part -- we just want him home. >> right now on quts andrea mitchell reports, landslide, 14 people and more than 170 people are reported missing as desperate search continues for any survivors from saturday's massive mud slide that swept two communities in washington state. >> one square mile of debris some 500 football field widths of destruction. it just goes on and on. >> we're moments away from hearing from officials with the latest on the recovery efforts as experts question if there could have been more warning. the company line, hobby lobby makes its case in front of the supreme court arguing that insurance policy should not have to cover certain types of birth control under obamacare. the court must decide can for profit companies assert religious freedom as people do.

frozen out, after suspending russia, it's the g-8 minus one, a new equation that comes with a warning to president putin. how's this for a summit side bar? who was not at the leader's lunch that sparked a uproar for the host conditiountry. >> the truth of the matter is that america has got a whole lot of challenges. russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength but out of weakness. and good day, i'm andrea mitchell in washington. the death toll has risen to 14.

that number could continue to rise as more than 170 people have been reported missing in washington state after saturday's deadly mud slide. search and recovery efforts continue today. it's the fourth day. for the latest from arlington, washington, i'm joined by jennifer bjorklund. >> reporter: national guard is flying in to help and they are welcoming neighbors and volunteers and people that have been frustrated the last few days to help go through the rubble but they had to make sure the ground was stable enough. it's not that stable as far as the muck goes because the mud that is seeped into the mud slide area is like a wet concrete and it's very difficult to navigate. they are welcoming volunteers to help come in and search for neighbors. some 200 people lived in that slide zone. and the list, the working list,

that soft number is still 176 people unaccounted for, andrea. >> jennifer, that press conference has started. let's cut right to the officials. >> formerly in our system and we're going to utilize those people, but right now we're really good shape for the number of people that we have here, both with the teams that i indicated and those people, we don't need any more people coming up here. the last thing we want to have happen is people showing up in cars and sneaking up on the pile and they are up there working independently on their own. this is a geological event that's occurred up there and i'm going to use the example that i gave yesterday. we had a situation where the water and the ground up there started to do some things that were changing and it concerned us. we had a period of time where we had to back out of there and get the experts in there to make sure that all of the responders out there on that pile could continue to be there safely.

and so if we have citizens that are going out there on their own not within our system, they may not get that message, they are not in our accountability system and information loop and don't have our communications equipment. so they are putting themselves in extreme danger. we do -- we need to control that. we don't want to see that happen. i'd like to turn this over to our dm director, mr. pennington. >> good morning, everyone. and thank you for being here. we appreciate all of the continued support. john pennington, director of snow homish county management -- >> jennifer, i know you're standing by. we'll continue to track this but right now the search for those who are missing is really a grim

search. we don't even know as you were pointing out how many people were actually there and whether there were double reporting on some of those missing. >> reporter: right, they wanted to emphasize they are sure there are probably dup cats on the list, they are issuing a fervent list, give the most detailed information about loved ones possibly in the mud slide zone who you haven't heard from since saturday so they can reassure themselves those are dup my cat missing persons reports. it's difficult work, almost as difficult as sorting through the rubble. they have to get all of the information together. and as you heard them talk about in that press briefing, they have people who want to sneak in and search through the pile. instead of holding them back, they are harnessing that enthusiasm and trying to get them trained and get them in groups so they can do it safely. andrea?

>> jennifer, thank you so much. thanks for being there for us today. now to that breaking news from the supreme court. a major case today. justices heard argument in a landmark challenge to obama care centering on whether a for profit company can opt out of no cost coverage on some forms of contraception for employees. nbc news justice correspondent pete williams is live outside the courtroom on a snowy day in washington. how was the issue framed and what can you infer, if anything, from the way the justices responded? >> reporter: i think this is going to be another case, andrea, where justice anthony kennedy may be the deciding vote. he seemed to come at this from two different directions. on the one hand he was concerned if the hobby lobby case, conesto conestoga, win, that they have a freedom of religious right not to abide by this part of obamacare, what about the women employees who the law guarantees

access to the con tra septembtrt seemed they were concerned maybe hobby lobby and conestoga shouldn't win outright. on the other hand, he said if you're right about this, that a for profit corporation cannot claim religious exemption from the law, in theory, congress could require a for profit company with deeply held religious views to pay for abortions. and the chief justice at that point, john roberts, says that's exactly what the companies think they are doing now because they make an equivalency between some storms of con tra septemberitra abortion. it didn't seem there were five votes on the court to go the whole distance and say all for profit corporations should have the same rights as a church to claim religious freedom and be exempt from some laws. it may be that the court will say if you're a closely held corporation like these are, family held hobby lobby, chain

of book stores, crist yab yan book stores and conestoga wood owned by mennonites in pennsylvania. maybe they could get an exemption but not general motors or exxon. >> could there be a compromise that involves making distinctions on the type of contraception or is that too much, too granular for the court to take up in a case like this? >> reporter: i think that would not be the way. they don't want to get in the position of saying, you're wrong about this, your religious views are wrong. what they could do is make the same kind of accommodation for this small category of for profit corporations as they make for non-profits that are church affiliated. in those cases, the church ai e aiated groups don't have to pay for the insurance. the insurance companies have to provide that coverage. that may be another possible accommodation. >> and pete, there were other

issues that came up before the court. was there anything else of major legal concern that came before the court today before this argument? >> reporter: the big question is the court has never said before this fundamental threshold question, whether a for profit corporation can claim religious beliefs. i don't know how the court will sort that out. another question is this balancing test, and then the final question which is -- does the government have a compelling need. that's the test of the legal test to force companies to provide this insurance given that there are so many exceptions to it, exceptions for churches and religious affiliated institutions and employers under 50 don't have to provide health care. some plans are grandfathered in. that's another question they are going to have to deal with. >> thank you so much. pete williams, as i say, a snowy day outside the supreme court. snowy day in march. and washington senator patty

murray now joins me. senator murr, i want to talk about the tragedy in washington state but first i know you've been very outspoken about this case. we're going to hear from the hobby lobby lawyers later in the show. tell me why you feel so strongly. you and other members of the senate, senate democratic caucus and women's caucus that this part of obamacare should be left intact for women who need it. >> well, the question to me is very compelling. should a private ceo, a corporation, or their shareholders' religious rights trump the right of employees? as someone who has been here when we passed the freedom of religious act, as well as the health care act and fought hard to make sure women have access to the right kinds of health care and it's their choice, not their employer's choice as sitting in that court today, it was stunning to me to recognize that nine people are going to make that decision and will

decide for a long time to come whether women have to question when they go to work every day what the share how olders of that company's religious views could be. >> the counter argument from these families is they have strongly held religious views and family owned company and say that some forms of contraception violate their personal beliefs. what do you say to those who argue that corporations have exerted opinions on the other side of issues on gay rights, on other very strongly held views? how do you counter act that? >> the question is slippery slope in two ways. if they have religious rights on contraception, could it go to immunizations and other coverage down the road? really opens up a wide, wide range of issues that share how olders could decide about what they provide. secondly the question, so do 51%

of the shareholders get to vote? the threshold is very interesting and it will be difficult for this court to make those determinations on this case. >> and getting to what's happening in your home state, i know you've been deeply involved while you had to do business in washington. the president said he called the governor. do we know more about how many people -- how many victims may be involved in this? there has been a concern about double reporting and misinformation to the authorities. >> you know, this is one of the most challenging disasters that i have ever seen. i was out there on sunday. it is a terrific expanse of area that's covered in 25, 30 feet of really horrible mud. it's covered a mile of roadway, it's hard to tell how many cars were on the road to begin with, how many people were at home on a saturday morning? whether people are reporting the same person that's missing, whether -- a lot of different

questions. i know the officials there are struggling very hard to get that information and to get it narrowed down, but the most important thing today is for those families who haven't heard from their loved one since saturday morning, who are just waiting to hear. i just -- my heart goes out to them. this is tragic for all of them. >> there was a report back in 1999 that people in the area were warned not to build on that hillside, that there could be a threat of a catastrophic mud slide. had there been warnings over the decades that that area was fragile? >> i don't know the answer to that question. i'm sure that many of those people who were driving on that highway or had homes in that area never heard those kinds of warnings. but it's hard to say whether other people did. and really the question today is how do we get in, find those families and find their loved ones and make this community -- let this community know we're there to support them in this

cleanup. it's going to take a long time to get the highway open again and long time to get that area feeling secure again. >> absolutely. and senator murray, special thanks to you. i know how complicated today is. you were in the chamber forethe court arguments and you've got this problem at home. >> a lot of emotions today, yeah. >> thank you very much. and coming up next, from the supreme court we will talk to the lawyer for hobby lobby, the original plaintiff in this case. but first dangerous weather conditions have halted today's search for debris for missing malaysia flight 370 in the southern indian ocean, a setback as angry families are demanding answers from malaysian officials for their conclusion that no one could have survived the disaster. in china, hundreds marched holding banners calling for the truth and accusing malaysian authorities of delays and deception. overnight malaysian airlines tried to explain its decision to alert some families of the

flight's fate by text message. bill neely has the latest on the suspended operation from perth australia. >> reporter: good afternoon, planes are grounded and the search is temporarily suspended and wherefore relatives, there is still no proof. the search has been suspended for 24 hours because of what australia's defense minister call s horrendous weather. we have gale force winds and waves up to 20 feet and very poor visibility making any searching by plane or by ship actually dangerous. [ male announcer ] this is kevin. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for him, he's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. i was okay, but after lunch my knee started to hurt again. and now i've got to take more pills. ♪ yup. another pill stop. can i get my aleve back yet?

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and president obama just

concluded the press conference about 15 minutes ago in the hague. he responded to critics like mitt romney who have said the president should have recognized that russia is the u.s.' number one foe. >> my response then continues to be what i believe today, which is russia's actions are a problem. they don't pose the number one national security threat to the united states. i continue to be much more concerned when it comes to our security with the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in manhattan. >> joining me now, nbc's white house correspondent and host of "the daily rundown" chuck todd and richard engel. welcome both. chuck, the president at the nuclear summit explaining how he evaluates the threat from russia. what about the support he got from the allies for the next set

of sanctions if putin were to go farther beyond crimea? >> reporter: well, and that's what the white house aides are trying to tout, he got everything he wanted for next steps. what's left ambiguous, he only got symbolic moves for the status quo right now from the european allies. you can just see both in answers from prime minister ruda and the president, there's clearly angst about how to escalate sanctions further against russia. they did get u.n. nimty that they would do tougher sanctions about specific industries in russia, if, and this is the if, if the russians destabilize eastern ukraine crossing the border with troops, et cetera. while the president refused to be in the kacamp that others ar acknowledging that crimea is

essentially gone, they didn't come to an agreement, how do you get putin to back out of crimea now? do you do any escalation in sanctions? he didn't get that and that goes to the challenge of the european economy being so intertwined with the russian economy. i think richard will speak better to this, if you want to needle or disvladimir putin, call russia a power, he so badly wants to see russia viewed as a super power. >> going to a childhood refrain of sticks and stones can break your bones but words will never hurt you, you can call it regional power but is the nato threat of taking action an empty threat should russia make the next move. there will be no warning. russia is masked on the other side of that border? >> reporter: it would not take

long for russia to take all of southern and eastern ukraine. they don't just have tanks and heavy weapons but they have planes and attack helicopters. there wouldn't be much warning. the border is not particularly well defended. it's also very flat. when you drive to the border it looks like tank terrain and the kind of place where battles in world war two took place because many battle in world war ii did take place here. there wouldn't be much warning. >> in fact, richard, you showed us in the last couple of days those in ukraine digging trenches. and it looked like another war, like world war 1 actually. >> reporter: it almost looked like an irrigation trench. that's how insufficient it was. we were also with the troops, ukrainian forces who were defending some border areas. and they were being resupplied by local volunteers, family

members, people who support the government in kiev were bringing water, toothpaste and razor blades and food, pickles to the soldiers because they don't have enough blankets even. i think that gives you the state of their readiness and preparedness to defend against a russian invasion should ever one come. russia doesn't necessarily have to cross that very insignificant trench to exert influence here in eastern ukraine. it has a lot of economic power. it has a lot of supporters and militias on the ground. over the last few days, those political parties here that are pro-moscow have started mobilizing and russia is also increased oil prices on the government in kiev. so there's a lot of levers that it can also use here to manipulate the situation without having to invade and trigger more punitive sanctions.

>> thanks so much to you, richard and to chuck. the nsa -- the trial balloon, if you will or leak to the new york times overnight, you made the point about a half hour ago to tamron, that was no accident, that the president wants to discuss reforming what has been very controversial, the surveillance in europe, while he's on european soil and floating this to congress and already a little pushback on the house republican side today. they do not want to let the fisa court have the say on individual requests to the telephone companies that begin to store the data. is this compromise going to move through congress? you've got so many competing proposals. >> reporter: i'm skeptical of that. but look, it goes -- the first point of why he wanted, i don't think it's an accident that this announcement was leaked and then the president being able to endorse it on european soil. politically while there's been a lot of domestic fascination with

snowden in this issue, it's been more of a political problem for the president in europe than it's been in the united states when you look at some of the polling and trust on this. as for congress, i'm very skeptical on this. the president was very clear, senior official made it very clear that by the way, he's still going to keep signing those orders every 90 days allowing the nsa to collect this bulk metadata, until congress passes a new rules on what the nsa can and can't do and how the phone company thing would work. i have to tell you, you and i both know, this is a bill there's going to be presidential candidate want to bes that will see an opportunity to grandstand. and you can see bills like this get grandstanded to stalemate. and that's why i think this is going to be a long and tough path for this nsa bill to get out of the house and senate any time soon. >> and the president can say so all of the privacy advocates,

ask congress, i've made my proposals. quickly, i want to ask something about blowing up in social media. in the netherlands, the host of the summit sent a request or order to the caterer at the official meal for the summit leaders that everyone dress and look alike and that they be in the same sex. so the bottom line was that women were excluded from the wait staff, at the modern day european summit -- >> reporter: i was going to say particularly very uneuropean. here's the explanation we got. we don't have an explanation for why the caterer picked an all male wait staff. the nuclear summit folks told the caterer they wanted uniformity and that meant they wanted the wait staff to be the same gender so the caterer took it upon themselves and picked all men, that they were the ones

serving. beyond that the caterer won't say why they picked men, all men rather than all women. when given that choice. but it was a request at the nuclear summit there be uniformity and that included the idea of having the wait staff be of one gender. >> it's really important to have uniformity of gender in the wait staff at a summit determining whether the worst weapons on the face of the earth blow up? chuck, this is just beyond crazy. >> reporter: especially when you have 53 leaders, multiple ethnicities and cultures and two different gender represented in that room. so it is sort of an odd decision when you think that 53 leaders around that table are pretty diverse group of people, the wait staff not so much. >> the picture tells it all. chuck todd, thank you very much. safe travels. onto the vatican and thanks to

richard engel in eastern ukraine. coming up next, the question of the day in front of the supreme court. do for profit companies have the same religious freedoms that people there. hobby lobby's lawyer joining me next. stay with us here on "andrea mitchell reports." i'm nathan and i quit smoking with chantix.

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get medical help right away if you have symptoms of a heart attack or stroke. use caution when driving or operating machinery. common side effects include nausea, trouble sleeping and unusual dreams. i had to quit smoking to keep up with this guy. [ male announcer ] ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. it was a wonderful day for women and i really believe this court understood that women have the right to make their own decisions about their health care and birth control and it's not their boss's decision. >> cecile richards of planned parenthood. focusing on some forms of contraceptions mandated trou the health care law. mark joins me now, serves as senior counsel, the beck ket fund represents hobby lobby. thank you for joining us. >> it's my pleasure.

>> what do you say to those like patty murray and cecile richards and many women and men who argue that this is a slippery slope. if you say that a small company or a company -- family run company like hobby lobby should have a waiver or be able to opt out than other corporations can as well take issue with one or another of the mandated forms of coverage under obama care. >> it's not a slippery slope and con enacted this law in 1993 with the support of ted kennedy and bill clinton and aclu because it's a law that strikes a reasonable balance between religious liberty and government interest. the problem for the government in this case is that the government can so easily achieve its interests in so many other ways. the government is exempted businesses covers tens of millions of people from the mandate but won't exempt the greens and hobby lobby because of relimgous beliefs. >> the companies exempted have been religious companies, not --

>> no, not at all. the government has exempted plans covering tens of millions of people under the president's promise, if you like your health plan you can keep it. the grandfathering provision. the government acknowledges this, under that provision, tens of millions of employees are in plans that don't have to comply with the con tra septemberive mandate at all. the problem for government today, they had to convince the supreme court they had a compelling interest in forcing hobby hobby. >> how do you decide what drugs are exempted? why should women face those kinds of decisions made by an employer rather than made by their doctor and by themselves? >> actually, no the employer is simply trying to get out of the decision. the employer says i want nothing to do with that decision, that's your private business. the government has many other ways to get these drugs to whomever it wants to get them too. it has accommodations for our non-profits and has exchanges. the government has health care exchanges open. if the government thinks

somebody needs insurance, they offer it on the exchanges and they can let them come on the exchanges if they want. this is a religious liberty fight that should never have to happen because the government has so many other ways to achieve its goals and doing that in so many other cases and refuses here because the folks started a family business. >> folks started a family business but what right do they have to interfere with medical decisions by women? they seem to be claiming that these contraceptive procedures, these contraceptive drugs are the equivalent of abortions, in some cases you could argue that these are medical procedures that women need to protect their health. this gets to the whole issue of women's health and why -- should they be discriminated against in ways that her medical beneficiaries are not. >> no one is discriminating against women, all they are saying, you're right, these are personal decisions and things that people can come to different judgments about. but the government is trying to say, they are going to force

people to be involved in it whether they want to or not. all the greens have said, they don't want to be involved in this. it is the government that has come in and said your boss has to be involved in your con tra septemberi tif decisions and th greens are saying, today the obama administration admitted in court, in open court, that their theory would also support an abortion mandate. their theory would support a law that would force doctors who make money, who are earn a profit, would be able to force them to provide abortions if they wanted to. it has no place in our long tradition of protecting conscience. >> do you think there could be a compromise inferring from what the justices were saying and questions justice kennedy was asking, could there be a compromise between a smaller family owned company such as hobby lobby and the massive and giant corporations like general

electric or general motd ors? >> sure, chief justice roberts made the case too. everybody who raised a claim about the mandate has been a small closely held family business because those are the people exercising religion when they run a company. ibm and exxon are never going to come to court and subject themselves to perjury and claim they operate balgsed on religion. if they do the judge will laugh them oit of court. there's no danger you'll have those claims. none of those claims have been made even though this standard has been around for 20 something years. the court could easily issue a ruling that is limited to the closely held types of businesses that do exercise religion. but the fact of the matter is many people do exercise religion when they go to work. there's something i think is deeply wrong but i'm doing it for the company, that's okay. that's not the way people approach their lives. >> thank you very much for joining us today. we'll see how the court rules. >> thank you. >> the latest developments in the search for flight 370 as

angry families protest outside the malaysian embassy in beijing. stay with us here. are you ready grandma? just a second, sweetie. [ female announcer ] we eased your back pain, you turned up the fun. tylenol® provides strong pain relief while being gentle on your stomach. but for everything we do, we know you do so much more. tylenol®.

more on flight 370. the families demanding proof of the satellite images claiming that the flight went down. tom costello joins me now in our washington bureau with the latest. they've suspended the search, tom. what next? >> well, first of all let's set the stage in beijing. this is beijing today where chinese families outraged at the fact they've already declared their loved ones dead, marched on a malaysian embassy and say

they have no confidence in what the malaysians have said, they don't believe necessarily there's any conclusive evidence to suggest that flight 370 is gone sean everybody on board is dead. they protested this action today. we also saw a lot of anger in malaysia as well. i wanted to talk briefly what the data shows and why they've been able to now they believe show us exactly the pinging that came from the satellites and why that suggests that this plane coming down out of malaysia heading towards now they believe the indian ocean and it was pinging in a faint last ping brought them down to the deep indian ocean. now let's segue if i could to this particular area. here's why i want to do this. because what they've done with immarsat's data, they said they believe based on the pings that the plane was headed this way -- headed this way. but at a certain point, they had to then try to put in a few

assumpti assumption, speed, the big variable. if the plane was traveling at 300 miles per hour, then they believe it would have ended up somewhere around there. obviously this is not to scale and not exact. if it was traveling at 250 miles per hour, then they believe that it probably would have ended up somewhere over here. the point is, they have gotten very precise data, they believe and a pretty good idea of where the plane ended up. but we're still talking about several hundred, maybe even up to 500 to 1,000 miles difference between where these two plots end in the indian ocean. so this is a huge challenge trying to find the wreckage in that body of water. fw this was intentional, if the pilot intentional flew this plane to the bottom of the earth and thought that nobody was paying attention to that faint satellite ping, he may not have even known about it, clearly it worked and now the challenge to find that wreckage in the middle of a horrendous storm in which they grounded the ships and

aircraft and headed into winter when the weather will get very bad. back thousand. >> tom, that graphically makes it so clear. three skydivers accused of parachuting off the world trade center last fall and now been arrested after the helmet cam footage was posted on youtube. a fourth man who stood watch also faces charges. this raises really serious questions about security at what should be the most secure building of the world. a teenage boy made his way to the spire earlier this month. ♪ ♪ [ female announcer ] with five perfectly sweetened whole grains... you can't help but see the good. their type 2 diabetes... ...with non-insulin victoza. for a while, i took a pill to lower my blood sugar, but it didn't get me to my goal. so i asked my doctor about victoza.

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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! president obama said a new proposal for the n sxt a to have the telephone company to store records instead of the government would help deal with privacy concerns over the program. >> overall i'm confident that it allows us to do what is necessary in order to deal with the dangers of a terrorist attack but does so in a way that

addresses the concerns that people had raised. i'm looking forward to working with congress to make sure that we go ahead and pass the enabling legislation quickly so that we can get on with the business of effective law enforcement. >> joining me now from our daily fix, susan page and chris cillizza. welcome both. chris, does this address the privacy concerns? and is it going to go anywhere in congress? because congress has a million proposals. >> i think the second question is probably the most important one, andrea, is this going to happen? president obama said they are going to take it out of the hands of the nsa and put it in the hands of the telephone companies, well, it has to be proved a proved by congress. it's a tricky path. there are certainly privacy advocates there, rand paul being the most prominent of them.

i don't know whether it garners a majority and whether there's a huge focus on this by congress. this is something that they feel compelled to act on, how hard does the president push? in a way it's like any other legislation, how hard does he push and does he need to twist arms and do the party leaders get behind it or not? he just announced it so i'm not sure we're entirely sure how the math plays out. >> this is something he did deliberately on european soil to try to aswaj the european concerns, some of the leaders that the nsa had been eavesdropping on. >> huge criticism from angela merkel and others about the nsa surveillance program but a lot of criticism here as well. jimmy carter on the interview you did with sunday talked about his concern about surveillance of his own communications on the nsa program. it seems to me the president's

proposals do address the privacy concerns but the fact he's left it up to congress means -- i would be surprised -- would not be surprised if we get to the end of president obama's term and the present rules are still in place. >> i wanted to bring up with you, susan and chris, the concerns of the caterer at the summit. if this sounds petty, it's pretty crazy, look at that picture. this is the caterer's statement about having only men in the wait staff. we weren't prohibited from using female service, however we were asked to ensure that the servers projected uniformity and were as incon speck uous as possible. we could have gone with an all-female team but the all male option had an additional practical advantage and referred to the fact there were stairs there and women apparently couldn't navigate the stairs and the serving staff is made up of both men and women, 400 people

working every day, half are women. it is decided all male serves without aprons would make it easier to navigate the stairs while catering. susan, i've managed stairs with or without an apron and if the men and women don't need aprons it seems to me everybody, dressed uniformly. i simply do not understand. >> really? uniformity? did they all have the same colored hair? we're in the 21st century, get with it. i cannot believe this is still the subject of discussion. and it -- serving leaders that included women leaders too in that group. >> susan took the words out of my mouth. as i read the piece earlier and as you were going over that quote, the only thing that occurred to me, we're in the 21st century, right? come on. i have heard bad justifications

for bad decisions but that certainly is right up at the top. >> i just wanted to say on the record i think angela merkel could even navigate the stairs, no matter what type of shoe or apron, i think they could manage those stairs. look at that image, it says it all. in any case they did agree on some steps on nuclear nonpro liv liver race. the fact they made the request allegedly of the catering company leaves me baffled. susan page, thank you so much. chris cillizza, thank you as well. see you in a minute. michelle obama raised some political issues today in china, touching delicately on religious freedom and civil rights in a speech to students. >> and today in america, people of every race and religion and

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thank you, that does it for a busy edition of "andrea mitchell reports." grandson of former president carter and the democratic candidate for governor and done graham and henderson joining us

to talk about public education and challenges in d.c. ronan farrow has a look at what's next. >> great show today. and also, thank you in advance because you're sticking around and we'll see you in just a few minutes for a surprising contribution to our call to action. i'm looking forward to it. >> looking forward to it. >> also today, it is a pivotal piece of news we are waiting from the supreme court, they are hearing arguments on a central question, can a for profit company claim the contraceptive mandate violates their religious freedom a lawyer who successfully argued against doma joins us. the search for victims in the washington state landslide, why warnings about this area were ignored and homes were allowed to be built on an unsafe hillside. we have that and a lot more up ahead. stay with us.

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welcome to "rf daily", ahead on today's show, the supreme court is hearing an important argument on a very controversial question, can corporations claim religious freedom? plus there were warnings before the washington landslide and we look at whether officials should have paid more attention. also, an unexpected and important conversation with my colleague andrea mitchell and she joins today's call to action. first a little thing we like to call our headlines. >> can a business claim it has freedom of religion? >> that is the question before the u.s. supreme court as it takes on a couple of cases challenges the country's health care law. >> vladimir putin has his grievances. >> the decision to kick russia out of the g-8. >> it's the end of the post cold war order. >> the massive mud slide