they'll soon debate a measure banning no-knock warrants in the wake of this latest shooting. and rearau mitchell reports starts right now. ♪ good day. this is andrea mitchell reports in washington. as democratic led states, where covid cases are dropping, are starting to move towards unmasking school children. calls to lift statewide mandates over the next month and california ending an indoor mask requirement for vaccinated people. the u.s. olympic team stepping up their game in beijing. the star turned from figure skating fenom, nathan chen. the 22-year-old salt lake city native with a bedazzling and

world record setting program. >> it's going to happen the way he wants it to happen and it was just so much fun watching him deliver the goods on his redemption olympics. i've said it a million times and i'm going to say it one more time, well, maybe ten more times. if nathan chen is on his game, he's unbeatable. >> the u.s. team's currently sits -- sit at four silvers, no gold, standing 17th in overall medals, far behind russia, which leads the count. we begin with a cries in ukraine. today france's president continuing his whirlwind diplomacy by meeting with president zelensky one day after a five-hour marathon discussion with vladimir putin in moscow. here at home there are questions after the president's comments that a natural gas pipeline, critical to the german economy

will not go forward if russian troops advance. >> you are not mentioning norstream two by name. don't you think if you were to spell this out, you could win back trust as a strong ally here for the u.s.? >> there's no need to win back trust. he has the complete trust of the united states. there is no doubt about germany's partnership with the united states, none. >> joining us now, nbc senior white house correspondent, kelly o'donnell, and a former deputy national intelligence officer at the national intelligence counsel. and former u.s. ambassador to russia during the obama administration. how are officials reading the readouts from macron's meetings and what nervousness is there about whether mucrohn made any

concessions to vladimir putin? >> reporter: i was in the east room and had not noticed chancellor shul's eye roll until the clip there. officials are saying that they're waiting for the real debrief from french officials after the whirlwind travels of the french president, meeting with putin and then of course today with zelensky in ukraine. and so, that will be important. but of course, on the face of it, they've been able to observe the comments of vladimir putin as well as the french president. also zelensky. and what i've been told is there are concerns about the bell coast language, they believe from vladimir putin. that is concerning. that the u.s. view may be not as positive as emmanuel macron's. at the same time the u.s. very supportive of his efforts at diplomacy and that of chancellor

schullz and he'll try to bring about the face-to-face diplomacy. perhaps buying more time. there is unity, officials i'm talking to say, in the position of u.s. and europe. it was notable that he may not have gone as far as talking about some of the matters, like the energy pipeline that connects russia and germany and president biden being clear that will stop, that the u.s. has the capacity to stop the pipeline if they invade further. ander obviously big economic impact there. but there are concerns about where things stand. the positioning of troops on the russian part. the posture of vladimir putin in that late-night news conference and what he's saying publicly, those are real concerns for the u.s. right now. >> indeed. we've seen a lot of the high-level meetings. the diplomacy.

president biden, zelensky, chancellor shoelts. so, when where has all that left us, especially macron. and it being a re-election year for him. some concerns among some of the allies that he may have gone too far in some of his conversations with putin. >> well i i don't know exactly what they talked about. five hour is as long time to talk to vladimir putin. but the pres reporting is disturbing. whenever you hear the word thinlandization as a proposal, that makes me nervous and the white house nervous. especially when you say it in moscow and you don't say it in kyiv. the ukrainians have a decision about whether they're going to thin landize. by the way the thins also hate that word. it's been mismused so many

times. at the same time i think it's important to separate capabilities from what putin's saying. his capabilities continue to build up. he's making preparations to invade ukraine in a full-scale invasion. whether he does or not, we don't know. but nothing has changed that momentum and you used an important word. you said macron is thinking about elections. i think your viewers and listeners need to understand putin is not thinking about elections. he's not thinking about sanctions against this bank or that bank next month. he's thinking about his place in history and that makes him a lot more dangerous than we understand. >> that is so important to remember, michael. you've been reporting on the intelligence report that was briefed to congress. there's no decrease in the russian build up. to the contrary, along-border

s. >> and this is the case for the pentagon as well as nato, a case of, despite what russian diplomats might be saying, look at what they're doing. and if you look at map of ukraine and see how russia and vladimir putin has encircled the country, both on by land and by sea and what the biden administration officials did with lawmakers last week was to walk them through a table top of what things look like actically. russian officials figured out

they needed 110 battalion troops at 1500 people each in order to invade -- a full-on invasion of all of ukraine. they're 83 with 14 more on the way. that's a huge number. you have 130,000 troops at the border. a number we've seen a lot but 11 amphibious assault ships. half in the black sea and half within striking distance of the black sea in the mediterranean. you have air power, fighter jets and you have 1500 special ops troops are russian troops who are are in and out of the border at any point in time. so, when you draw all of that out and look at it and take the whole picture, it shows it's a massive undertaking that vladimir putin has said about and it's hard to then -- of course, he could step back from

the break at this point but he's certainly at the brink. >> and with that, there are officials warning that putin has to take into account that his would not be an easy invasion; that there would be resistance; that he would be moving tanks in a way russia never has; that he's seen all the warnings, the sanction warnings and others from eu, nato, from the u.s. so, how does putin and his advisors weigh these equities? >> i think we shouldn't understate this would be the riskiest thing vladimir putin has done in his 22 years in power. there are tremendous risks associated with what he's doing and all sorts of ways this could backfire and potentially undermine him at home. i think he's right in the sense that putin is thinking in grand terms. so, things like sanctions and

the costs the u.s. is lining up are unable to shape his calculus. i think he views himself as the great russian leader that would go to great lengths to increase russia's global standing. of course, as colleagues have said, he has options. he a master of optionality. it is certainly possible that he could maintain the heightened state of readiness and grind down ukraine's economy and continue to wear at the nerves of the west. he has all of those options. but my sense is that he is leaning in and he certainly is preparing the military option to go in. but to come back to my original point, we shouldn't underestimate just how risky this is. and i think it's also the role of western leaders to try articulate the cost that would be associated. we know putin has been quite isolated, especially during the covid crisis. very few people are likely to be

shaping his thinking. i think you have western leaders, macron and others, president biden, who have tried to reiterate for putin that it may not be quite as easy as he thinks it could be. >> and you're also professor mcfall. so, put on the professor hat for a moment. because i was reading some of the history some of us may have forgotten, if we ever knew it, which is how ukraine won its independence. in 1991, from boris yeltsin as a move to exacerbate the soviet union and gorbachev and awarding crimea to ukraine. is that an accurate history? >> pretty good reading, andrea and i'm teaching about that on friday at stanford, exactly this case. but to be serious. putin wants the world to believe that the west took advantage of

the soviet union, broke up the soviet union, divided their slavic brothers from them. that's not true. it was the leaders of russia, ukraine and belarus that met in december 1991 and dissolved the soviet union, completely mpt of what we were doing. that inconvenient fact for him i think is very important for people foounderstand. i read this is russia's sphere of influence. why do we care? would you have said that about colonization, oportuguese? french? i think we have to remember this happened. it was decolonization and we have to be for independence and sovereignty of all countries, including ukraine. >> i love getting a preview of what the very fortunate stanford students are getting this week.

>> i'll send you a syllabus. >> i'll try to take it by zoom or by proxy. thank you very much. well, thank you to all of you. it was a great conversation. i really appreciate your starting us off today. and a party of one. a fresh look at what primed the go, for donald trump and the rnc vote dividing republicans. this is msnbc. rnc vote dividing republicans. this is msnbc. this aisle? kim, did you just change blades back there? -ah. -this is perfect. jackpot. variety pack. remember, it's a football game, not a play date. roger that. one more slice. it can be a lot. oh, good, the manager. uh, brian in produce -- very helpful. progressive can't save you from becoming your parents, but we can save you money when you bundle home and auto with us. -pulls to the left a little bit. -nope. can you be free of hair breakage worries? we invited mahault to see for herself that dove breakage remedy gives damaged hair the strength it needs. even with repeated

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senate republicans are dismissing the rnc censure of liz cheney and adam kinsinger for criticizing don. >> i think all of us up here want to talk about forward, not backward. >> we've got issues that we should be focusing on besides censuring two members of congress because they have a different opinion.

>> they said in the resolution they wanted republicans to be unified. that was not a unifying action. >> anything my party does that comes across as being stupid is not going to help us. >> there is some descent from the trump line. jeremy peters, his new book out today is insurgeoncy, how republicans lost their party and got everything they ever wanted. your -- you examine how the party of lincoln became the party of trump as republicans now look to the midterms. and as we see what the rnc just did, it could not be more timely. certainly the majority of a elected republicans know that donald trump's voters are loyal to him. even if there's a decline in trump's power, he still is in control of the party. we saw that at the rnc friday.

so, what does it mean for the republican party and american politics? >> i think you and i have been watching long enough where we've seen plenty of the national review editorials, "wall street journal" opeds and mitt romney saying time and time again trump is taking us down the wrong path. he's going to hurt us with voters. but it always revurts to the same place and that is with trump being, not just the center of gravity in the party, but being the sole figure from which all republican power or nearly all republican political power flows. that's what republican lawmakers believe. that's why they are afraid of their voters and will not do anything to cross trump in a

meaningful way until those voters say they've had enough of trump. and we're not at that point yet. because at least, for the moment being, time being, trump is the person who remains their voice. he is the guy who said to them -- at the convention, i alone can fix it. and not only that, but he's stood in the way -- as he told me in the interviews for this book, he has no interest in talking about a successor to the maga movement. he has no interest in even thinking about it. he is not looking to anoint somebody like mike pence. he never was. and when i speak to him, he in fact took credit for the success of politicians like ron desantis. he said i've helped ron at a level he's never seen before. took credit of the election of

joni ernts, just about every republican on the ticket. he believes he's the senter of the party and for the moment, most republican voters do too. >> we're seeing mike pence, just this past week, try to begin to distance himself from the former president and looking to 2024. here's part of what donald trump told you in an interview for the book, insisting again that pence could have overturned the election. >> i like mike but i think mike made mistake. i think he made a mistake for the country but i think he made, much less importantly, a mistake for himself. >> did bother you to hear them say they wanted to kill mike pence? >> yeah, i don't -- yes, it did bother me. i didn't like it. i think it was an expression. i don't think would have ever thought about doing it. >> they never thought about

doing it but they built a noose to hang him if they caught him? >> and some came with zip ties and other weapon they used to bludgeon capitol police officers with. it defies all logic. and when trump spoke to me, this was about six weeks. this is the first interview i did. six weeks after january 6th. and the revisionist history of that day had not yet really taken full effect. now, of course, we see it. but it was in that moment, when donald trump was starting to set the narrative himself. set the narrative that republican politicians would have to follow themselves. and it's really extraordinary to hear the disconnect with reality there. it was -- when they were saying hang mike pence, it was a figure of speech. we shouldn't really be too caught up with this.

and that's pretty much what you hear most republicans saying these days. i will note that mike pence, regardless of his about face in the last several days where he said president trump is wrong, as recently as a few months ago, referred to january 6th as, quote, one day in january. yes, he's changed his tune now. but as i get into in this book, it might be too little, too late because donald trump smashed the model of the republican politician that mike pence represented. that was his social conservative, who was one in the same with the people that were his followers. and donald trump showed us that you don't need to be that. you don't need to be one of them. you just need to do what those voters want you to do and included putting three very conservative justices on the supreme court and that's what his voters wanted.

they didn't need mike pence to do that. and i think a lot of the voters realize it and realize they're just fine without a mike pence. >> well, the book is fascinating. it's a great history. so much reporting. "insurgency" out today. we'll of course have follow ups. dmig to it at greater length coming up. and coming next, energy wars from the battlefield to the oil markets. how russia could use its economic clout to inflict damage on europe and the u.s. o inflicte on europe and the u.s. or necessity. we can explore uncharted waters, and not only make new discoveries, but get there faster, with better outcomes. with app, cloud and anywhere workspace solutions, vmware helps companies navigate change-- meeting them where they are,

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plug after president biden said progress on the gas line would be halted. joining me is former special assistant to george w. bush and former security advisor for iraq and afghanistan. great to see you. >> great to be with you. they're trying to agree on a sanctions package and their plan to is to publish it. it would be sanctions they say they would impose if in fact russia does decide to militarily invade ukraine. so, this is an effort to try to be really very specific about the penaltiys that putin and

russia will bear if it does take that military action. as you point out, this is a tall order. i would point out these sanctions aren't about curtailing energy exports or imports but about other financial and economic matters. >> like the banking sanctions the president's been talking about. when it comes to natural gas, the president talks about working around it and talking to gulf states about if their contracts would permit using excess and getting it to europe. does it have infrastructure to store natural gas from other channels outside russia? >> there are two questions. could europe back fill russia gas if it was curtailed? one is is there the infrastructure? it's true they have a lot of lick ruified natural gas terminals not at capacity. i think the more important thing to ask is, is there enough gas

in the global system that you can have sufficient amounts of gas flow to europe in the absence of destabilizing crisis. there will be gas but only come at extremely high prices that will have major economic and political consequences for the political continent. >> and europe is a global market. that would raise prices, even though we have so much production here, correct? >> we're talking first about natural gas and that's where putin has his leverage because you have about 40% of europe's consumption comes from russia. it wouldn't have direct impact on american markets. because the natural gas markets are actually separate. russia decides to use oil as a weapon, it would effect the global economy and russia, who currently produces about 10% of global oil production, if russia

decided to pull back, produce less, that would raise the price of oil globally for all involved. >> and let me ask you about the russian military build up. from your perspective, you've seen the intelligence reporting as well. with this kind of build up, is it likely he's planning some kind of an invasion, not just a small incursion ear hybrid attack? that it's hard for him to have amassed this much on three sides, as well as at sea, and not do something? >> well, i think the key point is, as you're pointing out, there's so much capacity capability amassed on the borders of ukraine, that it would be hard for putin to back away without claim some kind of victory. that's the challenge. is there something throughout that allows putin to say i

amassed this military force and it enabled me to get a concession that was valuable and declare some kind of victory. he can't just turn around and go home. he's really looking for something recognizing that we're in a new global security situation. that this is no longer the europe of the 1990s. i mean part of his visit to president xi was to try to get an agreement that we need a new global security architecture. and that might be something -- i don't think that's something we should give to him but that's certainly something that might cause him to back down without feeling he's been defeated. >> meagan o'sullivan. great to your expertise. thanks so much for being with us today. >> thank you, andrea. and new rules. more states lifting mask requirements for schools as covid cases drop. what are the risks? and stunning moments from team u.s.a. as they know for the

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from fidelity. yes. governors in four states, connecticut, delaware, new jersey and oregon are all announcing plans to lift mask mandates. joining us is former health policy director in the obama white house. thank you very much. first of all, do you think this is too soon? is it appropriate? weighing the equities of what school children, especially toddlers, use in wearing masks in the early years. >> and some, like new jersey, have left autonomy to individual schools, which i think is the right approach when we're thinking about masks. today is too soon. if you look at the mask of covid

cases, the entire country is lit up red. we're still at the number of cases per day we were at the peek of delta. we're still seeing cases and sadly unvaccinated ones under the age of four and a thousand deaths in the younger age group that can be prevented. i would like the see mandates stay in place until we have vaccinate everybody. >> in terms of the risk benefit ratio, even when we have vaccines available for the younger children, we've seen a low vaccination rate among young children already and don't they face a decline to development

speech and especially needs, their parents are particularlyfected. i'm just saying what a number of educators have suggested and some doctors, frankly. >> no, you're expressing a very common sentiment as a parent and physician. i asked my pediatric colleagues, especially child psychologists and psychiatrists we've worked with. we have not seen evidence that having masks in a younger age group prohibits recognizing emotion. quite the contrary, younger parents use all parts of the face, including when masked. when parents are surveyed about having masks or not, it becomes so emotional that i think we have to acknowledge we need understand when to remove masks and when to put them back into place. what do those measures look like? >> and there's already concern that the indoor mask mandate

before omicron hit was lifted too early and had to be put back on, leading to more confusion. it's great have your expertise as always. and now to the latest from the olympics where covid is playing the role of spoiler. it dashed the dreams of u.s. figure skater, vincent cho, who is out of the games after testing positive and in isolation. >> you had a dream and you followed it, you made sacrifices for it and dedicated your life for it. the enormity of the situation, the pain of it all is pretty insane. >> it's really heartbreaking. but better news for u.s. skier, ryan cochran-seagull, who a year aglow had surgery for a broken neck. he won silver 50 years after his mother captured gold in the winter games. team u.s.a.'s nathan chen, the 22-year-old just set a world

record in the short program. here's more from beijing. >> reporter: so, you know, i had the opportunity to interview nathan chen before the south korea olympics. everyone was pulling for him to get the gold and he was the favor toot win the gold and then heartbreak. he had such a hard time in his short program. although he had a record-breaking free skate in those olympics, he didn't even medal. now four years later, he has a score to settle and he is almost there with this record-breaking performance in his short program. i had an opportunity right after he performed and did that incredible first pump. tlis is a guy that doesn't show a lot of emotion. >> i'm so excited to be here in china and be at the second olympics. means the world i have this opportunity and really happy i was able to skate the way i did. >> reporter: the nexth event is the free skate. that's the medal event and he has a sizeable lead at this point.

it's really his to lose. everyone is pulling for him. it's also worth rememberings there is another american, jason brown, in sixth place. the best of his career last night. another fantastic night in figure skating when they take to the ice again. andrea. >> thanks to you, stephanie. a personal plea here is that the next time vincent chen skates, please let it be before midnight. i'd love to watch him live. and off the map, the supreme court reverses a state court ruling about gerrymandered districts in alabama, potentially limiting access to the polls in alabama. y limitingo the llpos in alabama so take care of that heart with lipton. because sippin' on unsweetened lipton can help support a healthy heart. lipton. stop chuggin'. start sippin'. people everywhere living with type 2 diabetes are waking up

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and roberts joining three members in descent and saying it was a disservice to black alabamans. pete, this does set the stage for other potential challenges and this will not change before the next election, correct? >> so, what this means is a practical matter is this new maps draws republicans that keeps the current situation of just one black congressional district in alabama will be in use for the elections this year. and alabama's appeal of a lower court ruling. but they're not going to probably hear that appeal until the fall, with maybe a ruling next year. this current map the republicans drew in response to the recent census is going to be in effect for the rest of this year in alabama. >> and interesting that justice roberts joined the three more liberal members. >> what he said is i agree we should hear the alabama case but

i wouldn't put a hold on this lower court ruling. the interesting thing is it was a three-judge panel, including two appointed by donald trump. and what they said is if you look at the voting rights acts, it would appear there's a need to create a second black majority ruling. there's a concentration of black voters. and they're all split up so they can't elect the candidates of their choice. for that reason the lower court said we must create a second black district and that's the order the supreme court put on hold. this the supreme court didn't say anything directly about the voting rights acted. the only two justices that explained the decision were kavanaugh and alito and the reason is because it would have created chaos to change the rules at this point. >> thanks so much.

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electoral count law on how to resolve electoral college disputes. critics say the ambiguous text of the law created an opening for donald trump to try to overturn the 2020 election results by proposing his own slates of electors in swing states. scholars call it a ticking time bomb. agnes king serves on the armed service committee. we'll get to ukraine. i want to ask you about working on this electoral count act, bipartisan group. tell us the progress on this and whether you think senator klobucar and others and senator durbin, who introduced a draft bill, has some real chance of passing. >> well, i think it does. and i want to emphasize that this is -- i call this necessary but not sufficient. it doesn't deal with other voter suppression problems that are going on around the country. but it is very important. and it is i think a ticking time bomb is a good way to talk about this law written in 1876.

it's very confusing. it's very unclear. we're trying to clean it up and straighten it up and make it more consistent with the idea that the american people elect the president, for example, making it clear that the vice president doesn't have a substantive role. his or her job is to open the envelope and count the votes, not decide which votes are valid and which aren't. it also really pushes the control of the electoral college to the states with the federal courts as a referee if a state can't make its decision or if a governor decides he or she isn't going to certify the vote. so it's really a technical bill, andrea, but it's a very important one so that we don't end up trying to fix things on the fly on january 6th of 2025. >> turning to ukraine, there's obviously a huge emphasis on diplomacy right now, trying to

deter an invasion despite the massing of troops and on getting the allies together. we saw the german chancellor of course in a somewhat awkward news conference with the president yesterday. a new article published by my colleagues at nbcnews.com reporting on private comments by the president about some of his closest allies, referring to german chancellor scholz as "no angela merkel." he's describing british prime minister johnson's demeanor as blustering. macron with the five hours with vladimir putin yesterday, he said wants to be a shot at the ball. they say as for putin, biden described him as a guy with nukes and no friends. i don't know if these private descriptions indicate the president's thinking as he needs to rely on these key nato

allies. >> well, winston churchill once said the only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without them. i think putin has been frankly surprised at the unity that the nato and the united states has shown in response to his building up of forces surrounding ukraine. i think it's really important, andrea, to talk about why we're concerned about ukraine, a country a long way away. number one, it's 1938. if putin is allowed to go into ukraine without serious opposition, what about estonia, latvia, poland, the other countries that are on his border? clearly he wants to reconstitute the soviet union. the second piece is other countries are watching this very carefully. china in particular. and if there's no serious resistance to what putin is proposing, it certainly would encourage xi jinping to move on

taiwan, which we certainly don't want. the third is a more subtle one. in 1992, ukraine was the third largest nuclear power in the world. they gave up their nuclear weapons in exchange for a guarantee from russia and others of territorial integrity. if that's violated, what does that say to any other nuclear power who might be thinking about a negotiation, whether it's iran or north korea or others, to eliminate their nuclear capacity if they say look what happened in ukraine, they gave up their nukes and all of a sudden they're -- not all of a sudden but in a couple decades they're invaded and taken over by a neighboring country. so, this is a very, very important moment, and so far the unity, i think, of the allies has surprised putin, and i think he's having second thoughts. >> very important point. i wanted to take you back to afghanistan and the report on

the closuredisclosures. there's a filing from "the washington post" today from freedom of information act on how much army commanders objected to some of the things the state department was doing in not evacuating sooner to the closing of bagram base too soon. what should the senate, your oversight committees do to make sure this kind of messy evacuation doesn't happen again? >> well, i think the first thing is to learn whatever lessons there are to be learned. i'm a little surprised about the bagram comment because i talked to senior military leaders at that time and i had said why are we closing bagram and they made a strong case from the military point of view that it should be closed, that it would be very difficult to defend. but one of the pieces that passed in the national defense act this year was a nonpartisan, outside the government study of the entire process in

afghanistan. and i think that's where i'm going to be focusing my attention. we need to find out what mistakes were made during the whole course but also of course in the leaving. >> thank you very much. always good to see you, independent senator angus king. garrett haake starts "meet the press daily" right now. >> if it's tuesday, prominent democratic governors in multiple states are announcing plans to roll back covid restrictions, some in defiance of current cdc guidelines. it's a major shift in pandemic strategy, signalling a major shift in pandemic politics. plus, the fallout continues to grow after the rnc censures republicans investigating the january 6th insurrection throwing senators into whether they view the events of january 6th as legitimate political discourse.