good day, everyone. this is "andrea mitchell reports" inway. france's president macron is meeting with president putin at this hour, leading the european effort to avert war in ukraine. putin and macron are expected to speak following their meeting, this as president biden meets at the white house with germany's new leader for the first time sim olaf scholz took over for angela merkel. risking a weakening of the alliance against a growing russian threat just as the national security adviser toke chuck todd on "meet the press." >> we're at the brink of a

military escalation that could happen at any time. we believe the russians have put in place the capabilities to mount a significant military operation into ukraine, and we have been working hard to prepare a response. >> as coronavirus cases continue to plunge since the peak three weeks ago, some democratic governors like phil murphy in new jersey lifting mask requirements in schools. we'll talk to a top virologist who's warning about relaxing mask mandates too soon. this morning republican congressman and january 6th committee member adam kinzinger slamming them. >> there are members of the republican party probably who have been there for 30 years that are scared to death of the mob excluding them that they won't even speak up. the rnc deserves every aspect of backlash and is going to come

down on it. >> certainly the rnc has lost any sense and certainly those who drive the train have lost any sense. the center of liz and i has went way too far with the rnc. >> and mike pence is challenging president trump's claims he could overturn the results, which he could not. >> let's call it what it is. january 6th was a riot incited by donald trump. he said it in his own words last week. overturn the election. he's trying to do a cleanup on aisle one in correcting that stuff, but it's not going to change. he actually told the truth by accident. he wanted the election to be overturned. >> but we begin this hour with the crisis in ukraine. joining me now are nbc news senior white house correspondent kelly o'donnell and "new york times" diplomatic correspondent michael crowley.

kelly, the president's getting ready for a very important meeting as the white house officials president macron makes some headway in moscow with president putin at the same time, but the german chancellor visiting with the president today. >> reporter: the first time that olaf scholz will be here in his new role as chancellor, and so that's an important meeting, and, of course, germany being the economic power that it is in europe is such a key player, and it has been important for the united states to try to assess and to in some ways make certain that the u.s. and germany are on the same page when it comes to the approach toward russia, and it's complicated as you well know because of the reliance of germany on russia for its energy and what officials have been telling us is that they expect there will be a lot of conversation today about the sanctions package and wanting to have unity on that, also conversation about the nord stream 2 pipeline which u.s. officials say will not go forward if russia does move

forward with its aggression toward ukraine. that's a real complicating factor for germany. and a real sense for the president today to get a kind of chance to assess where olaf scholz is. and there has been some question about how much germany has been willing to support the ukrainian effort and its defenses, and scholes has talked about that and said they're on board with fellow europeans. there have been questions especially because this is a new leadership in germany after the long tenure of angela merkel, and, of course, emmanuel macron is trying to emerge as the new leader of europe and he's playing a key role in meeting face-to-face with president vladimir putin. here in washington and in moscow, looking for way to see

is there still any juice left in the diplomatic push that still ongoing. andrea? >> well, to that point, exactly, kelly, michael crowley, is president putin just playing this out, participating today, for instance, with the eu presidency head -- france leading the eu, i should say -- just to show diplomacy until, you know, he's either ready or makes the decision to fully invade? >> well, that's a totally plausible scenario, andrea, and that's the problem here, which is that we don't exactly know what's in vladimir putin's head, but the russians don't have a track record of negotiating in good faith, of playing these situations in a straight way, so, you know, you have to find yourself asking what, you know, could be the ulterior motive here, is this on the level, how could putin be benefitting from

what he's doing in some way that is not, you know, his surface level intention that he's declaring. and so one of them would be that he's, you know, a, going through the motions of diplomacy because he does care to some degree about international opinion. he would likely prefer to have been perceived as trying to exhaust diplomatic options to this crisis he's manufactured largely, and at the same time, is he trying to buy time to move all of his troops and equipment into position to mount the kind of attack that he may be planning? so that's a definite concern. for the united states and the west similarly, there's a real desire to try to find some diplomatic off ramp for him, and so they're willing to put in that time and keep working at it, all the while unsure of his true intentions. >> as a matter of fact, in his photo spread before he sat down for his meeting -- and we're going to have a press conference -- he said he appreciated

macron's efforts to try to satisfy the security needs of russia, which is his way of talking about ukraine can't join nato, nato's got to pull back its expansion. these are nonnegotiable dmablds that he's made, but he's already trying to put that on the table. you also really had an interesting take in your piece today in "the new york times" about antony blinken's -- tony blinken's first year as secretary of state and how, you know, since the afghan withdrawal in particular, he's really been on the line with all those early efforts for months to reassure the alies the u.s. is strong. this was really undercut with the nato allies who were in afghanistan and many were concerned about their people getting out and about the evacuation itself. >> reporter: absolutely, andrea. you know, some of these trips i would go on with secretary

blinken last year, they were almost dull. they were these lovefests. he went to berlin to a beer guard within a german foreign minister. they were sipping bearse in short sleeves, taking questions from students, and everybody was laughing, saying, tony, we love you, it's so much more being friends versus the trump administration. it was all lovey-dovey then. afghanistan came along and exposed there is a lot of work to be done, a lot of the european nato allies were not happy and they were tamping broad questions about americans oversee. initially the foreign spokeswoman who i know you know because you were chatting with her in geneva accused them of trying to finding some of victory after the embarrassment in afghanistan. it really cast a shadow over what's happening now.

>> thanks to both you and kelly. thanks so very much. as we see, secretary of state tony blinken is speaking with the european leader. we'll see what happens when they start taking questions. joining me now is a former nato commander and john brennan, with the obama administration. john brennan, we've heard a lot about the intelligence assessments especially over the weekend, the intelligence assessment that he's got 70% of the troops he would need, he's ready to go if he makes that final decision. very detailed numbers as to how many brigades he's got. there's plenty of overhead imagery. he's doing this in plain sight. is this a feint? how do we judge whether, frankly, those of whose have been around for a while and want to snake sure the intelligence is understood by the american

people, particularly intelligence last week which suggested there was a video already, which is not the case, that they were plants for a false flag operation. >> the principal responsibility of intelligence nations is to make sure the president's team understand the resources being brought to bear. they could have some serious national security implications. that's why i think the intelligence community has done a good job of identifying the divisions and units that the russians are deploying along the border in belarus and in russia. but at this point it's still, i think, unclear the actual intentions of vladimir putin. he's been often described as a very significant poker player, and i think that's true. in his own mind, i think he's trying to determine what's the best course for him to pursue. he's going to have to take into account whether or not russia

can withstand the consequences that are going to come as a result of an invasion with ukraine. those consequences include the financial front, but also in terms of the deaths of many russian soldiers that are inevitable in such an invasion. so, therefore, i think he's still calculating what he's going to do. who knows whether or not he's made up his mind. i think vladimir putin is the only one, but the united states along with its nato allies need to be ready to react to any development that they may see. i also think that the next two or three weeks are going to be the most critical period of time in terms of the intense diplomacy taking place partly because of the time of the possible invasion. in order for russian-heavy units to go across the frozen terrain when we get to the end of march or so, you're going to see a thaw in that terrain. so if putin is going to move, the ideal time is in the next

couple of weeks. that's why i think you see macron speaking with him. >> i wasn't questioning the intelligence but the way the media interprets it, and also zelensky, whose primary goal is to assure his people and national security advisers whose message is very accurate and timely and that zelensky is the one who's off message here. in terms of the nato alliance, what are we going to see, do you think, from germany today? an effort to try to recalibrate and change their posture or at least try to be more in line with the u.s. and macron in terms of what we have to do to stand up to vladimir putin? >> i do think that's what we'll see in the white house. we'll see in the press conference. this is chancellor scholtz's

first opportunity. i think he will be working for hard to send a message of real alignment. it's like a bicycle with 30 different people pedaling. some of them are pedaling very hard at the front end of the bicycle. that would be in this crisis, the united states, the united kingdom. some are pedaling medium speed, around the middle. that would be president macron. and some are pedaling not as hard as we'd like them to toward the end of the bicycle. this is going to be chancellor scholtz's opportunity that germany can pedal the bike pretty hard. i think we're going to hear some things along the lines of if there is an incursion into ukraine, we will stand with the

alliance. we're not going to get bullied over natural gas sales, and i think you'll also hear from president biden about his decision to deploy u.s. troops from the united states into europe. they're going into poland. they're going into romania. several thousand from the 11th and 18th airborne. you're going to see two leaders from the white house trying to close that gap, and i think they'll do it pretty effectively today. >> and, in fact, what secretary blinken is talking about during this meeting is going to other countries, obviously the persian gulf and elsewhere about backfilling or trying to backfill natural gas supplies to europe and surging their supplies to europe in case russia turns off the spigot, if you will. john brennan, from the obama administration said they were

trying to set a stage, and visual actors to invade ukraine. gotten some pushback including from this man, mat leigh from the state department. >> what action are you talking about? >> one, the action i just pointed to. >> what action? >> the one -- >> you made an allegation that they might do that. have they actually done it? >> what we know, matt, is what we -- what i have just said, that they have engaged in this opportunity. >> hold on, please. >> let me -- let me -- let me -- >> this is like crisis actors? this is like alex jones territory. where is it? where is the classified information? >> i just delivered it. >> no, you made a series of allegations. >> would you like us to print out the topper? you will see a transcript of this believing that you can prinld out. >> that's not evidence, matt.

that's you saying it. that's not evidence, i'm sorry. >> that's got to be the frustration also. the intelligence officials are doing their best to warn of possibilities, and it's very hard to message that when people want to see the evidence. >> it is very hard. it's always very hard, especially when it comes to russia because the intelligence community, the cia tries to release as much information as possible without compromising the source and methods used to collect the intelligence. if you put out too much, then it risks cutting off the stream of information that you're relying on. now, what i understand, some types of, you know, actors or whatever maybe put together by the russian intelligence services to give vladimir putin an option at some point to claim there was a pretext for a russian invasion, but i do think it's rather challenging for the community to come out and reveal wholesale the information they have that gives insight into what it is they know that the

russians may be contemplating doing. this is an area of traditional tension between the press t media, obviously the intelligence community. >> i just wanted to -- with your long experience -- give people the backstory, to give people the understanding of what goes on, the push/pull, every single day. this was the intelligence's assessment over the weekend. it's important for the president to know this, but also the american people what is at risk along the border. you would both agree the missiles and troops, talking about it being 50 miles from kyiv. >> andrea, if i could, i add one other thing that really concerns me that we haven't touched on. i know john is very well aware of this as well. it's russia and china and the way they're drawing closer together. we saw it over the weekend, the summit. i think that is a macro concern

that is emerging from this that's strategic as opposed to the tactical challenge immediately ahead of us >> i can't think of two better people to have on this subject than john brennan and you, admiral stavridis. thank you so much. a family feud at the rnc. plus, new details on how donald trump shredded white house documents including moving official records from mar-a-lago. should the presidential records be enforced? it is the law. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. watching "anl watching "anl reports" on msnbc. ♪ and something tells me they don't beat for me ♪ ♪ i love romance, but i got eggshells around me ♪ ♪ don't step on 'em, don't step on 'em ♪ ♪ don't step on 'em, don't step on me ♪ ♪ ♪

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. former vice president mike pence, arguably donald trump's most loyal yes man has now split with the former president by at least insisting he had no right to overturn the election and calling the january 6th riot a dark day in u.s. history, even

though the rnc has blasted liz cheney and adam kinzinger for joining the committee. on "meet the press," chuck todd pressed former chief of staff on the legitimacy of the 2020 election. >> i believe that joe biden is duly elected president of the united states. >> legitimately so. the election is legitimate. you may disagree with voting procedures, but the election itself -- >> i think it's the same question. there were significant concerns about the process that's going to create a cloud. i think unfortunately the president had many bad advisers who were basically snake oil salesmen. >> joining us now is nbc newss capitol hill garrett haake. former rnc chairman michael steele and our chief

correspondent. you have too many titles. my throat is not doing very well today. he called on the doj to go after mark meadows for refusing to cooperate with the january 6th committee. >> yeah, that's right. for adam kinzinger, the one person after donald trump who's been most frus rated with in the last year and change has been kevin mccarthy who could have pushed rchs republicans to approve of a bipartisan committee in the hours and days immediately after january 6th. that is almost personal between mccarthy and kinzinger who used to be by all accounts quite close as they were coming up the house together. as for mark meadows, he becomes a singular person of the investigation, providing so many texts and other documents clearly central to the commit tease effort before pulling his cooperation from the committee. he was -- the house recommended

he be held in contempt almost two months ago now. we've not heard anything from the doj since then. his is obviously a more complicated case than steve bannon's given the assertion of privilege over the former chief of staff. but what else meadows knows could be key and he's talking to others in his circle toll get at information in other ways. >> and, michael, you're a former rnc chair. let's talk about the rnc calling january fth legitimate political discourse. talk about one of your successors. >> yeah. this is just beyond despicable, the fact that you have the leadership characterizing what we all saw where five people were killed, more than 100 capitol hill d.c. police officers were injured over legitimate political discourse. it speaks to the depravity of leadership, the capitulation to

one man's whims, and the fact that the chairwoman was involved along with the national committee man from my state, dave bossy, in orchestrating this further degradation of the parties just to me is a lack of leadership. you know, but look. donald trump has a way of bullying people. he bullied the chairwoman to drop the romney in her name. he's bullied the party to pay his legal bills and to continue to uphold him financially. they're all in at this point. the country as it goes into the fall's election, they have to ask themselves a legitimate question, is this a governing parties, that cares about the direction of the country? it's going to be a tough question to answer. >> so, robert, what you do make

of mike pence's fact-checking the president's claims about the election? presumably he wants to run in '24. is this a declaration of independence or him putting his toe in the water? >> well, i think it's more a declaration of independence. i'm not sure that's going to provide as much of a lane in all honesty because i think if you look at all of these things that have happened, really starting with donald trump, you know, ten days or two weeks ago talking about pardoning the rioters, now we see the rnc has declared that an insurrection is, in fact, political discourse. we had this debate going on a bit over the last month. is donald trump getting stronger in the republican party or is his grip weakening? there's been a lot of people saying his grip has weakened in the last two weeks. i think you can look at everything that's happened in the last two weeks.

and, quite frankly, the real lack of a lot of people in the republican party coming out and saying this stuff is legitimately crazy just shows that donald trump's grip on the nomination process, on the rnc, and on republican members of congress has never been title, and it just doesn't look like it's going to loosen any time soon. >> on the committee's investigation in the meanwhile is continuing, but they have to put together this jigsaw puzzle not just metaphorically but literally. they've shredded papers, and now mara la goerks documents were also found there. this is by the very people like mike pompeo, the benghazi committee at the time, excoriating hillary clinton for the records act wheel secretary of state. she wasn't president of the united states, but secretary of state for raising some things that she thought, you know, were

not -- were personal from her private server. i'm not defending the private server. i'm just saying these are the very same people with a completely different standard for the president. >> yeah, andrea. in some ways i don't think it surprises anyone that former president trump flouted those presidential norms or failed to adhere to those norms. it's a record of law to turn them over to the national archives. as you mentioned, they had to retrieve multiple boxes that precluded the documents. the impact is it leads to more questions. what else was in those boxes? how many more boxes koulgtd could there be and what relates to those? there could be real questions. is there official correspondence? is there more that that could be learned leading up to january 6th in the documents that were

removed and failed to be preserved with the national ar kievs, but even more broadly than that,ite's matter of record and accountability, and as this administration works to preserve and re-establish some of those norms, it leads to ream questions of how far we have to go. andrea? >> that was the former national security meeting that was held in the dining room with all the guests were circling around with what the reactions should be. anyway, back the mar-a-lago. thank you very much, robert gibbs. thank you, michael steele, and amna na vaz. and going ballistic. north korea may be going closer to ever than setting off a

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another foreign policy challenge and a big one. north korea in hour. this is an exclusive report on what appears to be a north carolina long-range missile base near the border. it's just as secretary blinken is set to hold meetings later this week. moments ago the center for strategic and international studies released their findings about this icbm base in this report. this as flight data now suggests north korea's latest long range ballistic missile launch just over a week ago was pyongyang's most powerful since november 17th with the missile able to reach the u.s. territory of guam. it was the most active we've seen in a one month and a week period from the north. joining us is victor jha, co-author of this report. he's also professor at georgetown, the former direct of asian affairs at the national securities council. let's start with the import of this new finding. tell us about this base, what it means to you.

>> this base, we think, it will -- [ indiscernible ] its location is 15 mimes from the border of china which is done deliberately so it would discourage any country from preemptively trying to then involve the chinese equity. if north korea doesn't have the stockpile ibms, it put it in and around this facility. >> and, victor, why do you think north korea has been launching so many missiles at one time in a short period? >> i think they've been tired. they've waited a year for the biden administration to see if they would unilaterally lift some sanctions, and i think going into year two of the biden

administration, they're just going to put intense pressure to see if they can force the united states into negotiations where they would lift sanctions. also in south korea, we have presidential elections in about a month's time, and they want to put pressure on them. i fully expect we'll see more of these tests and possibly even the nuclear tests going forward. >> and they haven't done a nuclear test for a number of years. but the biden administration says that they keep reaching out, sending overtures, please come talk to us some of what the north wants to see is some action first, lifting the sanctions before they even sit down to talk. >> i think you're right, andrea. the biden administration has this anytime, any place talking point, but the north koreans clearly want to see them pay a price to come to the negotiating table. the north koreans have greeted every u.s. president with a

nuclear test going back to george w. bush, and i'm concerned that they will try to do the same thing with president biden. >> and during that period, of course, they've been making tremendous advances as best we can tell on relaunch missiles, long-range missiles as well as hypersonic missiles. >> that's right. everybody says that north koreans are really opaque, but when it comes to their weapons program, they're pretty clear in signaling what they want to do, which is develop through the capabilities you just mentioned, a modern nuclear weapons force that is survivable, in other words, that cannot be taken out with a first strike by the united states, which would then establish them as a nuclear weapons state if they had a short retaliatory capability. >> victor cha, thank you so much for your expertise and in exclusive today. just another challenge by an administration that already has enough on its plate with foreign

policy challenges. and speaking of that, the crisis mounting. more u.p.s. troops thriving in eastern europe as u.s. intelligence warns russia could invade ukraine at any time. former u.s. army ranger and services committee member congressman jason crow joins me next. this is "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. hell hell reports" on msnbc. ♪are you ready♪ ♪are you ready♪

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russia president putin are meeting today. putin tells macron he appreciates the efforts to help, quote, equal securities in europe. joining me now is jason crow who's on the armed services and intelligence committee who's a former army ranger who served in iraq and afghanistan.

biden officials believe the russian forces have assembled enough forces it needs to con double a full-scale attack on ukraine. how concerned are you? >> hi, andrea. i led a bipartisan intelligence investigation with the intelligence committee. it was dire then. it's gotten worse since then. i think it should be clear even if it's 70%, putin doesn't have to get to 100% to do things now. he could do it now. he could do it any day. he's put in place all of the enablers, the fuel, the field hospital, blood supplies, ammunition, everything needed to do this. that's why the risk is so high. there's substantial costs to moving these things into place. he's spending billions of dollars to do this. it tells us among other things that it's his intensity to do

so. >> how should the u.s. respond if putin moves in with a full-scale invasion? presumably this would be with the sanctions, but, still we have yet to see an agreement on the senate side of the bipartisan sanctions. there are those who want to go immediately with sanctions that preceded the invasion and others say who say we need this as a deterrence weapon. >> well, andrea, i think there should be kind of three buckets of response. the one is to reaffirm and strengthen the nato alliance, to make it really clear that one of putin's goals is to ujds mine nato and berate the credibility of the nato alliance. i think we have to make it very clear this is going to have the opposite affect. it's going to strengthen the alliance in showing it's strong and we will strengthen our forces and posture throughout europe. we have 80,000 u.s. troops throughout europe right now. we're sending more. that's number one. number two is crushing

sanctions, making it hard for the oligarchs who support putin and travel, spending fuel around the world. and the third is continued support for ukrainians, making sure we're sending defensive weapons, equipment, supplies in helping them fight back the russian forces because they might not be able to stop a full-out invasion right away. if ukrainians are ready to fight their country, they're a free and sovereign people and they know this might be a long-term fight. they need to make sure they understand the united states is a partner for the long haul. that's important. >> do you have concerns if there's a smaller invasion, say if there's an attempt to topple the zelensky government, shut off the lights as they've done before in kyiv, that it would soften them up, that it would be harder to get sanctions from some of our allies including

germany? >> i think our allies including germany understand the whole menu of options that russia could bring to bear already, and that's baked into the costs and the discussions. i don't think they're going to go that route. they could, but route. i think he's made a determination he cannot end zelensky's presidency and achieve the goal of reuniting in his view ukraine with russia nothing short of military actions. that's why we're seeing this massive buildup. we've come to the conclusion there's an invasion to do so. i think more and more likely a fullout invasion, there will be civilian casualties and military casualties on both sides. >> one quick question also. there's a terrible tragedy with the navy s.e.a.l.s. i know you were a ranger and not a s.e.a.l., but it's a force you care about so deeply.

should congress be looking into the training? tough training, but some of the physical requirements during hell week, which was after this tragedy happened -- i mean, which preceded the tragedy rather. >> there's no doubt we always have an oversight responsibility. we'll be asking questions to make sure if this was something that was a departure from protocol, if standards weren't followed, and we'll do our oversight responsibility. our heart goes out to the family members of those service members who were lost. i think it's a reminder for all of us here the special operations community of which i served is asked to do extremely dangerous work, and to do those dangerous and tough things, you have to go through extremely dangerous and tough training. you try to make the training as close dom bat as possible, and that's tough. i remember my last parachute operation, airborne operation as a ranger in 2005, we lost a young range owner that

operation, that training mission, due to a parachute malfunction and several others got severely wounded. that does happen. it's devastating and we try to improve it so it doesn't happen. it's dangerous stuff, and that's why we owe them a great debt of gratitude. >> indeed. and thank you very much. and covid cases dropping. some democratic governors are joining the trend to let students go mask-free. we'll dig into that with a top virologist coming up next on "andrea mitchell reports" coming up on msnbc. "andrea mitchell reports" coming "andrea mitchell reports" coming up on msnbc.. ♪liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty♪ it's still the eat fresh refresh™, and subway's refreshing everything like the new baja turkey avocado with smashed avocado, oven-r turkey, and baja chipotle sauce. it's three great things together. wait! who else is known for nailing threes?

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divides in virginia. a judge blocked a government letting all schools opt out of local mandates. joining us is peter hotez from texas children's hospital. new jersey's governor tweeted this morning in explaining why he's lifting the mask mandate in march, starting march 1st, the first monday in march, "balancing public health with getting back to some semblance of normalcy is not easy but we can responsibly take the steps due to declining covid numbers and growth in vaccinations." what do you take from the governor's reasoning here? >> he's partially right. we can't ask students to mask in perpetuity and at some point masks to come off. the question is will we reach that by march 7th?

there's still that ba.2 variant out there and the cases may plateau for a while. in principle i think there should be a point where the cdc can make a recommendation that i think masks can come off because transmission is so low in several parts of the country. the question is do you do that proscriptively. >> i've been told that the subvariant to be more transitionible. >> it's about 30 to 40% more transmissible. this is up with measles. it's kind of interesting that certain countries have been hit

hard by the ba.2 others haven't. so we'll see how it goes. let's watch this trend continue. the numbers are about 60% down nationally. if this continues we'll be in a very good position, at least for a few months. then my recommendation for the centers of disease control is create some kind of alert system so we know when the cases go up in case we have to reimplement masks. in principle i think the masks can come off this spring, whether it's a couple weeks ago or a couple months, that's the unknown with the variant. >> and almost in an organized way republicans running for office are turning dr. fauci into some type of boogie man or

enemy. what effect will this have on public health? >> it's harmful. i turned on fox news a couple nights last week and it's very scary because there are a lot of followers that threaten you and it causes a lot of disruption and fear. this has become part of the new aspect to discredit the science. actually discrediting individual scientists and so this is a tough time to be a scientist. >> that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." m.

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