character. all the way to the plot to get dhs to seize voting machines. in short rudy giuliani's grubby fing irs are on it all. well, now news that he is in talks to potentially cooperate with the january 6 select commit tee. from "the new york times" rudy giuliani who's former president trump's lawyer helped lead the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. in discussions with the house january 6 committee about responding to itsds questions. giuliani has signaled to the committee that he plans to take a less confrontational stance toward its requests than some other members of trump's inner circle fighting the subpoenas or have otherwise refused to cooperate. "the times" cites reasons why giuliani might be inclined to cooperate and other members of

the inner circle risk prosecution by obstructing the january 6 probe. namely the fact that he is currentfully a whole lot of expensive legal hot water. sued to the tune of $1.2 billion of dominion. the law libs suspended by a new york court in june. an attorney for giuliani declined to comment and while "the times" notes that the conversations are quote preliminary it is difficult to overstate what a huge deal, what a game changer testimony from giuliani would be. so much of the reporting and the findings released by the january 6 select committee so far shows all roads in the trump insurrection lead back to rudy giuliani. through it all from the press conference at the four seasons total landscaping and the rally

before the attack. giuliani was the public face of the big lie. >> they don't decide the election why the call for joe biden isn't -- who is it called by? >> all the -- >> oh my goodness, all the networks! wow! all the networks! we have to forget about the law! judges don't count. we let this happen we'll become venezuela. we cannot let this happen to us. we cannot allow these crooks because that's what they are to steal an election from the american people. they elected donald trump. they didn't elect joe biden. read the history of dominion and get an idea of what crooked company it is. let's have trial by combat! >> the january 6 select committee in talks with trump's attorney rudy giuliani to testify potentially where we

start. mike schmidt is here from "the new york times." biline on the piece of giuliani rorting and joining us is daniel goldman of lead counsel in the first donald trump impeachment and former assistant attorney from new york and our friend former snoer claire mccaskill is here. mike schmidt first. walk us through what you are reporting. >> where does the discussions between giuliani's lawyers and the committee end up? is this simply rudy giuliani trying to head off a referral to the justice department like meadows and bannon and does this mean that he is just going to come in and do some combination of say, yeah, the sky was blue that day. i take the fifth on this. privilege on that. maybe answering a few questions about an election fraud.

that is different than full cooperation telling everything he knows is much more of an open book and that's what really remains to be seen here. what i think is significant though is that if you look at the trump inner circle one of the biggest problems the commit tee has is penetrating it. they couldn't get to meadows and bannon. they're in discussions to talk to rudy giuliani and in a discussion of focusing on what was going on, who was advising the president, it is a potential step forward from the stonewalling. the stone walling that has hurt the ability to penetrate everything about trump on january 6. >> mike, is it possible that bernie carrick's cooperation cracked the egg and starting to

ease out and rudy giuliani's calculation is they know half i may well avoid a criminal contempt case and those bills? carrick was involved in what rudy giuliani was up to his elbows in. how much do the witnesses that cooperated influence the potential that giuliani feels they know some of the body of work if you will? >> i'm not sure. maybe that leads giuliani to be more candid or a backstop, another story. his story is compared to to be concerned about the accuracy of his testimony. the carrick cooperation and testimony was significant in and of itself and the production of documents. as you were laying out earlier rudy giuliani has so many different legal problems that fighting another subpoena would

cost him a lot of money and he would probably lose it and potentially expose himself to yet another criminal investigation. there's the criminal invest and sued in the other election lawsuits and has an enormous amount of legal exposure and not sure what goes through his head and perhaps this may be the easiest of all the legal problems he has to deal with which would be to simply go in. by going in and engaging it makes it harder for the committee to make an argument to congress that he wasn't cooperative when bannon stiff-armed them, wouldn't be responsive, that made the case against bannon airtight shut and probably indicted as quickly as it was. >> dan goldman, let me read you. we covered the giuliani sort of bad acts in pieces but our

friends who -- phil rucker and i alone can fix it have a summation of everything. he went state by state asking them what they were saying and what their plan was. quote, what's happening in michigan. they said it was too early to tell. votes are still being counted. just say we won giuliani said. same thick in pennsylvania. giuliani's grand plan was to just say trump won. state after state. based on nothing. stepien and miller and meadows thought it was incoherent and irresponsible. also the anecdote has rudy giuliani on the outs sitting at a large party not inside the residence, drng, blatherring away and trump form shops until landing to rudy on the grand

master of the coup plot. talk about the potential significance of that even as someone that narrows the scope of what he'll answer on. >> there's no question that if rudy giuliani were completely forthright he could blow this investigation open. i think giuliani has been trump's sort of concigliary dealing to the impeachment and going up through 2020 when giuliani cavorting with russian agents through the election big lie and january 6th. he has been by trump's side. been tension at times and trump pushed him away and pulled him back. rudy giuliani knows more than anyone about all of these machinations behind the scenes but there's so much more we

don't know until we get to that point. giuliani did not indicate a willingness to assist law enforcement against trump or anyone else. under investigation in the southern district for a long time. the cooperation there may keep him out of jail and coop rate with january 6 doesn't. there's more incentive to cooperation in a criminal investigation. i suspect that mike is hitting the nail on the head that a couple of different options hereby. one i think he may be floating this to show trump he can cooperate. he can reveal a lot that would be damaging to trump because donald trump has reportedly refused to pay rudy giuliani's legal bills even though trump is raking in campaign cash and using rnc money to pay for his own legal bills. he could use the campaign money to pay for rudy giuliani's legal bills and he is not.

and this might be a shot across the bow to say you better be careful. i could reveal a lot about you so you might want to take care of me. he could sort of play it both ways which is to say as mike pointed out he could go in and answer questions about his own conduct which would be shaded very fave bring towards him and not answer questions about trump and maybe take the fifth or make a bogus claim of executive privilege. if i'm the january 6th committee i make him turn over documents first and show that he is going to cooperate by giving revealing and important documents that would be helpful and potentially contrary to his own interest

before i engage in what could be a charade where he purports to cooperate and gives them no meaningful information about donald trump or otherwise. >> claire, i want to read from the january 6 committee's subpoena to giuliani saying this. between mid november 2020 and january 62021, and thereafter, you actively promoted claims of election fraud and sought to convince state legislators to take steps to overturn the election results. according to witness testimony and public reporting in december 2020 you urged president trump to direct a seizure of voting machines around the country after being told that department of homeland security had no lawful authority to do so. up in contact with then president trump and members of congress regarding strategies for delaying or jove turning the results of the 2020 election. he is such a nexus between the

actors in the states which seems to have come into focus oberto 1/6 committee recently and the fake electors and that sort of white whale of what was trump doing? just talk about him even if he narrows the scope of what he is willing to talk about, what would you want to ask him and how seriously would take the answers? >> let's just put things on the table here. he is broke. he needs money. i think daniel's point about a shot across the bow trying to get trump to pay the legal bills is probably valid and mike's point is valid. his lack of self awareness about how he really isn't that smart, he thinks he is smarter than anybody so i think he believes he can go in front of the committee saying i don't

remember, executive privilege, lawyer privilege, i don't remember, didn't happen, we were waiting for court. he could just shuffle around and on ves kate and never get to the meat of the matter and why what daniel said is so important. if you are going to ask rudy giuliani questions, i really believe you need to do it as a cross-examination with documents backing you up just as if he's a witness in court so that you have the documentary evidence, text messages, emails where you can nail him on his effort to fraudulently putt together electors and send them as if they're real electors ickes made false claims. if you don't have a document to nail him with a yes or no question, did you say this, and if you don't do it in public, your jury are the american people, i don't know what value

you get out of it. he won't give up everything they want to know. >> mike, taking the recent reporting, he was laughed out of courthouse after courthouse. his legal efforts failed everywhere he brought them. but he did succeed in trying to turn the executive branch and bend it to trump's will. your reporting had him at the krenltder of making the calls to dhs. does rudy -- is there a piece that thinks he is a guardrail of sorts to have him come in and talk about the bad things that he prevented from happening? i know sometimes that's a way to appeal to people around trump. >> i think and dan would be better to answer the question than me but i think when you look at a group of individuals

in a white collar investigation and whether there was a conspiracy you are most successful with the inner circle shooting at each other because they tried to do the right thing and start to turn on each other. we have not seen that happen yet in the inner circle of trump why that would be a very big, significant development. we see the engagement which could lead to that and giuliani saying, look, powell was the crazy one. i was the voice of reason. let me tell you what she was telling the president. i think that for the january 6th investigation to truly succeed it needs for the inner circle to shoot at itself and turn on itself. to the point of giuliani and all that he's done we often think

about mike flynn as the fire that burned from the trump administration beginning to the end but if you go a little bit further back it was rudy giuliani who was the only trump surrogate i think who went out on television after the access hollywood videos in the midst and the heat of the 2016 campaign and basically stood by trump's side and still there with him even after trump snubbed him on a cabinet position. came in. highly effect i to undermine the mueller investigation. giuliani is as a constant confidant and a spokesman for trump as anyone. and it looks like he was running the same play he had run since going on television in october of 2016. the problem here is that the consequences were the country's

democracy and the legal exposure is far greater. >> dan goldman, pick up on the point for me. and the point mike's making about the circular firing squad you agree that with and rudy in the center of that. what would you have done with rudy giuliani as a potential cooperating witness in the first impeachment? >> i would have loved it. i would have -- i would have loved to take a crack at him on cross-examination as claire was talking about. but there was -- in that case we had so many very straight, credible, incredibly accomplished career civil servants who were the witnesses and to throw in a wild card

outlier like rudy giuliani it ran a risk to taint the other witnesses. in this case we have a band of misfit who is are involved in this whole thing and there isn't the same risk of tainting oirz state department officials and super credible witnesses but mike is right. first in the door always is better from a cooperation stand point because that's -- mike's exactly right. you can frame the whole narrative. kurt volker tried to do that but he went too far and was completely misled us but generally speaking that is advisable to get in early and blake blame it on others to point the finger at and set the narrative. one place to disagree with mike is i think the narrative has been set already and while the committee may not have heard

from the super inner circle like stepien or carrick or others one level beneath them but who were present for a lot of these meetings have already come in. they received mark meadow's text messages and other documents. they received information from and about the inner circle and giuliani is probably feeling the pressure if he doesn't tell his story others will tell the for him and that's the risk you take if you defy coming in in a committee investigation along these lines. >> claire, hard to ask this question politely but there's a clownishness to rudy. this is a voicemail he accidentally leaves for a

senator. let me play this and ask you about effect that's already in the public arena from rudy giuliani. >> senator tuberville? this is rudy giuliani, president's lawyer. i'm calling you because i want to discuss with you how they're trying to rush this hearing and how we need you our republican friends to try to just slow it down so we can get these legislatures to get more information to you. and i know they every reconvening at 8:00 tonight, but it -- the only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states and raise issues so that we get ourselves into tomorrow ideally until the end of tomorrow. >> when i listened that again today i wondered where the hell

all the senators are who are on the receiving ends of calls like that. one person was dead. police officers would die. and this buffoon whose fingerprints are on everything ma level vent that happened and before election day in 2016 between the release of the "access hollywood" tape and the insurrection. where does rudy giuliani come from in the republican senate ranks? >> i can't imagine there's much of it. you know, this is -- rudy giuliani is a good example of somebody who held an important position in our country and because nobody really scratched the surface and i don't think everybody really got to know him as well as we have now, nobody had no idea what a goofball he was. you know? i mean, everything from the hair

dye dripping off his face to doing a press conference at a landscape company, the clown car that was the trump legal team after january 6th and really that tape and there are other tapes where he accidentally, you know, called reporters and said things on the voicemail like we got to have more money. crazy stuff like that. that tape in particular, think about what he's seeing making that call. he has seen them up. he has seen the windows breaking and the police officers attacked. does he take a step back like others did at that moment? no! he is on the phone saying you got to make sure that we somehow show loyalty to the big lie. that there was some kind of fraud which he knew 86 judges and the supreme court said there

wasn't! so it is stunning to me that he was a position of responsibility by the president of the quite after conducting himself over the last several years. >> wonders never cease, right? thank you so much for starting us off today. claire is sticking around it is a clear since the ex-president acquitted for the second time after being impeached for the second time for inciting the january 6 insurrection. we'll talk to an impeachment manager as the select committee turns the focus to rudy giuliani. breaking news this hour. lynning the accounting foirm for the trump organization is walking away from its high profile client citing a decade of financial statements cannot be trusted. later vladimir putin's plan for war. the u.s. calls it a dra matic escalation of forces at the

border as the world struggles to find diplomatic solutions all those stories and more after a quick break. don't go anywhere. k break. don't go anywhere. ♪ what a wonderful world ♪

we're following some breaking news in what could be a significant development in the new york case against the ex-president. according to a new court filing from new york attorney general james' office the trump organization's accounting firm says that nearly a decade worth of financial statements cannot be relied upon and cannot represent donald trump anymore. let's bring in to the coverage

nbc news investigations correspondent tom winter. tell us what you know. >> this letter just filed and made public originally sent last week from the company that's been doing donald trump's tax returns for a number of years and inform the organization and sent it to the new york attorney general's office who included it in a court filing made public this afternoon a notice to the trump organization and attorney that the statements of financial condition as they pertain to former president trump cannot be relied upon from june of 2011 to june of 2020. they say that they've concluded this after the filings made by the new york attorney general back in january. their own internal investigation and information they say is a result of this they have a

nonwaivible conflict of interest. they made the determination that that conflict of interest is too strong here and as a result the trump organization and the former president cannot be clients. they said -- i think this is important to note. while we are not concluded that the statements as a whole contain material discrepancies based on the circumstances we believe is not to rely upon the financial statements or no longer rely upon the financial statements is appropriate and also say that they have some outstanding tax returns including the former president and former first lady and information of an apartment belonging to matthew calamari jr. what does it mean? it means that potentially donald

trump when he goes to a new accountant will have to go to a new firm to prepare the financial statements passed along to banks. if they determine that the president's financial condition is not as strong as the one that was presenting the documents prepared it could make things more complicated for him seeking financing for future business propositions or other sorts of loans or increase or decrease the interest rate to pay on the loans and all sorts of potential types of issues that could come up in the presentation of these documents going to a new firm. it could find that the president is potentially in a better financial condition. i don't want to excuse that

possibility and make it easeever for him. some changes are coming for the reports. it is a significant amount of time if this were a public company this would be a significant financial disclosure to be made through the s.e.c., these types of things get people's attention and it is a court filing in a document that's getting a lot of that this afternoon. >> tom winter, walk me through how an accounting firm spends ten years doing something that they now while under civil and i guess potentially criminal scrutiny say are not reliable. at point does the accounting firm have to answer when they decided their products were unreliable? >> i think this goes from the things we know that are in the court documents and possible and not yet spelled out. with an accountant or a company and you have somebody doing the

books you may certain representations to them and through documents, through personal representations that they receive and put together the statements of intention and make statements to banks. all the types of things that a major corporation might do and relying on your input or a company's input. so that's really where the rub over meets the road and if that company or accounting firm says we have been listening -- if i had a corporation and an accounting firm may come to a conclusion based on the new york attorney general's filings and internal investigation, what tom winter is presenting to us or misrepresenting to us and may have some issues with that and cannot have the stamp of approval on it.

that's what appears to be here and feel like there's something that's been presented to them in the past and can no longer certify the documents. we don't know but this does speak to the heart of the civil investigation and the ongoing legal fight as to whether or not the president and the children who are heavily involved in the business and whether they have to sit for a civil deposition and there's aing on criminal investigation that's led by the manhattan attorney general's office with the assistance from the new york attorney general and the penalties there coming to criminal liability are more severe. >> tom, one more question for you. do accounting firms face legal exposure of their own is f they

participate knowingly in representing information or tax information that's false? >> most certainly. yeah. it's come up with the investigations in the past and the dotcom kind of crisis and blow-up when public companies were found to have issues with the books. there were issues with the accounting firms themselves. in particular specific offices. houston office of arthur andersen. as a result of the enron. andrew weissman lived that investigation but those are the types of things that can come up and so yes there's a potential for a criminal liability here although we have heard that yet and important to note that. nobody suggested to us so far that there's a criminal liability or civil liability but

something to be looking out for. >> you know, claire, andrew weissman and a flashing red that was the donald trump financial entanglements and the debts of not a secret in new york before he was president and as trumpism is a live wire in american politics it seems that getting to the bottom of the finances and having his accounting firm walk away is potentially significant development. >> it is a very significant development. i'd like to know who the lawyer was that drafted the letter, if their expertise is in civil or criminal liability. i do think it's important to remember here the simple allegation is not complicated for an accounting firm to figure out. you tell the tax man one thing

to avoid taxes and you tell the bank something else to get more money. you lie about the lie financial condition to make more money. and typically an accounting firm would have eyes on that stuff. they would have eyes on the financial documents given to banks. they would have eyes on the tax returns. the question that they will face as this goes forward is what did they know and when and why just now are they saying, oh, never mind, ignore what we said about them being reliable and wanting in to do with this guy anymore. i think there's more to the story that will be hold in the coming days and weeks. >> tom winter, trump's misdeeds were detailed before congress

years ago and a memorable exchange under questions of congresswoman ocasio-cortez about lying to whomever he was trying to borrow money from and then he would plus it up. he would minus it down. is this just a natural sort of process to corroborate testimony from an insider with documents? it seems like an allegation out there and made public years ago. >> right. this is the heart of the allegation that's been looked at by the manhattan district attorney's side. the ag's side. it's been on the focus for years. in the course of this there's a protracted legal fight of the tax returns to the supreme court twice. and so that's something that slowed down the investigations. i think that's fairly apparent.

so this is the issue that's at hand. it's one thing to make certain material misrepresentations. it is another thing to understand who made them and can you corroborate that? you can say okay the numbers don't add up here. who's responsible for it? we know from the attorney general's filing that allege that a number of individuals have asserted fifth amendment privileges and eric trump did over 500 times. you can look at the documents and say the numbers don't add up. that might be the easy part as voluminous as the documents are but the real challenge to this case is who can actually walk us through the trump board room sort to speak and the organization and say this person said to file this or this person said to state that or give them this information.

does that add up to a criminal or civil liability? that is the big question. that's the big hurdle here and time will tell whether we get to that point or not. i think that's an important sentence. i don't think we are at a point we know if criminal charges will be filed but civil complaint in a matter like this is a lower hurdle to cross, if you will. >> so much bad behave. so little time. thank you so much for takes you through this. adam kinzinger made it clear they'll hear from rudy giuliani. the possible testimony means for the january 6 probe and our understanding of the attack on the capitol. that's next. that's next. et my onesies®.

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defeat. joining us is congresswoman dean of pennsylvania. an impeachment manager in donald trump's second impeachment trial. claire is still here. i wanted to play this from your time as an impeachment manager and just ask you to sort of bookend the weekend's news about rudy giuliani. >> president trump and his allies filed 62 separate lawsuits in federal courts across more than half a dozen states and the district of columbia, including pennsylvania, my home state, as well as arizona, georgia, michigan, minnesota, nevada, and wisconsin. of the 62 post-election legal challenges he lost 61. only one was successful. court after court reviewing the

challenges said these cases were quote not credible. without merit. based on nothing but speculation. and flat-out wrong. the judiciary resoundingly rejected trump's fraud allegations and upheld the election results. but of the more than that. the court said these cases were different. they were dangerous to our democracy. >> rudy giuliani, of course, was the architect of those 62, 61 failed lawsuits. 17 in your state. and here he is now potentially agreeing to talk to the 1/6 commit tee. what are your thoughts? >> i'm grateful to the january 6 committee for the work they are doing in oversight and accountability and not surprised that rudy giuliani is working in

some fashion. the motivations can be i'm broke and can't afford to keep doing this or to pressure the former president to pay the bills. but the breaking news, how shameful. how sad. how utterly predictable. ten years of financial statements are not reliable as posted by the attorney general? i think it's shocking. i'm number one, proud of the committee. they have interviewed 500. subpoenaed 100. getting tremendous cooperation and seen a tirn in the historical tide. people will and are coming forward to tell the truth of this shameful portion of our history of what happened in the days leading to and after january 6.

happy valentine's day. i have behind me where i was today. visiting school children in my district and asked me about my job and what do i do. in fact, one really smart third grader raised his hand and said we every learning about mayors and people that run government stuff. what are you doing here? i said this is my job. visiting this school. understanding how our school are educated is part of my job. it is important to do oversight and also important to see the brilliant children. these are kindergartner valentine's from a pottstown school. our jobs and lives are complicated. we must committee the oversight work and governing for the

people. >> i think it is so typical of women, i'll speak for myself, to do the multitasking that you did. there's developments with rudy, did bookend to the case you made before the u.s. senate. the most basic element of the job being out in the district talking to school kids and there's the sort of flashing red light that's still looming of the questions of the donald trump finances and the enable everies the open question about the ten years of finances that can't be trusted. we have turned to you so often since the insurrection and i wonder if the crush of news and revelations of what was going on, an effort to use dhs or doj to seize voting machines and the documents amid the boxes taken to mar-a-lago.

do you feel optimistic that the truth will emerge? >> oh, i do. thank you for asking me that. i absolutely do. maybe i'm lifting meeting school students. i am optimistic. i want to comment on the case with the attorney general talking about the financial statements of the president and his enterprises. remember what happens there. if you and i apply for a loan we sign certain documents and banks rely on the information. same thing is try in a larger enterprise. the statements of truth and fact of what we own and owe and the value of things and if we mislead them they call the loan and much more. they can have other penalties. i am optimistic because the truth is coming out.

the truth will be revealed about the clown car of people around the former president and many of them now testifying and cooperating with the committee and also about the future of our democracy. i think some people are actually coming forward

risk. the young kids i met with today want to know that their democracy has a future. that they have a future with jobs and education.

that they won't suffer and swallowing debt. it is really about them. it is not about people like rudy giuliani. and a claim to closeness to power. what a shallow, small end to that career. but in the end i think both rudy giuliani and the others around mr. trump will do themselves and history a service. come forward and say, here's what i know and was a part of. here's what i am sorry for. and here's what i'm going to make sure never happens again. >> congresswoman dean, thank you so much for spending time to talk to us today. let me add to the coverage and conversation david jolly, a msnbc contributor. let me just ask you to knit together the developments and you take today's news together and it's sort of like the heat turned up to 103 in a wax

museum. everyone is getting mushy. the account and saying ten years no bueno. don't look at those. have someone else do it. you have rudy potentially cracking open either under duress financially or just trying to cut the losses if you will. do you have the same sort of optimism that the congresswoman has that the truth will emerge? >> i do. look. the baseline to all this is donald trump is a dishonest person and dishonest in the personal, business and political life and willing to defraud both people and corporations and the entire american democracy and in the personal lives you can get away with a lot of that but coming out of this case considering the restatement of the financial learnings or values of the assets in the trump corporation there will be

liability likely. there will be a form of accountability. in the case of the january 6 committee the truth will come out and then the bigger question though is do the american people care about that truth. we learn some very dark details about donald trump and his orbit relating to january 6 but ultimately if the american people don't demand accountability then the truth falls flat in the body of the political ecosystem. >> david jolly, there's been polling regularly and the polling is faint but diminishing enthusiasm for a second trump term. do you buy that? >> i do. but look. until donald trump is beaten at the ballot box or withdraws from

contention in '24 he is the person that controls the party but i think what we have seen is republican leaders in the country and mitch mcconnell and governors like ron desantis are ready to get past donald trump very quickly. i think if you look at the raw politics of where the party is heading the republican party is desantis' party and the only person to interrupt that run to the nomination is donald trump. he can control the road to the nomination but it is weaker than it was several years ago. >> claire, it is a bad news/bad news story and slightly better news that trump is losing the grip and choosing anti-democratic voter suppression and health care policies that do not protect the constituents. i don't know which version is worse. trump made them do the or this

is the path they choose. >> i'm not sure i buy the premise that trump is losing the grip. people may be seeing in the polling what they want to see. i see people running for the senate in missouri and falling over themselves to be more trump-like and gain his attention and favor. in my state donald trump is the republican party and i think that's true in a lot of states so -- you know, i don't want to be the one to rain on everybody's parade on valentine's day when we should be thinking with full hearts but i believe the truth will emerge like the congresswoman and david have said. who will hear the truth? who will actually listen to the truth? that's the problem we have got right now is a huge section of the country that won't hear the truth.

they'll continue to believe the lie. i said this before and again. the biggest job in front of this committee is how they commune kate those facts, that evidence to the swath of american voters that maybe are not tuned in to cable news. they need to hear about this, see a hearing where it's dramatic and can see the facts because we need more americans to hear the truth. not just find the truth. >> david and claire, thank you so much. it is great to see you both. don't go anywhere. t go anywf ♪ ♪ what a wonderful world ♪

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♪♪ even over the last 24 to 48, over the course of the weekend mr. putin has added military capability along that border with ukraine and belarus. he is exercising his -- some of his units on the ground there in the south as well as naval units in the black sea so he continues to add to the readiness and give himself more options should he pursue a military path here. he continues to advance the readiness should he choose to go down a military path hire. it is entirely possible that he could move with little to no warning. >> sobering words from pentagon spokesman john kirby in afternoon that vladimir putin is readying to troops. that dramatic acceleration in

the build-up of russian forces is behind the decision to move the ukrainian embassy to kyiv to lyiv and ordered this measure to protect staff and urges u.s. citizens in ukraine to leave immediately. it follows a weekend where president biden spoke with the leaders of ukraine and russia. his call with putin on saturday resulted in no breakthroughs but stressed to ukrainian president zelensky the u.s. will respond swiftly if russia invades. new reporting in "the new york times" shines a light on the information warfare by the u.s. a war being waged against russia to prevent a war from breaking out there. quote in recent weeks the biden administration detailed the moochlt of russian special operation forces to ukraine's

borders, exposed a video of a faked atrocity. warned an invasion would result in thousands of deaths and hinted that russian officers have doubts about mr. putin. all told the extraordinary series of disclosures almost as quickly as information is collected has amounted to one of the most aggressive releases of intelligence since the cuban missile crisis. the hope is disclosing the plans will disrupt them and perhaps delaying an invasion. giving putin a chance to reconsider the political, economic and human costs of an invasion. at the same time biden administration official said they had a realistic goal to make it more difficult for putin to justify an invasion with lies.

building support for a tougher response. and that is where we begin this hour with some of the favorite friends. greg miry with npr joins us. also joining us former u.s. ambassador to russia michael mcfaul. and msnbc national security expert evelyn farkis. greg, let me start with you and this whirlwind over the weekend and up until coming on the air today. what is your understanding of where things stand at this hour? >> right. things have been moving in a pretty straight direction here where the white house and administration is talking about moves that point towards a possible russian invasion. the navy forces to the soutd, build-up of troops to the east and the north, military

overflights near ukrainian territory. pointing to the possibility that russia could launch an invasion very soon and don't know precisely when. >> ambassador, on friday you wrote this. if putin does agree to negotiate then biden and the team should not just offer defensively minimal concessions to freeze the crisis. in concert biden should seize the offensive and counter with a grand bargain to enhance security. it could refresh the helsinki accords signed in the cold war that stabilize the continent. where are you on the optimism scale that's still a possibility?

>> not optimistic at all. i want to be clear on that. if putin wanted to enhance european security, he says this on tv there is a way to do that's good. i outlined in very concrete detail what that looks like. having said that i see no indication whatsoever that he's changed his mind. he is building up the capabilities as you were just talking about and the five-alarm fire fight -- i can't remember that phrase. friday. let me try again. five-alarm fire -- a colleague at stanford say that is all the time. on friday when jake sullivan got in the briefing of the world to say for americans to leave that suggested to me they saw new intelligence about the impending invasion. they would not have done that

otherwise. remember the call between putin and biden scheduled for sunday and moved it unand then just today kristina the acting ambassador in kyiv is on the way to lviv to get the embassy out of kyiv. doesn't mean putin has made the decision. want to say that 100 times. pushing against that disinformation with the rapid

release of accurate information has the potential potential, it appear, in the view of the intelligence community, to give us, if not an advantage, some equal footing. what do you make of that strategy? >> well, i would say two things. wider context and then the specifics of what they've released. nicole, i'm pretty disappointed, actually. i think putin is winning, and i don't want to call it the information war. i want to call it the framing of this conflict. how many times in the last several weeks have you heard americans skprt left and the right, by the way, saying, this is all about nato expansion, going back to what gorbachev say 30 years ago and basically saying we should give putin what he wants. those are huge information victories for vladimir putin, and that -- we debate that and speak hardly ever about annexation of crimea, illegal recognition, putin is winning that debate and that's about the american domestic politics.

on the specifics, though, i think i'm impressed by the aggressive way that the biden administration has declassified information to help prepare the world for one of these preemptive strikes, for one of these false flags as a pretext for war. putin has used it before, and today, you have, in the director of national intelligence, and bill burns, the director of the cia, people who have been policymakers before, people that have worked with the biden team before, and therefore, i think, are going along with policy requests to declassify information in a much more rapid way. i fully support it. >> evelyn, i want to engage you on both of the ambassador's points, and just offer an observation of my own. it would appear that people who understand the region and putin the best don't let their feelings, i mean, the right in america seems to admire him, inexplicably. i think people that don't know a lot loathe him and they're not sure why necessarily.

but the people who understand him the most simply respect him as unpredictable and capable of anything. you warn that we should not underestimate him in a piece that you have penned. and i wonder if you can speak to the ambassador's first point that america is losing the framing of this conflict. >> yeah, well, thanks for having me on, nicole. i would agree with the good ambassador in the sense that it's not just america. i mean, the transatlantic community is losing this argument. this should be a global conversation, and that's what i argue in that "new york times" piece, that we should have, going back to 2008, frankly, when russia invaded the republic of georgia, and annexed 20% of its territory, and then, of course, certainly after 2014 when it used force to annex and illegally seize ukraine under international law, we should have marshalled a global effort to basically brand russia as a pariah, rogue state, and treat

it the way that we treat north korea and iran when we go to the united nations and we say, everyone around the world, you're part of standing up to russia and keeping our international order safe. >> evelyn, i worked for the late john mccain, and even as he was running for president, he was on the phone every day, started a rally in a battleground state one day by saying, today we're all georgians, and he did not mean the state. what happened? >> yeah, i mean, i'm a huge fan of senator mccain's, he always spoke truth to power about these issues of sovereignty and borders. he understood what was at stake when you talked about the international order and i think what happened was we got caught up in putting out the fires. so, for example, in 2004, i mean, i know that situation very well because i sat in the white house situation room, we had to make decisions, first of all, crimea happened, right? and we had to make sure that the russians weren't going to do anything further. we went to the united nations but then the russians started

this new war that's still raging in the dombast region, another part of ukraine. so we were distracted by that. and each time the russians did something outrageous, we would respond to it, and then we would kind of all decide that it had been taken care of. now, that was partly also because, of course, we had a lot of other things to worry about in the u.s. administration, so afghanistan, we had iraq still, we had isis fighting in the middle east and then we were trying to pivot to asia. so, we should have, at that point, started a global campaign, but i don't think all is lost. i think this is an opportunity now for this administration to do that. >> greg, can you speak to sort of the intensity of activity on the part of the administration? i mean, the pentagon is briefing on this all the time, as is the state department. white house fielding questions. but there's still a sense that this isn't something that's on the radar for most americans. do you sense that the administration would ramp up

those efforts, that there would be a broader or more in-depth public engagement? i mean, what is your sense of the preparations for communicating with potentially a broader audience here at home? >> right, i mean, they have been pretty vocal. we see it from the white house, from the pentagon, from the state department, but as you mentioned, i'm struck talking to people who may not be following this blow by blow. they're still asking, is russia going to invade? pretty surprised at how far this has gone, so i think it's going to be a long-term project. it's not just up to the invasion, if there is an invasion. you have to keep trying to control the narrative once it goes on, or if there is no invasion, to, again, control the plot here. and again, there is this very conscious and effort that we haven't seen before to sort of pre-bunk what russia might do instead of waiting for them to do something or say something and then debunk it. but it's not something you're going to be able to do with just a couple of press conferences or a couple background briefings. it's something that's going to

have to be carried on as long as this crisis plays out. >> ambassador mcfaul, i want to come back to your first point about messaging and you know, we have been talking for weeks now about what the conversation with the country looks like. what this is really about. that it isn't just about putin and the reality that no one even putin is really sure, will he invade or not. it's about whether borders matter. it's about whether america's standing on the world stage is what it has been or is what it should be. it's about taiwan. it's about other places. have you grown exasperated with the fact that some of those broader, more focused conversations haven't taken place? do you remain hopeful that there's still time? just talk to me about that. >> nicole, sounds like you should go work at the white house again on strategic communications, because that's exactly -- >> i don't think they need me. >> well, but to their credit, it's -- you know, it's a half glass full, half empty, so on

the half full side, i actually think their policies are the right ones. provide military assistance to ukraine, send our soldiers to the nato allies, put it in place, the mechanism to put in place massive economic sanctions should putin invade. i think it's basically the right strategy. i think the messaging part has also been better, most certainly better than 2014, and still needs to be better across the board. and evelyn made a very important point, not just here in the united states, but in europe. you may remember, in fact, i'll bet you do remember, in february 2003, there were some of the most massive anti-war demonstrations in the history of demonstrations, millions of people in the united states, in europe said, no war. and i don't want to in any way make an analogy between dictator saddam hussein who killed his people and democratic ukraine. and yet, today, there aren't those -- where are those

anti-war protesters? they're protesting biden here in the united states. think about that. biden is not going to war. and yet when you see people -- i'm anti-war and biden shouldn't be doing this. that suggests that they need to bring the message that you just eloquently outlined to the american people. secretary biden had a great speech in berlin. president biden needs to make that same speech, but in a city like chicago. bring it to the american people so that they understand this is not just about ukraine, but really the future of the international order. >> yeah, and i mean, i guess, evelyn, i keep coming back to this because it's not -- obviously, there are ideological contours to it, but i run into all sorts of people, and i'm sure all three of you do because of your expertise, even more than i do, that say, what is this about? why are we -- what? what are we doing? and there really is -- and it's not ignorance. it's not ambivalence. i don't think it's indifference. i think people really don't

understand the stakes, and i wonder what your thoughts are about how to tell that story. >> i mean, i think, nicole, it is really hard, because you ask -- you're asking people to go back to high school social studies, because the reality is, what vladimir putin is doing right now is challenging the international order. he wants to go back to the system we had before the end of world war ii. he wants a sphere of influence where he can tell a smaller state what they can do and he's in charge. that's what we had before we went to world war ii and after that, we said, we don't want that anymore. i think president biden needs to go to congress, he needs to -- he is going soon to congress, to give the state of the union, but he needs to get on television, he needs to go to the united nations, he needs to speak to the american people and tell them what's at stake. if we go backwards in time, it will be a place where countries are competing economically, politically, we're all trying to have our way with smaller

countries, and the risk of war increases. i know it's really hard to explain that, because it's very, i don't know, seems out there and very nontangible, but that's what he needs to do when it comes to describing it to the american people. >> and greg, as someone who covers this and covers the policy and the politics, what are you looking to? i mean, what is sort of in your reporter notebook to be following up on and looking for? what signs from the region do you watch most closely? >> well, the second and third order effects because it won't just be if russia invades, and if they take over ukraine, that that is sort of the end of it. it would be all the things that would flow from that. what sort of economic impact it would have on europe and the united states and the rest of the world. how would this rearrange european security? what would it mean for this attempt for the u.s. to pivot to asia and focus more on china? so, there will be a multitude of second and third order effects

that -- some of which we can predict and start to look at. many of which we won't even know until they happen. so, i'm -- it's -- the focus, obviously, is on russia and ukraine but it's going to get a lot, lot broader if a conflict begins there. >> ambassador mcfaul, i feel like i ask you this question every time so i didn't but i don't want to deprive you of the opportunity to make any predictions. do you have any stronger sense today that in prior occasions when we've talked as to whether or not putin will invade? >> well, you know, he and i are not facebook friends. he's not calling me for advice. and the problem is, he doesn't talk to hardly anybody. we just saw a photo of him meeting with mr. lavrov, his foreign minister, that's the first photo i've seen of them together in weeks, and nobody should listen to anybody who pretends they know. but that said, if you look at the capabilities building up,

they keep building. it's like a slow-moving train. they haven't pumped the brakes. every day, there's more information, and then you see others responding. so you see us moving -- so you can see on the map. moving from kyiv to lviv. i spent an hour and a half on a zoom call with 55 ukrainians this morning, all alums from our program here at stanford and publicly, they're all strong and stoic and we're going to fight, and privately, they're moving their kids out of cities. privately, they're making plans for war. >> oh, that is so haunting. greg miry, former ambassador michael mcfaul and evelyn farkas, thank you so much for starting us off on this hour. we're grateful to all of you. when we come back, we will be joined by the chairman of the house foreign affairs committee. he was in that briefing today by the national security advisor as the biden administration takes extraordinary steps, potentially

last-ditch steps, to disrupt vladimir putin's plans for an invasion of ukraine. plus, much more on the breaking news we brought you last hour that the accountants, the accounting firm for the trump organization is now saying the financial documents it prepared for the trump org cannot be relied upon and they are cutting ties with the disgraced ex-president. and with the super bowl over, president joe biden weighing in on the biggest problem facing the nfl. its lack of black head coaches. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. coaches "deadline white house" continues "deadline white house" continues teafr a quick break. woo hoo! ensure, complete balanced nutrition with 27 vitamins and minerals. and ensure complete with 30 grams of protein. ♪ ♪ we just moved. so there's millions of - dahlias in bloom. over nine acres. when we started, we grew a quarter of an acre. now i'm taking on new projects on the regular. there are millions of ways to make the most of your land.

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this is really about the

security, not just of ukraine but of europe. you know, we fought two world wars and the one thing we learned is no one can change the borders of a country by force so as president zelensky said, the security of ukraine is really about the security of europe. vladimir putin feels compelled to do this because he feels unsafe from nato is an absurdity. nato is defensive. it's never engaged in aggressive action. it's about defending against russian aggression, and vladimir putin is making the point of the importance of nato every day by his conduct. i hope that he will discover that the international community is united and are going to impose crushing, devastating, withering sanctions on vladimir putin and on russia if he initiates another military action into ukraine. and hopefully, he will calculate that it's not worth the cost, and he will not actually take that action. that's our best hope. >> congressman david speaking about the impact as u.s. officials have warned that

military action by vladimir putin could come at any time now. today, up on capitol hill, national security advisor jake sullivan briefed congressional leadership on the situation. joining us now is congressman gregory meeks of new york. he is the chairman of the house foreign affairs committee. he was one of the leaders who was briefed today. congressman, tell us what you heard and if you can sort of weigh in on what ambassador michael mcfaul just described, which is a very stoic public face of ukrainians but privately, a country preparing for war. >> yeah. let me just say that, first, the ukrainians, you know, i was in ukraine with my friend, congressman david ciccillini and the people of ukraine are locked in and saying they will protect their democracy at any and all costs and they're hoping, of course, that the message gets through to putin, not to invade. that he will not be where

they're lying down and fighting back, not going back to russia and/or they're just going to succumb to his trying to restore their democracy. so i came away resolute in the determination of the ukrainian -- of ukrainians and their ability to stay together. as well as i came away in further from my conversations, whether it was this morning's meeting or conversations i have had subsequently with the german ambassador who just repeated what chancellor scholz has stated, that they are locked in with the united states of america, and know they have a great -- chancellor scholz visited president zelensky today in ukraine, and they had a good meeting, and he's on his way to visit mr. putin tomorrow. and that will be a stern and straightforward message to

mr. putin that he will not be able to divide the united states or germany and our eu allies, our nato allies, and that his aggression must stop, because there's only one country that are putting troops up on the border, threatening another. and that's germany. and i think that he will hear, just as he heard from president macron last week, and president biden when he was on the phone with him yesterday, or the other day, that we are all at the same place, and so it would behoove him to pull back those individuals that he had on the various borders of ukraine and belarus, pull them back and let's try to resolve this in a diplomatic way. >> congressman, vladimir putin revels in and benefits from divisions here in american politics. can you give us a blunt assessment of how bipartisan or not support is for the biden

administration policy? >> well, i can tell you that i'm working with representative mccall, for example, and hoping that we can come together on a bipartisan resolution working also with the senate. i think it's not a question of whether or not we're locked in. we are locked in. i think there's one major issue that's there, just whether you do something pre-invasion or post-invasion. and so, that's the kind of question we have. but to stop putin and his move to dictate to ukraine or take over sovereign territory, we are locked in, both democrats and republicans, in that regard, and i look forward to continuing to work hard also with my senate colleagues. i have had a couple of conversations with chairman menendez over on the senate foreign relations side and i know that mr. mccall is talking to senator rice and i'm determined that hopefully we can

come together on a resolution from the united states congress, both house and senate, saying that we are locked in with our nato and european allies and our allies in ukraine. >> obviously, this is a focus and an intense time for your work and your expertise, but i wonder how much you hear from your constituents about this issue and what the engagement is like in your view from the american people. >> well, i'm getting calls now as this seems to be more urgent, and from a number of my constituents, just trying to get my viewpoints and my thoughts because the truth of the matter is, if russia continues with its ways, they will -- all the world will suffer initially. we talk about the price of gas and other things, disruption from the global supply chain

will continue, so we got to be focused on that and understand that, try to explain to them, should we try to -- sure. surely i let them know that the administration has done a fantastic job by putting diplomacy first and doing everything we possibly can to avoid a military conflict that russia would have with ukraine. and that the united states will not be sending troops there, but we will be part of a multilateral organization, multilateral movement of making sure that the unprecedented types of sanctions will go on russia and they will feel the people and we also let them know, because i'm asked, what are we doing to help ukraine, and i talk about the over $650 million that we've already sent to them for defensive weapons to try to help protect

themselves and that we will stand by them. surely, understanding from president zelensky when i visited and had a conversation with him that he understood that and respected that, and i can tell you, as i've told my constituents, that our european union, nato allies, ukraine, ukrainians, they are so glad that the united states is back at the table with them and having the dialogue and conversation that we're having with them. because it hasn't happened in the past, at least in the past administration. they're glad we're back and they're so thankful, and that's why i feel confident about whatever happens, whatever putin does, we'll be ready because it's plan a or plan b. >> congressman gregory meeks, i know it's a busy time for you. thank you for spending some time to talk to us about it. >> thank you for having me. when we come back, back to that breaking news we brought you last hour, the long-time

accounting firm for trump org is cutting ties with the trump organization and saying financial reports it prepared for the company for ten years cannot be relied upon. we'll be joined by one of the "new york times" reporters who won a pulitzer prize for her coverage of donald trump's finances after a quick break. fr coverage of donald trump's coverage of donald trump's finances aft aer quick breakion. it was proven superior at helping people stay alive and out of the hospital. don't take entresto if pregnant; it can cause hor death to an unborn baby. don't take entresto with an ace inhibitor or aliskiren, or if you've had angioedema with an ace or arb. the most serious side effects are angioedema, low blood pressure, kidney problems, or high blood potassium. ask your doctor about entresto. (music) or high blood potassium. ♪ i think to myself ♪ ♪ what a wonderful world ♪

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more on that breaking news we brought you first in the last hour. donald trump's accounting firm,

the people with their hands all over the books, they've cut ties with the ex-president and retracted its financial statements that they had prepared for him over a ten-year period. those financial statements are at the center of two investigations over whether the ex-president and his company exaggerated or otherwise lied about the value of their assets. joining us now is susanne craig, "new york times" investigative reporter and an msnbc contributor. she's covered the finances and taxes of donald trump since 2015. no one knows them better. we're so excited to talk to you. i want to read part of this letter to you. it says, mazar said it concluded that the statements were no longer reliable based in part on the attorney general's earlier filings, its own investigations and information the accountants received from internal and external sources t. letter added that mazars performed its work in accordance with professional standards. that sounds a lot like, we got new information and cya.

>> that's exactly what's going on. it's incredible. i'm just going through the letter, and it's interesting. they say while, quote, we have not concluded that the various financial statements as a whole contain material discrepancies, based on the totality of the circumstances, we believe our advice to you is no longer -- and on it goes. they're saying, there's something under the surface and they're backing up by saying, you know, not concluded that there's, you know, as on the whole contained material discrepancies, there's definitely something there and this is very bad news for the trump organization. i mean, their accounting firm is not a big four, but we're getting to the point where they're going to have to be going to a smaller, like, a four seasons type accounting firm to get their financials. i mean, once this happens, accounting firms are very hesitant to come in on the back of this and pick up this work, and this will affect their ability to get loans and do

other sorts of business. it's very serious when an accounting firm comes out and you know, kind of puts a siren on things. >> i mean, if the accounting firm says there are ten years of financial statements that should not be relied upon, for the purposes of this civil litigation, what does a defendant do? >> i mean, this is just -- this is going to become the back and forth now and the trump organization is going to, i'm sure, i'm speculating at this point, there's no reporting on this, but will continue to maintain that the information that they gave the accountants was correct. you would imagine when this happens that the accounting firm has found information that the client gave them that wasn't reliable, and so now you've got a situation where interests have diverged here and you're going to continue to see that fight going on but this letter is just -- it's another sort of brick in the road towards some sort of charges or an indictment. i mean, this is not a good pattern at all.

to state the obvious there. but it's not good. >> suzanne, the first mega piece of reporting that you did about, you know, conduct that was always, you know, maybe right against the line of illegality but really just sleazy, seemed to be the pattern and practice of the trump family, and again, i'm neither a tax expert nor an accounting expert, nor have i seen everything you've seen, but this feels like the significance here is this is one of the people in bed with all of that right up against the line of illegality, saying, whoa, i'm dropping this hot potato. has that happened before? have a lot of people that were engaged in these practices walked away in such a public manner? >> not in terms of the trump organization, no. i mean, you've seen very much people falling in line behind the scenes. there's been a lot of people that have gone before the grand jury and given interviews.

deutsche bank has been privately walking back and saying they don't want to do business according to the sources "the new york times" has spoken to and there's been reporting on that but they are still doing -- they have existing lending relationships with the former president. this is the first time in this situation where i can think of that somebody's just sort of -- yeah, it's a hot potato and they're dropping it. it's a good way to phrase it. >> what do you -- when you see mazars sort of walking away from ten -- from the veracity of ten years of financial statements, what questions do you have? i mean, do you want to know which ones or which categories or which loans could have been fraudulent? what are your sort of questions as the reporter who knows the most about this? >> well, you just want to get under the hood and see exactly what -- what were the individual incidents and the individual pieces of information that caused them to say, you know, hang on, we're getting out of this.

i mean, they're saying that we have not concluded that various financial statements as a whole contain material discrepancy, but what did they find and what was the problem underneath this that caused them to specifically, were they misstatements? was there something else? if it's not material, how close to material does it come? a lot sort of -- this letter they've sent raises a lot of questions, and they're also all saying that they're not going to do any more tax information. i'm just reading it, for the president, period. they've said, you know, and that includes his personal and donald trump and melania trump's tax returns. so they're walking right away, they're saying, we're done. >> and you talk about getting under the hood. it's my understanding that the supreme court decision is what allowed the office to get under the hood here. is there anything we could glean or any new questions you have about the a.g.'s investigation?

>> well, this is just, again, it's a piece of it and they're trying to get additional testimony from family members, and as part of that, this court filing happened, and you do see read it, it's incredible how many people in the inner circle have been in to sit for depositions by the attorney general. you're also seeing a back and forth with his former law firm in washington where there are -- they're having their own battle because they don't want to turn over any information and the attorney general in new york is arguing that they shouldn't be shielded by attorney-client privilege because, in fact, it's a business relationship.

like they have hired -- they're a law firm, but what they were doing was of a nature that shouldn't necessarily qualify for attorney-client privilege. and so that's an interesting thing, because donald trump often hires lawyers in every position so that when something happens, he can argue, potentially, attorney-client privilege and the attorney general's really going after that. it's a very heated case when you start to dig into the filings in new york, and it feels like something is close. it's also important to note that the attorney general in new york is also very much in the middle of the criminal case that's going on in the manhattan d.a.'s office. so when something like this happens, it just, again, just raises -- feels like they're getting closer and closer to something on that -- on the civil level in new york. >> i am a student of your appearances on this network and documentaries, and you do not say that lightly, i know. so, you have certainly piqued my

ongoing interest in this. susanne craig, thank you so much. when we come back, last night's super bowl was held amid heightened scrutiny for the nfl in many corners, including from one president, joe biden, for its lack of black head coaches in the league. what the president told our colleague, lester holt. league. what the president told our collgueae, lester holt

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drive. four runs, ten passes. second and goal. pass. cupp got it. touchdown. >> and the super bowl champion l.a. rams never looked back after that. 23-20 was the final score over the cincinnati bengals. it was a good game, if i may say so myself as a football fan. all things considered. amid focused scrutiny for the league, largely having to do with its hiring practices. and a lack of opportunities for nonwhite coaches. that controversy was part of our colleague lester holt's interview with president joe biden. here's how he responded. >> the whole idea that a league that is made up of so many athletes of color as well as so diverse that there's not enough

african americans qualified coaches to, quote, to manage these nfl teams? it just seems to me that it's a standard that they want to live up to. it's not a requirement of law, but it's a requirement, i think, of some just generic decency. >> let's bring into our conversation decency. >> bring in the chair of african american studies from princeton university and sam stein, white house editor for politico, both msnbc contributors. it is not new for a president to weigh in to huge sports controversies, but this is something that has been railing the nfl. bryant gumbel did an hour on this in february last year. this has been a front burner issue for a long time. i wonder what you make of the fact that now it is a white house press issue? sam. >> i thought you would want to talk to eddie who is more eloquent on these matters. i don't know how much of it,

this has been forever as you note, the call. this has been the rooney rule was introduced to remedy this many years ago. obviously categorically it has been insufficient making it so more black african american head coaches are in the league, not to mention african american ownership of teams. so yeah. this has been a problem. continues to be a problem, continues to fester. i just would disagree slightly on one thing. i think it becomes an issue only in the high profile moment that it receives the backdrop. biden only addressed it because he was asked about it. the questions need to be addressed to the owners and roger goodell who make millions, billions of profits on the backs of diverse predominantly african american players, and haven't instituted the type of reforms to make it equitable at the high ranks. >> eddie, i know you didn't watch. curious your thoughts on all of

this. to something the president says there, that they should want to fix it, what they want to do is work around the rule they created. i mean, what the lawsuit reveals, they rigged the one rule they've got. they don't abide by the spirit or letter of the rooney rule. >> and nicolle, glad you're feeling a bit better. >> thank you. >> the nfl is no different than most businesses and corporations across the country, right? most of us we think of diversity and inclusion as something compliance, we check the box, we did this, so we're in compliance with the rule. we see this with the nfl. i decided not to watch the super bowl. in some ways, quit football. i am a lifelong steelers fan. grew up on the steel curtain. but i am tired of consuming a league that takes me for granted, that has no real investment in issues of diversity. look how long it took lovie

smith to become head coach again. he took the bears to the super bowl. now they just handed him, i don't know what kind of hand he was just handed with houston, texas. hope they give him time to actually do something. at the end of the day, the nfl is doing what most corporations across the country are doing, and consumers need to make a choice, bring pressure to bear. what president biden said, basic american decency. these days, decency is in short supply. >> when eminem decided to kneel, the nfl knew he was going to do so, he had done that in rehearsal, but i had almost a flashback to the horrors of donald trump screaming in his crassest, crudest ways about those sons of bitches, his attacks on that expression of free speech. i wonder if you think who appreciated that, who was watching, does it still have an

impact in your view, sam? >> i mean, the thing is eminem appreciated it. he wanted to do it as expression of speech he felt was important in that moment. i think a lot of people that watched it did appreciate it, knowing full well it would become a controversy. but look, this is sort of the bind they're in. they had this incredible half time show, incredible demonstration in the half time show. it is meant to understand the african american audience, african american culture, nostalgia for the '90s which i appreciated, and they're going to get hit hard on the right for it for being woke and out of touch and yet at the same time the nfl is going to get hit equally hard by groups that say look, you have not done enough. it is fine to have a half time show like this, you have not done enough where it matters

most which is the top of the ranks in terms of coaches and in terms of ownership. >> yeah. and we're in this situation where a talented, winning coach is risking more to potentially not have that much impact. what do you make of the sort of lonely plight of people trying to change something in the league? >> it gives us some indication that courage is still present in our world. often times it takes one or two people to step out there and to risk everything, to inspire others. we hope this will be the case, but we know last night's performance, often times the nfl, the league, will trot out its diversity commitments and the like, quote, unquote, to divert attention. it is still happening. i think flores who is black honduran, let's not flatten the differences here, is engaged in historic effort.

and we want to keep lifting him up. whether it will change, i'm not sure, but it will certainly open the door for continued pressure to be brought to bear on the league i hope, i hope. >> eddie, do you think that this white house was just sort of prepping for the question because of the times and circumstances of the interview, seems to be the implication of your answer. do you think the issues in this lawsuit is something they're keeping an eye on? >> i hope they're keeping their eyes on it. look, we're in a moment. we talked about this about being in a moment of racial reckoning. in the history of the united states, racial reckonings always entailed betrayal, always entailed backlash. often times we want to turn the corner and turn attention from it. hopefully the white house understands liberal forces that are threatening our democracy right now are rooted in and deep and profound ways racism, white nationalism. we have to begin to change our

institutions not only in terms of business, not only in terms of public sector, also in terms of sports and entertainment. bring pressure to bear on the nfl. don't engage in performative activism or performative presidential gesture, actually bring pressure to bear. hopefully last night was just the beginning. >> yeah, i mean, it is. it is all connected. thank you both so much for spending time with us today. great to see you both. quick break for us. we'll be right back. quick break for us quick break for us we'll be right back.rior absorpn helps me get the full benefits of turmeric. the brand i trust is qunol. [ marcia ] my dental lth was not good. i had periodontal disease, and i just didn't feel well. but then i found clearchoice. [ forde ] replacing marcia's teeth with dental implants at clearchoice was going to afford her that permanent solution.

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thank you so much for letting us into your home in these extraordinary times. we are grateful, i am grateful. i want to send a special thank you to my colleagues for helming the hours in my absence last week. as you all know, i tested positive for covid but i'm back. the beat with ari melber starts now. >> nicolle, welcome back. tosses aren't the ,