i'm in for craig melvin this morning. a lot of fast-moving developments to tell but in the last few minutes. the biden administration is working the phones hard right now. in fact, in the last 20 minutes we got word that president biden was on the phone with french president emmanuel macron and minutes before that we learned secretary of state blinken had a call of his own with his counterpart in russia and this blitz comes as moscow is now pulling back some of its troops in the region, at least they say so. it's still got 130,000 soldiers on the border with ukraine. ukranian leaders have a simple message. we'll believe when we see it. also right now. the federal hate crimes trial against the three men convicted of murdering ahmaud arbery is under way in georgia. what we're hearing from witness eses this morning in court and why experts say the stakes in this case are sky high. and we're following breaking news. we just got a major announcement in a legal case between familiar lifts shooting victims at sandy

hook elementary school and the gunmaker remington. the two sides have reached a settlement in that years long legal fight. we're watching for a news conference to begin at any moment on the settlement. we're going to begin today though with the latest, with russia and ukraine. nbc's chief foreign correspondent richard edge s&l on the ground in southern ukraine. kelly o'donnell is at the white house and i'm joined by an msnbc international affairs analyst. kelly, we'll start with you and these international calls between lavrov and macron >> reporter: this gives the need for increased pace of contact leader-to-leader level. that's unusual. we can typically go months between phone calls between two presidents like this, and they have had several of these contacts in just a matter of days, and so it's an opportunity for the presidents to directly share what they are learning from their own contacts, for

example, president biden has spoken directly with president putin and with the uk prime minister boris johnson. president macron has been and visited with putin directly as well as zelensky, the president of ukraine, and at this critical moment they are also trying to assess what their intelligence is telling them, especially with the russian claims of pulling back some troops, and that's something that they are going to watch very carefully because we've also been warned for days now about any steps from the russian side that could be sort of a way to confuse or cause some kind of an unexpected set of events which could in fact trigger invasion, so this appears on the surface to be a positive sign. is there a diplomatic path here? if there is one they want to take it, and statement also remaining cautious and on high alert so these phone calls are key. for secretary of state blinken to speak with lavrov, his

counterpart in russia, that is a direct u.s.-russia connection. he may be able to get more specifics about what movements of troops, if any, are actually taking place from the russian side. they had been speaking for days about moving troops after some military exercises, so that may have been baked in to what the leaders were thinking, but we know that we're now in the window that western allies have been talking about based on intelligence when russia could act aggressively towards ukraine and, of course, they are monitoring the fact that there's new confirmation today in terms of what russia is thinking because vladimir putin has held a news conference. he's been meeting with the german chancellor who made his visit there, and so there's a lot of developments, but they are hard to determine exactly where things stand because of russia's long history of staying certain things but its actions are different. these calls are significant. they are important, and they

feel that telling us diplomacy is active. what we can't be certain of yet is will be it successful? lindsey? >> sir richard kelly outlined why ukraine is skeptical, fair to say the world is skeptical. what are you seeing there? >> reporter: this is third time since december that russia has claimed to pull back some of its forces from the ukranian border, but since december the general trend has been to escalate dramatically along the bothered, so the -- the troops do move around a. there are some shifts that always take place, and ukranian officials we're speaking to are very skeptical. they say that this could be just russia moving some forces from "a" to the "b" but that most troop presence, the vast majority, the overwhelming majority remains, and russia acknowledges that. it says that this particular group in western and southern russia had completed their military drills and, therefore,

were being relocated back to their bases but that many other units in other regions were still pushing ahead with their military drills, so there is skepticism. nato officially has said that it is not seeing any clear signs of a de-escalation so being somewhat dismissive of the russian move, but i think one of the key things today, and kelly just mentioned it, vladimir putin spoke himself again at some length after the meeting with the german chance loss, and he did not sound like someone who was ready to de-escalate. he talked about how the west has consistently ignored his concerns about ukraine entering nato. he said that this needs to be addressed urgently, in the very near future, and he said that all things are interlinked so he didn't shy away from the fact that other russian officials have been doing that russia is keeping a military presence on the border. by the way, some russian officials are almost pretending

that russia doesn't have any troops along ukraine's border. putin didn't seem to be taking that line. he says all things are interconnected, but his concerns about ukraine's expansion into nato needs to be urgently addressed which sort of is an implied threat when you consider how many forces that russia still has along the border. >> ambassador, it's clear from kelly and richard's reporting we have to take all these reports with a grain of salt. what do you make of the claims that russia is pulling back, and what might putin's motivation be? >> reporter: i think you can find tea leaves for war. i think can you find tea leaves for peace today. we're all watching this very closely and depending on what you're hoping for and what your prior are you select that kind of information so whether they are pulling back or not, i don't know, and i don't trust anybody that says they know definitively. just like richard said, we've been through this fire drill before. at the same time what lavrov said in his funky odd meeting with putin yesterday, and they

were at this long table, they basically said, mr. president, i think we should continue with negotiations, and putin answered with one word good so that's a tea leaf, that, okay, negotiations are open and the fact that secretary blinken and lavrov talked today, that's a good sign, and then had you what richard just report on about putin where i didn't see anything that he said today that would suggest that he is now pivoting towards peace, so my assessment today is that he hasn't decide what had he wants to do. he likes the pressure that he has in place. it makes everybody scramble and fly to moscow and negotiate and propose things, and so far he likes the position he's in just right now. >> kelly, we've got new reporting out of white house this morning. they are preparing for anything. tell us about the so-called tiger team that we're hearing about from a senior administration official. >> well, this has been part of the behind-the-scenes strategy

and teamwork where they have brought together experts across different disciplines in the government, including cabinet level officials, where they have spent as many as several hours in what would be called table top exercises where they look at different scenarios if russia were to take certain positions and aggressive positions, invasion and so forth, and how would the u.s. respond? it is an opportunity to game out in are a time of planning what the u.s. response could be to a number of different scenarios, and officials have told us that this has happened very recently, and these kinds of exercises are a part of planning and they involve people who bring together different kinds of expertise. it allows for discussion and working through different options and looking for ways to address certain problems, so it is significant because it shows the kind of detail that is going on, and it shows that they are looking at a bunch of different

scenarios and they are trying to assess what could happen and how would the u.s. respond, and what we've heard publicly, of course, is the u.s. has a certain military approach to this which is fortifying nato allies, and that's only about helping europe defend itself, not about sending any u.s. forces into ukraine. the president's been very clear about that, but how do you approach other things? if there are energy consequences, if there are refugee consequences? those kind of issues could all be part of those table top exercises where they are looking for potential fallout for a number of scenarios, and they are trying to plan for that. >> want to bring matt bodger in here. matt, there's a lot of developments. putin is meeting or met rather with germany's chancellor today. the foreign ministry is characterizing it, they say russia's response to the western responses to their security demands is nearly complete. talk to us about these latest developments. >> reporter: yeah.

well, of course, they are dangling this response. they have been teasing it for a while. you know, from the very start they said not to expect a speedy response. they have been waiting almost three weeks now and basically vladimir putin kind of killed suspense on this issue. there's been a lot of signals in the mast 24 to 48 hours, that you know, could be interpreted as russia looking for an off ramp. you know, we've been talking about this -- this claim of a troop withdrawal. something we're not yet seeing. lavrov telling putin in a meeting that was televised on state television that it's worth continuing diplomacy. putin came out today at his press conference and said, yes, we are open to dialogue essentially, but he reiterated russia's core demands of nato, and he also rejected this idea that they would decouple those demands from a broader dialogue about security. you know, you'll hear them use this word secondary concerns, things like the u.s. offer to talk about missile placements in europe. intermediate range missiles and

also in case there's any doubts about how serious he was on this point, he started talking about genocide in donbas, a pretty sharp retort to something scholz said, an interesting exchange. scholz said that europeans in my generation can't imagine a war in europe. putin said i'm of your generation. i remember nato bombing yugoslavia. scholz retorts there was a genocide there. putin says there's a genocide in donbas. the mood doesn't seem to have shanked what i'm getting to i don't see a change in putin's core position. look around at his messengers for any signal that you want at this point but he's telling us there's not going to be any surprises in this official response, but we'll see. >> ambassador, you recently wrote a piece for "foreign affairs" titled, quote, how to make an deal with putin, only a comprehensive pact can avoid war. i don't have a ton of time, but

walk us through what a deal would look like you to. >> matt kind of alluded to it if putin really wants to talk about enhancing european security, there's a lot of work we can do, because a lot of the treaties have broken down over the last 15 years. putin keeps making the maximalist demand of no ukraine into nato, but i want to remind everybody that negotiators make maximalist demands at the beginning of negotiations. i was part of the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty with the russians ten years ago, and they keep a maximalist demand until the very end so i think we should keep working these ideas because, of course, negotiating about european security is better than using force to allegedly enhance european security. >> we'll have to leave it there for now. thank you all so much. we appreciate it. and we are following more breaking news. just moments ago we learned the families of the sandy hook shooting victims just reached a settlement in their years long legal fight with gunmaker

remington for $73 million. we are watching for this news conference ready to start any minute. plus, remember this story almost out of a tom clancy novel? a navy engineer accused of passing intelligence about nuclear submarines inside a peanut butter sandwich. he's now pleading guilty. how it could impact his wife who faces conspiracy charges. and and accounting firm can no lodger vouch for a decades worth of trump organization financial documents. a decades worth of trump organization financial documents. every business is on a journey. and along the ride, you'll find many challenges. ♪ your dell technologies advisor can help you find the right tech solutions. so you can stop at nothing for your customers.

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the former navy nuclear engineer has pleaded guilty to trying to sell closely guarded information about u.s. submarines to another country. you can remember this story. prosecutors said he hid memory cards with information about nuclear-powered subrones in a pack of gum, band-aid wrappers, even a peanut butter sandwich. nbc's ken delaney is following this case. what coined of sentence is this former engineer at and what's the latest on his wife who was also arrested and pleaded not guilty? >> reporter: jonathan toby said he thought he was selling so credits to an unnamed foreign government and it was actually the fbi and he owned up to hiding classified material in chewing gum wrappers and a peanut butter sandwiches.

he's agreed to cooperate and surrender the $100,000 the fbi paid him during the sting operation, and in return prosecutors reduceded what could have been a life sentence to a deal that calls for between 12 and 17 years that. range gives the government some learning to make sure he cooperates fully. the real attention-grabbing part of this valentine's day plea deal was he named his wife diana as part of conspiracy. you often see spouses pleading guilty to protect a loved one, but in this case he threw his partner right under the bus saying she, quote, committed multiple overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy this. contradicted, by the way, what he said in jailhouse phone calls, but the plea documents don't address that. diana toby has pleaded not guilty, and her lawyers had no comment. lindsey, this was a couple that seemingly lived a normal suburban life. he was a navy nuclear engineer, she was a private schoolteacher, had two young children and text messages showed they had money problems though lived a life many would envy. the messages made clear they

were disgusted with donald trump, but we'll have to wait probably for the sentencing hearing to hear what the motive was. >> fascinating that he turned on her. ken, thanks so much. >> you bet. a federal judge says he plans to dismiss former alaska sarah palin's defamation suit against the "new york times" but only after the jury reaches a verdict in the case. those deliberations are back under way right now in new york. palin is suing "the times" over a 2017 editorial that appeared to draw a connection between promotional materials used by a palin-linked group and the 2011 shooting of former arizona congresswoman gabby giffords. palin says the editorial damaged her reputation. the judge saying yesterday he disagrees, but he wants the jury to decide anyway because he says knowing the jury's decision could help an appeals court if palin decides to appeal. we are following breaking news this hour. a major announcement from the families of the sandy hook shooting victims.

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top of the hour. the phone call president president biden and french president macron has wrapped up. they spoke for 49 minutes this morning, this, of course, as tensions are escalating, possibly de-escalating in the russia-ukraine situation, and it comes really as a diplomacy blitz sunday way between all sides. we've got secretary of state blinken meeting with his russian counterpart lavrov and putin meeting with the german chancellor today and once we get a rodeout from that call we'll let you know when presidents macron and bowden discussed today. we want to move on now. the trump organization has to find someone new to you do its books. the accounting firm says a decades worth of financial documents it had prepared for the trump organization can no longer be viewed as reliable. they say also they won't work with the former president owes company anymore. that's according to a letter that they wrote to the trump organization. it was released yesterday by new york attorney general james as part of her investigation into the company, and we should note

even though mazar says all the old records aren't reliable they also said they didn't find any material discrepancies with the documents overall. nbc's tom winter is following the story very closely. tom, we're getting this information because of the ag's probe into the trump organization. what does this mean about how trump's company operates and also how has the trump organization is responded? >> reporter: right. what it says is that the trump organization essentially has to present and because donald trump is such a huge part of the trump organization, there's a statement of his personal financial condition that is typically presented towards banks and other institutions when they are considering doing business with him. when you look at that statement, it will provide things that you might expect, how much does he owe, what assets does he have, what stocks, bonds, et cetera does he own, and what's his overall financial health? and what they are saying is from

june '11 to june 2020 the statements they signed off and provided based on the information given to them are no longer reliable. as far as the response from the trump organization they are essentially saying here, look this, letter also says that they didn't find anything in there that was materially wrong, so it vindicates what we've been telling you, and so the investigation by the manhattan district attorney's office which is criminal in nature and the new york attorney general's office which is mostly civil in nature, that those two investigations are moot at this point. though experts that we spoke with said that -- these are financial experts and regulatory experts say that this letter is highly unusual, and it could point potentially to some significant issues underlying them and some sort of financial irregularities that we'll need to find out more information about. >> tom, there's so much to unpack there and i do want to go to another big update in another legal case. the lawsuit against prince andrew from one of jeffrey

epstein's accusers. what can you tell us? >> right. we can tell you that that lawsuit is now settled, according to a filing from david boys who is the attorney for the woman involved in a lawsuit with prince andrew. her allegations included that he had sexually abused her on several occasions back in 2001. they just reached an agreement. it was docketed 26 minutes ago in federal court in manhattan. they say in part and i'm reading from the stipulation that will be entered in 30 days, that prince andrew intends to make a substantial donation to the woman's charity in support of victims' rights. prince andrew has never attended to malign her character and accepts that he she is suffered as a victim of abuse and unfair public attacks. there's some other comments as far as victims of sexual abuse. they say the sum of the set cement not being disclosed. so we don't know the specific

number here. we do know that this lawsuit which had become a point of embarrassment for the royal family is now settled and will be dismissed assuming all the payments and everything go through within the next 30 days. it does not absolve the prince from a -- from i would say a very rare request for him to provide information or to sit down with prosecutors for the u.s. attorney's office for the southern district of new york which just recently was able to convict ghislaine maxwell who was epstein's confidant on five of six charges against her in a trial that wrapped up before the end of last year. that is still outstanding. all indications are that they would still like to speak to him but from a civil standpoint this matter appears to now be resolved. >> tom winter, another busy day. thanks so much. >> right now the federal hate crimes trial for the three men convicted of murdering ahmaud arbery sunday way. new striking arguments from

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just moments ago we learned the families of nine victims of the sandy hook elementary deadly shooting have reached an historic settlement with remington guns. they have agreed to a $73 million settlement. i want to go ahead and bring in a former u.s. attorney and msnbc legal analyst. so, joyce, the gunmaker had offered a settlement of 33 million last july. how significant is this outcome? >> it's a very significant outcome because, lindsey, there's a federal statute that makes it difficult to go offer a gun manufacturer for a crime that's committed with the gun. they have broad immunity from those sorts of lawsuits. the sandy hook families here

pursued a theory of negligent entrustment. they said that the bush master semiautomatic rifle used by adam lanza, the primary guns that he used among others, and because it's a military-grade weapon it's very similar to what soldiers use though it does not fire in an automatic mode, but they said it was negligent to entrust it to civilians. initially a state court judge in connecticut had said that the families couldn't proceed, that the federal law barred this lawsuit from happening. the connecticut supreme court reversed in 2019 so that's now seven years after the shooting, and just now this case has been settled rather than going to trial. >> so what is the significance of what a settlement represents? we're still waiting to see the details in remington has to admit any kind of a fault. if they are arguing it shouldn't have been for civilians, shouldn't have been for them and we're seeing an historic $73 million settlement.

what should that tell us? >> you know, remington is already in bankruptcy, so for them this settlement agreement, it will be interesting to see the details and how it plays forward. i think the question you're asking is whether this impacts other gunmakers and the landscape of gun use in general as well. at the time the federal law was passed in 2005, the nra said it was one of their centerpiece legislations or legislative accomplishments. they have been extremely interested in getting this sort of broad immunity for gun sellers because 2002 there would be a lot of risk to them around their business. the question we walk away from the settlement with is whether this is a leading edge of trend, whether this theory of negligent entrust cement something that other victims in other shootings will be able to use against gun manufacturers and how that may impact gun sales in this country. >> we're also at a time right now when the nra isn't quite as

big of a player as it once was. do you think the current tide and landscape had anything to do with this settlement? >> you know, that's hard to say. one would have thought that in the wake of sandy hook in 2016 or in 2012 that there would have been legislative moves to curtail perhaps the sales of this sort of semiautomatic weapon that has very little legitimate civilian use, if any. one would have thought it would have been easier to get laws restricting the use of high capacity magazines, but own with the waning of the nra's influence, this sort of legislation has been very elusive, and there continues to be for whatever reason a lot of resistance in american society to taking -- to not banning guns, not violating the second amendment, but to taking common sense sort of steps to restrict them so this notion of increased liability for lawmakers could end up being very powerful?

and we do know remington will allow the families to release documents as part of this lawsuit and settlement. thank you so much. right now we're also in the first day of testimony in the federal hate crimes trial for the three men convicted of murdering ahmaud arbery in 2020. this morning two men who lived in the georgia neighborhood where arbery was killed and a crime investigator are on the stand, and the central issue for the prosecution proving that the three white defendants targeted arbery because he was black. the jury began hearing the case yesterday. there are eight white jurors, three black jurors, one hispanic juror as opposed to the nearly all-white jury in the state trial. joining me right now is nbc's blayne alexander and also david nakamura, a reporter for "the washington post." blayne, how are prosecutors laying out their case to the jury so far? >> reporter: well, the underscoring of the case that they are trying to make is essentially if ahmaud arbery were a white man he would still

be alive today so what they are saying is that the three defendants who have already been convicted of argentinabury's murder made assumptions about him that day because he was a black man, because of the color of his skin and that's what led them to chase him down and ultimately kill him. in the opening statements we saw a phrase come right to the center, right to the heart of the trial. the prosecution laid out what you sent were text messages and social media posts, even some witness testimony that she plans to introduce saying all three defendants used racial language, racial slurs or went on rants about black people. she says that that's note habel and significant because it gives kind of a window into their mindset and talked about basically the thoughts that they had even though those statements were not specifically made about arbery, she says that gives a look into their mindset and the fact they made assumptions about him that day. the defense said that, you know, the language is reprehensible, can't defend that, but they say

it does not prove that their clients made assumptions and decided to follow arbery because of his race. they say it's rather they were concerned about crime that had been committed in the neighborhood. >> you know, david, the stakes are high in this case. you note in your "washington post" article that last summer the justice department found that u.s. attorneys declined to prosecute 82% of suspected hate crime cases from 2005 to 2019. winning federal convictions in an average 19 cases a year during that period. how much of this is a test for the doj? >> yes. these are rare cases, but they ver important. civil rights advocates say these three men on trial were already convicted on the state murder charges. they have been sentenced to life in prison, but that hate crimes go beyond the mode victim and can cause harm to a class of poem and that's why it's important, advocates say, for this justice department to really make a stand here.

ahmaud arbery's death, it's the first case since the george floyd killing in 2020 that set off a wave of protests in which hate and racial bias is really on trial here. so that's why advocates say this justice department sent a big signal by not only taking on this case but winning. others caution this is not an easy ways to live. it's not a clear cut victory especially when you have a jury of 12 people. only one needs to decide you have to hold out. that could disaccount october vist groups. what are the implications if we see them plead not guilty? >> i think there will be pressure on the prosecutors to

keep up the prosecutions even if they lose the case. we haven't seen a lot of demonstrations outside this courtroom. there's security issues going on, but depending on the outcome you could have other kinds of protest. people could lose faith in the justice system and that's a problem. georgia has a lot going on. civil rights advocates talk about everything, you know, from police abuse to voting rights. there's a lot. issues. they are political, and we're in obviously an election year so there's a lot at stake really for the justice department, but in talking, you know, to folks on that side, they say they do have a significant amount of evidence that they believe is strong and that they are in a good position to win the case. >> we know ahmaud arbery's family has been -- i want to go ahead and listen to what ahmaud arbery's mom said yesterday. >> i think that we'll get victory out of there. i think it's going to be a long,

long trial. had a lot of is coming into the case. one thing that's been a constant is that these trials are very difficult. this is difficult because you're listening to some very graphic, some very raw evidence about the day that her son died, about the final moments, and so i spoke with her attorney and asked why she be willing to essentially go through this again, to go through the trial? after we saw the state trial why would she want to go through this federal trial and have this take place? and that's to get justice. she wants justice for her son. wants to see the trial play out and see the federal conviction as well and despite the level of pain and really having to relive those moments ago, listen to that testimony and video again, it's something that she's willing to do to get full

justice for her son which is something that she says she promised him. >> want to ask you, david. if the jury finds the mcmichaels and bryan guilty. what is at stake for them? we talked about the implications and we know that ahmaud arbery's complaints was saying that a federal prison might have more favorable conditions. what are the challenges here? >> only one defendant is eligible for parole and that's after 30 years. if they are found guilty on the federal charges the judge would decide the sentencing. she heard the testimony from ahmaud arbery's family that rejected the idea of allowing the plea deal which would have allowed the two mcmichaels who were willing to plead the first 30 years of any system. they did not like that. they said these men want that.

therefore, we don't want that and the judge seemed to understand that hand rejected the plea deal. now it would be up to the judge and the question is if the judge gives any federal prison time which would make sense if they are found guilty of this hate crime, would she then say they have to serve of that first in the federal system? the defendants prefer that because greg mcmichael, a former police officer. obviously the racial nature of this crime could put their clients in a worse situation in the local prisons, you know, about retribution and other things and be unsafe for their clients so there's a lot at play here for the judge if they do have a guilty verdict to decide. how long would the federal sentence be and where would they serve of? >> all right. thank you both for your time. this morning in new york city's chinatown protesters took to the streets, calling for answers and an end to hate crimes against asian americans. a 35-year-old new york city woman was stabbed to death in her own apartment. kristina yu-na lee was killed

sunday. her landlord says her attackers followed her up six flights of stairs before slipping into her apartment and killing her. police have arrested and charged that suspect. while they haven't said if they consider lee's death a hate crime, crimes against asian americans have soared in the pandemic. next, getting congress on the same page when it comes to confronting putin. senators say they have run out of time to hit moscow with new sanctions before a possible invasion, so what's next on capitol hill as the world watches this crisis unfold. n capitol hill as the world watches this crisis unfo ld sorry, one sec. doug blows a whistle. [a vulture squawks.] oh boy. only pay for what you need. ♪liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty♪ every business is on a journey. and along the ride, you'll find many challenges. ♪ your dell technologies advisor can help you find the right tech solutions. so you can stop at nothing for your customers.

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this morning senators on both sides of the aisle say time is running out for the u.s. to impose preemptive sanctions on russia, for its adwregs towards russia. democrat ben cardin on monday saying, quote, it's not looking good. republican joanie ernst said that it's, quote, probably too late. on the hill is garrett haake and joining me is a "boston globe" columnist and msnbc political analyst. what's holding things up? where does the disagreement lie?

could there still be a deal on sanctions? >> well, what we had over the last week or two was a disagreement largely but not entirely down party lines here about whether it would be appropriate to sanction russia now for the destabilizing effect that this troop buildup that is had thought it was a provocative step. wouldn't be necessary. better to hold the massive sanctions package back and wait for russian act. and what you eluded to is from both sides saying it's an academic debate now. it would be too late to finalize and pass it and get it in place, even if the parties could agree it was necessary to do preinvasion sanctions. the posture is keep working on the big package of sanctions and wait to see what vladimir putin does. >> this is a very high stakes.

maybe not the same argument or disagreement we've seen over other legislation. we know both sides want to hold russia accountable. why can't they get this done? >> at this point they have to. i think what unites them is greater than what is dividing them at this point. as garret pointed out, there's going to be little daylight once -- the closer putin gets to an actual invasion, whether you're talking about preor post sanctions. one thing that congress needs to be focusing on now is a, acting fast, given how quickly this is happening and what other areas they can focus on. not just the invasion and the sanctions that could follow with that. there could be cyber attacks with nato allies and the united states. that should be part of the sanctions deal too to prevent further -- to have that on the table to prevent further action that vladimir putin may take. the stakes are high. there is very little time and

congress needs to move quickly to pass a bill on all the areas where there is strong bipartisan agreement. >> and the "boston globe's" editorial board put out a piece. "if they simply can't work out disagreements, they should have an agreement a decision must be made one way or another. meaning not delay bide filibuster. >> i think in this area, because it is not the same sort of clear partisan divide you've seen in other areas, such as voting rights, that certainly this is a place republicans can step up and say we need to pass something and we should not late filibuster stay in the way of that. they were able to move past the fillbuster to raise the debt sealing. this certainly is just as, if not even more important in this area. certainly partisan division

should not stand in the way making sure president biden has every arrow in his quiver with respect to vladimir putin. >> even if they figure something out, the house isn't in session. so, how would this work? >> that's less of a concern in the covid-19 era. because the house has remote voting available to them. they could be brought back in fairly short order if it came time to pass something. and i want to comment on the debate you're handling. the sanctions won't be filibustered. there's bipartisan agreement it will be necessary to punish russia. and the other thing is what to do about the nord stream 2 pipeline that would bring gas around ukraine the rest of europe. democrats have been holding back but even president biden says if the invasion happens, that pipeline won't happen. so, the debates stlat split the

chambers on largely partisan lines about sanctions, i think will be quickly dealt with. that will seal the debate in short order. >> yilts it's still one of the major pieces of leverage the biden administration has. what is the risk by not sanctions russia before a possible invasion? >> i don't know if there's so much of a risk there. i think closer we get to this. we see that leverage isn't what perhaps we thought was. it does not seem to deter vladimir putin at all even though joe biden has been very clear that there would be strong consequences in the form of sanctions. so, i think with every minute that passes, all of these differences, different approaches are really evaporating. and it's really up to congress

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yes. first comes win, then the trip to disney and then the parade. here's the trip to disney land and the parade is tomorrow. it's set to end with a rally outside the team's old stadium. and they're getting a prize that some other recent home town champs did. the lakers and dodgers won in 2020 but they missed out on their parades because kof vid restrictions. looks like a lot of fun. that does it for me this busy hour. you can catch me saturdays and sundays 7:00 a.m. eastern. and this afternoon at 3:00 p.m., dr. fauci to discuss safe decisions on masking and what's next for getting kids younger than five vaccinated. first "andrea mitchell reports" starts right now. ♪ ♪ good day.

this is "andrea mitchell reports" in washington with big new developments on the ukraine crisis. and the kremlin claims some of the troops are returning to the gaurson. but there's no satellite evidence to back that up. military exercises are continuing in belarus, possibly as cover for an invasion. and russian war ships are conducting more drills in the black seas. president biden with france's president macron and to prepare for all scenarios. they've been leading what it is calling tiger teams. table top exercises to lay out options and gain putin's likely responses. we organized our own table top of former national security officials this morning and we'll take you inside to see how it went. on the coronavirus california is