nor did it include david wildstein, christie's former point man at the port authority and the guy who oversaw those lane closures. none of them cooperated with the governor's comprehensive and exhaustive review. the million-dollar review paid

for by new jersey taxpayers will be presented to governor christie who has said he will make it public with no alterations. but no matter its conclusions, some people are already treating the report with skepticism. democratic state senator loretta wineberg, a leader of the new jersey supercommittee investigation, described christie's internal review as "too little, too late." the state probe and the one led by the u.s. attorney's office in new jersey are ongoing. joining me now nbc news national investigate/ive correspondent michael isikoff. michael, comprehensive and exhaustive, except they didn't talk to three of the key people. what is the likelihood that this proves useful to either party in the long run, this report? >> well, excellent question, alex. just a couple hours ago i did get an e-mail from christie's office touting this "new york times" story about this upcoming report saying it will give a full airing of what happened and

given the limitations that this team had, that is they couldn't talk to the key players, kelly, steppian and wildstein, it's kind of hard to see how this can be a full airing because, you know, what prompted bridget kelly to write that e-mail? what is the evidence that david wildstein is talking about? we won't know until we hear from them. they're not talking. so, look, that is not to say there won't be some interesting information in that they've gotten -- the outside lawyers from the law firm headed by randy mastro former deputy mayor of new york, tough, hard-nosed former federal prosecutor has had access to all the governors', mals. all everybody in his office's e-mails. their personal blackberries, their personal iphones. so one would expect that there's going to be a lot of new info for us to chew over in this

report. but it's hard to see how it's going to be anything close to the final word. >> mike, one more question for you which is while there may be stuff for everyone to chew on and while this may be comprehensive in some form or fashion, it would also seem like a convenient way to get taxpayers to pick up the bill and at the same time figure out who knows what and where they are in that knowledge if you're team christie? does it not? >> sure, and i think you're going to see a lot of questions about the taxpayer money that paid for this report and how independent it really was. and also remember there's another dynamic that's worth considering when this comes out which is how tough are they going to be on blaming all this on the aides who got fired? because, remember, they still have their stories to tell, they are presumably at some point going to talk to the grand jury or the u.s. attorney's office, certainly if they can get

immunity. and do they really want -- does -- do christie's lawyers and team really want to alienate those people further? >> any further being the operating part of that sentence because they have most certainly been alienated. michael isikoff, thank you as always. >> sure enough. after the break, two big names, one big roof. hillary clinton and jeb bush head a meeting of political minds and dynasties and possibly 2016 opponents. that's all next. [ bubbles ] [ giggling ] again! again! [ giggles ] again! [ mom ] when we're having this much fun, why quit? and new bounty has no quit in it either. it's 2x more absorbent than the leading ordinary brand, and then stays strong, so you can use less. watch how one sheet of new bounty keeps working, while their two sheets just quit.

[ bubbles, baby giggling ] again! [ mom ] why use more, when you can use less. new bounty. the no-quit picker-upper.

♪ ♪ [ female announcer ] with five perfectly sweetened whole grains... you can't help but see the good. hillary clinton and jeb bush shared a podium in irving, texas, today. but this was no early presidential faceoff. no, the former florida governor invited hillary clinton to speak at the event, a conference he co-hosted on higher education. neither of the two made any

comments about their 2016 ambitions, but the former secretary of state opened her remarks by praising jeb bush. >> i also want to thank former governor jeb bush, someone else who really focused on education during his time as governor in florida. and who has continued that work with passion and dedication in the years since. >> while they didn't appear on stage together, the two reportedly chatted off stage. this was the third time in the past year that they have attended the same event and this is not the last time we will scrutinize their every movement in great detail ahead of 2016. coming up, is the g-8 on the verge of becoming the g-7? the latest details, plus analysis from council on foreign relations president richard haass, that is next. predicting the future is a pretty difficult thing to do. but, manufacturing in the united states means advanced technology.

we learned that technology allows us to be craft oriented. no one's losing their job. there's no beer robot that has suddenly chased them out. the technology is actually creating new jobs. siemens designed and built the right tools and resources to get the job done. you want a loan to build you can't do that.ica? nobody builds factories in the us anymore... you can't do that. using american raw materials makes no sense... you can't do that. you want to hire workers here in the states? they're too expensive, you can't do that. fortunately we didn't listen to the experts. at weathertech we built american factories,

we use american raw materials and we hire american workers. weathertech.com, proudly made in america. quality like this...you can't do that.

they know a perfect match. from shoes to friends to romance. and now to razors. venus has the perfect match for you and your skin. be it venus embrace sensitive for less irritation even on sensitive skin. venus snap for instant smoothness on the go. or venus and olay -- reducing dryness and no need for shave cream. because one thing we all know; beautiful, smooth skin is the perfect match for everything. venus. find your perfect match. ♪ i have a cold with this annoying runny nose. [ sniffles ] i better take something. [ male announcer ] dayquil cold and flu doesn't treat all that. it doesn't? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus fights your worst cold symptoms plus has a fast-acting antihistamine. oh, what a relief it is!

on day one of his four-day trip to europe, president obama today made isolating russia his top priority. at an emergency meeting between members of the g-7 in the hague, leaders announced that rather than suspend russia from the g-8, they would suspend their own participation in the g-8, meeting as a group of 7 until russia changes its course. senior white house officials tell nbc news this decision is indeed "a suspension." g-7 leaders also agreed to hold their june summit in brussels rather than in sochi. according to the "new york times," russia's foreign minister sergei lavrov shrugged off reports that russia may be excluded from the g-8. "so be it," he told reporters. meanwhile, in ukraine, the kremlin has been strengthening its grip on crimea. today russian troops stormed and seized another naval base in crimea, making the third such attack in 48 hours. according to ukraine's defense ministry, the russian forces fired automatic weapons and

bound the hands of dozens of marines. ukrainian troops also began evacuating the region after ukraine's interim president, oleksandr turchynov, told the defense ministry to withdraw personnel in crimea. the fear shared by both ukrainians and the international community is that russian aggression will not end in crimea. an estimated 20,000 russian troops are still stationed along ukraine's eastern border. joining me now is the senior editor at the new republic, julia ioffe, and chuck todd who is traveling with the president. chuck, let's get first to this breaking news. is it a suspension? is it not a suspension? is this because there was not enough international support to formally suspend russia so they are effectively excludeing the count friday the g-8 meetings? >> well, let's remember what the g-7 and the g-8 is. it's basically a collective of at the time the seven largest world economies, the western

economies at the time, adding russia was a gesture of bringing russia from the east to the west but it was always a collection of the western economies. one thing lavrov is right about, there are no official membership cards, there is no idea of how you get in and how you get kicked out and things like that. but the seven nations together, the g-7, made a collective decision in 1998 to invite russia to become a member and become the g-8 and the seven nations today made the decision to suspend the g-8 and as far as the senior administration officials are saying, they're suspended russia and essentially reform as the old g-7. those originals, those western european powers plus the united states, canada, and japan. and what they -- you know, this is about political isolation that's been one of the punishments that president obama has said that he hopes to level against putin for these -- for his actions in crimea. the second part that's in this declaration that shouldn't be ignored is that the united

states did get agreement from all the g-7 nations that further -- what they're calling a s.e.c. to recall sanction, sanctions against russia, various parts of russia's economy beyond individuals that are targeted now, that if russia escalates things further in southern ukraine and eastern ukraine then the g-7 countries with -- which means -- in this case germany agreeing to do this means the rest of the european union would go along, then you would see sanctions against three key sectors of the russian economy -- their arms industry, their energy sector and their financial sector. and that could have a real impact not -- on the russian economy in a way they haven't experienced yet. but it is a guillotine sitting above russia's head right now trying to prevent russia from escalating further. now left ambiguous in this declaration by the g-7 is what is the status quo? >> right. >> the white house admitted, no new sanctions are coming.

if putin is satisfied with gobbling up crimea and doesn't go further. >> julia, let me ask you, sergei lavrov said "so be it" when the suspension was suggested. how meaningful do you think this is for the russians, the seclusion -- exclusion, whatever they want to call it. >> it deepens russia's isolation and pushes them off the world stage where they've been most of putin's tenure as president have been trying to reestablish themselves as a major player. the problem is, this is kind of an overdue move because russia for a long time now has been on one hand part of these western organizations, has said that it's port of europe, that it's effectively a western nation but has not been playing by the rules and then whenever it doesn't play by the rules it says, well, we're exceptional, we're unique and the rules don't apply to us. this is kind of the facts or, you know, the rules catching up with the facts on 2 ground. the problem is that right now

this plays into the domestic narrative in russia that it's the west ganging up on russia while russia is just trying to protect its own, trying to protect itself from the west and its nefarious corrupt values and this is happening as a clique, becoming ascendant inside russia, in the media and in the kremlin, rallying around this kind of -- rallying around the idea of ice lating russia from the west. >> chuck, what about the political calculus on the part of the president here? he seems to be leading the charge here, the fact that he has gotten the rest of the g-7 to agree to this given their economic involvement with the russians. i mean, just in terms of energy imports, you know, the -- germany and its economy is very reliant on russia. how much of a win is this for him? and he has come under a lot of scrutiny and criticism for his foreign policy thus far. how much does this change things

measurably? >> it's been interesting on the criticism. if you look at it very carefully, the criticism has been more style over substance. the president, for instance, today, it wasn't the president himself that announced russia's been suspended from the g-7. they had a senior administration official brief us off camera. so i think there's been some criticism from some parts of congress that the president hasn't had enough bravado. because that -- because when you look at the policy and you've seen plenty of former key republican national security officials not criticize the policy decisions that the president is pursuing and making. these can only be as effective as the europeans will allow them to be. i mean, that's been the real challenge here. and you ask is this a win? well, on one hand, you know, there is no punishment right now for russia. there's some prestige and political isolation but there is no further punishment coming against russia if they do nothing more. if they keep crimea -- so do you describe that as a "win" for the

international community or a "loss"? you could also look at it and say well, it's a little bit of a loss to the international community because they don't seem to have a way of getting russia to back out of crimea. >> and, julia, to that point, does this further embolden russia? we made note there are 20,000 russian troops in eastern ukraine. where does putin go from here? does he effectively go further into the country to show -- in a slow of strength? how would you analyze his psychology at this moment? >> i think he's biding his time, keeping his options open. where i think -- i kind of differ with chuck is that i think the sanctions that have been introduced do cause quite a bit of pain for russia economically. there's already -- banks are already have had their visa and mastercard -- built to work with visa and mastercard suspended. the russian particle system currently considering banning the use of visa and mastercard all together which would really hit the russian economy hard,

especially consumer sector. so this is -- i wouldn't underestimate the amount of pain that has been inflicted with this first round of sanctions. as for what happens next, i don't know. the troops -- ukrainian troops are pulling out but also power has been cut to crimea. so russia has to do something to restore that. >> julia ioffe and chuck todd, thank you both for your time. i want to bring in the president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass. do you think this movement will be effective? >> the first question not at all. it had been telegraphed now for some time. we knew one way or another this meeting wouldn't go ahead as planned. do i think it will have much impact? absolutely not. as julia ioffe said, in some ways it plays into mr. putin's narrative that the world has not treated russia with the respect it deserved. and this will just reinforce that message. >> we know that president obama met one on one with chinese

president xi jinping earlier today. what role do you think the chinese are playing in all of this? they often act in concert with russia on matters of great international import. how do you think they may be reacting to this or what can we expect from the chinese? >> it's not issue number one from the chinese. i thought their abstention in the united nations security council was a welcome move. but this is second place if that compared to what's going on in asia between themselves and japan, between themselves and the countries of southeast asia. so the united states if it wants to send a message to china, it's not what we do vis-a-vis crimea or ukraine, it's whether we actually increase our air and naval presence in the pacific ocean. it's whether diplomatically we start spending a lot more time trying to dampen down japanese/chinese tensions and so forth. that's the message the chinese will get. >> let me follow up on that, though. because if we are talking about being able to operate with impunity, does this not further'm bolden the chinese who

have had -- as you outlined -- a lot of territorial disputes in the south china sea. can they not say when it comes down to brass tacks no one will do that much to stop us from taking what we want? >> i wouldn't say that necessarily. the united states does not have the a treaty relationship with ukraine. china sees the united states militarily increasing some of its support for its nato allies. the united states has a treaty relationship, say, with japan. the chinese understand the differences. >> richard, in terms of what happens next in ukraine, john kerry met with sergei lavrov for an hour today in the hague. what are the odds at this point that there is some kind of diplomatic resolution on crimea? >> i think there's almost no chance there's a diplomatic resolution on crimea. to me the real question is whether where we go from here. you mentioned the 20,000 russian troops parked on the border. i think probably more only in the short run than those troops moving into ukraine is the question of instability in ukraine. and if i were the united states,

i would be spending at least as much time shoring up the stability of ukraine politically and economically. we don't want to give mr. putin or anyone else opportunities for destabilizing ukraine without using military troops. >> it is a story chose chapters are not yet finished. richard haass from the council on foreign relations, thanks for your time. coming up, the affordable care act reaches one major milestone as it heads for another. ezra klein joins me to look at obamacare on its fourth birthday and we will preview the big march deadline just ahead. . time to take care of business with century link's global broadband network and cloud infrastructure. we constantly evolve to meet your needs every day of the week.

bob will retire when he's 153, which would be fine if bob were a vampire. but he's not. ♪ he's an architect with two kids and a mortgage. luckily, he found someone who gave him a fresh perspective on his portfolio. and with some planning and effort, hopefully bob can retire at a more appropriate age. it's not rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade. happy birthday affordable care act. as the law of the land turns four, is it ready to grow out of

its awkward phase? ezra klein joins me, that's next. but first, hampton peer son has the cnbc market wrap. >> a down day on wall street, the dow losing 26 points, the s&p shedding 9 and the nasdaq sinking 50 points. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. ok, here's the way the system works. let's say you pay your guy around 2 percent to manage your money. that's not much, you think except it's 2 percent every year. does that make a difference? search "cost of financial advisors" ouch! over time it really adds up. then go to e*trade and find out how much our advice costs. spoiler alert. it's low. really? yes, really. e*trade offers investment advice and guidance from dedicated professional financial consultants. it's guidance on your terms not ours that's how our system works. e*trade. less for us, more for you. the was a truly amazing day. without angie's list,

i don't know if we could have found all the services we needed for our riley. for over 18 years we've helped people take care of the things that matter most. join today at angieslist.com

are you still sleeping? just wanted to check and make sure that we were on schedule.

the first technology of its kind... mom and dad, i have great news. is now providing answers families need. siemens. answers. happy birthday affordable care act. yesterday marked the fourth anniversary of the president signing the aca into law, bringing an end to a centu century-long battle to pass a national health care plan. democrats and supporters of americans having access to health care are hoping that the fifth year will be less eventful than the last four. so far, things are looking up. last monday, enrollment in the

aca's health exchanges hit five million. that means this month it took 17 days for 800,000 people to sign up for health insurance. for perspective, in february, 700,000 people had signed up 25 days into the month. a lot of people in february, a lot more people in march. so the takeaway here is that people actually want health care, right? right. unless you share karl rove's brain. >> as of last week, five million people had picked a plan, their goal was to have seven million people by the end of the month. earlier they'd said eight million people by the end of the month. >> memo to karl rove and his white board -- the latest estimate from the congressional budget office is that six million people will officially enroll in health care by the end of the month. and not coincidentally, that's the target number the white house is hoping to meet. joining me now is editor-in-chief of vox.com ezra klein. ezra, i'm sad i can't call it project x anymore but

congratulations on the new endeavor. >> thank you. so last time we talked you had, dare i call it, a rosy outlook about the aca and the march 31 deadline. given what we know now which is not a complete picture but a partial picture and a couple weeks ago it was revealed 27% of the enrollment in january and february were enrolling young people -- young people enrolling, are you optimistic today about where the aca will be at the end of this month? >> i think it depends on what you're actually looking for it to do. will it hit six million? it's reasonably likely. i don't think it's sure. it's worth saying what the seven to six million thing is and whether or not it matters. seven million was what the congressional budget office estimated a bit over year a ago. but then the obamacare two months where nobody could buy anything on the web site -- >> the glitches. >> so they had to bring down that estimate to six million. it looks like it will probably hit that. what matters for where premiums are is how many people are healthy and sick. we talk about young and old but

it's healthy and sick that matter for premiums. it's hard to say where we are in that right now because we've not seen how much health care the people in obamacare need to use but it looks like things are proceeding at a reasonable pace at the moment. we're going to see a big enrollment surge at the end of the month when people get scared about hitting the individual mandate in april so that should vault it not just over six million but bring in more young people because young people tend to wait until the end and we expect young people to be healthier. it's worth saying there's all this political pressure to say well, will it be successful? not successful? this is really a three-year project to see where obamacare will end up. it's not getting changed until president obama is out of office so you have until january, 2017 and there are a lot of functions in the bill, in the law to make sure it's able to hit a good young and healthy versus sick and older population. over the first couple years. so i don't get too sort of intent on judging it by the end of the month. but i think it's where we thought it would be by the end of march. >> what about -- there's been a

lot of talk about the federal exchanges and glitches but there's also the story of state exchanges and places like kentucky where the state exchange worked but other places in the country -- blue state, massachusetts, rhode island -- well, rhode island has a good story, massachusetts doesn't. massachusetts has 93.5% below the rate of enrollment it was projected to be at in september. given that, pro-publica analyzes that one of the reasons these state exchanges have not gotten fixed is because state officials basically said, hey, we know this thing isn't going to work but it's the guys that built it that should shoulder the blame, people like cgi, which also built the federal exchange and they basically have had a hands-off attitude here. what is the likelihood of that these state exchanges get fixed in the course of the next several months? >> over time they will. probably not necessarily several months but over time they'll figure this out. you know, you see something here where you have some states doing a great job like california

being another example, and kentucky. then you have some states that were worse than the federal exchanges entirely like oregon and maybe massachusetts, though i don't know their story quite as well. and so you've seen the federal exchanges which are 30 something states go from being essentially unworkable at the beginning in october to being reasonably high functioning now and they've all moved that way all at once. meanwhile, states have a lot more variation. so you have some places where it's going great, some places where it's not going great at all. if obamacare is fine and clearly here to stay all these states will get their act together because they need to. massachusetts is an interesting case because they've already done reforms along these lines before so they actually have a fair amount of institutional capacity to make this kind of thing work. it's been a surprise things haven't gone better there but ultimately they'll figure that out. >> ezra, if we're looking at this in the long view, what is the likelihood the republicans ever actually bring up their alternative to obamacare? we know there's a memo that's been circulating on the hill "the gop plan for freedom,

flexibility and peace of mind." >> what, a memo's not good enough for you? >> exactly. politico reports that -- as is probably not surprising, the republicans are in no rush to actually talk about their specifics in terms of an alternative because there's no way the party could agree on it. and also the policy thinking just isn't there. i mean, you would be giving up some so many of the provisions that the public actually likes. >> well, as soon as you put forward a real bill people see the tradeoffs you made and you get in trouble and republicans don't want to get in trouble. the other big problem for them that is underplayed is they used to have a bill, it was called the patient's choice act, it had paul ryan and tom coburn and a bunch of other top republicans on it. the problem for that bill, which came out i think 2008, potentially, is that it shared a lot with obamacare. it had exchanges. it had subsidies that worked in a very certain way. it had a bottom line of what the essential benefits had to be. so now that obamacare has that, it can't have those things in it so they need these new ideas but they don't have new ideas to replace the ones that obamacare took them from them and they had

to abandon. >> they don't have new ideas. that is my take away from this discussion. ezra klein, thank you as always for your time. >> thank you. >> that's all for now. i will see you back here tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. eastern. "the ed show" is up next. . good evening americans and welldom "the ed show" live from new york. let's get to work! >> after nearly 100 years of talk and frustration -- >> held no you can't! decades of trying. >> it's harming those people who need help most right now. >> we proved that this government, a government of the people and by the people, still works for the people. >> the bill has faced 50 votes in the republican-led congress to do away with it. >> i want to thank every member of congress who stood up tonight with courage and conviction to make health care reform a reality. >> let's repeal this failure before it literally kills.