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.

and is russia inching towards war or de-escalation? as putin asystem blgs a force capable of sacking kyiv he's eyeing troop withdrawals to avoid a major conflict. so what comes next? i'm garrett haake in for chuck todd. we begin with the pandemic and major shift in pandemic politics. in the last 24 hours, a sea of blue state governors have announced changes to long-standing statewide policies, effectively ending mask mandates for millions of americans and a whole bunch of students. this is a major strategic and political shift for democratic leaders in the fight against covid, in some cases bucking current cdc guidelines and the biden administration's recommendations. while the plans might be a little bit different in each state, the message from

governors and health officials is largely the same -- it's time to get back to normal and live with the virus. >> this is something we've earned, connecticut. now is the time to stay statewide mask mandate is no longer at our level, each and every mayor or superintendent to make that call for themselves. >> we're not declaring victory but we are saying unambiguously that we can responsibly live with this thing. >> weng safely risk mask mandates by no later than march 31st. we need to maintain our vigilance over the next two months so we can all look forward to a spring and summer in oregon free of daily impacts from the pandemic. >> connecticut, new jersey, and oregon are among the four states letting schools go mask free within weeks as long as local officials follow their state's lead. two states plus california will lift mask requirements for public indoor places.

new york and rhode island are expected to make announcements regarding their mask policies in the next few days. this comes as covid cases and hospitalizations drop rapidly nation wild. vaccines for younger children are on the horizon, and polls show nearly three-quarters of americans are ready to move on from the virus, whether it's ready to move on from us is, of course, another question entirely. notably, these moves put a whole bunch of blue state governors out of step with the white house, which is still backing the cdc rheams dagss for, quote, universal indoor masking by all students, staff, and teachers to k through 12 schools regardless of vaccination status. it is a point of tension that the white house spoke about yesterday. >> what does it say that a governor like phil murphy, so closely aligned with the policies of this administration, would get a handful of medical experts and say never mind what they say, school district, you decide? >> it's always been up to school districts. guidance is clear, which is that

we recommend masking in schools. that is the recommendation from the cdc. it is also true that it's been up to local school districts to make determinations about how to implement these policies. >> joining me with more, gabe gutierrez in new york city, guad venegas from los angeles and mike memoli has the latest from the white house. gabe, three east coast states announcing they're ending mask mandates in some capacity or other. what are these decisions specifically, and how were they made right now? >> hey, there, garrett. as you mentioned, new jersey, connecticut, dell aware all saying they would end their school mask mandates within the next few weeks, but garrett, you know, there is still going to be some confusion m we just confirmed with the largest school district in new jersey, newark schools, that they will keep at this point their mask mandate even though new jersey, the state, is lifting its statewide mandate. so, another example of it being left up to local school districts and, you know, there

being different decisions being made at the local level. but as for why these states are doing this now, you just played some sound there from the local officials and from the governors in some of those states. basically, hospitalizations and test positivity rates are dropping. governor phil murphy in new jersey saying that they're dropping like a rock. and frankly, there is an indication among, you know, many people of the public that, you know, nearly two years into this pandemic we're having to start to live with this thing. i was in ohio yesterday, where we visited two school districts, one of them had kept its mask mandate in place, the other had allowed it to expire at the end of january, and we spoke with a wide variety of parents who say, look, this is something that we've been living with, you see video there from just outside of cleveland, from a high school, that has already gone away from requiring masks in schools, but that particular district does recommend them. still, this is something that

has sharply divided parents for quite a while now, but many public officials including governors in blue states are saying we'll have to live with this. notably, though, the cdc has not updated its guidance on school masks just yet. you just heard there from white house press secretary jen psaki saying that masking is recommended but ultimately it will be up to the local school districts, gary. >> we alluded to this at the top, are we expecting more dominos to fall particularly in the northeast this week? >> there is, you know, a lot of anticipation for what new york's governor will say tomorrow. she's saying that there will be an update of some sort on new york's masking guidance, unclear what exactly that will be, but again, the surrounding states have just announced updates and have -- announced plans to roll back those school mask mandates. a lot of attention will be paid tomorrow on what new york's governor will say about all this. >> we'll be watching that very closely. guad, on the west coast, you have california and oregon ending their man dates for

public indoor spaces, but gavin newsom, he has a different tack than other governors. he's not touching the school mask mandates for now, which means in california, adults can take their masks off at a bar or crowded restaurant or something like that, but kids can't. talk us through the decisionmaking there and its potential impacts. >> gerrick, we'll start by saying newsome communicated to californians we have seen a 65% drop in case rates and that's why they made the decision to end the mask mandate. they did announce that the state will be meeting with public health education and community leaders to make an announcement next year -- i'm sorry, next week, that is, to make an announcement next week and let everyone know what will happen with the school mask mandate. so there still is a chance that an announcement will be made to change the mask mandate inside schools k through 12. when you look at the numbers in

california, students 5 through 17-year-olds in california, you have a number of about 65% of them are vaccinated. now, we should also point out that in california, the governor has received lots of support from voters. this is a state where democrats outnumber republicans 2 to 1. the governor won that recall election. so the people of california have supported gavin newsom with his decisions. also, california is a very large state so every time the state makes a decision, they leave it up to counties to make their own decisions after. as of now, there's no more statewide mask mandate, but the counties will decide if they want to keep those, and next week, once again, we will be receiving more information as to how the state will move forward with the mask mandates inside schools k through 12. >> such a good point about the recall election, the covid policies having been put directly on the ballot in california. mike, what's the white house and the white house's covid team saying about all these changes that are starting to happen out

in the states? >> well, it was interesting, garrett, watching jen psaki deal with these questions yesterday at the white house because what she first tried to emphasize is that cdc guidance is just that, guidance. these are not requirements. they're leaving it up to the states and local jurisdictions to make assessments on their situations. at one point she contrasted the biden's preach at a federal level to what we've seen from governors, glenn youngkin and ron desantis going out of their way to prevent local governments from making the same kind of independent decision and instead stick with a statewide mandate from the governor. that was an interesting bit of politics. i want to follow up and continue the theme of california, because i think it is a very interesting window into how the administration looks at this. you remember the early days of the biden administration into the months of the biden administration, it was more car report than stick. they were try dog everything they could to incentivize individuals to do the right

thing, and the california recall was something of a turning point because newsome ran aggressively on the need for these restrictions, the need for stronger preventive measures and the need to sort of bring those who were reluctant along by any means necessary, mandate or otherwise. that was a model for what we ended up seeing president biden do after the recall election, when he proposed his own federal mandates, the workplace that was struck down by the supreme court. but the timing is different now. at september, we were at the peak. if you look at the delta charts we're at the very fast receding point of the omicron surge. omicron was much more disruptive to everyday americans even though the administration has emphasized we were not seeing disclosures the way they were sort of mandated closures. they were de facto closures in a lot of cases because the workforce just wasn't there. jared polis from colorado has been leading the example of democratic dpofrs to say essentially all of you have been doing the right thing, we're not

asking any more of you, and this seems to be what the other blue state governors are picking up from here. >> these blue state governors aren't saying this is about politics. they're saying this is about science. they're saying the numbers have changed in their states and they're making these choices. does the cdc -- are they flat-footed here? is there tension between the cdc and the white house? the numbers are not changing everywhere at the same rate. is this another case where the cdc is kind of behind where everybody else is like we saw on the implementation of booster shots? >> yeah, garrett. we're now a year and a couple weeks into the biden administration, and one of the often quiet but occasionally not so quiet frustrations you've heard from the white house has been that the cdc has been in some cases too slow to change their guidance but in some cases, as we saw over the course of the holidays, was too fast to change guidance. at that point, it feels about the sort of testing quarantine issues over the course of the holidayings. so this is certainly something that there might be some quiet pressure behind the scenes for

the cdc to re-evaluate, especially that masking guidance for schools. but it's also important to look at the president's rhetoric slowly changing. he was asked specifically recently whether this is the new normal, he's been emphasiing it's not, but in the next sentence he's often presented a new-normal argument, which is that we have so many more tools now beyond masking, beyond vaccination and booster shots to include the new pfizer pills, for instance, that there are so many more treatments available that we can weather these subsequent storms hopefully as well much more smoothly than we did when he took office more than a year ago. >> all right. mike memoli, glavine, gabe, thanks for starting us off. up next, voters and the virus. with democrats heading into a tough midterm election, will governors loosening the reins on virus restrictions help the party in november is and we promised yesterday on this show we'd be chasing down reaction on capitol hill, the

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this will be an ongoing threat for people for years and deck aigds, at a lower level than it was during the height, so, yes, empower people with the best information and this know people have a stake in protecting themselves and we move on. >> welcome back. that was colorado's democratic governor jared polis talking about his state's new approach to coronavirus with chuck todd last week on this program. as we said at the top of the show, nearly two years into the pandemic, which happens to be less than a year before the 2022 midterm, some democratic governors are changing their minds and messaging on covid

restrictions. joining me is former rnc chair and msnbc political analyst michael steele. also with me in studio, happy to have "the washington post" mariana sotomayor and former adviser to vice president harris and host symone sanders. simone, these democrat governors getting out ahead of the cdc and the white house. is the white house frustrated by that or just happy to have somebody else testing the waters on these policies? >> i think you have to ask the white house what their official policy is there and how they feel. look, i think democratic governors, particularly folks up in this midterm election, which is a lot of them, key places like michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, like go down the line, ohio -- >> states we're used to talking about. >> states with e no a little something about. i think they are looking at the lay of the land, and it's not just governors, it's mayors across the country, other

elected officials, and what they don't want are policies that have people piss at them at the ballot box. are these moves backed by scientists? a lot of governors know their states better than we do, and the mayors, so we have to take them at their word. for me, i'm still wearing my mask. >> as well you should. how tricky is the politics for democratic governors and candidates? i want to put up the stacey abrams photo, which i think our viewers are familiar of this picture of her unmasked in a classroom. they jumped all over that, called it hypocrisy. how difficult is that for democrats, broadly the idea of covid hypocrisy, and that photo in particular for her? >> the facts are that democrats across the board including this white house, the biden administration, they have done an extremely good job at leading by example. they're different than a number

of their republican counterparts. they said we're going to lead by example, wear the mask. folks who have taken the vaccines publicly on camera. the consistency is the point, and candidates have to be extremely vigilant coming up in this election cycle, particularly democratic gubernatorial candidates and also republicans. so i think this is where the staff needs to step up and do that last look before your candidate goes out, because that photo of leader abrams could have been avoided. >> michael, i want to bring you in here. this recent poll we've been looking at saying republicans and independents both say that covid is here, it's not going away. democrats are lagging when you look at that. do republicans see an opportunity here to kind of capture the prevailing sentiment around covid politics or at least draw in those independents who are always the surprise in midterm elections? >> yeah, they do. i think they recognize a certain reality about covid irrespective

of times wanting to ignore the science because the politics on covid workings for them. i think that's why you see the democratic governors mufg as they are on this issue. they want it past them. they don't want it to be an issue in their states going forward. republicans do, but they do because there is an underlying sentiment regardless of everything else among the american people that, okay, we've done all that we think we can do, we've done all that you've asked us to do, at what point do we at least begin to move back into a sense of normal, whatever that may be? i think republicans have found a way to sort of picket that over and over again for political purposes. but the reality still remains that there are some cautionary tales out there. we haven't completely turned the corner. so there's always this danger that spikes could come and then the narrative changes.

but for right now, republicans see they have the upper hand on this. it's reflected in the polling among a lot of voters, and the democrats are now playing a little bit of catch-up to that. >> ariana, before you were covering congress, you covered the biden campaign, you know covid was, like, the turning point issue for him, the issue on which his political fortunes have risen and fallen in the last more than a year, feels longer. >> yeah. >> is getting past this omicron surge the key now for the biden administration? and do you think they'll be scared to touch the hot stove of declaring victory again after what we saw happen last summer? >> it's definitely a test. we were there. we were always watching how biden was respond to the covid pandemic, and what helped was the fact a lot of people were watching trump's missteps, the fact he was promoting this information, wasn't necessarily as what people were seeing at the time and polling showed responding to this pandemic right away or in ways that they thought was the roadway.

and, you know, you mentioned how biden at the time took prevent tich steps but that declaration on july 4th saying we're turning the curve was pretty early. a lot of people i think followed that and said we're getting to a point where covid isn't necessarily that we still have to look t v at, it's maybe something we can keep in the past, but that declaration and then omicron, which a lot of people did not see coming, and the lag in testing and the long lines that we saw, i mean, people are definitely starting to question whether they can have a hold on this moving forward. >> i mean, the point that people didn't see omicron coming is an important one. i remember when we were all walking around mask free, and i also remember the day at the white house where the president went out and gave that speech after the cdc guidance had been issued and gave a speech and put his mask on. subsequently, everyone else at the white house put their masks on. i think as the chairman just

noted, science changes, and what happens when you lead with science and not a communications plan, things such as this do arise. so i think that voters, though, are not as forgiving. a lot of people across the country feel, look, we've all got covid at this point. a lot of people have gotten it. and think want to take the masks off and get back to normal. but we are still in the midst of a global pandemic. >> the broken link between the cdc's guidance and messaging has been a problem. talking about it with mike in the last segment the idea of how the kreds cds nchs the politics of this. people don't want the politics to drive the conversation here, but they do need the science and the politics to try to at least speak the same language. that seems to have been a problem for the cdc of late. >> well, look, again, the cdc made up of scientists, career individuals who, frankly, after the last administration, felt attacked. they felt like their agency had been politicized. ask anyone who was there during

the trump administration, they put out guidance and things purely based on pressure by the white house that was not backed by science or helpful to the american people during the trump administration. i think the people in the agency feel some sense of okay, we need to make sure we're leading with the science. i do want to remind folks, i remember when president biden made his declaration about the boosters and everyone, you know, basically people wet their pants and said this is not backed by the science, this is not okay! well, come to find out the fact that americans were boosted is what has prevented a lot of folks, frankly, from being hospitalized and dying from covid-19. >> the cdc doesn't have the worst messaging problem this week, michael steele. that's the republican party. we were talking yesterday to republican senators about the rnc's censure of liz cheney and adam kinzinger. i can tell you republicans did not want to talk about it. senators thought it was a terrible idea. they thought it was backward looking. is this a problem of reaping and sowing for republicans who wouldn't take the trump band-aid off much earlier?

>> oh, absolutely. and, you know, i'm sorry you don't want to talk about it, but baby, you got to talk about it, all right? you don't get to hide behind your senatorial privilege of blowing off the press. no. your party, my party, our party just declared itself anti-democratic by putting on the record that they thought what happened on january 6th was legitimate political discourse. and that's just not right. so, yeah, i'm sorry, you got to answer. you got to answer the question, do you agree with that. and if you don't, then you need to shake the party down and get it off of this particular footing if you think you're going to be a governing majority in the future. it's not just about winning the election in 2020. that's great. then what? what are we going back to? if trumpism is the id inside this party, what does that say for how we govern in 2023 and

beyond? you have to own the moment. you don't get to walk away from it, senators, all of you, whether you're retiring or not. you own the moment. all of us out here are taking the heat. you need to take it too. >> michael, i can fell you getting hot under the collar about this one. mariana, house republicans are taking a different tack on this one. >> my reaction is the rnc has every right to take any action and the position that i have is that you're ultimately held accountable to voters in your district who you represent, and we'll hear the feedback and the voters pretty quickly here this year. >> ironically, this was the person put in place to replace liz cheney when it comes to conference republican messaging. i guess that's the conference republicans' message on this issue. i wonder, does your reporting indicate, do we think this is the end of the story when it comes to cheney and kinzinger and the rest of the conference? or does this only embolden the voices within that conference who want to go farther and maybe kick them out entirely?

>> yep. this is actually pretty old to talk about for house republicans. ever since last summer, the freedom caucus held a press conference and were saying from then on, essentially, we need to kick these two out of the conference, they're not part of the party, they don't even go to these meetings anymore, but they just want them out. they said they don't represent the party, what they stand for. it's so different from what we heard from senate republicans yesterday saying if we want to unite and go into 2022 as a united force and, you know, keep the focus on biden and democrats in disarray, this isn't a uniting tactic. house republicans see it totally different, especially those pro-trump ally who is say no, this is what unites us, this is what the base is saying. we should keep the focus on leadership to have to answer these questions. and mccarthy also got a question on this, did a couple of backflips trying to answer, saying well, you know, the legitimate political discourse, it was about some members who

have been subpoenaed by the january 6th committee, and didn't really answer the question about whether it is something that they support. so this is not the fight that leadership wants to have. they want to keep focused on biden and the democrats because they're on the cusp of potentially taking back the majority. this is going to be a distraction but definitely something they'll keep hearing about from their conference, i'm sure. >> we have to leave it there, am though every day they're talking about it is probably a good day for democratic candidates. michael, mariana, symone, thank you. students are holding a protest over the killing of locke when officers served a no-knock search warrant. body cam video shows locke was armed with a handgun under a blanket when officers entered the room in this predawn operation. officers fired three times, killing locke, moments after walking through his front door. locke's family said he was sleeping on the couch in his cousin's apartment at the time

and that he was licensed to carry that gun. police say locke was not the target of the warrant. the case is under investigation by the minnesota attorney general's office, and locke's family is joining a growing call for an end to no-knock warrants in minneapolis and beyond. these students you're seeing here are marching to the governor's mansion at this hour wearing all black. there will be a press conference expected at the mansion in the next hour, and we will continue to monitor this and bring you developments as we get them. still to come, the latest out of eastern europe as a meeting between putin and french president macron opens up a potential path for de-escalation along ukraine's border if putin decides to take it. you're watching "meet the press daily." you're watching "meet the press you're watching "meet the press daily.und. oh, that photographer? he's looking for something a little more zen, so he's thinking, “i'll open a yoga studio.”

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welcome back. diplomatic efforts to avert a russian invasion of ukraine are continuing today amid intelligence officials warning that russia may have the forces in place to take over all of ukraine in just a matter of weeks. french president emmanuel macron has been taking the lead on the diplomatic front this week, meeting today with ukrainian president zelensky in kyiv, this a day after meeting with vladimir putin for roughly five hours in moscow. macron told reporters putin said he would not initiate any further escalation of tensions, but the kremlin says the two leaders never reached a diplomatic agreement.

and remember, u.s. intelligence claims moscow is plotting a false flag operation as a potential pretext to war. meanwhile, a western intelligence official tells nbc news that russia's military buildup along the border with ukraine is not slowing down and that russia could have the forces it needs to take over the entire country in just two to three weeks. joining me now is nbc's matt bradley in ukraine. matt, how are you seeing the troops there now preparing for this potential russian invasion? and is there a growing sense on the ground now that things are imminent? you've been reporting the last week or two that folks have been very calm there. >> yeah. garrett, it's one of the more bizarre baffling parts of the story, how calm everybody's been, even as intelligence reports are showing there's kind of a noose around this country's neck. everybody is pretty relaxed, walking around the streets here, and we're only about 30 miles from the russian border. seems pretty normal. you asked how troops are preparing. i think the main thing here is

there are troops who are preparing, a lot are at the front lines. we went to a tank factory today where we saw basically not so much a factory as they were refurbishing old soviet tanks and turning them into modern, sophisticated tanks that they say are nato-class weapons of war with advanced communication systems, and they say they're superior to some of the russian tanks they might meet on the battlefield. but the battlefield is the issue here, because, garrett, you know, a lot of ukrainian former defense officials and other, military analysts, they're telling me the fact is the ukrainian military is so weak, outmanned, outgunned by the russians that they won't last long on a battlefield in the conventional sense that you and i would know in the traditional war movie way. instead, this is probably going to be a very quick operation by the russians. when they move in, they will take the country. and then the real strategy that the ukrainian government is looking at is an extended

guerrilla-style tactics, fighting against an occupation by the russians. that could take a long time and be very, very bloody and we'd see a lot of civilians on the front lines. garrett? >> matt, thank you. coming up, putin's pledges of de-escalation and u.s. intel paint two very different pictures of what we could see unfold in ukraine. so what really is vladimir putin's next move? and is the u.s. prepared? i'll speak with a member of the house intelligence committee after the break. you're watching "meet the press daily." daily. with a painless, one-second scan i know my glucose numbers without fingersticks. now i'm managing my diabetes better and i've lowered my a1c from 8.2 to 6.7. take the mystery out of managing your diabetes and lower your a1c. now you know. try it for free at freestylelibre.us

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welcome back. as president biden tries to navigate the tensions in eastern europe, he also finds himself navigating a whole bunch of new relationships with nato allies. nbc news is reporting biden in private has been offering some frank assessments of those leaders. sources tell nbc news that the president has described german chancer olaf scholz, with whom he met yesterday, as no angela

merkel. and sources say he's described brian williams boris johnson's demeanor as blustery and that french president macron wants to be charles de gaulle. i'm joined by mike quigley, a member of the house intelligence committee, and co-chair of the congressional ukraine caucus. congressman, i know you get better classified information than i get. you've got the latest briefing from the administration on the state of these talks, these efforts to avert war. i know you can't talk about the details of what you're learning, but i wonder as you sit here today if you're more or less confident than you would have been yesterday that a diplomatic option can still win out here. >> there's always hope for diplomacy. i think the lessons of the first world war is giving up on diplomacy too soon leads to catastrophe. and i appreciate our european allies needing to step up their game toward that end. but there's always hope. i have to comment on the

president's leaked remarks as they were described. i do want to caution folks that obviously this isn't the first teem that the opinions of world leaders have gotten out. it's not the first time they haven't been favorable. they'll get over it. and as long as they're uniied when it matters, we'll be okay. >> sure. these are all adults here. i want to ask you about macron's role that he had stepped into over the last couple days, meeting with zell len ski today, vladimir putin for five hours yesterday, has to be the biggest table i've ever seen in my life. what do you make of the leadership role he's trying to take here? and do you share his assessment that there may be an off-ramp available here if the russians decide to take it? >> i think there's -- i completely agree there's an off-ramp. it's always been there. but there could be negotiations on arms, on placement of missiles, on exercises. those are all things that are very fair to talk about. but the subject of negotiations not at the barrel of a gun.

they're mutual, with our allies, and in the form of diplomacy, not a forced manner in which this president is trying to do. >> what did the president need to get from the german chancellor yesterday? obviously, the germans are kind of a key, some would argue mostly the missing piece in the western response to russia here. >> i think the german chancellor is starting to say the right things. i'd like to think he's held back and been somewhat reserved for diplomatic reasons, reasons of concern at home that so much of their natural gas is coming from russia and not wanting to upset the populace, i guess. the final analysis, i'd like to see a little more than saying the right things and doing the right things. look at it this way. putin is not about so much protecting his own borders but expanding them. this isn't just a ukrainian problem. it's a problem for poles, the baltics, georgia, all of eastern

europe and therefore western europe. so i think the german chancellor needs to step up and recognize that they need to do more of the right things, and that's equipment, training, troop posturing, particularly with this eastern european allies, and a non-nato allied ukraine. >> the president yesterday, you know, kind of made this open-ended comment that nord stream 2 wouldn't happen, it would be shut down if there was any kind of invasion. i want to play that for you and talk about it on the other side. >> if russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of ukraine again, then there will be -- there will be no longer a nord stream 2. we will bring an end to it. >> how will you do that? exactly? since the project and control of the project is within germany's control. >> we will -- i promise you

we'll be able to do it. >> so, i guess my question is, is the "we" there kind of a royal "we"? is he saying that germany would shut down that pipeline? or what other options are available to the united states to shut a pipeline down that we're not really exactly part of? >> exactly. look, nord stream 2 has been a major concern for ukraine since its inception. it's only going to make europe more dependent on russia. we see the ramifications of that along the ukrainian port, the ukrainian border. i think that, again, the germans will be there when it's necessary. nord stream is part of it as well as other sanctions involving the banking industry, shutting the russians out of swift and the availability to the rest of the world. but i'll say, i think it's important for us to recognize something. i think putin wants ukraine more

than nord stream. and while those other sanctions are important, i think what's more important is recognizing the fact that we ought to give putin what he doesn't want. he wants the u.s. out of europe. he wants nato to not exist. and certainly out of eastern europe. i think we ought to threaten him beyond just this nord stream issue with the real threat he doesn't want, and that's nato at his doorstep. >> there's been a lot of talk over the past couple days about the possibility of a false flag operation, the kind of thing that could create a pretext for russia to invade. the white house and the state department got some pushback last week for not providing evidence to back up that claim. you have access to a lot more intelligence than do i. do you believe the intel community's assessment here? have you seen sufficient evidence that that's how this could potentially play out? >> the way i can describe it is this -- i've been a part of the intelligence committee for about five years now, and the fact of

the matter is this is exactly how the russian kremlin playbook runs out, right. disinformation, cyberattacks, and false flags. this is how they interwarfare, that they set up the situation in which the circumstances allow them to do this. so i think they'd be very sophisticated if they did something like this, and i think we can expect it and expect it to look very real. so i think the fact that the administration released this possible information is the fact that they're letting the rest of the world know ahead of this, before the russians do. >> fascinating stuff. congressman quigley, thank you very much for coming on. >> thank you. anytime. coming up, meet the midterms. that closely watched texas democratic primary we told you about last week just took a nasty turn. plus, we'll tell you who just ended the speculation about a possible senate run.

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welcome back. the primary election for wisconsin's closely watched senator and governor's races isn't until the summer but next tuesday is primary day for some local races and the issue isn't just about who is on the ballot but how those ballots can be cast. the issue of ballot drop boxes is at the center. in 2020 wisconsin was one of 40 states plus the district of columbia to allow the use of ballot drop boxes and had over 500 secure boxes available all across the state. the use of the boxes in wisconsin are facing lawsuits

meaning voters may be using them for the final time. former president trump has falsely claimed it's, quote, only good for democrats and cheating. not good for republicans. joining us now from milwaukee, wisconsin, shaq brewster. shaq, what's going on with the state's drop box battle and what are the implications for other states as we start to approach midterms and primary season? >> reporter: garrett, that's a great question. this is not just about wisconsin but you saw back in 2020, as you mentioned, 40 states were using drop boxes as a way to help people vote more easily during that pandemic. according to the latest court battle and ruling, that will be the last time voters can use a drop box like this. instead they would have to put it in the mail or go to a poll location this is a state where just a couple months ago you had republican leaders in the

legislature working on ways to formalize the process here in the state, but then the message came from president trump and then some of those challenges started to have success. listen to the head of the milwaukee elections commission on what the impacts of those challenges could be and from the lawyer who is filing these challenges and is going to have to argue in front of the supreme court trying to get rid of boxes across the state. >> more than hatch the people who vote by mail trust these secure drop boxes. their preferred way. >> reporter: it would be a big deal if you can't use these? >> it's a big investment and our voters like the convenience and reliability. >> if you're going to have them and that's a legislative determination that needs to be made there are certain things you should do to assure that they're safe and secure.

and right now we don't have that. >> reporter: one point that you hear from election officials here in milwaukee is they believe these boxes are more secure than putting your vote in the male box. they're hardened, have tamper proof, cameras around that have a 24/7 recording. they track anytime ballots are removed and two election officials are needed to do that. some of the groups trying to talk to voters and get them to participate in any election big or small is that in wisconsin those mail-in ballots must be received by the clerk on election day. when there are mail delays, questions about how long that ballots takes to get back to the clerk, these drop boxes remove some of that certainty. if they go away you have many of the voting groups here say they

will have major consequences coming up with the midterm elections. garrett? >> and now some volunteer checking the tape to see what shaq is doing banging on the box all day long. thank you for your reporting. chuck will be back tomorrow with more "meet the press daily." msnbc continues with my friend katy tur right now. good to be with you. i'm katy tur. mask mandates are coming to an end and this time done by democratic governors. new jersey, connecticut, delaware, california and oregon have all plans to end or relax mask mandates and some are putting an end to masks in schools. state officials point to a decline in covid cases and the availability of vaccines for kids and while the state changes mandates, cities, towns and school districts can make their own