good afternoon everyone. i'm eamon mohyeldin in new york. president biden just wrapped up a speech in lake charles, louisiana, roughly 200 miles west of new orleans, in which he made another pitch for his nearly $2.5 trillion jobs and infrastructure plan. this is the first time that he sold the plan in a red state, and he was joined by the city's republican mayor who supports his effort in talking about what this plan means for the future of the country. >> this is all about making a choice, a choice between giving tax breaks to super wealthy and to corporations in investing in working families. we're going to build a country. in my view it's an easy choice. invest in workers wearing hard hats. >> the president's latest push

comes as new unemployment claims fell to pandemic era lows for the second week in a row. republicans on capitol hill are continuing to fight the president's spending plans and each other, deciding whether liz cheney remain in leadership while standing up to former president donald trump's daily false claims about the election. we'll have more on that in a moment. starting us off this hour, monica alba in new orleans, the next up on the president's louisiana trip, as i just mentioned. also with us ali vitaly live on capitol hill. monica, the president hoping for a bipartisan agreement on infrastructure. realistically how can the white house itten to negotiate with republicans when it seems republicans are opposed to almost everything he is doing. >> reporter: that's literally what nat minority leader mitch mcconnell stated. he said he's going to work essentially full time to try to

oppose whatever the administration is doing. that's not really congruent with some of the republican lawmakers said when it comes to infrastructure, one area where they are able through negotiations to hammer out an ability to agree that this is something that needs to get done, and you have the president down here in louisiana, making the critical pitch by literally putting on display crumbling roads and bridges and highways and water infrastructure, but at the same time you do have these words now that have been walked back slightly by senator mcconnell. i want to play exactly what he said and tell you how he's trying to clean that up now. take a listen. >> 100% of my focus is on standing up to this administration, what we have in the united states senate is totally from susan collins to ted cruz an opposition to what the new biden administration is trying to do to this country. >> he said that in our last administration, barack, he was going to stop everything, and i

was able to get a lot done with him. >> reporter: so the minority leader today saying instead he doesn't want to talk about the past. he only wants to focus on the future but of course that makes it a little bit more difficult, but that's why you had the president here with not just a democratic governor, but a republican mayor trying to make the case that outside of washington, d.c., there is bipartisan support, so that's one of the ways they're going to try to make this argument, eamon, but also why the president is talking about specifics, literal things that down here in louisiana you have people from both sides of the aisle calling for, for years, and that's repairing things like a water plant here that has been devastated and had a lot of issues and that's why he's giving out statistics like the more than $111 billion that goes toward repairing water and infrastructure but it's notable in ruby red louisiana, this is an example of a place the president didn't win but wants to speak to voters, supporters and americans directly on an issue that again, there is broad

support for in a bipartisan manner at least outside of capitol hill, eamon. >> ali, there is irony, hypocrisy as well that republicans unanimously oppose the covid relief bill but a number turn around and promote parts of the plan, including the restaurant revitalization fund, even though they didn't actually support it. what are republicans saying about why they are promoting the bill, even though they voted against it? >> reporter: this is the ultimate in political ironies and tight rope walking. no republicans voted to pass that sweeping covid relief bill several months ago, but that doesn't mean they're not taking it back to their districts and touting some of the things that are in it, specifically block grants through health care coming back to the states as well as the restaurant revitalization fund that you mentioned and president biden has been touting this week, as the fund itself is opening up for applicants and lawmakers are

encouraging constituents to apply. among those lawmakers, people like congressman anthony gonzalez in ohio who has a tough primary, challenged by among his challenges one trump endorsed republican, and then there's also congressman elise stefanik who urged constituents to apply fort fund. her spokeswoman says "she is using her platform to inform her constituents of federal funds and resources available to them." it goes on to say she did not claim to support the bill in the tweet and her constituents deserve to know about federal programs they can apply for regardless of how she votes. all of this speaks to the political potency of this bill. the white house has touted both on infrastructure and before that on this covid relief bill the bipartisan popularity not by washington standards in terms of who votes for it but in american standards in terms of who supports it out in the nation. that's the same thing they're doing on infrastructure but the reason it's so politically

potent on this bill that's already passed is americans have already experienced the benefits of some of the things in this bill, things like the $1,00 direct stimulus checks. republicans know how potent it was for democrats to get to campaign on that the promise in places like georgia led to success the democrats had. in the upcoming midterms, democrats are going to keep pushing that and say promises made, promises kept. republicans have to have a reason for why they opposed it or continue doing the dance about something they opposed but benefiting some constituents. >> thanks to the both of you for starting us off this hour. as republicans there fight president biden's spending plans they are fighting with each other over the direction of the party. elise stefanik is touting former president trump's backing in her bid to oust liz cheney as conference chair. in a "washington post" op-ed cheney declared this a moment, a turning point for the republican

party. stefanik described her conversation or conversion into a trump supporter in an interview with indicted and pardoned former white house aide steve bannon. watch this. >> i will never forget campaigning in 2016 despite the media's obsessive trump derangement syndrome. i really paid attention to the voters and the people in my district and it was really stunning to see the amount of trump signs popping up. i'm committed to being a voice, and being a clear, sending a clear message that we are one team, and that means working with the president, and working with all of our excellent republican members of congress. >> joining us to talk about this and more "axios" national political reporter onswann and jake, msnbc political contributor. great to have both of you with us. jake, the top two house republican leaders, kevin mccarthy and steve scalise are backing elise stefanik.

does she have enough support within the conference to win this and are there other lawmakers thinking about getting into the race even though they don't have the endorsement of former president trump? >> everything that i've seen and this is a difficult thing to judge, i've covered a dozen or more of these leadership elections over the years there's a live factor. people aren't honest about where they are, who they'll vote for. every piece of evidence i have, every piece of reporting i have tells me liz cheney will be ousted and elise stefanik will win. this is different than running for speaker. you only need half of the republican conference to win this slot. 106 if every republican is there needs 106 lawmakers need to vote to, 107 need to vote to oust cheney and separate vote put is he fannic in. stefanik is working hard on the phone, call lawmakers and appealed to president trump or president trump gave his

endorsement to her, so this is just in these races, eamon, usually the person first out of the gate kind of blitzes the conference and gets the votes and wins. that's what seems to be happening here. listen, last time this is the caveat that i have to deliver, last time we thought liz cheney was going to lose,en ousted in the vote a couple weeks ago after she vote for the president's impeachment. she won with kevin mccarthy's support with his vote and a rousing speech he gave behind closed doors to vote for cheney. a lot of republicans say cheney's allowed to be anti trump but we prefer for her not to talk about it every single second of every day. that's what republicans tell me and are telling jonathan and a lot of other reporters and members of congress. >> so jonathan, to that point why is the former president so heavily invested in this particular leadership race? what does it do to his cementing of the gop?

>> it's not sort of a matter of policy or anything. it's as simple as you might assume. she doesn't like donald trump and that is the single most important factor for donald trump. so it's really no more simple than that. it's no more complicated than that. the problem she has obviously you've got trump, mccarthy and also gym jordan, steve scalise, they're basically all united behind her and jake's exactly right. last time there was this lopsided vote in her favor and it was actually this very drawn out conference meeting where there were impassioned speeches given on both sides, based on the conversations i've had with sources in-house republican conference i expected this meeting next wednesday will be a quicker affair. the number of cheney defenders in the conference has diminished. there aren't that many people beyond adam kinsinger.

it's probably lopsided in the other direction and the expect is that the following tuesday will be at the meeting of the house conference to elect elise stefanik. >> jake, does that line up with the reporting you're getting as well on that vote and how it will play out? >> yes, listen, i agree with everything jonathan said. it's fluid when they put stefanik in. there could be momentum to put in wednesday and stefanik would frankly push for that, she has momentum and the longer it draws out the more time it would give somebody else to get in the race although that's unlikely and build a coalition. i have to imagine yes that wednesday cheney is ousted and some period after that, wednesday to tuesday sfe standic will get seated as conference chair, the number three spot in leadership and one more point, stefanik is passed up on races

before, been approached to run for leadership on multiple occasions and chosen not to. she kept open the idea of running for governor in new york and this time around chosen that's not the path for her. she didn't make calls last time when cheney was on the ropes. she's knee deep in it this time and pushing for this job. >> jonathan, trump hasn't said whether he'll run for president again but yesterday there was that decision by the oversight board in facebook, it upheld the suspension from facebook and instagram. did that decision help him one way or the other or move him closer to making a decision? >> it is two separate things. one is based on my reporting, based on the conversations of last probably four to five, six weeks with people we've been talking to the former president, spending time with him at mar-a-lago. my assessment is that people are underestimating the likelihood with which he runs again. the people who are talking to him think it's much more likely

than not that he does run again and this is not people who are necessarily trying to encourage him to run. they make an honest assessment based on what they're hearing from him, based on how much he's missing being in the fray. the separate part is his team, inner circle views facebook as the core tool for his re-election and no surprise it was a huge fund-raising machine for him in '16 and '20 and also the audience skews his voters there and energizes them, a way they ref up, basically mastered that platform. so they were hanging on this decision. they weren't projecting this publicly but watching this very closely. they submitted a detailed written argument, his lawyers did to the oversight board and this were cautiously optimistic he would be reinstated. yesterday was a blow to them because they see facebook crucial to his political comeback. >> let know ask you quickly

about rudy giuliani if i can, political reports that trump's former personal attorney giuliani is paring down his entourage as his son andrew calls on the trump campaign to pay his legal fees. any insight from trump world how this plays out? he was a loyal foot soldier to the former president. >> this doesn't end well, eamon. you have rudy giuliani's ent raj trying to pressure donald trump, they're saying republican committee but ultimately trump to pay his legal fees. one thing donald trump doesn't like doing is paying money for things. it's not going to end well and the other part of it, rudy giuliani is under investigation for alleged illegal foreign lobbying. so it's a tenuous connection between the republican national committee and whatever rudy giuliani has been doing that has gotten him on the wrong side so there's a number of reasons why i don't think this is going to end well. >> some pointed out loyalty is a

one-way street with the former president. thank you for joining us. up next a big decision from the white house with president biden supporting a waiver of patent protections for the covid vaccine, what this could mean for access to the vaccine worldwide. and the later in the hour, andrea mitchell's exclusive interview with anthony blinken, live from ukraine. you're watching msnbc. fidel. we look at what you've saved, what you'll need, and help you build a flexible plan for cash flow that lasts, even when you're not working, so you can go from saving... to living. ♪ let's go ♪ so you can go from saving... to living. (vo) these days, every business is a connected business.

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top military officials are giving a brief glimpse into what the nation's relationship with afghanistan will look like after the withdrawal of american troops in the first briefing since the biden administration announced the u.s. secretary is leaving afghanistan. chair mark milley said the u.s. would support the afghan people after troops leave.

>> we will continue to support them after we retrograde with funding, over the horizon logistics. we will remain partners with the afghan government, with the afghan military, and certainly we hope through our continued support the afghan security forces can be effective. >> general milley wouldn't give any time line on when the troops would withdraw but the objective to do it safely and deliberately. the pandemic, the facts you need to know. in the united states coronavirus cases are at their lowest level in seven months. the seven-day average of daily new cases now below 50,000. 33 states as well as d.c. and puerto rico are experiencing a decline in infections. today moderna announced its vaccine is 96% effective in teenagers ages 12 to 17 according to phase two trial results, comes at the fda is expected to authorize pfizer's vaccine for adolescents next

week. education secretary miguel cardona appeared on "morning joe" expect full-time in-person learning by fall. >> with regard to the september, yes, i expect all schools to be open full time in person for all students. we really need to make sure students have an opportunity to learn in the classroom, and quite frankly, i'd rather have it this spring. >> an effort to get more vaccines into countries hit hard by the coronavirus is getting some pushback from the pharmaceutical industry, the world trade organization looking into waving patent rights on covid-19 vaccines to improve global access. the biden administration announced that it is supporting such a proposal but biontech, which helped develop the pfizer vaccine, is not on board. >> to be clear, you think it's a bad idea? >> yes, yep. it will not increase the number of doses we will have available within the next 12 months.

it will probably more act towards increasing chaos in production. >> now it comes as india hit a record 3,980 deaths and about 412,000 new cases within the last 24 hours. joining us now, foreign correspondent matt bradley live in london. what long-term effects could this have on the pharmaceutical industry? what is their argument against waiving this patent? >> if you believe what the pharmaceutical industry is saying, they say the long-term effects is this kind of thing will set a dangerous precedent, say that if you create some great vaccine or some great medical innovation, you won't be able to profit from it. the pharmaceutical industry their point is it was that profit, that competition that allowed for amazing things to happen over the last year and even proponents of this waiver acknowledge that the pharmaceutical industry created some very effective vaccines,

remarkably quickly and really broke a lot of scientific barriers in the process and they did it very, very fast. now those who are against the pharmaceutical companies, in favor of this waiver, and again, this waiver essentially would say that any factory throughout the world would be able to access the recipe book, the ingredients and the way that this vaccine is made, they wouldn't necessarily get the ingredients, wouldn't necessarily get a lot of the technological expertise. that's what you heard from the head of biontech one of the co-founders. the fact of the matter, this will create chaos. it will allow for the recipe to given out to different countries and companies but won't help them ramp up production and actually fight this disease and instead it will hurt innovation but those who are in favor of the waiver, i spoke with one from oxfam, he and others are pushing for what they call a people's vaccine. here's what he had to say. >> right now, we're basically

fighting this war against covid one hand tied behind our back where you have access so life-saving technologies held by a small number of huge pharmaceutical companies. it's not private industry alone that produced the vaccines. billions of public funds went into the research and development. >> reporter: eamon, the best example if you want to see the long-term effects on the pharmaceutical industry is to look at hiv therapies, in the 1990s, it was a lot of complaints the therapies expensive, massive innovation, they weren't going to the developing world. there was a waiver on those inventions and then it ended up at the pharmaceutical industry is still thriving. eamon? >> matt bradley live in london. we want to switch gears for a quick moment breaking news out of arizona. tom election officials including the secretaryof state katie hobbs speaking about the 2020

election audit. let's take a listen. >> -- from any areas where ballots are handled, following a set of security measures allowing the media to observe and report on the audit as long as they don't take pictures in which markings can be seen on ballots and allowing observers designated by my office to observe and monitor the audits. while this settlement is a win for transparency and security significant concerns remain and we will continue to monitor developments. following the finalization of the settlement, i sent a letter to the senate's audit liaison former secretary of state ken bennett outlining concerns with both the documentation as provided by cyber to this point and concerns that our observers have after just a few days in the coliseum. i know they'll go into more detail about their concerns.

every day that this exercise continues, i grow more concerned about what is happening, and now it is entirely unclear what kind of time frame in which they are trying to complete this audit. they only have access to the facility through may 14th but mr. bennett has said they will take as long as they need. no one knows what that means or how that will impact the security of the equipment and ballots in their custody or the reliability of this audit. this morning, i, along with a bipartisan group of secretaries of state from across the country, met with the department of justice civil rights division and doj as many of you probably saw, sent a letter to senate president yesterday outlining the federal laws that are at risk of being violated by the actions of this so-called audit, and we appreciate and share the concerns raised by the doj, as well as the concerns of my colleagues, other secretaries of state who are starting to hear

calls for similar audits or reviews to be conducted in their states. this is a horrible precedent that is being set here, and instead of building faith in the election results, it is only furthering the distrust of elections officials and undermining the integrity of our election processes. we need our state leaders to focus getting our economy back on track and addressing the pandemic and not continuing to rehash the 2020 election. with that, i want to turn this over to the expert observers that our he was ahas deployed to monitor the events at the coliseum and i cannot thank them enough for their time and efforts on our behalf. eliz butt howard is an attorney with the brennan center for justice -- >> all right, so that was arizona democratic secretary of state katie hobbs speaking out about the concerns she and others have over the recount of the maricopa county 2020

presidential election results led by her republican predecessor, ken bennett. she mentioned this creates distrust of election officials and undermines the electoral process. among the people overseeing the so-called audit are officials like john brakey who outlined one of the audit's investigative goals. watch. >> there's accusations of 40,000 ballots were flown in. >> reporter: to arizona? >> to arizona and it was stuffed into the box, okay, and it came from the southeast part of the world, asia, okay, and what they're doing is to find out if there's bamboo in the paper. >> governor ron desantis of florida signed a new bill shown on fox news, which restricts access to drop boxes, makes it harder to vote by mail and strengthens voter i.d. laws. in texas, protesters are at the state capitol as lawmakers are

poised to pass bills that would limit early voting hours, increase criminal penalties for some voting irregularities. joining us is jane tim live in austin, texas. an official in the justice department sent a letter to the president of the arizona senate expressing concerns that the audit is potentially out of compliance with federal laws, something that we just heard katie hobbs reference there in her comments. could the doj potentially investigate the audit itself? >> reporter: they could and this letter absolutely suggests that some kind of federal action is at least being considered. federal law protects ballot materials, ballot machines, all the paperwork that goes along with running elections for a period of months after an election, and now senate republicans have turned over all that material to a private firm, sort of unprecedented audit, and there's significant concerns that that firm may not be

handling the ballots properly. journalists noticed early on they had blue pens around the ballots and pens can leak and get on ballots and change a vote or spoil a ballot in some way, and also using you talk about looking for bamboo in the paper as well as uv lights, they've been scanning them looking for some kind of water mark. the ballots do not have water marks, nothing for them to see with uv lights but uv light can damage a ballot. those are some of the concerns that the doj is suggesting that they have that violates federal law. we also know that federal law protects people from being intimidated for attempting to vote and this private firm charged with this audit has said they're going to door knock to try to verify voter registration and the voters still live there and these are things that the fed say we have some concerns and democrats have been trying to make a stink about this for a while but federal involvement, different laws and different authorities for sure. >> so jane, let me ask you what's happening behind you in texas. what can you tell us about the

bills working their way through the texas legislature and describe for us how they fit into a larger pattern of what we're seeing play out across this country that critics are saying are restricting voting rights. >> reporter: texas like the rest of the country has seen just an avalanche of restrictive voting legislation. the bill on the calendar today adds criminal penalties to the election process everything from how an election official talks to a voter about mail ballots, and it also empowers partisan poll watchers. donald trump made a big stink in the last election about his poll watchers and his army of poll watchers he called them and he said they would find the fraud. of course there is no widespread fraud for them to find, but i'm seeing states across the country including michigan, that bill we saw signed in florida this morning, empowering partisan poll watchers and giving them more power in these polling sites especially here in texas, and it's worth noting that texas republicans outside the legislature are also planning to recruit thousands of partisan poll watchers and send them

particularly into urban black and brown communities in houston, texas, to look for this voter fraud, to find the irregularities we must remind you don't exist. >> jane timm breaking it down in texas, thank you. these republican laws jane was talking about are being pushed in reaction to former president donald trump as he continues to promote disproven lies about election fraud in this country. one of his most persistent targets is obviously the state of georgia where the president was recorded privately asking republican secretary of state brad raffensperger to find thousands of votes to give him a victory. joining me now is georgia democratic state representative bee nguyen, just announced her candidate for georgia sec stare of state, the state's top elections officer. it's great to have you with us, representative, and i appreciate your time. let's talk about what's happening in georgia for a moment. recently passed law, it's restricting voting there, taking away some power of the secretary

of state, the position you're vying for. it's also taking away the power to mail absentee ballot applications to every registered voter, giving the republican-controlled legislator in that state essentially more control over the state election board. do you believe this was a direct rebuke of raffensperger and how do you plan to address it in 2024, if you win next year? >> thank you for having me on. and i think the effort by georgia republicans last year to undermine the faith and confidence in our elections and part of that was allowing people like rudy giuliani to hold sham hearings in our legislature and one of the things that is most disappointing was watching my republican colleague remain completely silent while we were being fed lies, misinformation and conspeary theories. i think i was one of the many georgians as well the many americans who held our breath hoping the secretary of state

would follow the law. we did breathe a sigh of relief when he did follow the law. the reality is we deserve better in georgia. it is not enough to just follow the law. we need a secretary of state who also embraces the fundamental right to vote and supports the expansion of voting rights versus the restrictions. i am very disappointed that our current secretary has gotten behind senate bill 202 which strips him of his own power, he was elected -- [ audio cutting out ] state of georgia and supporting a bill that dilutes his responsibility. >> so representative, would you be running if president trump hadn't been so aggressive against secretary raffensperger and already backing one of his republican primary challengers, congressman jody hice? >> look, we've had a history of

voters [ inaudible ] long before he challenged the integrity of our elections here in georgia. as a sitting member of the legislature, every single year i've seen some effort to restrict back the voting rights including the effort to eliminate sunday voting which failed because the people of georgia said we will not stand for that. i believe i've been called to do this and the reality is the secretary of state currently has the voter restrictive measures before the president did the massive campaign to undermine the result of our elections. >> i'm curious to get your thoughts if you had to bet today who do you think your opponent in the fall will be, jody hice or brad raffensperger? do you see a difference between the two of them or are they the same? >> they're starkly different candidates in my opinion but here is where i'm most disappointed. we saw that secretary of state raffensperger did follow the law and as a result the republican party is retaliating against him and that really speaks to the

fact that the republican party needs to rebuild itself. i had hoped last fall while we are going through the election hearings and i was getting death threats, he was getting death threats, election worker, getting death threats that my colleagues would turn inward and think about how to rebuild a party that offers ideas and policies. instead we saw a legislative session focused on passing voter suppression bill instead of expanding medicaid, figuring out how to roll vaccines better but fundamentally what is really disappointing is that the secretary of state now says that even though there's no voter fraud, he still supports the president and how in the world can someone say that after they saw january [ audio cutting out ] at your state house. >> it's not just the president. elise stefanik is spreading false information about georgia voting as well. georgia state representative bee

nguyen, thanks for your time and insights. greatly appreciated. >> thank you. coming up, an nbc news exclusive, jacob soboroff wrapped up an interview with alessandro mayorkas. what he's saying about the families separated at the border for years. you're watching msnbc. if you love it, spoon it. ♪ your favorite candy flavors twisted, ♪ chopped or layered into cool, creamy desserts that are made to spoon. new colliders desserts. find them near the refrigerated pudding. cell phone repair. find them near did you know liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need? just get a quote at libertymutual.com. really? i'll check that out. oh yeah. i think i might get a quote.

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[triumphantly yells] [ding] don't get mad. get e*trade and take charge of your finances today. this week the biden administration began reuniting migrant families separated at the southern border during the trump administration, the first step in the president's commitment to reversing his predecessor's policies. today nbc news correspondent jacob soboroff sat down with secretary mayorkas and family reunification task force executive director michelle brenier to discuss this. what did you learn from the interviews about how it's going and where it goes from here? >> reporter: we had a

fascinating and wide-ranging conversation the first time the secretary sat down with anyone in person and as well as michelle brannier tapped to come out as an oppositional force and run the reunification task force. one of the main things i wanted to know was accountability. was he, is he going to pursue accountability for members of the trump administration responsible for the separation policy. here's what he told me. on accountability, on accountability for those responsible for this policy, the president of the united states called this policy criminal, it's a direct quote. he promise aid thorough, thorough investigation, a direct quote. will there be an investigation into members of the trump administration over this policy? >> we're right now focused on what we achieved just a couple days ago, reuniting families. >> el trulado said yesterday

"justice for these families isn't reunification but the need to hold those responsible for separating them in the first place accountable." do you have a response to that? >> accountability would not deliver necessarily justice for just the families. >> reporter: so eman not a firm commitment from secretary mayorkas to pursue accountability for the members of the trump administration at all. michelle brannier, and i had an interesting conversation. they were searching records for evidence of more separations by the trump administration and we had already known about, this is what she told me about that search. you all are searching 5,600 additional records for evidence of separations beyond what we already knew happened, the 5,500 documented by the aclu. have you found any new

separations as the task force has done its work? goer we're finding evidence of separations. we have to match up data and look at what led to the separations so there's a lot of work to do, but we've looked through, we've done an initial pass on those files. >> reporter: eamon, to me that is a newsworthy statement from michelle brane, there is evidence of additional separations beyond the 5,500 we've known about. the task discovered them and continuing to look into them. it was a fascinating conversation and i look forward to shag more throughout the day on msnbc. >> very eye-opening we don't have a grasp as to how many families were separated. jacob soboroff, thank you, as always, my friend. up next another nbc news exclusive, andrea mitchell's conversation with secretary of state anthony blinken as tens of thousands of russian troops sit at ukraine's border despite

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remain on the ukraine border, u.s. secretary of state anthony blinken arrived in the country this morning in a sign of america's full support for ukraine. nbc news' andrea mitchell sat down for an exclusive interview with secretary blinken to discuss the situation and more. andrea mitchell joins me now along with msnbc political analyst rick stengel, the former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and affairs during the obama administration and served on the biden-harris transition team. andrea, a wide-ranging interview with the secretary of state dealing with a host of issues. it comes to the tensions between ukraine and russia, what did we learn? >> we learned there is a great deal of alarge because russia has not withdrawn as it said it would by may 1st. they've withdrawn a couple thousand troops but not the full force, they've got about 80,000 left and the heavy equipment they left, tanks and artillery can be easily moved, that, that is withdrawn can be sent back and they left some as well.

it is a concerning situation. as i talked to secretary blinken he had a dual message today that there is the russian military threat and the u.s. will help ukraine defend itself, but there's also the threat from within, corruption, rampant corruption which is eating away at ukraine's democracy, and making it more vulnerable to russia and russia backed oligarchs. let's listen. regarding the military threat, though, will the u.s. defend ukraine in vladimir putin invades? >> so what we've seen, andrea, there was a massive buildup of forces on the ukrainian border, more russian forces deployed to the border than at any time since 2014 when russia invaded, took over crimea and parts of eastern ukraine. some of the forces pulled back but significant forces remain. some of the heavy equipment has been pulled back but other heavy equipment remains and they can turn that around fairly quickly. what we're doing is making clear our commitment to helping

ukraine defend itself with security assistance, with advice, other allies and partners are doing the same and also making it clear that as happened after 2014, the international community is resolutely any russian aggression, reckless actions in ukraine. there have been longstanding sanctions on russia as a result of the actions it took and i hope that we don't see anymore. >> reporter: and russia is also threatening ukraine from the sea, from the black sea why the navy is out there, really showing the force, showing the muscle. the hope is that they will not do anything overt and that there'll be aware of u.s. and european sanctions and the hope for a summit with president biden. they'll meet first at the g20 in june. >> to that point, rick, president zelensky of ukraine

invited president biden to visit ukraine this year. from a democracy point of view what message would that send to russia keeping in mind that biden said he hopes to meet with president putin next month. >> the message is being sent right now. the secretary of state is there. the nation at security adviser is there. tony blinken has visited ukraine before he has visited russia. that's sending a symbol. ukraine is an important country why it is a hinge point between east and west. for generations we want ukraine to lean to the west to join maybe nato. russia wants ukraine to be dependent on russia to lean east and they have had a relationship with ukraine for 1,000 years so i don't think that biden would go to ukraine before going to russia. because they'd telegraph to meet

with putin already. but that is where, that meeting between putin and biden where they will settle over ukraine and putin is keeping troops there for leverage to meet biden to say i'll pull back and have peace and i suspect that will happen. >> interesting on that front. andrea, i want to ask you about afghanistan because you spoke with the secretary of what happens when the u.s. withdraws from afghanistan. i want to play for the viewers a part of that conversation. >> reporter: is america going to stand by, stand back if the taliban withdraws the rights of women and gills so hard fought over the years? >> if any future afghan state does that it will be a pariah. as we withdraw the forces we are

not disengaging from afghanistan. we'll continue strong support, economically, development assistance, humanitarian. we trained over the years well over 300,000 afghan security forces. other countries will be engaged. finally, everyone has to now i think make some new calculations. that starts with the taliban. it has to decide whether it wants to plunge the country back into a civil war or whether it wants some kind of recognition and to be an accepted actor in the international community. >> did you get a sense from the secretary of state that the united states is prepared to recognize the taliban if it completely walks away from violence and accepts the government of afghanistan? what do they plan on doing next? >> reporter: first of all, the taliban have not shown any sign to walk away from violence.

they stopped the attack on u.s. forces but an increased pace according to the military of attacks against afghans and so they have not honored the agreement or come anywhere close to the interim peace agreement to be noernting. it's really very perilous there and caused concern among certainly the advocates for women and girls and other who is are concerned about the rise of terrorism and an option that i was interviewing the chairman of the joint chiefs just a week before last and he said, yes, that is the potential. there are things to do through intelligence and won't being on the ground and will have to do it from outside the country and can be supportive clearly from the air against a new terror threat but they are determined to get out and they see that terrorism has moved. no longer a central core al qaeda leadership and after 20 years and that loss and 10 years

after bin laden was killed that it's time to go and it was a tough decision and against the advice of the military. >> rick, putt that withdrawal from afghanistan into context from the broader biden foreign policy doctrine if there is one that emerged yet. where does it sit? what is the context? >> andrea mentioned it. we have been there for nearly 20 years. i just finished reading president obama's terrific autobiography and there's a section of then vice president biden said not to be rolled on afghanistan and the military is trying to jam you and have more forces there. spending blood and treasure there. it's just not worth it. so the biden foreign policy coming to afghanistan is that he has felt that perhaps our investment there hasn't paid off and that after 20 years we have to say, look, this is not the success that we originally

imagined. this is the graveyard of empires as it's famously said for the british and the russians and i think he's just going to say that's -- we'll take our marbles away and deal with what happens. there's a lot of people as andrea mentioned particularly in the military saying that we didn't do that, but he is just saying, look, throwing good money after bad and should get out of there. >> thank you to the both of you. you can see more of andrea's interview with secretary of state anthony blinken this evening. that wraps up the hour. i'll see you back here tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. "deadline: white house" starts after this quick break. my psoriatic arthritis, made my joints stiff, swollen... painful. emerge tremfyant™. with tremfya®, adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis...

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