>> we hopefully correct them, i correct myself all the time. she did not. so i guess gazpacho and gestapo are the same thing for her. >> which says a whole lot of things. >> have a good day, enjoy the day. >> thanks, you too, alex. >> thanks. so a very good day to all of you from right here at msnbc world headquarters in new york. welcome, everyone, to "alex witt reports" we begin with breaking news, president biden speaking today with ukrainian president zelenskiy, the two reportedly discussing efforts to de-escalate as the u.s. warns russian incursion into ukraine could happen any day now. dod spokesperson john kirby explaining today why they think

an attack is imminent. >> the continued russian capabilities along the border of ukraine and belarus, he continues to add force capability, well over 100,000 now, over the last few days even more. and number two, a mosaic of the intelligence we're seeing. not speaking to it specifically, but we have good sources of intelligence and they're telling us that, you know, things are sort of building now to some sort of crescendo opportunity for mr. putin. >> we will have a live report from the white house as well as kyiv in just a moment for you. first, new reporting from "the new york times" today says rudy giuliani, former president trump's personal lawyer, is in talks with the house january 6th committee about testifying. congressman adam kinzinger

commented. >> he's required to cooperate. there may be changes in dates as lawyers do back and forth, but we fully expect, as the laws requires, that we'll hear from rudy. >> neither biden nor trump has full support from either of their parties. a significant number of democrats and republicans want their parties to find alternatives but very few have specific candidates in mind. joining us, nbc's josh lederman from the white house and matt bradley is in ukraine for us. gentlemen, good to see you both. josh, as we have president biden speaking with ukrainian president zelenskiy today less than 24 hours after a notable conversation with vladimir putin, what do we know about today's call? >> reporter: alex, we know the call started at 10:45 this morning. it's first chance for president biden to get to speak to ukrainian president zelenskiy obviously since biden had that phone call yesterday with president putin lasting algtsd

a little more than an hour. president biden using this call as a chance to brief the ukrainian leader about what took place in that call, which officials tell us was pretty much more of the same. the white house says it was subjective and professional but there was really no shift in the russian position that they're still making demands that the u.s. and nato are not going to consider. this is also, though, the first chance for biden to get to speak to zelenskiy since zelenskiy made some stunning comments yesterday basically pleading with the u.s. to stop creating panic in the country as the u.s. is now evacuating many of its diplomats and jake sullivan, national security adviser, is a significant this today about the threat to americans in ukraine. >> what we are trying to do publicly is be transparent to

american citizens that they should leave ukraine immediately because there will not be an american evacuation from ukraine and coordinate with our nato allies and partners so they're able to defend nato territory and deter further russian aggression. >> reporter: overnight we also heard from secretary of state antony blinken who has been traveling overseas and he says nobody around the world should be surprised if in the next period of time we see some type of false flag operation from russia, seeking to make it look like ukrainians are attacking russians or russian interests to try to create a justification for russia to then start this invasion which officials continue to say after that biden call with putin yesterday could really begin at a moment's notice, alex. >> okay, josh, thank you for that update. let's go to matt bradley in kyiv for us. what are you hearing on the zelenskiy side of things?

>> reporter: as my colleague josh just pointed out, president zelenskiy continues to question the american intelligence and increasingly alarming reports from the white house, asking yesterday specifically for evidence, for proof of why the white house or why the u.s. seems to believe that a russian attack is imminent and it might be happening on wednesday. these comments from zelenskiy have been almost jeering, almost sort of mocking, why the u.s. has been so certain and so specific in their intelligence reports. so i imagine that a lot of this phone call is going to be used to try to close that distance between president biden and president zelenskiy. here is what we heard fairly recently from president zelenskiy. >> it began not yesterday, it began in 2014, so we're ready. that's why why here. it can be each day, like i said previously, from the very

beginning, we didn't believe it at the very beginning of the war, on the east of our country. we have a lot of information because we are on these borders, it's our borders, it's our territory, and the truth that we have different information. and now the best friend for enemies that is panicked in our country and all this information helps only for panic, doesn't help us. >> reporter: so, alex, you asked about what we're hearing from the zelenskiy side. you might have noticed a strain of sort of impatience or frustration with the ukrainian president about constantly being told there's an imminent invasion when in reality so many people, and again, this is from the president on down to your average joe in the street, just simply do not believe that vladimir putin is planning on invading, despite the enormous number of forces and high tech hardware that has been arrayed all around ukraine's borders. >> let's face it, the economy there is very, very shaky.

so you see him trying to maintain that sense of calm. he does not want there to be a domino effect, understandably so, of course. and he also makes the point, since 2014, the annexation of crimea, they've realized what can happen so they're at the ready. go again, challenging u.s. intelligence is not always the wisest thing to do. we'll see what comes of that. joining me now is california congressman ted lieu, democratic member of the house judiciary and foreign affairs committees. welcome, my friend. give me your assessment of where things stand this weekend and how confident are you that diplomacy could still prevail? >> thank you, alex, for your question. i want to repeat the state department's call, which is that americans in ukraine need to leave immediately. we don't know if vladimir putin is going to invade. he may very well invade in the next few days. but if you're an american in

ukraine, you need to leave immediately. in terms of the diplomacy, we're still trying to use all of the diplomatic challenges to stop an invasion. what putin has done is unified the united states and our european allies as we stand together to push back against any attempted invasion of ukraine. >> congressman, i very much respect what you just said about everybody needing to leave ukraine. that said, i have a contrary assessment on that. listen to what retired four-star general barry mccaffrey told me yesterday about this particular issue, especially evacuating u.s. diplomatic employees. >> why are we pulling out our embassy in kyiv? it makes no sense. we ought to put more people in there, cia office, u.s. mil group officers. the ambassador should be in continuous contact with the zelenskiy government. the last building in kyiv that the russians would purposely target would be the u.s. embassy. we didn't pull our embassy out

of london during the blitzkrieg. we need a diplomatic, full bore engagement between the u.s. and russia over the next week. >> what's your reaction to what he said? >> we're stopping consular services in the embassy, however there is still core embassy staff remaining there. most staff are being told to leave and are being evacuated. again, we don't know what putin is going to do. but if he's going to start a land war in europe, then americans need to leave ukraine immediately. >> what role should the u.s. play if putin invades ukraine? >> i think the american people need to understand first that russia has a weak and struggling economy. their real disposable incomes fell by 14% between 2004 and 2020. putin has put in austerity measures. the gdp in russia in 2020 was

less than half that of california's gdp. that may be one of the reasons putin is trying to distract from his economic troubles. at the same time, russia has a really large military force so we need to use diplomatic channels to prevent invasion and if invasion happens, we have to look at not only economic costs but diplomatic costs that the u.s. and europe will impose on russia. >> i'm curious about your reaction to "the new york times'" report about rudy giuliani potentially testifying before the january 6th committee. this is someone who helped lead the effort to overturn the 2020 election. how critical could rudy giuliani's testimony be and would he be doing this to gain some level of immunity potentially from prosecution? >> potentially. we know from public reporting that he was in those discussions

where the former president was thinking of doing something crazy like seizing voting machines with the military. and we want to know what giuliani said, what he heard. we also want to know other things that giuliani might have seen the former president either say or do. what we do know, when i was house impeachment management, was january 6th was not a one-day thing. there was a whole buildup to this causd by the former president. you had a lot of planning involved. giuliani was in a lot of that prior planning before january 6th. >> and we've seen plenty of people in donald trump's orbit stonewall the committee. former chief of staff mark meadows, who has been referred to the doj for possible criminal charges. former aide steve bannon is indicted for not cooperating. if giuliani were to give any measure of substantive information, how big a breakthrough would that be, would he be the first of potentially several close trump allies to cooperate? >> let me first say the

overwhelming majority of witnesses have cooperated with the january 6th committee. the members and staff have done amazing work on that committee. they've gotten a lot of information, a lot of documents. so most witnesses have cooperated. >> good point. >> there are a few who have not. it's heartening to hear giuliani may very well cooperate. he really has a lot that he could tell the committee. >> let's talk about what happened with former president barack obama whom as you know spoke virtually with house democrats on thursday. democrats are grappling with stalled legislative agendas and trying to navigate through the midterms. punchbowl news said, quote, democrats have a tendency to complain about what we didn't get done rather than talking about what we did get done. how was the former president's message received? what do you take away from that meeting? >> president obama is awesome. he really told the house democrats and reminded us of all the great things we did.

democrats are for the people. we have an amazing story to tell. we passed the american rescue plan that helped improve our economy. and that law helped create over 7 million jobs in 12 months, the highest in u.s. history. gdp is up. jobs are up. wages are up. and unemployment is down. we followed that with the infrastructure law that's going to rebuild roads, bridges, and highways, get lead out of our water and broadband in rural and inner city areas. we need to show people that we're for the american people. >> let me ask you who you're rooting for in the super bowl today. >> my hometown team of the los angeles rams are going to win the super bowl, no question about it. >> ooh, you went there, excellent, i agree. let's hope so. thank you, my friend, good to see you. police in canada issued a warning, stay away. is it wishful thinking?

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quick breaking news update on that call between president biden and ukrainian president zelenskiy. it's just wrapped up. we'll get a readout on all the details from the white house. josh lederman is standing by to bring that to us shortly. meantime, on that so-called freedom convoy blocking a key trade corridor between the u.s. and canada, an update on that for you. police arrested the few remaining vaccine mandate protesters blocking the ambassador bridge. but the big headline, the bridge is still closed. the windsor, ontario police are alerting the public to void the area after a crowd gathered earlier. let's go to cal perry for the latest from windsor. cal, are things quiet there? if so, when can we expect the bridge to reopen?

>> reporter: things are pretty quiet. please moved in around 8:00 a.m. and finally sort of forcefully forced people to leave. they banged on the cars that were there, took people out of the cars, a few arrests. largely peaceful, the protesters have been peaceful, and you can hear the media is not popular here, it has that feel to it, that trumpian feel sort of a rally. we've been dealing with that for sort of a week. as you can see, the bridge is still closed because there are a dozen or so protesters lingering around. it's a problem police will have as we move forward. there's a three-kilometer road behind me that runs from a major interstate to the bridge, and police are going to have to figure out a way, and the mayor was talking about this morning on a canadian broadcast, they'll have to figure out how to secure this road. it's been so easy for a small number of people to snarl north america's biggest crossing. on the ottawa, on top of that,

the capital, is also a problem. the protesters outnumber police. there is a national conversation about how to handle this moving forward from a resource perspective. it's a continuing problem because you have this antivaccination, antimask movement that seems to be growing. it seems to be an antimandate movement. take a listen to what protesters told me yesterday. >> i got no rights in this country, i got no freedom, i'm unvaccinated, you know, i can't even eat in that mcdonald's, i can't even sit down and eat in mcdonald's. i don't know how that is not a crime. >> reporter: and so as we approach one week from the bridge being shut down, you can expect the political pressure is only going to rise. we know the american president has been speaking to the prime minister here about getting it open. the prime minister is saying it needs to open imminently. but the bottom line, alex, as you said, the bridge is still closed. >> i'm just going to make this point, you're very popular with us, cal perry, but maybe step

away from that guy on your right shoulder, he's a little menacing. >> reporter: maybe an hour or two in that direction. >> sounds good. thank you. house democrats are fine-tuning their midterm strategies after meeting last week with barack obama, the former president giving advice to the caucus about how to maintain their majority come november. one of the lawmakers in that meeting told me what his central message was. >> one of the things that the president said, you need to be really clear. the votes from the republican party were not there. we as democrats delivered. we are bringing the investment in our information that we have not seen since the new deal. he said we do the work, but we're not doing the best job in delivering the message, and we see on the other side, the republicans, they get their line, they stick to it whether it's true or not.

and they stick together in their message. and he said, we need to have that same passion of talking about what we have delivered. >> joining me now, a democratic strategic and former biden consultant, susan del percio, and david jolly, former congressman from florida and an msnbc political contributor. good to have you guys here. i'm curious what you make of the former president's message and how important is it for democrats to turn to president obama these days. >> i actually 100% agree with president obama on two things. one, we have to run on a record of the things that we have done and that we will do. voters are tired of hearing about what the republicans are not doing and who donald trump is, we get that, we know who he is, let's run on something that gives people hope and

aspiration. as a communications professional myself, he also said something i also agree with. we don't do a good job at communicating our message. we have great communicators, president biden is amazing when he gets on the road, he talks to people. so does vice president harris. president obama himself is a cultural phenomenon, he's once in a generation. for him to come out and be so open in this political conversation, i think this is just the beginning of what we'll see for him in the middle of the midterms to make sure we can hold onto a majority going into 2022. >> susan, nbc news is reporting that empathy, not argumentation, that's how democrats try to focus the economic message. and i'm curious to what you think about that, as far as independent voters or republicans who voted for biden, would that strategy be effective at winning over those voters? >> absolutely, because you're telling voters, i understand, i

share what you're going through, i understand what you're facing at the pump or what you're facing when it comes to losing the child tax credit. more important, i think the democrats need to stop defending and start defining. define what their message is. stop defending what they did or didn't do. put up some legislation that incumbents will have to vote on that will make them uncomfortable. if they get them on board, they have another win. if they don't, they have to say why congressman so and so didn't want you to have the tax child credit or other items or $30 insulin. those are home run things that the democrats can run on. and again, stop defending, start defining. >> so david, there's been a lot of infighting on the republican side this week over those three little words that we were discussing last week,

"legitimate political discourse" put out by the rnc in reference to the 1/6 insurrection. mitch mcconnell breaking from the rnc, ted cruz pushing back against mcconnell. none of this can be helpful for the republican party from a political standpoint. >> no, it's certainly not. what you see is mcconnell continue to try to flirt with getting past donald trump. but mcconnell doesn't hold the fates in his hands, donald trump does. the party remains in his grip. if he runs, he will be the front runner. if he doesn't, you'll see the republican party try to move past it. look, republicans have the luxury, though, right now, to go back to the obama conversation, of being in the opposition. they just get to say, look, this is the democratic ball game. and i think what president obama was trying to get at is how do you define the democrats going into this election. and it's very simple. you can be on the right side of history with all of these big

issues, including accountable for january 6th, but this midterm election is going to be decided by inflation and by the pandemic. and that's what democrats need to wake up every morning and talk about and address -- meet the voters where they are going into november. >> let me ask you quickly, this number is coming off the top of my head, david, but when you say trump is the frontrunner, there's a great cnn poll out today, i think the number is 46% of republicans or republican-leaning independents who say we don't want trump to run again. that's a pretty significant number. do you think his lock on the party is finally waning? >> look, it's not absolute. he is still the frontrunner. but i would recast the republican horse race in this going into the 2024 stakes, this is ron desantis' road to the nomination and there's only one person that can stop ron desantis and that's donald trump. this is ron desantis' emerging party.

but trump can still stop him if he wants to. >> susan, you also have gop congressman nancy mace who posted this. watch. >> hey, everyone, congresswoman nancy mace here. i'm in front of trump tower today. in 2015 when president trump announced his run, i was one of his earliest supporters. i supported him again in 2020 because the policies i believed in. >> lots of to talk about there. first of all, it happened just days after donald trump endorsed her primary rival. she's from south carolina, right? so what is she doing coming up to new york and standing in front of trump tower across the street? it doesn't seem like her -- is that the backdrop her constituents want when considering how to reelect her? anyway, but does it ultimately show that either you are with donald trump or against him, there's no in between at this point?

>> well, it definitely does show that. but what's interesting about donald trump with his endorsements in the primary, they are very valuable, and that's clearly what congresswoman mace sees. she wanted to get on trump's good side, she should have been at a hotel, spending money at a trump place, not just standing outside of it. but that being said, the other thing here is that donald trump's biggest influence is not just endorsing but attacking the person that his opponent is running against or his candidate is running against. let's see if the attack comes through. maybe this helped her a little bit. >> i guess we'll see on that. what about this, you also have congressman marjorie taylor greene who accused nancy pelosi of leading a, quote, gazpacho police, apparently mixing up gestapo with that cold soup. which is more embarrassing, nancy mace trying to curry favor

with donald trump or this gazpacho gaffe? >> i mean, to confuse these two things and then try to absolve herself on twitter and just say, oh, it was just a slip of words, no, those are very clear distinctions she made. it's interesting because she represents this republican party wing that is very much doing the work of donald trump and has risen to fame because of their conspiracy theories and their loyalism. but also, they're not very smart. and then you have someone like nancy mace who feels as though she has to protect her seat, she has to do whatever she can to stay kind of in the good graces of not necessarily donald trump but his supporters. she has voters who support donald trump. she wants to do whatever she can to make sure she keeps her seat. it's interesting to see these kind of factions of the republican party and how they have come to prominence and how

they are still beholden to donald trump. unfortunately marjorie taylor greene, even if people want to dissociate themselves from her, her lack of education is representative of some [ inaudible ] right now. >> we'll see if her voters want to disassociate themselves with her and aligning with her. susan and david, worse, gazpacho or nancy mace trying to curfewy favor with donald trump? >> oh, gestapo, no question. >> gestapo, gazpacho. david? >> nancy mace represents a failure in leadership, i think that's a much worse moment than showing your ignorance regarding cold soup. >> okay, bye, you guys, good to see you. next, the latest word on president biden's supreme court contenders. president biden's supreme court president biden's supreme court contenders join panera's unlimited sip club just $8.99 a month.

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"the new york times" report about former trump attorney rudy giuliani which is in discussions with the committee to give testimony. nbc's ali rafah joins from us capitol hill. what level of cooperation might rudy giuliani give? >> reporter: alex, there's a lot to unpack here. i want to start first with a response to this report by a select committee aide that they provided to nbc news. they say, quote, mr. giuliani's appearance was rescheduled at his request. he remains under subpoena and the select committee expects him to cooperate fully. we know hundreds of witnesses have cooperated with the committee, but people in trump's inner circle like steve bannon and mark meadows have been willing to face criminal charges for refusing to testify before the committee. the big question is why would

someone like rudy giuliani, who is extremely close to the president, be willing to comply and speak to them? "the times" reports it could be because he's trying to avoid possible expensive legal fees and trying to not comply with the subpoena or it could be that he's trying to skirt possible contempt charges if he decides not to speak in the long run. but alex, if he does, this could be the committee's biggest breakthrough yet because we know how involved giuliani was in trying to overturn the election results. listen to what one committee member said earlier today about how giuliani could help the group. >> rudy giuliani was clearly, by his own admission, his own statements, at the center of this plot to try to overturn the election, fake electors, all of the things that we're well aware of at this point. and we need to hear from him, his role in it, his part, and the information that he can share and give us more insight.

>> reporter: alex, gop committee member adam kinzinger said this morning that public hearings for the committee, which they had hoped would begin in the spring, could be pushed back to begin possibly this summer. >> okay, allie raffa on the hill for us, thank you. let's bring in peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times" and an msnbc political analyst. let's get right into this "new york times" report about rudy giuliani and the 1/6 committee. why would giuliani cooperate? >> as you just heard, a fight on legal grounds can be expensive. he's already got legal challenges already. the dominion lawsuit, there are efforts to penalize giuliani and other lawyers who participated in these efforts to stop the election certification or recertify or uncertify elections back in the last part of the last administration. so he's got a lot of bills on the table. that may be part of it.

we don't know for sure, since he's not telling us. this is a former u.s. attorney, this is a former justice department official as well as mayor of new york. there is an obligation to comply with subpoenas lawfully issued by the congress. and i think it's not a small thing to decide you're going to challenge that or to resist that if you spent your entire life as a lawyer, you know, sworn to uphold the law. >> but how high do you think the bar is, peter, for him to cooperate? in terms of the kind of information he would have to give for the committee to be satiated by it and say, okay, you've actually worked with us in good faith? it's not like he can go and say, well, i showed up and i took the fifth on everything and that could qualify him as complying. that wouldn't take kindly to that. >> that's a good question, what areas is he willing to talk about. he might say his conversations with the president are protected by attorney/client privilege or executive privilege. but he might be willing to talk

about things that didn't involve the president. that wouldn't be satisfying to committee members who want to know what the president was doing and saying in those days leading up to january 6th and on january 6th in particular. but if he were to provide enough information on, you know, the machinations that were going on that didn't directly involve the president, that may be, you know, illuminating in and of itself because he was obviously in the room for so many of these important meetings, these important planning sessions, and a lot of the deliberations that were going on about how to proceed. remember, he was, you know, talking with the department of homeland security about seizing voting machines. he rejected the idea of having the military seize voting machines. those are questions by themselves you can imagine the committee would like to ask and have him answer. >> very good point. let's talk about the president's call that wrapped up a short while ago with ukrainian president zelenskiy. it all happened as the u.s. started evacuating its embassy there. yesterday he warned president putin of the severe costs that will follow if he invades

ukraine. how helpful do you think these conversations are? is putin likely listening, or is he just checking a box that he can say to the world, look, i engaged in diplomacy and ultimately decided it was best to go in? >> diplomacy is always better than shooting. it's the ukrainian people that stand to suffer the most if there's an invasion. but you're right, the diplomacy doesn't seem to be leading anywhere and it seems performative on some level as my colleagues julian barnes and helene cooper wrote this morning, the white house wants to expose the possible ways russia could fabricate a pretext for invasion so that it wouldn't work. if they're exposed in advance, the theory goes, they won't have that as a credible way of justifying the use of force. for the moment, remember, this is a manufactured crisis.

there is nothing going on right now that suddenly generated a threat to russia that didn't exist before. they don't want nato to be in their backyard, fine, but it's been years and years and years since nato last expand in eastern europe in a significant way and they weren't about to take in ukraine. this is all something putin has manufactured and the question is why and what he gets out of it. >> the ukrainian people are enjoying the lives they lead now, they've gotten used to a level of democracy these last 18, 20 years, they're thinking, hey, this is working for us. >> no question, if you go back and read the essay vladimir putin signed and theoretically wrote last summer, he doesn't think ukraine is a separate country, he believes it belongs to russia. he doesn't respect it as an independent nation. that's always been the case. the more ukraine seems to drift out of their orbit, the more frustrating that is in moscow. i think they thought pretty zelenskiy might be a little more friendly to them than evaluated

turned out to be. he's a native russian speaker. he has not been a confrontational politician when it comes to moscow. but at the same time, i think they've come to realize now, after the first couple of years in office, that he's not, you know, a stooge of theirs. it may be that putin has decided he needs to crack the whip in order to stabilize ukraine and keep it further drifting to the west. >> i do love your experience in moscow with "the new york times." this week the president is expected to meet with some of his potential supreme court nominees to replace retiring justice stephen breyer. how quickly do democrats want to seat the next justice and how quickly do they need to do so? >> it's a good question. obviously there's a great hunger to move with speed and alacrity. we know from the recent illness involving senator lujan exactly why, because the senate is a 50-50 senate and they can't afford to delay longer than

necessary because they could lose the senate in a moment. this is not a young senate, one bad spill and suddenly you're looking at mitch mcconnell being the majority leader. so they would like to move quickly. they don't think it should take very long. the president has promised to make his pick known by the end of this month. obviously if there's a war in europe, that could change that dynamic. but he himself feels the need to move quickly. they're looking at which of these candidates you just showed on the screen might be able to, a, unify the democratic caucus, and b, also possibly get some republican votes for a little bit of insurance. and there are some republican votes, it looks like, to be had on at least a couple of these. >> peter baker, hope to see you next sunday, my friend, thank you much. next, inside sofi stadium where super bowl magic is expected tonight. where super bowl magic is where super bowl magic is expected tonight

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it's super bowl sunday, in case you didn't know. as the los angeles rams and cincinnati bengals gear up formality big game at sofi stadium later today, law enforcement has been preparing too with security details on land, sea, and in the air. in fact the fbi is in full force, keeping its eye out for any threats. >> we have a lot of safety concerns. the biggest one would be anything that would cause any kind of harm or violence to the event. so from the issues with respect

to any intelligence, i can't even really put my finger on anything because we don't have any credible threats. we're looking for any threat that might cause a problem. >> 70,000 fans will be flooding the stadium in a few hours. nbc's shaquille brewster is joining us from inglewood, california. we've been talking about that fancy new stadium behind you but i hear you got a look inside. >> reporter: that's exactly right. it will be the top security priority come super bowl sunday, come later today. but, you know, many people have been focused on the state of the art stadium. we got a look inside, and alex, it is impressive. it's simply commanding attention. >> the building was designed to be electric. >> reporter: sofi stadium, located in the city of inglewood and home to super bowl lvi, hailed as an architectural masterpiece. >> the energy in here is going to be, i hope, really phenomenal. i'm excited to see what fans think of it. >> reporter: lance evans was

lead architect behind the $5 billion privately funded stadium project. >> we completed a completely open stadium on all sides. you can feel the ocean breeze as we stand on the field. >> reporter: when you look up, a massive canopy, a cable net roof with 300 lightweight and highly transparent panels with motorized vents to help regulate temperature. >> we used the canopy and seating and designed them to promote air in and out of the building, it's quite the comfortable space to be, one of the best if not the best outdoor stadium in the world. >> reporter: then that halo-like video board, assembled on the ground before being hoisted into the air. it's 1 1/2 times longer than the field itself. >> if you come here on a regular season game, all the games happening in the nfl before are displayed on this video screen. it's become the ultimate sports

bar, before you get the live game action, the stadium starts to become part of the party. >> reporter: because the stadium is just three miles from l.a.x., construction teams were forced to dig deep, setting the bowl 100 feet below street level to comply with faa height restrictions. the the massive 70,000-seat stadium was a crucial part of the nfl's return to los angeles. >> we needed to have a state-of-the-art stadium that gave us a wow factor, that gave us the ability to put on these big events. >> with this just the start, sofi stadium already slated to host next year's college national championship, the 2026 world cup, and the 2018 olympic ceremonies. >> i hope it feels familiar when they come in the building, like they feel it's like southern california. it's a fast field, it's a fast stadium, and hopefully the game will be quite compelling. >> reporter: and, alex, that indoor/outdoor concept will get a major test today. we know that the temperatures, highs are expected to be in the

mid-80s. they're flirting with a potential super bowl record in terms of that high temperature there. so when you have 70,000 fans with that high temperature, it'll be very interesting to see how comfortable it is for folks inside. >> i guess you'll gauge that for us, too. thank you for that. nowadays the super bowl is certainly a hot ticket, but it didn't start that way. we go back to 1967 hosting the very first super bowl, although it was called the afl nfl world championship back then. only about 60% of the 100,000 tickets were sold. it is the only super bowl not to be sold out. and even though the average ticket price was just, ready for it, $12, that is equivalent to almost $100 today. still a bargain, of course, as compared to about $5,900, the average price on the resale market. that according to the seat geek ticket tracker. it is super sunday, not just in l.a. but also in beijing.

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and elana meyers taylor currently in fourth. in ice dancing, madison hubble and zachary donohue. and russian skating star kamila valiyeva set to testify. the 15-year-old tested positive for a banned heart medication that is believed to improve endurance after she helped her country win the teen event. a ruling is expected on monday. amid the warnings and alarm over russia's military buildup on ukraine's border. coming up, what it is and why it might work or maybe backfire. r e to help keep the gum sealed tight.

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