we don't do that with our young boys enough. we don't do that with our young men enough. >> right. >> we have to do it. >> we're out of time, but we have to have you two back and have an extended conversation. >> i love it. dr. emily king and professor emily oster, thank you both very much for being on this morning. just scratched the surface here. that does it for us this morning. chris jansing picks up the coverage right now. >> i'm chris jansing. it is tuesday, february 15th, and we have got a lot to get to. this morning the trump organization's accounting firm cutting ties after it said a decade's worth of financial statements are not reliable. what it means for the former president trump and the multiple investigations into his company. and the latest fallout on

the beijing skating controversy. just minutes ago the 15-year-old superstar russian figure skater took to the olympic ice inspite of that positive test last month for abanned substance. how that could impact the competition and what it means for the u.s. skaters competing for gold. we start with the mixed signals coming out of russia adding to the confusion between russia and the west over ukraine. russia's defense ministry said it's pulling troops back from the ukrainian border, releasing video of tanks being loaded on to cars. the reasoning? they're finished with military exercises and heading back home as they planned all along. if that were true, it's a small number, less than 10% of the 130,000 troops on the border, and u.s. and ukrainian officials aren't convinced it's true anyway. for one thing, they point to the fact that large-scale exercises are still going on in places

like belarus and the black sea. what's more, western officials say they see evidence that other russian units are actually moving forward into combat-ready positions. new satellite imagery shows top-of-the-line fighter jetsed a ground detect helicopters newly positioned within major ukrainian cities. this is a base in western russia that was full if january and now mostly empty, the troops reportedly headed south towards ukraine. monday the u.s. closed its embassy in kyiv and moved it six hours west to tel aviv, further away from the front lines. despite all of this, the diplomatic wheels continue turning. this morning the chancellor of germany is meeting with vladimir putin one day after the kremlin suggested it would be willing to keep talks going in hopes of a diplomatic solution. u.s. defense secretary lloyd austin is headed to brussels to meet with his nato counterparts. and new reporting just confirmed by nbc news, a team of experts led by the white house has spent

the last several months gaming out possible scenario with russia, including the possibility of full-scale invasion. i've got a great group with me. chief foreign correspondent richard engel in ukraine, ambassador douglas luke is a retired army lieutenant general who served as the permanent representative to nato. clint watts is a consultant to the fbi counterterrorism division, currently a distinguished research fellow at the foreign policy researcher institute. and peter baker is chief white house correspondent for "the new york times." thanks for being with us. richard, take me to the ground in ukraine. is there any evidence russians are actually pulling back? >> reporter: well, russia, according to its own media and the ministry of defense, is tulling back a small number of troops. the secretary-general of nato just said a short while ago that he doesn't see any evidence of a real de-escalation. and ukrainian officials are also

saying that russia moves its troops all the time. sometimes they go closer to the border, sometimes they pull back, and that it has seen this kind of maneuver before. this is the third time since december that russia has said that it has done a partial withdrawal of forces. so something does appear to be happening. russia is certainly going to great lengths to show that it is de-escalating and actually when an official in moscow, peskov, the spokesman for vladimir putin was asked, is this a russian de-escalation, he flipped the question on his head. he said there was never any russian escalation to begin with. we've been carrying out military exercises and when they finish they'll go back to their bases like we said they always would. so this is a judgment call. is this the start of russia opening a possible avenue for dialogue and visibly showing

that it is taking the west's concerns and ukraine's concerns seriously? or is it just a head fake from vladimir putin to keep people guessing. >> clint, that's the key question. as richard points out, something appears to be happening. we can certainly watch the movements. but how do we really tell what's real and what's not? you can't get in the mind of vladimir putin. >> that's right, chris. these are all actions which give vladimir putin two options to do what he wants, which i really do believe is to do the invasion of ukraine, or, two, to escape that sort of situation he put himself in and also make the west look silly. he's going to try and play it both ways and keep his options ohm. he is in a position where he can invade at any moment and at the same point he can pull back at any moment and say the west is hyperventilating, that there was no cause for this. i think what we should be watching in the next couple days is while he will make lots of

statements, they'll talk about diplomacy, what is really happening with the military forces? unless there's a sizable withdrawal in terms of these military forces, he's still in a position where at a moment's notice he can go ahead and launch this invasion. i think that's important for us to note here. we're watching these videos of tanks on railway cars. they could circle right back around and unload, and there may not be a video of those. that's part of the theater, the atmosphere of information that russia has created over the last year where they can actually message both things at the same time and open up opportunities for themselves. what i can say compared to crimea in 2014 is the west has handled this much better. if you look at how they've gone out, they've tried to be preemptive in terms of messaging, diplomacy, outing actions the russians are doing. i think that has slowed down vladimir putin to a degree and he's probably wondering if this effort worth it or are the cost taos high in terms of this

invasion. >> ambassador, this comes a day after russia said they're open to more talks. clearly they're invested in portraying the west as the ones who want war, not them. give us your insights into the russian strategy here. >> first, i'm impressed with the administration's effort alongside its 29 nato allies to stay solid, to stay coherent as a group, as an alliance, and to present one message to president putin. i think the diplomacy here so far deserves credit. look, it's impossible to say as your previous guests have already mentioned, impossible to say exactly what putin is up to. he's an opportunist. he's looking for options. at this early sign of withdrawal or de-escalation, we may see more of that. but it's just too soon to tell. >> so, peter, i mentioned the white house has been developing essentially what's a playbook on

how to respond to a range of scenarios but at the same time, the administration knowings, nobody really know where is putin is headed. how tough is it to cover all the possibilities? >> it's impossible to cover all the possibilities and the reason we call this kremlinology, trying to read the signals and interpret from incomplete or conflicting information, what's real and what not. richard said, is it a head faker or something real. another cold war phrase, trust but verify. ronald reagan used that all the time. i think it's more distrust but verify to see what he's feeling here. he chooses to pull back and said, hey, it was western hysteria all along, we never intended to invade, that's certainly better than a war, obviously. he would make the west look foolish, perhaps, but it's certainly better than a shooting

war. i'm struck by the ambassador who has over his shoulder a doll with vladimir putin looking over the ambassador's shoulder. that's essentially where we're at right now. putin is saying to ukraine, i'm going to be there looking aefr your shoulder, nato's not. they don't want you, they'll never take you. i'm the guy you have to deal with. if he comes out of this crisis having destabilized or fosed his neighbor into being more deferential to him, that's one goal. the russian parliament passed a resolution urging president putin to recognize the independence of these two eastern provinces in ukraine. that may have been one of his goals all along to claim victory there in the east and dispense with the fiction that they're not under russian influence. >> ambassador, peter makes a great point. it isn't just trying to get into the mind of vladimir putin. it's also not really knowing what's accept to believe him as an end game. would he like russia to have

control? of course he would. he wanted to control crimea. he would like control now. having said, that as you look at the playbook, do we really know or do you have a sense of what would be an off-ramp for him or what an acceptable end game might be short of a complete invasion? >> well, first of all, i think he increasingly appreciates the consequences of a complete invasion. i mean, i think the diplomacy of the last several weeks has made clear, both bilateral diplomacy, the united states, directly to president putin, but key allies in a bilateral setting but also multilateral, exactly what the economic, the military, the security consequences would be. so i think that's an important part. what would putin like? first of all, he wants to avoid a neighbor, perhaps the neighbor most geographically, culturally, and historically in line with russia. he wants to prevent ukraine from

being a model of prosperous democracy with westward leanings towards the e.u. and any toe. that example of a successful ukraine is simply too powerful and too close to moscow and would be a direct threat to the putin regime. so he wants to avoid that. this in the process he can gain strategic depth by securing relationships with belarus, ukraine, georgia, kazakhstan, around his periphery that provides him space, time and space, from nato, that's also to his advantage. most important, he will look for opportunities to divide the alliance, to split the 30 member s of nato, some pro, some con, with different courses of action. back to our point about putin being an opportunist. he will look for those opportunities to divide us.

>> this is the two leaders, there you see vladimir putin with germany's chancellor after they met. we'll wait to get the translation to what they are saying. so, what will you be looking for, peter, as, again, somebody who was bureau chief, moscow bureau chief, from these two men coming out of this meeting? >> well, i think you want to look at the tone that president putin takes, obviously. he has been very, you know, quiet himself during these last few months, only occasionally offered his own thoughts about what was going on, leaving it to sergei lavrov, foreign minister, or others to be the heavy in effect. so up scholz, probably his most important customer in terms of the energy business. scholz does not want a confrontation with russia if he can avoid it, but he's facing a test of his own chancellorship a few months in. trying to read putin's mind is always a game, trying to see how much light is he showing here in

terms of looking for that off-ramp. here's the thing. it's not a question of what we offer russia. whatever it is, if he decides he's not going in, he'll take whatever it is and call it face-saving. he doesn't have the same democratic system at home to satisfy. he can make anything sound like a victory if he wants to. the question is whether he wants to find a way back. >> clint, finally, the u.s. keeps saying war is imnegligent, maybe tomorrow. why say that? we've talked about russian strategy. we'll hear more when we get the translation from the german chancellor and vladimir putin, but what about the biden administration's strategy, including the fact they've had this aggressive declassification of intelligence? >> i think it's really showing a sign of lessons learned from crimea. we got caught by surprise with crimea. we didn't react strong enough or have a plan for what we were going to do. i think they see awareness, essentially sunshine on the

problem of a russian military invasion as a way to alert others and to bring others on board. while i was skeptical a couple weeks ago, i have to say i think it is putting pressure on putin in a you week way without deploying military troops into ukraine, without military support, which might be seen as a provocation for war. i think it could work out to be quite successful and will pave the new way, which is the more information that's out there about putin's true intentions, the better the rest of the world can make decisions and prepare to respond to it. >> clint watts, peter baker, douglas lute, richard engel, thank you. coming up, new fallout after olympic officials said a 15-year-old russian figure skater could still compete after testing positive for a banned substance. we have the latest details on that. but first, the trump organization's accounting firm says a decade's worth of their financial statements cannot be relied on. what that means for the investigations into the former president's company, next. o ther

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the casualtying firm that has worked with the trump organization for years is cutting ties and says it can no longer stand behind a decade of financial statements from the former president's company. in a letter released as part of a disclosure from new york attorney general letitia james' civil investigation into the trump organization, they said the work they did from 2011 to 2020 should not be relied on. a spokesperson for the trump organization released a statement that read in part, "the work was performed in accordance with all applicable accounting standards and principles and that such statements of financial condition do not contain any material discrepancies. this confirmation effectively renders the investigations by the d.a. and a.g. moot. "joining me now, tom winter and former u.s. attorney and nbc news legal analyst joyce vance.

tom, how big a deal, howen usual is this letter? >> well, it's quite unusual. experts that we've spoken with, people that have worked used to head up sec-type of investigations, regulators, my colleague gretchen morganson talking with them yesterday. they said this is highly unusual, that the trump organization was a public company, a google, a gm, picking random companies out of the air, and somebody filed this, you'd be looking at stocks that were down 50%, 60%, 80% this morning. so it's significant in that it says, look, the information that -- and this pertains directly to the former president's financial health and picture -- the information that's been represented over the last ten years effectively, you can't rely upon that information. >> let me stop you for a second because i think a question a lot of people have had that has been raised repeatedly about the trump organization and donald trump himself is whether or not his net worth, the value of his company was real.

is that what this alies to? >> right. these are the statements of the financial conditions of donald j. trump. it's not just the trump organization, it's the former president himself. one of the things that might happen is the president may say i want to open up a new golf course or i want to buy this builder or renovate this property. they would go to a bank. so much of the trump organization is in reality donald trump, he would have to put forward his own personal financial condition, which you or i might do if we were to take out a loan to buy a house or a car. how much do we owe, how much do we have, what's our kevin mccarthy on hand, it's obviously much more complex when you look at an organization the size of the trump organization and somebody like the former president. this is something they need to present. that is what gets us kind of to our second point here, which is that for the trump organization and the former president personally going forward, they'll need a new accountant. they'll have to go through the books and come up with their own financial assessment, so that could be potentially an issue

for the former president. the other issue potentially here is that the companies or the institutions or the individuals that hold the loans involving the trump organization and the frem, there might b kov nance in those loans where you say we can't rely on the information, we can call the loans, they might be able to change the terms of those loans, including increasing the interest rate. time will tell how that plays out. but that's what makes this so significant. >> so, joyce, let me go to the trump organization statement, which is that, "this confirmation effectively rendered the investigation by the d.a. and the a.g. moot." does it? >> it absolutely doesn't, chris. and one of the intriguing issues here is how did new york's attorney general come into this possession -- into possession of this letter, which was sent from trump's accountant to the trump organization? she's not cc'd on the letter.

your accounting firm doesn't typically send business correspondence to the attorney general in your state. so there's a suggestion here that mazar's is engaged with the new york attorney general. this whole issue came up as letitia james was trying to take the depositions of donald trump, donald trump jr., and ivanka trump, and he's been forced to justify that position by the trump folks in the course of that litigation. this document has come out now. details of other transactions that are highly questionable, and that may be sharp business practices or fraud, but james is likely to get her depositions, and she, of course, has jurisdiction under new york's martin act to protect new york from sharp business practices. she has the authority to curtail businesses' ability to operate, and even as she did with trump's charitable fund, to no longer

permit them to operate in the state of new york. so the consequences here just on the civil side could be dramatic. the criminal investigation will proceed at its own pace. >> we're out of time, but i want to ask you what some might suggest is this is what companies do, this is how business works these days, the actual sort of legal consequences probably aren't that great. >> you know, this is the hangover from the trump administration where we see him get away with this sort of conduct over and over and over again, seemingly without consequence. the line here is whether or not there was an intent to defraud, and that's what hangs in the air here. it may see obvious to people who are observing this that there's intent do to defraud, but legally you have to show that that was a continue centered effort, a goal in providing these false statements. the trump folks will say no, you know, everybody knew you couldn't rely on these statements. and maybe that's true to some

extent with the banks like deutsche bank that were giving trump loans. but if these sorts of numbers are being used with the irs, the government doesn't look at the numbers when you file your tax returns and say we know these numbers are bad and we can't rely on them. if you're knowingly and intentionally giving the irs fake numbers, that's what mazar's seems to be saying, there was trouble with the data we received from trump, if they did that on purpose, they could have trouble with uncle sam. still ahead, as controversy swirls, 15-year-old russian figure skater kamila valiyeva is on the ice in beijing after testing positive for a banned substance. we are going to dig into every angle of this olympic-sized debate. e of this olympic-sized debate

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testing positive for a banned heart drug in december. her defense, her attorney now claims the test was contaminated with a drug her grandfather was taking. whatever happened, the ioc says if she wins no one gets a medal until a full investigation is complete. of course bad news for all the other skaters who will not get their podium moment in beijing, including american alysa liu who is in eighth place and uggs favorite karen chen, who, despite falling in the short program, will look for a big score in the free skate. i want to bring in gadi schwartz, who has been covering this story for us. u.s. olympian scott hamilton, gold medalist from 1984 in sarajevo. he is also an nbc figure skating analyst. great to have you here. gadi, bring us up to date. >> yeah. chris, the latest is coming from the ioc, one of the commissioners who says kamila valiyeva claimed she had the drug in her system after some sort of cross-contamination from medication her grandfather was

taking. but, chris, she hasn't offered any further explanation publicly like how the contamination might have happened, whether this was a pill, whether this was the sharing of food. and we still don't know how much was found in her system. however, among other olympians, there is outrage with many now drawing comparisons with another athlete who tested positive before the olympics, u.s. track star sha'carri richardson who had marijuana in her system, which most argue is not perform hans enhance bug she was barred from competing in tokyo and she's saying this is an unfair double standard. we just saw valiyeva compete again while the investigation continues with the court of arbitration justifying their decision and pointing to her age as minor, the fact that there was a delay in her test results, and that not allowing her to compete would cause irreparable damage if she was later cleared. the ioc is holding off medal

ceremonies involving valiyeva is settled. they say the harm is not irreparable but as you can imagine, much of the skating community disagrees. scott, your fellow skaters have been vocal. johnny weir said he can't condone it. tara lipinski said it will leave a permanent scar on our sport. i saw her yesterday. she is on fire about this. rippon said send her home. what do you think? >> i've never seen anything like this. i mean, they're competing under roc because of the drug scandal they had in sochi, and it's rampant. it's like, you know, better performance through science is never expected anywhere in the olympic movement. and to put everything on hold, to put every other athlete, to sacrifice their moment, the team competition can't have a medal ceremony, the ladies can't have

a ceremony because of a failed drug test. nobody denies it was a drug test. they're saying it's because she's 15 and there's a loophole in the system and the court of arbitration is saying hold on. everybody is trying to do -- not everybody, but there's many people trying to do the right thing, it's just their caught up in these legalities and loopholes. it seems so unfair. i think it's zero tolerance. i think if you have a positive drug test, you don't compete. the fact that this is going on and everybody else has to sacrifice their olympic moments for an athlete that came in testing positive just seems ludicrous to me. i think it's massively unfair to the rest of the people who come in clean and honest. i look back on my own olympic experience. the whole right side of my head, i was sick as a dog, and i said can i take anything to dry out my held? and they said absolutely not. i was like, okay, i just can't hear out of my right ear and i

don't have any balance, but i'll do my best. it's those kind of things. everybody in our olympic gold medal chat we have going during the olympics, every athlete in the united states that's ever won a gold medal, and they're, like, we have to do something, we have to say something. it's, like, yes, we do. and we all skated clean. we all skated to the best of our abilities. and we rested on our training, not anything that might be performance enhancing. -- blatantly completed in the past and here we are again. i don't know why there ease any hesitation at all to say irreparable harm, maybe the irreparable harm is to the olympic movement and not just to one athlete. you know, i've just never seen anything like this. i'm really concerned, you know, for everyone involved, not her, so much, but everyone else involved that has to sacrifice their olympic moments for a failed drug test.

>> and that context is important, that russia ran a sophisticated state-sponsored doping program, and one of the questions, and it would seem key to this investigation, is russia currently running a system that's doping kids? can we trust this investigation, scott? >> i think investigations are as investigations do. what do you investigate, how do you investigate, and who investigates, right. so ultimately, we have to trust the process, but a lot of this right now -- nobody is saying that there wasn't a failed drug test. nobody's saying that. the b sample, we don't know what that is yet. but it's the loopholes, the idea that, well, yeah, she failed the drug test, but -- you know, it's the "but" part of it. it's like, come on, if there's failed drug test and you really want to keep the olympic movement pure and alive and

thriving, you can't look the other way in certain situations. there's a failed drug test. she's spectacular. i mean, you know, if anybody doesn't need performance-enhancing drugs, it's her, but here we are. she's probably arguably one of the greatest women skaters of all time, and yet it's all going to be clouded, asterisked, whatever happens with this event. you know, the ladies -- the women's event, i should say, in the olympics, is the anchor event. this year e it's the pair event because of china's history in the pairs. but the historic anchor in the olympics to be clouded this way is truly tragic and a huge distraction to all the other performances we should be talking about. she should be sent home. i'm sorry to say that because i love the way she skates and i want to see her skate. however, in the interest of

what's in the best interest of the olympic movement, a failed drug test is a failed drug test regardless of how old you are. >> nobody can watch her and not say she isn't a gorgeous skater. she is absolutely mesmerizing to watch. but there are a lot of other people who are in this olympics who have worked just as hard, right, and it's a distraction for them, correct me if i'm wrong, but also, you know, say you're one of these american skaters. all this attention now that's being paid to the russian skater because of this controversy, it's taking away from everybody else and what they've accomplished. >> and you look back on sha'carri richardson, all these other cases. there was a case of carolina kostner. she was suspended because her boyfriend tested positive. she didn't. but her boyfriend did. she had to have knowledge. so it's all these people that are -- like alex smith, tokyo games, same process, same order,

same everything, wasn't allowed to compete. so the fact they're bending over backwards, you know, for a russian athlete knowing just how russia got caught in their sophisticated drug program, you know, i don't see how this is any good for anyone. i feel bad for kamila valiyeva because she's spectacular and amazing and ultimately a victim in all of this. i don't think a 15-year-old girl is ever going to be, like, seeking out performance-enhancing drugs. i think, you know, as well as the camp has done, i think now you need to investigate her entire program if one of the athletes, especially her lead athlete, is testing positive for -- tmz has a nickname, it's hard to say, but it's around and it is banned. and if someone has a banned

substance in their system, as tragic as it is, even if she didn't actively participate, whatever the story is, it still is -- >> yeah. >> -- a positive test. >> got to have a clear playing field. poor grandpa is back home in russia saying how did i get involved in this. scott hamilton, it's always so good to talk to you. i miss you. good to see you again. gadi, thank you, as well. and if you are a figure skating fan, catch scott's show "olympic ice," which streams for free on peacock, 10:00 a.m. eastern. so good. he's joined by brian boitano and other skating stars to discuss all the highlights and now i suppose low lights of the competition. coming up, the justice department accusing two tech entrepreneurs of attempting to launder billions of dollars in bitcoin. we've got all the details next. we've got all the details next

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the markets opened minutes ago and everything is green. the dow up more than 400 points currently fuelled by potential good news that russia says it's pulling troops back from the ukrainian border. dominic chu is watching it all for us. what can you tell us, dom? >> in this moment, the two most important factors in the market are what's happening with ukraine and russia, also the path for interest rates slash fed slash inflation. we have more news on inflation and all these developments in ukraine. but these traders have no real definitive answers on just about everything that's going through russian president vladimir putin's held is why you're seeing these moves. yes, they are dramatic and a roller coaster but they are out of the realm of possibility. we're talking 1% to 2% moves up or down in reaction to the held lines. you and i have been chatting at times when the dow is up 1,000

points, up or down, and generally speaking these risks are something investors tend to look beyond. what we do have is a situation where maybe it's akin to what happened with north korea and kim jong-un launching missiles all the time or tensions around iran, but investors typically think there is least a path forward and there's why you're seeing positivity today. >> dom chu, thank you. if you were watching the commercials during sunday's super bowl, you probably noticed a trend, a bunch of them featuring cryptocurrency exchange companies. a lot of them using celebrities to sell this vision of the future in which bitcoin and cryptocurrency are safe and profitable. at the same time, a new court case may cast a shadow over that vision of a pair of tech entrepreneurings were accused of conspireing to launder billions in bitcoin. nbc's jake ward is covering the story for us. >> reporter: a day after celebrities like lebron james and larry david appeared in

cryptocurrency commercials during the super bowl -- >> call your own shots. >> reporter: -- this new york duo, the crypto couple, appeared in court charged with laundering billions in bitcoin. 34-year-old ilia lichten steen and heather morgan are tech entrepreneurs. he is the founder of a digital wallet company designed to stop fraud and terrorism. morgan, who once wrote that strong personal branding is essential as a founder, dispensed advice on tiktok. >> i'm going to tell you my secret for making dreams a reality. >> reporter: wrote about how to avoid cybercrime and even rapped. but all that time, according to doj, the couple had the proceeds of a 2016 crypto-schefft of nearly 120,000 bitcoins, worth millions when they were stolen. over the years, the couple allegedly moved the money around, trying to hide the origins. but unique passwords were stored online where the authorities found them. >> today the value of that

bitcoin has grown to over $4.5 billion. >> reporter: the doj seized $3.6 billion of it, the largest grab in department history. bitcoin, like all cryptocurrency, relies on a blockchain, a public record of transactions which allowed authorities to trace the money. the couple could face 25 years in prison. but their personal brand will continue to grow. netflix announced friday it's ordering a documentary series about the couple. the doj says it will auction off the seized billions. chris, the government argued in court yesterday that this couple should not necessarily be released. they pointed to the fact that when they searched the couple's home, the couple claimed to be going back inside to take care of their cat and instead a struggle ensued during which heather morgan locked her phone, making this investigation much more difficult. they found under their bed $40,000 in cash, various

electronic devices, cash, and burner phones. because liechtenstein is a russian citizen, he could be a flight risk and activate extra money and he was held without bail while heather morgan is at home with an ankle bracelet. >> if netflix would do a fictional series about this, wow you wouldn't believe it. next to georgia, where a jury will decide if three men accused of murdering ahmaud arbery did so because of his race. don't go anywhere. t go anywhere. we can create new ways to connect. rethinking how we communicate to be more inclusive than ever. with app, cloud and anywhere workspace solutions, vmware helps companies navigate change.

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called 911, the different things he saw. as he mentioned, yes, the big focus of this is going to be race in a way that we have not seen before, certainly not in the state trial when it came to the death of ahmaud arbery. a couple of things to point out from the opening statements yesterday, the prosecution essentially making the case that the three defendants made an assumption about ahmaud arbery because of the color of his skin, and that had he been a white man, he would still be alive today. to underscore that point, you saw the prosecutor yesterday rolling out a number of racist slurs and different rants that she says that the three defendants used when speaking about black people. she says that gives a window into their mind-set, and what she says was the assumption that they made when he was running down the street. the defense says that the language is reprehensible. there's no defense for that, but they say, it does not prove that they judged him because of the color of his skin. they followed him because he's a black man. they say that rather, the defendants were motivated by recent crime in the area and knew that he had been on camera

inside of an open house under construction, and that's what caused them to follow that day. certainly something we'll be continuing to watch for, chris, as this trial continues to take form. blayne alexander, thank you for that update. still ahead, covid hospitalizations and deaths are going down, but the debate over mask requirements is heating up. we'll break it all down for you, next. up. we'll break it all down for you, we'll break it all down for you, next because the animals need to be cared for, and we like taking care of them. because we want to go out to dinner with our friends. because, in family photos, we wt to be able to smile. a new fda-approved treatment for adults with generalized myasthenia gravis could help them do more of the daily activities they care about. to learn more, go to now4gmg.com and talk to your neurologist. ♪ ♪ i'm getting vaccinated with prevnar 20. so am i. because i'm at risk for pneumococcal pneumonia. i'm asking about prevnar 20.

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this morning, the escalating debate over masks is playing out across the country. in california, for example, the indoor mask mandate for those who have been vaccinated against covid will expire, but not, not in schools. the kinds of policies that are sparking confusion. nbc news correspondent tom costello has more. >> reporter: with covid cases dropping across the country, this morning, mask roirms for millions of americans are also starting to roll back. in washington, d.c., starting march 1st, masks will no longer

be required in restaurants, entertainment venues, gyms or grocery stores. and starting today, businesses in the nation's capital will no longer be required to check a vaccination status. >> these are the slow steps that are needed and signs that show the progress that is before us. >> reporter: governors in california, illinois, and new york have all announced plans to drop indoor mask mandates, but like d.c., are keeping mask requirements in schools, with kids under 5 still not eligible for a vaccine. >> schools are unlike most other environments. six to eight hours, five days a week, week after week after week. that's very different than someone going to a bar, even for two hours or going to a ball game. >> reporter: fights over mask requirements have erupted at school board meetings across the country for months. cass among children continue to fall substantially from their january peak. but they still remain extremely high. last week, nearly 300,000 additional child covid-19 cases were reported nationwide.

>> we could be reaching a low point in the epidemic, where we can have kids, hopefully get through a couple of months of the school year, without having to wear masks. >> reporter: and from the classroom to the boardroom, the mask debate has spilled over into corporate america. jennifer say, an executive at levi's clothing company says she was forced out of her role for speaking out against covid-19 policies in school. levi's did not comment on her allegation, saying only that sey resigned from the company. the attention on masks also on display during sunday's super bowl showdown. attendees at the star-studded event were required to wear masks at the indoor stadium in l.a., though most fans and many celebrities did not appear to follow the rules. yeah, the cdc still recommends wearing a mask indoors in public areas, regardless of vaccination status, especially in areas with high covid transmission. everybody, chris, is tired of these masks, but health experts are concerned that we could see

another variant pop up without warning. back to you. >> although when i was walking to work this morning and temperatures were in the teens, it helped me to stay warm. so there's that. >> it helps, i know. >> tom costello, always great to see you, my friend. thank you. that's going to wrap up this hour. i'm chris jansing. jose diaz-balart picks up breaking news coverage right now. and good morning. it's 10:00 a.m. eastern, 7:00 a.m. pacific. i'm jose diaz-balart on a very busy tuesday morning. russia is now claiming that it is starting to pull back troops from the border with ukraine, and that their diplomatic efforts are far from over. but the u.s. is standing by its warning that an invasion could be imminent. here in the u.s., former president trump's longtime accounting firm is cutting ties with his company. says it can't vouch for a decades' worth of financial statements. we'll look at what this means for the trump organization. in washington, just days to go before federal government funding expires, some senators