proof that things don't have to be the way that they've always been. the world's been waiting for what you do. if it's friday, the leaders of russia and china are standing side by side, literally and figuratively today, putin and xi presenting a united front against the west and against nato as the crisis continues in ukraine and the controversial olympic games get under way in beijing. and public rifts exposed. behind the scenes, growing concerns that appeasing trump publicly like this is not a winning strategy come november. plus january job reports shows more hiring than expected but a massive revision from last month

is the monthly reminder that we make that says no one report speaks for the economy. it takes three to understand every one month. i'll speak with one of the president's top economic advisers. welcome to "meet the press daily." i'm chuck todd. two world leaders are standing together today in solidarity against the leader of the free world, the united states. vladimir putin and xi jinping facing increasing pressure from the west and put on a show of unity hours before the starts of the olympics. the very public meeting was clearly an evident by both leaders to challenge the u.s. amid this diplomatic boycott and the ongoing standoff between russia and ukraine. russia is continuing to increase

its military forces around ukraine while publicly denying any plans to attack. in a joint statement, xi offered strong support for russia's security demands, saying, quote, russia and china stand against attempts by external forces to undermine security. and then putin opened the olympics sitting expression list as ukraine's athletes were introduced. the u.s. is deploying additional troops in eastern europe to support our nato allies who are very meche fearful of the russians. and new intel says russia is plotting a mission as a pretext for war. keir simmons who has interviewed vladimir putin joins us from

london. shannon, let me start with the white house reaction to xi and putin together. it's quite the international rebuke. >> reporter: right. obviously not a meeting the white house wanted to see or was excited to see, not a surprise, though, of course as the appearance of an alliance between these countries has seemed to grow in recent years. the white house obviously has pushed back heavily against this notion of any guarantee that there will not be nato expansion. they have said that the expansion of nato is up to the nato member countries, up to each individual country, that it is not for any other country to make a determination about whether or not someone should join nato or not. they have pushed strongly back in the past against that notion that you heard putin and xi come out supporting in this statement. but of course more broadly relations between the u.s. and china when you talk to people

who are experts in this area who have worked in past administrations, they say they are at an all-time low or at one of the lowest points in recent memory, that a lot of people involved in this field have experienced. this really once again highlights just how far apart the u.s. and china are, not just on trade and sanctions and intellectual property but of course here on broader foreign policy issues. >> shannon, do they admit that they're disappointed in the lack of or countries participating in this diplomatic boycott of the olympics? >> reporter: no, we have not heard that from the white house. press secretary jen psaki was asked whether she would be watching the olympics and she said yes and that the white house wants to cheer on the u.s. athletes, trying to make sure they're showing support for the u.s. athletes through all this. as you noted, the diplomatic boycott announced months ago means the u.s. has no official diplomatic presence outside of

course of the athletes when they're competing. >> i don't know even know if all of the g-7 countries are participating in the same level of boycott that the united states announced. keir, from the perspective of putin and xi, what are they both trying to get out of this? >> well, i think what you saw today in that statement, which is really extraordinary to read, chuck, is their mutual interest. remember, china and russia aren't allies. they don't have any official alliship, if you like. but they clearly are finding that they have a lot in common. and when you read that document, chuck, one of the things about it, which is really interesting, is that it never once mentions the united states, but it is all about the united states. another aspect of it is is that it bends logic at times in ways that both russia and china are familiar with. so, for example, when president

xi today says we are defending the spirit of democracy, in that 5,300 word document, the two leaders talk about democracy being a value that is available to everyone and that there is not one type of democracy. we've heard the chinese talk about that before. they're trying to come up with an ideology, if you like, that they can have, as opposed to the american version of democracy, which is of course democracy. on human rights they say human rights should not be used to put pressure on countries. human rights are universal. they don't stop at borders. you kind of get a picture of them feeling their way to try to have a joint understanding, a joint view of the world and at times it does make difficult reading. but do i think it's a real challenge for the u.s. you know, cell lynn experts i've spoken to the past few days say

they have been surprised by how quickly china and russia, how close they've got just in the past few years. i think there has been talk among some, chuck, that america might try to do what they call a reverse kissinger, try and pull russia away from china in order to put more pressure on china. i don't think that's likely to happen. >> no, i think we're a long way from that. keir, very quickly, china has its own relationship with ukraine. there's some unconfirmed reports out there that xi has essentially made it clear to putin he doesn't think it's a good idea to invade ukraine. do we think that is a message xi would have sent? >> it's a really interesting question. we don't know what they're saying behind closed doors plainly. there are economic implications to a conflict in ukraine, particularly if it got out of

control. inflation just one example. the impact on europe, china has economic interests in europe. for example, germany and china's relationship, china is one of germany's strongest economic trade partners. so a good question about what xi is saying to president putin privately despite what he's saying publicly. in public they are displaying solidarity. honestly, we may find out because we're going to find out what president putin does over ukraine in the weeks and months ahead. >> at the end of the day, we're trying to figure out what's in putin's head. will this meet having influenced? it's interesting. shannon pettypiece and keir simmons, thank you very much. i'm joined by john brennan. i'd like to see if you would confirm what appears

extraordinary from my perch, which is the amount of intelligence we've declassified over the last six to eight weeks, putting the public squeeze on putin. have you been surprised by this? and how much of a change is this for the u.s. intel community to do this? >> well, i think the intel community has always tried to support our policy makers' interests in making intelligence available that can undergird these policy efforts. so you're right, over the last couple of months the u.s. intelligence community and the biden administration have agreed to release information about what they see russia doing or what russia is planning to do. i think they're trying to do this in advance of any type of russia incursion into ukraine. so, yes, i'm not surprised. i think they talked about the films that were fabricated by

russian intelligence that is showing actors pretending to be russian soldiers, but they didn't release any of that video. i think they're going to try to protect sources and methods and make the content available. >> the rules of society and truth of 20 years ago, you know there's a lot of distrust these days. it was a little uncomfortable to watch the u.s. government say, hey, that's none of your business to the press corps. excuse me, no, we're the democracy here. you do have to show your work. should they show their work a little bit? >> i think they're trying to show as much as they can without risking a compromise of those sources and methods. by that i mean i'm sure they're looking to get additional intelligence and if they were

giving too much information, it would threaten the source because it would identify their information. this has been a longstanding concern of the intelligence community and administrations. >> i want to talk about xi. when he uses the description of putin as k.g.b., i said what is that shorthand for and he says paranoid. to me he seems to be motivated by economic concerns, himself first. is that a fair read of him? >> he's a strategic thinking and he's been behind china's effort to try to increase its presence in terms of business, commercial, trade, security

relationships around the globe. i think he is trying to see what he can do at this point in time to try to take advantage in putin's interests in aligning on issues such as taiwan. the economic engine needs to be sustained by that foreign investment and opportunities. >> there are some reports that xi is on the side of you shouldn't do this, to putin. and you look at the economic consequences a lot of people fear on the repercussions on this globally. it goes back to what you just said about xi. it certainly would fit his style of thinking if that is indeed what he told putin, would it not? >> yes, i think xi has been concerned about military conflicts around the globe that do threaten chinese interests. whether it be in afghanistan,

iraq, and there's a lot of chinese investment as well as chinese workers. when there is instability and conflict, it does then disrupt and dislocate the chinese interests. even though xi came out forcefully in terms of opposing a nato extension, i do think he's counseling. in ukraine, it is part of the initiative and there are chinese investments there that i think xi would like to see not disrupted by any type of russian invasion. >> are you surprised at how weak the diplomatic boycott turned out to be? united states did it and i think, like i said, it feels like a trickle of countries that went ahead and went along. i have to say i'm surprised at how little influence we had over more nations doing this. >> the diplomatic boycott i think was an important symbolic and public message to be sent to china on that but also a lot of countries around the world have

what they see as very important relationships with china, particularly on the commercial trade front. while the united states has the wherewithal to stand up to these chinese abuses and tab this step, i think a lot of other countries are concerned that china may retaliate in some way against them if they join this u.s. diplomatic boycott. >> john, how concerned are you that the script is getting flipped on us? at the end of the day, over my adult life and the post world war ii era. we could use our economy. yes, we were trying to expand democracy but we our economic strength for allies and all this. are we prioritizing financial over democracy, freedom, human rights? it does feel like we're tipping

in that direction globally. >> i certainly am growing more concerned about that as we see a back sliding of liberal democracies around the world. so, therefore, a lot of things that they looked to the united states for before i think they now see that there are alternatives in terms of investment and developments and china is going around the globe in various continents and making these offers. but along with it i think come some dependencies on china that the -- i used to be concerned not just about the bilat rahal relationship with china but with china's global presence. >> we used to create what i think were fair dependencies, that nato was a -- you could argue that. in hindsight, not doing that tpp right now. with the economic check that was supposed to be against china, i

know you don't want to talk economic policy here, but, boy, in hindsight we -- >> absolutely. the leaders of government i met were were pleading with us to pursue the ttp in order to provide a counterweight to china around their necks. they don't have the ability to withstand chinese pressure. i do hope that our pivot toward asia will have multiple dimensions to it, importantly on the commercial, trade and business front. >> john brennan, former cia director. always good to get your perspective on things. appreciate you coming out, sir. >> up next, former u.s. ambassador to china max baucus

gives us his perspective on the chinese olympics. and censuring the daughter of a republican vice president, two sitting members of congress, liz cheney and adam kinzinger. their sins are simply noting that donald trump tried to overturn the election. we'll talk to a reporter on the ground about that up ahead. you're watching "meet the press daily." you're watching "meet the press daily. we're literally riding together. he gets touchy when you talk about his lack of friends. can you help me out here? no matter why you ride, progressive has you covered with protection starting at $79 a year. well, we're new friends. to be fair. eh, still. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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welcome back. perhaps the most notable moment from the opening ceremony of olympic games came at the end of the festivities when a uighur and cross-country skier served as a torch bearer for china. it was a moment to push back of criticism from the united states. as we mentioned at the top. show, the u.s. along with at least nine other countries have

imposed diplomatic boycotts of this olympic games. i'm joined by max baucus, former senator and former ambassador to china. senator, i want your take on why a diplomatic boycott couldn't get the g-7 to sign on. canada, the u.k., australia, france, estonia. what's your explanation as to why our traditional allies didn't stand with us on this one? >> i think for one china is much stronger today than it was in the 2008 olympics. the economy today is three times the size than it was back then. it's a much stronger country, has more influence around the world. it's a major power. second, i think that the other

western countries are realizing that sanctions against china for human rights abuses or maybe even a diplomatic boycott against china for diplomatic purposes are counterproductive, they don't work. they have no effect on chinese behavior. they will do what they want to do with respect to uighurs and even worse than that, the people in china, people i talked to in china just say, hey, wait a minute, you americans, you're just being condescending, you're being arrogant, you're trying to tell us what to do. we don't tell you what to do. you're telling us what to do. a lot of countries have decided given those two points, they're not going to participate in a diplomatic boycott. >> you have a better idea for trying to hold china accountable for for human rights abuses? >> this is the ultimate question. the real question is how far are we going to go in trying to

persuade china to adhere to human rights? it's a big question and it's one we're going to have to face and it gets to a more fundamental point, are we going to recognize china as, in a certain sense, a co-equal country? china's not going away. they're always going to be here and they're growing we're not going away. we're the major power in the country but we're not going away either. we have very, very cultures and different histories, different governments but we're in a sense co-equals. if they want to act their way and we act our way, even though we strongly adhere to liberal democratic principles, we have to recognize that, hey, there's another country that we can't push around and they have different views. that's the ultimate question you just asked. >> it's interesting and i want to continue on a conversation was developing there with john brennan. is our form of diplomacy now

obsolete? let me put it another way. because china has so many financial goody bags to give away in diplomacy and we have less than we used to, right. our leaders may want to do trade deals but the population doesn't, right? we don't want to do infrastructure for other -- projects for other countries. do we have to go back to a more financial-based diplomacy? >> we have to rethink this more deeply as we have in the past. i was almost disgusted with our ad hoc reactions to what china did or did not do. we were acting in the moment. we did not have a long-term strategic plan with respect to china. we still don't have a long-term

strategic plan with respect to china, and we are now forced to deal with one because we cannot deal on an ad hoc basis reacting to what china does anymore. the more we do that, the more china gains advantage. they think much more long term than do we and it's critical for us to think more deeply and it might include more financial actions than in the past. a fundamental problem, though, is many in china perceive the united states as in decline. we got to show that's not true. we passed the infrastructure bill but when we show we're no declining, that we're strong, that's going to do more than anything else to counter some of the problems we have with china. >> i am struck by the attitude change of the chinese government and the olympics. 2008 they were desperate to put on their most agreeable face, no matter what, wherever they went

around the world. there's a little bit of -- i don't want to use this language on air but sort of tough you know what, take us or leave us mindset this time and to me the icing on the cake is to have a uighur carry the torch there at the end. i mean, it really just felt like their way of you know what. >> i know what you're saying. i know what you're saying and i think people watching know what you're saying and there's a lot of truth of that. the tatonic plates are shifting. we noticed that in anchorage with tony blinken. china thinks we're co-equal with the united states, we're going do what we want to do and it's just too bad, that's what we're going to do. >> what leverage do we have over china economically these days? there are still things, our technology, they need it more

than -- the russians were hoping they could replace our technology with chinese technology and they can't. is there ways that our technology can be leveraged here? >> well, this is the year of the tiger. china's strong but it is not a tiger. it has immense problems. it has demographic problems, parts of china have virtually no water. now, they have stamped out covid pretty well, but the more the government stamps down, is more repressive, even after covid is finally controlled, the more that's going to cause problems within the country. to to answer your question, i'll going back to my earlier point, it's u.s. strength, we're doing it, we passed this major bill to do with semiconductors, et cetera, but we have to more so

than in the past reduce this partisan divide. china sees that we're just divided and can't get anything done. that's the problem. >> that's the beauty of democracy, we have the freedom to discuss our divisions but it doesn't always put on a great face. up ahead, the latest employment report shows job growth skyrocketed despite the omicron surge. is it a signal that the economy is on the right track? i'll ask one of biden's top economic advisers how he's watching this report. you're watching "meet the press daily." watching "meet the pres daily. powder packs. feel better fast. ever wonder what everyone's doing on their phones? they're banking, with bank of america. the groom's parents? they just found out they can redeem rewards for a second honeymoon.

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our country is taking everything that covid throws at us and we've come back stronger. i'm pleased to report this morning and many of you already know that america's job machine is going stronger than ever. >> it was obviously a very pleased president biden speaking the last hour on the surprisingly strong jobs report. the administration made an effort all week to tell us this was going to be a terrible jobs report and although the unemployment rate did edge higher, more was the job gains. it was more than expected. we've now recovered 85% of the jobs lost during the pandemic and folks are making more money.

hourly wages are up almost 6% from a year ago. that's significant wage growth. however, it has not been enough to keep up with inflation growth. joining me on what this all means of the economy going forward, jared bernstein, member of the economic council. you like to lecture all of us, don't spin any of these job reports. no one job report matters. the lesson i've learned over the last decade is it takes about three months of collection to get one month right. >> i couldn't agree more. >> so why did you prespin it all week? why did you spin it? >> i'll get to that. but let me point out, i couldn't agree more. one of the things we consistently do when we come out here is do precisely what you wanted to us do there, take a three-month average. if you do that with today's report, 541,000 jobs per month, 6.6 million jobs since the president got here, historical records.

why were we talking about the technical potential here? it has to do with the way the payroll survey is measured. if you're absent from work on unpaid leave, you're not counting on payrolls. look, this was a great jobs report but we also know a lot of families were struggling with omicron in january. about 8 million reported they were either not at work or worked less than they would like to. i don't want to push that under the rug. i'll underscore the president here that clearly this is a job market resilient to those kinds of pressures. at least that was the case in january. >> i was going to say, does that tell you the economy -- that there are more businesses that are fighting shutting down, whatever that definition means for an industry, they're fighting pullbacks or fighting -- is that your read on this employment report? >> i guess i would say a slightly different angle on the same kind of insight. go back to the gdp report. gdp we learned last week grew at

a 5.7% rate in 2021. that is an extremely fast clip for gdp growth. what that means is there is very strong demand in this economy. consumers are spending, they're back out there buying goods of course disproportionately but also beginning to reengage to some extent with in-person services. thanks to the very tight job market and let's not forget the american rescue plan, shots in arms and checks in pockets, a 75% vaccination rates among adults, the strength of gdp, the strength of the labor market, this kind of a jobs report on trend, not just one month, makes sense. that's the way i would look at it. >> at this rate it looks like hopefully by the summer we're going to have made up all of our jobs back to prepandemic levels. if we hit that moment, do we

still have a large enough labor pool or do we need more? >> well, let me start by talking about some numbers in today's report. there are some technical changes that the bureau of labor statistics made precisely on the labor force. and what we found was that over the past year, so again not doing a monthly trend here, over the past year the labor force is up 0.8%. this labor force is actually growing more quickly than in any of the past five economic recoveries. it is growing at a solid clip. i think that gets missed in some of these discussions. but here's the thing and here's where your question is well taken. labor demand is extremely strong. we've never had 11 million job openings, which is about what we have right now. so we have to do better. the path to doing better is at least two fold. make sure our vaccination program stays strong so people feel comfortable coming back

into the job market and work around the clock to try to get our child care and elder care yaends legislated so we can take down that barrier to labor market entry for so many caretakers. >> i was going to say can you put a number on that? i've heard that argument about one of the missing peoples in the labor force. it's more acute with women since they're usually the ones doing the care giving than men. i'm curious what that number is. second, we also is too low of immigration. legal immigration is about as low it's been in a long time. that has to be having an impact on the job market as well. >> the president has always supported a welcoming immigration agenda. that's a whole separate process that i'm not going to get into right now. on the labor force participation issue, quantifying that number, here's a number that i have in my head. it's something like if you

compare the labor force participation rate to women in this country to all other advanced economies, all of which have done what the president wants them to do, stand up an affordable child care sector, those participation rates are 1% to 2% higher. one of the ways to push back on inflation is to make sure that you're building up the economy supply side capacity and one of the best ways to do that is, again, make sure that caretakers, disproportionately moms, can get a way into the job market with accessible child care. thanks very much. up next, the republican national convention formally rebukes liz cheney and may be actively

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welcome back. turning to some raw politics, moment ago the republican national committee censured two of their own. it reads in part "the conference must not be sabotaged by representatives liz cheney and adam kinzinger." they are accusing cheney of sabotaging the conference she chaired just a few months ago. she said "the leaders of the republican party have made themselves willing hostages to a man who admits he tried to

overturn a presidential election and suggests he would pardon january 6th participants." there are plenty who agree with cheney and others who want to ignore. as much as you'd hear in private, those voices are few and far between. our own peter nicholas is covering the rnc leader in salt lake city. he's been reporting on the quiet part that doesn't get said out loud. peter, let's talk about that because i hear it, too. boy, i don't know, talking about 2020 is a bad idea but in public it's all they're doing. >> that's right. we spoke to tom state party chairmen and rnc members, they're pretty clear, discussing 2020 is not a winning issue. the election fraud issue does not resonate with voters. successful candidates like

youngkin in virginia won by talking about issues important to real people like education and inflation and gas prices. they say they're not necessarily critical of donald trump because they're afraid of alienating him and estranging his voters. they recognize the trump base is an important part of any republican winning strategy. it's a tightrope that they're walking but can you definitely hear a lot of concern about the action just taken by this rnc meeting to censure and rebuke cheney and kinzinger. >> originally they wanted to king them out of the party. in a bizarre way there were some force trying to water this down. who was the lead force trying to water down the censure resolution? >> it's clear there's a lot of discomfort among members with the approach the original

resolution took, which called for cheney and kinzinger to be kicked out of the house republican conference. this is a little bit different, far more symbolic. they're saying we don't like them and we don't appreciate their role in the january 6 committee and we're not going to support them in any way. some members view that as a compromise and it did succeed in avoiding any debate this resolution was part of a package of five resolutions that were voted on through a voice vote and unanimously passed. it doesn't look like the committee, rnc, wants to show decensureship. the chairman of the republican national committee said earlier when the republicans come together, we win, but there's

nothing united taken today. this is a divisive act taken by the rnc leadership. >> is it going to be followed by financial resources? the rnc of today isn't -- i'm going to ask you that in a minute. are they going to go down the road of actually spending resources to defeat liz cheney? >> it looks like it. it looks like they're going to play in this republican primary in wyoming and spend some money to defeat liz cheney. they do not want to see her as the party's nominee for the republican nomination -- the party's nominee for this congressional seat. you really wonder who's the audience here. i suspect it's an audience of one. it's donald trump. trump is committed to defeat china and kinzinger and anybody else who voted to impeach him

for his control in january 6th. >> i want to ask you how you define what the party is and especially the two committees. from 30,000 feet oaf the last decade, it looks like the actual apparatuses of the two political parties, on the state or national party level, has been taken over by a different breed of activist. explain -- have you seen that same thing and is today's rnc 168 a lot different than the one that elected michael steele chair? >> i think that's exactly right, chuck. this has been a slow evolution but an evolution nonetheless. the party has become much more conservative, moved much farther to it the right. this is a party that is not bob dole's party from 1996 interested in free trade, low taxes and, yes, there was lip service to some of those positions but now it's a party

that seems most animated by whatever donald trump's grievances are at the moment. as you pointed out earlier and we've seen through our reporting, if you talk to the state chair here in salt lake for this meeting talk privately and talk off the record, you'll hear they're not completely comfortable with that message and they point to glen youngkin as a model how to win. not to necessarily embrace conspiracy theories about the 2020 election but to talk about what voters want to talk about. that might be education. that might be inflation, gas prices, things like that. >> well, as donald trump wants to make sure folks know, if you speak out against him, he'll find challengers for you. chris john sununu, the governor of new hampshire finding out just lightly criticizing him this is all he does. peter nicholas on the ground for us in salt lake. thank you. up next, new revelations from the pentagon in the suicide

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i brought in ensure max protein, with thirty grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! (sighs wearily) here i'll take that! (excited yell) woo-hoo! ensure max protein. with thirty grams of protein, one gram of sugar, and nutrients to support immune health. welcome back. the pentagon wrapped up a detailed briefing laying out the results of at the investigation that killed 13 u.s. service members in the final chaotic hours in the u.s. mission in afghanistan. the long-awaited report looked

into the isis-k attack. the pentagon released new photos and video from the karzai international airport days of the attack and leading up to the attack. with this report is courtney kube. is it a good thing or bad thing that they figured out this was not a complex attack? what does that say about our security measures? >> so what it proves is there was a lot of reports in the days afterwards, there was gunfire going back and forth. somewhere between the afghan crowd and somewhere from the u.s. coalition side, and that could have caused more deaths than the huge blast there. there were a number of warning shots fired but they are not believed to have caused injury or deaths here.

in fact, the massive loss of live was caused by the 20-pound bomb that the suicider came in with and it was packed with five millimeter ball bearings. in addition, it was a confusing and chaotic environment, and the ball bearings, when they penetrate into a body they mimic a gunshot wound. in the aftermath of this, we were told it was a complex attack, there was only one attacker and he slipped through without having to go through what seems like the taliban checkpoint, he slipped in the crowd and detonated where it was densely packed and killed afghans in addition to the u.s. service members. >> how much have we been able to

piece together with the suicide bomber and how he got his materials and who helped him? >> very, very little. there's a short video that they show where you can barely make out somebody dressed all in black in the crowd when he detonates. what i didn't know until this briefing today is the fbi is carrying out an investigation into all of those questions. who was he, and who was actually supporting him. we have been told over and over that he was some sort of an isis fighter and he was sponsored or directed by isis in some capacity. another thing we learned today is there seems to be certainty that the taliban was not behind this. the briefers, though, could not explain why that was that they felt that certainty. we know he was -- this individual, as i said, he came in with the crowd and did not go through the taliban checkpoint and the taliban did not facilitate his entry into the area, but it's more of an absence of evidence that the

taliban was involved that gives them confidence they were not behind the attack. >> i was going to say, that's interesting, what they don't know is did somebody essentially let him in, right, and there's no evidence somebody did and they don't have evidence somebody didn't? is that what we are staring at? >> right. there was an alternate route where afghan civilians were coming through, and there were problems with the taliban checkpoints, and the u.s. identified a different way to go through allies and the bomber came in through that area with the afghan civilians. most likely he was not let in by the taliban, but there's no evidence to suggest otherwise, though. >> thank you. thank you all for being with us this hour. we will be back on monday with more "meet the press daily." if it's sunday, it's "meet the press," yeah, even with the olympics. msnbc's coverage continues with

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good to be with you. i am katy tur. we are expecting to hear from the president any second now. here's in maryland to talk about a new executive order that will impact the union rights of 200,000 construction workers. we're going to go right there once we see him. he's about to speak to those union workers. we just saw his aides put