stay in masks, at least that's how she feels. >> the debate continues. heidi przybyla, thanks for that. that's going to do it for this hour. jose diaz-balart pix up breaking news coverage right now. i'm jose diaz-balart, and happening right now, u.s. defense secretary lloyd austin is meeting with nato allies in brussels, as ukraine marks its unity day against the threat of russian invasion. and vladimir putin is sending mixed messages, while president biden still warning that a russian invasion of ukraine is still very much a possibility. congressman john garamendi from the armed services committee will join us to discuss the latest. also breaking this morning, president biden ordering the national archives to release white house visitor logs from the trump administration to the january 6th committee. what could the panel learn? meanwhile, on the pandemic, as covid cases continue to plummet, the cdc will discuss

masking in the next hour at the white house covid briefing. the agency finalizing plans to loosen indoor masking guidance in the next couple of days. also this morning, a coalition of grassroots immigration advocates urging the congressional hispanic caucus to push for reform. former congressman louis gutierrez will join me with more. >> and we begin with the very latest on the escalating tensions between russia and ukraine. russia continues to insist that it is pulling back troops from positions around ukraine, and has no plans for an invasion. even releasing this video, shot last night, appearing to show tanks crossing a bridge from crimea into the russian mainland after the defense ministry said the completion of planned exercises. but secretary of state tony blinken told "morning joe" that the u.s. has not seen anything to verify the withdrawal claim.

>> there's what russia says and there's what russia does. and we haven't seen any pullback of its forces. they remain masked in a very threatening way, along ukraine's borders. it would be good if they followed through on what they said, but so far, we haven't seen it. >> the white house says president biden will talk with german chancellor olaf schultz this afternoon, one day after schultz visited moscow to talk with russian president vladimir putin. this as defense secretary lloyd austin meets with defense ministers from other nato member states at nato headquarters in belgium to discuss the military alliance's response to the russian threat. and the ukrainian government says a cyber attack targeting the defense ministry website and two popular banks is the largest in ukraine's history. but ukrainian officials say they don't know for sure if russia was behind the attack. with me now, nbc news matt bodner in moscow. nbc news foreign correspondent, matt bradley in eastern ukraine. yamiche alcindor, moderator of

washington week, and rick stengel, former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, as well as an nbc political analyst. matt bodner, what's the russian government having to say about, well, what they're going -- what they're doing in the border at ukraine and the president's speech. >> thank you, jose. good morning. well, they continue to kind of deflected on border, ukraine. the really interesting thing about these claims of withdrawal is they never really properly acknowledged most of the deployment in the first place. after biden's speech, obviously, this was a topic of great discussion in today's kremlin press briefing. we heard the spokesman, dmitry peskov saying, yes, they welcome biden's call for diplomacy, but when you really look carefully, what they're saying, continue have been saying, diplomacy is great, as long as it's on our terms. we're not going to let you distract us by dangling arms control, transparency, and stuff like that. we want our core demands, you

know, given. we want to see these things all packaged together, so they continue to hold this strong position, you know, but peskov this morning, you know, kind of packaging it in more optimistic language. but the core message remains exactly the same. we're just not really seeing any progress there. >> matt bodner, is there a sense of urgency in moscow? and it's interesting, because you're right. how do you say we're pulling back when you never are acknowledging that you were there in the first place. but is there a sense of urgency in moscow? >> so on the government level, it's interesting. so they want to talk, they want to have diplomacy. and then they'll say, they'll throw in a line, we've heard everyone say this line, but we won't wait forever. we won't allow this to be flipped into a months-long process. our security concerns are much too immediate. and at the same time, on the street here in moscow, you definitely don't feel the sense that there's an imminent

anything. it's actually become something of a butt of a joke here in moscow. today is the 16th. you know, we've seen the russian press, russian officials for several days now kind of laugh at the west for kind of claiming this date could be an invasion date. that, of course, was not ever said publicly. it came through some other reporting. but now, you know, the joke in moscow is, it's the 16th, has the war been postponed? everybody is not taking this seriously. but they're not exactly owning up to the size of the deployment, to what's been deployed. so you can really understand why the average russian on the street feels this way about it. >> and matt bradley, on the other hand, today is a day that some western intelligence agencies, as matt bodner has said, have identified as a day russia could launch some kind of action against ukraine. president zelensky seized upon that as to become a day of unity. what are the people there telling you about the even greater possibility of conflict

with russia. >> this day of unity, this was only declared a couple of days ago, and we're here and folks here had -- there was a little bit of a ceremony, kind of a getting together. people in front of one of the main government buildings. and you know, it wasn't exactly the fourth of july. this thing was just planned, just announced a couple of days ago. and of course, nobody got the day off work, but it was an interesting little scene, because people here were very grateful. they really do feel as though this country is coming together, as countries do, when faced with a formidable external threat. i spoke with a woman who organized this and here's what she had to say. >> do you believe the crisis is averted now? >> we hope so. and we hope so and we really hope that only with the international support, we will be able to overcome this crisis. alone with russia, no, no. only with all the international support being involved.

>> so, jose, you're seeing that gratitude towards the rest. but i've also got to tell you, and i wrote about this on the nbc news website today, about how, you know, a lot of ukrainians, they're scared of moscow, they're scared of russians, they're scared of that 150,000 troops who are marshaling around the borders. they're also very frustrated and annoyed with the prognostications from the west. these intelligence assessments that they see as being increasingly unlikely and that are drumming up panic and that are actually damaging the economy here. ratings agencies has lowered, had downgraded some of the bonds that were issued out of some of the cities here in ukraine. we started to see investors pulling out. there was some flights had been canceled. there's a lot of panic that's being drummed up, and when you walk around here, and it wasn't just before the events over the last 24 hours. when you walk around in cities like this one or in kyiv, the capital, people aren't panicked. government officials say they're calm and they're starting to

resent and really betraying their frustration with the western warnings, because they just feel like they're paying, literally, paying the price for a war that hasn't even been waged. jose? >> certainly not a ground war, right? rick, putin is keeping the world guessing on what his next steps may be. he continues to seek concessions from the u.s. and nato. he's got the fate of millions of people in his hands. does it seem, rick, as though putin has so far won every single hand he's played? >> well, the administration, jose, would say that he's lost, in the sense that one of his goals was to try to create disunity among nato and disunity in the west. we've seen a kind of extraordinary amount of unity within nato and within europe and within the west. so that isn't a victory. but, what he may be trying to do by other means, by hybrid warfare, by digital warfare, is to turn ukraine into a non-functioning state, a failed

state. that would be how he would accomplish, by non-military means, the things that we think he might do by invading ukraine. in that sense, he is sort of accomplishing his goal. i agree, you know, it's not great for the ukrainians that we're constantly beating the drumbeats that there might be an invasion. that hurts the economy, it hurts their spirit. zelensky had been a great cheerleader for ukraine. lets hope the russian pull is not a pretend one, but a real one. >> and the ukrainians are very clear and their memory serves them well on just how damaging russia can be in their history. and you know, hopefully not in their present or their future. yamiche, russia is also a major oil supplier, and the president warned people that gas prices could spike even higher if there was an invasion. take a listen. >> i will not pretend this will

be painless. there could be an impact on our energy prices, so we are taking active steps to alleviate the pressure on our own energy markets and offset raising prices. we're prepared to deploy all the tools and authority at our disposal to provide relief at the gas pump. >> yamiche, the administration is looking to try to reduce the possibility of a spike in gas prices. how would they go about doing that? >> well, that's a great question. we know that the president had already gone to the reserves to try to impact the gas prices and help inflation in this country. i think it was a very poignant moment in this speech, this was a speech, of course, aimed at vladimir putin in that he, in that president biden was being very clear that there would be grave consequences to russia if they invaded ukraine. talking about a self-inflicted wound and a war of choice. but it was also very striking that a president like him, who campaigned on ending are endless wars, who had to deal with so much criticism after he withdrew from afghanistan, was then explaining to americans that they might, here at home, deal

with some of the consequences of having to defend nato allies and really explaining to them that this is the cost of freedom. so the idea here at the white house, and when i talk to white house officials, is really that they are one, trying to make sure that they game out every sort of possibility that they can about what happens with russia, but two, trying to figure out how to impact energy prices here. it's a very complex thing to do. as i said, there were already sort of reserves released. so there is, of course, a domestic energy supply here at home. but i think it is really something that need to be continuously watched, and will needs to be, in some ways, a real looking into about sort of how this plan is going to come off. and also, sort of whether or not americans at home, how much pain they're going feel, because we're already dealing with inflation at 40-year highs. so i think it is striking to hear the president say that. >> and rick stengel, just as we wrap this conversation up, i'm just thinking, you know, putin doesn't see the world and his

role in the present as the same way that many people in the west see it. rick, i'm just wondering, what to him would be a victory? and what is that -- what are the points that he's looking for in order to not seem as though he has given up? >> it's a very good question, jose. i mean, he says what he wants is a promise that nato won't expand ukraine or further eastward. he's not going to get that. nato can't promise that. but lavrov mentioned this morning that station of missiles in eastern europe is a topic for discussion. the number of troops and nato troops in eastern europe is a topic for discussion. there are things that are off-ramps for putin, that he could say, hey, that's a victory. i got the america to reduce the number of intermediate range missiles in eastern europe. i got them to call off their military exercises. so there are things whereby he could save face. and i hope that's what they decide to do. >> rick stengel, i always love

listening to you, because you bring in so many historically relevant points to our conversations. katherine the great, right, yalta, let's do that. rick stengel, yamiche alcindor, matt bradley and matt bodner, thank you all for being with me this morning. still ahead, president biden blocks another effort by former president trump to withhold information from the january 6th committee. we'll talk to the reporter who broke the story next. plus, locals are digging through the wreckage from deadly mud slides in brazil. this is a live picture. late-breaking developments, coming up. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports." atching "j diaz-balart reports. men put their skin through a lot. day-in, day-out

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16 past the hour. breaking this morning. president biden has rejected former president trump's attempt to withhold white house visitor logs from the house committee investigating the january 6th attack on the capitol. in a letter to the national archives, the white house counsel wrote that the agency should hand the documents over to the committee in 15 days. joining me now is michael schmidt, "new york times" washington correspondent, mike, good morning. first off, can you tell us why the committee is so interested in these logs? >> well, the committee made a broad range of requests many months ago, for documents from the trump white house. and we are familiar with these

requests, because it set off a fight that went all the way up to the supreme court, where the court essentially said that it was up to biden to decide what documents went and what documents did not go to the committee. the court didn't even weigh in that far. trump's efforts to stop biden didn't even get that far. we're sort of moving on to the next phase of that document production. and in this -- and in this group, what biden is saying is, it's the national archives which has the logs. i have decided not to go along with president trump's arguments that there are executive privilege claims here, and these logs should be handed over. but there's another part of the letter, which we had gotten our hands on, that i think may be just as significant, if not more significant. and that was the white house counsel, the person who is writing the letter, instructing the national archives, dana

reamus saying that the archives should do this in a 15-day period of time, at a faster pace than the documents have been produced to the committee previously, which i believe was 30 days. now, that may not seem like a big deal to the average person, but what the white house is saying is, move the document production along faster to the committee. and that underlines probably one of the biggest problems that the committee has, which is time. the committee does not have an enormous amount of time to do this investigation. they believe that it needs to be wrapped up by the summer, because they have to put a report out, because come november, come these november midterm elections, the democrats could easily be out of power and no longer be able to have a house committee designed to look at the january 6th attacks.

so within this letter, the white house saying to the national archives, move that production along, make it a bit faster. i have no idea whether that's connected to something from the committee. it is known that the committee wants as many documents as quickly as they can, as fast as possible. >> and michael, i mean, so, is there anything the former president could do to become an obstacle to this. or is this a done deal? >> so what remains to be seen is whether the president would then, again, try and go back to court to try to stop this, in a similar fashion to what we saw play out just a few months ago. and that ended up going all the way up to the supreme court. i sent an email message to the president's -- you know, the former president's office this morning, asking for comment, trying to figure out what they're going to do. i have not heard back from them. as we know, you know, the former

president, a very litigious person, someone willing to go to court pretty much over everything, even on issues that seem extremely settled. you have a very recent example here where a similar matter of executive privilege, where biden made a decision because he was president on a disclosure to congress from documents from the national archives, trump losing that. it would essentially be a very, very similar repeat to that. and i'm not sure would get off the ground very quickly. >> michael schmidt on top of this story, i thank you very much, my friend. thanks for being with me. alec baldwin and several producers of the movie "rust" are being sued for the wrongful death of cinematographer helena hutchins. nbc news national correspondent miguel almaguer has the very latest. miguel? >> the attorneys representing halyna hutchins, the cinematographer shot and killed on the set of "rust" blame

al ec. baldwin and other members of the crew saying they shouldn't have done more to prevent her death. >> reporter: it was alec baldwin's reckless behavior and the cost-cutting measures on the set of "rust" that led to the death of cinematographer halyna hutchins. those are the allegations made in a new lawsuit just filed in civil court. why is alec baldwin responsible? >> alec baldwin is one of the people charged with safety on the site. number two, he was holding the weapon that shot and killed another human being. there was no need for him to shoot the weapon. >> reporter: the suit, which alleges at least 15 safety practices were disregarded on the set, blames baldwin, the film's armorer and assistant director and others for failing to keep hutchins safe. the law firm representing the hutchins' family also creating this startling animation, which they say shows how the shot was fired from 4 feet away. they allege the armorer, hanna

gutierrez reid, was unqualified, which she denies. but in a statement, gutierrez reid does agree with hutchins' attorneys, who say the production utility i'd aggressive cost-cutting practices that endangered cast and crew. baldwin's attorney continues to deny those claims and says baldwin was not reckless, adding actors should be able to rely on qualified professionals, rather than deciding on their own when a gun is safe to use. >> that i feel someone is responsible for what happened, and i can't say who that is, but i know it's not me. >> reporter: in a previous interview, baldwin said that he was aiming the gun at hutchins, at her instruction. >> i'm holding the gun where she told me to hold it. >> reporter: alec thinks he's the victim. he's blaming halna halyna did nothing to cause this. and it's despicable he would

come out and blame the victim. >> reporter: as for the criminal investigation, that remains in the hands of the santa fe county sheriff's office. when they are done with their investigation, likely in a few weeks, their findings will be handed over to the district attorney. back to you. >> miguel almaguer, thank you very much. still ahead, strong condemnation for members of the congressional hispanic caucus over the lack of immigration reform. we'll talk to former congressman luis gutierrez who says this is more of a wake-up call. we'll talk to you in a minute. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports." o you in a. you're watching "jose you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports. harness thy of the tiny electron. 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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democratic congressman, luis gutierrez from illinois. he is a longtime champion for immigration reform. congressman, it's great to see you, sir. >> thank you, jose. >> and democrats won control of the house, the senate, the house, the white house, but one year later, there's been no shift in policy. what went wrong, congressman? >> here's what the women and the men, and jose, these women and men are on the front lines. they see the exploitation, the misery, and the suffering of the immigrant community each and every day. and they expect, they are really pleading, begging, beseeching the hispanic congressional caucus to fulfill their historical responsibilities, duty, and obligation to lift the voices of those that are powerless in the immigrant community.

and remember, when we say the hispanic congressional caucus, 92% of everyone that is deported the latino. 92%. the misery that exists is not only in our community, but we expect them to take up this battle. and so when we say, there were so few advocates, you know, we're proud of this congressman garcia and espiat, but that's three. there are more than 35. 10% just can't stand up. we plead with them and implore them, be -- show audacity and show unity. speak as one and demand action for the immigrant community. >> congressman, we have had on this hour congress member after congress member of the hispanic caucus talking about need for

immigration reform, about that they are willing, they say, to do anything and everything to deal with comprehensive immigration reform. and it's not just those three members of congress. there are so many that have been on this broadcast saying, it needs to be done. so, what do you say? here's what i say. the facts are the facts, jose. only three members, when it was going to be sent from the house. when build back better was going to be sent from the house to the senate, where we have incredible champions, in senator cortez and senator menendez, they're there. what did we send them? poultry items, and only because garcia espiat and luka rao refused. jose, the rest were silent. we didn't see them. they were as invisible as our poor immigrant community is invisible today in america. and so what we are saying is, we're happy you're fighting for

more covid-19 relief, but guess who's dying in the meat packing plants today? guess who's in jail dying because of covid-19? in private jails. 25,000 immigrants whose only crime is to come to america and plead for asylum. that's not because they're -- they're pleading for asylum. you know what we say to the hispanic congressional congress, you have to take those words and make actions. jose, you remember, you're a student of this movement. first we use the hispanic congressional caucus and we force the democratic leadership to take action. and when we couldn't take action, we declared barack obama barack obama deporter in chief we were arrested. we stood up for our community. and you know something?

barack obama changed. he involved and became a champion of our immigrant community, but only because we raised our voices. >> former congressman luis gutierrez, always a pleasure to talk to you. let's continue our conversation going forward. >> thank you, jose. >> thank you. >> still ahead, the cdc is about to revise its indoor mask guidance. we have a doctor on standby to help us sort through it all, next. plus, the connection between the mexican drug cartel and the price of aske avocados at your food store. we'll explain. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports." tore we'll explain. you're watching "jose you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports. it was time for a nunormal with nucala. nucala is a once monthly add-on treatment for severe eosinophilic asthma that can mean less oral steroids. not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. infections that can cause shingles have occurred.

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37 past the hour. nbc news has learned that the cdc is expected to loosen its indoor mask guidelines soon, as covid cases continue to plummet across the country. cdc director dr. rochelle walensky is set to address masking at today's white house

covid response briefing next hour. joining me now is nbc news correspondent, heidi przybyla, from mcclain, virginia, who broke that story. and dr. ebony hilton, a professor of critical care medicine at the university of virginia and also an msnbc medical contributor. heidi, what more can you tell us about the cdc's plans coming up. >> reporter: yeah, jose, this is just the first part of many considerations that will need to be made as we enter this new phase of covid, which is learning to live with it. the cdc is looking at the criteria that they use to determine when people should mask up. right now, they've been using levels of transmission, jose. now what they're thinking about is, maybe we should look at hospitalizations or the prevalence of severe disease or access to therapeutics as these benchmarks, since we're going to be living with this for quite some time. the bottom line here is the cdc grappling with these guidance measures that are going to be used by localities now to make these decisions, jose.

>> dr. hilton, the cdc has faced criticism for its confusing guidance. what do you hope to see from the cdc this time, as it's about to change these recommendations? >> right, you know, the question i have is, is the tail wagging the dog? we, at this point, know that we still do not have every united states citizen available to be vaccinated. we know a large portion of those are going to be our children, who are less than 5 years old, who cannot get a vaccine if they wanted to. so why ask those agencies and those persons who are in charge saying, what are we doing to offer protection? for those children, initially, we had lockdown. we took that away. then we went to saying, we can have at least masks. and if they're at school and day care, at least masks can help to protect them. we've now taken that away, right. that's what we're threatening to do. and the question is, do they have a voice, do they matter? because we know our children, unfortunately, are impacted. with the omicron surge, we had a four times increase in

hospitalization for our children compared to the delta surge. when we look at the kids less than 5 years old, it was a five times increase in hospitalization rate for those children with omicron versus delta. and we've, unfortunately, lost over a thousand children to covid-19. so the question, again is, what are we offering up for protection when those kids cannot be vaccinated at this point. we're threatening to take away masks, and we have done nothing to slow the spread of covid-19. this is not the time to let down our guard. >> so what do you recommend, doctor? i recommend that we do not sway from strategy that has helped to keep millions of americans alive today. unfortunately, we have lost 910,000 americans. we don't have to continue with that path. until we have every american vaccinated. until we at least try to make it available to every american. until we again try to push for persons to get boosts, at this point, we only have 24% of our population boosted.

. and we know that boosters help keep people out of the hospital, and from the er visits, right? and so it's not just a consequence of just hospitalization and death. we also know that there is a potential for long covid with these children, as well. we know that there are studies that show that if you're a patient or if your child has covid-19, you're 2.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes than if they do not have covid-19, because of the stress that it places on the body and on the pancreas in particular. we know that there are studies looking at covid brain and the developmental delays, or at least the cognitive delaysand inabilities to have an attention span that's greater than it was pre-covid infection. we don't know the long-term consequences of this. so why do we willingly expose our children, our babies, to have no voice in this process, when they're depending on adults to make adult decisions, not based on emotions, but based on science. >> reporter: dr. ebony hilton and heidi przybyla, thank you

for being with me this morning. up next, the president has promised a tough response if russia should invade ukraine. but is there something more that congress can or should be doing now? we'll ask congressman john garamendi for his assessment, next. congressman, good to see you. you'll be on in just a minute. l. nothing like a weekend in the woods. it's a good choice all around, like screening for colon cancer... when caught in early stages it's more treatable. i'm cologuard. i'm noninvasive... and i detect altered dna in your stool to find 92% of colon cancers... even in early stages. early stages. yep. it's for people 45 plus at average risk for colon cancer, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider if cologuard is right for you.

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46 past the hour. with fears of a russian invasion into ukraine at an all-time high, political analysts say china is keeping a close eye on the situation, as what happens there could have an impact on china's decision making, when it comes to taiwan. the warming relationship between russia and china has been in focus, especially since vladimir putin visited beijing for the opening of the winter olympics. nbc news foreign correspondent, janis mackey frayer joins me with more from beijing. janis? >> reporter: jose, russian president vladimir putin met with china's xi jinping at the winter olympics here. they sat on the sidelines. to have a china/russia submit in the midst of the biggest security crisis in europe in decades was telling. and what fold was a very

carefully planned display of solidarity. one that wasn't rooted in some overt blessing or backing for russian military action, but one that did show support for rug's showdown with the west. an alliance of autocrats, if you will. they issued a very long joint statement, manifesto, really, where they gave their positions on several geopolitical issues, but they did not mention the ukraine crisis by name. and in that sense, many analysts believe that mr. putin went back to moscow, feeling like he didn't get what he was looking for, from china. now, china is being seen as being very conscious at the potential economic costs of backing russia. trade ties with europe are already strained. the economy is slowing down here. china has a good relationship with ukraine. they have trade deals. and there are also 19 european nato countries that have signed on to xi's belgian road initiative. the foreign ministry here is denying report that xi jinping had asked putin to not invade

during the olympics. officials here say they still see dialogue as the solution, but there are reports that the biden administration believes that china is looking at the ukraine situation as some sort of test case for what the u.s. might do, if china were to make a move on taiwan. so the bottom line is that the china/russia relationship is a very complicated one and there is no straight-line answer to this question of how far xi jinping might be willing to go to help putin. jose? >> janis mackey frayer in beijing. thank you. with me now to talk more about the crisis in ukraine is california democratic congressman john garamendi who sits on the armed services committee. great to see you. you received a brief on the situation in ukraine, including one yesterday from retired generals clark and hodges. i know you can't talk about classified information, but what is your assessment of the situation there right now? >> i think the situation remains very, very dangerous, very dire.

russia clearly can invade at any time they choose to. however, the other side of this coin is that the nato countries and the european union are coming closer and closer together. putin has managed to end what was a very disjointed and nato in disarray. he has managed to pull nato back together again, very, very strongly. the united states is continuing its european defense initiative, which has been underway, since russia invaded crimea, and the eastern ukraine area. that has put additional troops rotating into the eastern european countries of poland, bulgaria, and romania as well as bolstering our efforts in the baltic countries. but all of that is pushing back very, very hard. and perhaps most important of all, the sanction issue is very, very serious problem for putin,

because it is a very real probability that should there be any incursion at all, those sanctions that exist today and others that are in the committees of the house and the senate will be put forward and they will really clobber russia's economy, as well as te oligarchs and putin himself. >> so that, you know, mother of all sanctions package that senator menendez and others were talking about won't happen. do you think that, for example, the biden administration providing military aid to help the ukrainians fight back and a $1 billion package which has will help ukraine, which has been suffering enormously. >> first of all, want to let the

sanction issue go by. they're very real. there was a discussion of whether they should be preemptive or post. they're clearly going to be post sanctions in addition to whatever exists in law. that's a major problem. yes, we have seriously provided defensive armaments, missiles and other equipment to ukraine so that they could repel or at least fight back on a russian invasion, exacting serious cost to the russian soldiers and those body bags are going to head back to moscow and that's a real problem for putin. but putin's got to think the long term here. the negotiations are extremely important that are going on and there have been certain signals that have been put forth that there is a road on the negotiations that would provide security to the west, including ukraine, as well as to moscow. and this has to do with the ongoing nuclear negotiations and

the intermediate nuclear forces, the missiles that russia is now presenting in the western or the eastern european area. so those negotiations are very, very important for future stability as well as perhaps being a key in the ukraine situation. >> yeah. and never forgetting that ukraine needs to have a voice, right? they can't just be dealt with like the treaty of paris in 1988 where people and countries talk about them like they're not even players. >> exactly so. if you look at the streets of kyiv and others, the ukrainian people are coming together. they want their democracy and their economy to grow. they're not going to let anybody from the west and the east make decisions for them. they're correct about that.

we need to work closely with ukraine as they set their future in place. it's clear they want to go to the west. they're not interested in being a satellite of russia. >> thank you very much for your time. how violence in mexico could increase the price of avocados here in the u.s. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports." watching diaz-balart reports. rethinking how we communicate to be more inclusive than ever. with app, cloud and anywhere workspace solutions, vmware helps companies navigate change. faster. vmware. welcome change. woman: i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. now, there's skyrizi. with skyrizi, 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months after just two doses.

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breaking news out of brazil and being hit by heavy floods and landslides. at least 38 people have been killed. and the u.s. has suspended all imports of mexican avocados after a u.s. plant inspector there received a threatening message. joining me now is dasha burns. what's going on? >> reporter: just this week it was confirmed a farmer from the region where we get most of our avocados was killed when his truck drove over a land mine. it's going to have a big impact on this multi-million dollar business. we all know avocados are pricey,

but the u.s. deciding the human cost of the popular produce is too high. its northern neighbors suspending import of the fruit after receiving a threatening call. >> most are produced in a place that has been plagued by organized crime for a very long time. when these inspectors are threatened by organized crime, the united states immediately upped the ante and said you got to do something about organized crime because our inspectors must do their job. >> reporter: the ban coming the night before the super bowl. >> what are you doing? >> adding avocados if from mexico. >> they're always good. >> as millions of americans snacked on guacamole and watched the ads from mexico. >> it could take $3 billion out of annual exports.

>> reporter: 135 tons of avocados have been sent to the u.s. in just the last six weeks according to mexico's ministry of agriculture and rural development. now they're the latest victim of the country's drug cartel turf wars. >> i think people in the united states do not understand that mexico is in the grips of a much broader mafia-style organized crime. the avocado industry is a multi-billion dollar industry and they are in a state that is racked by organized criminals, that know the value of this crop. >> reporter: a lucrative business that for decades has planted a target on local farmers and their families, as documented on the netflix series "rotten: the avocado wars." the ban could last until further

notice and expected to send avocado prices soaring. prices are already at an all-time time but for producers in mexico, the cost could be even higher. what do you think this could mean for mexican farmers? >> for mexican farmers this means 135 to 140,000 tons of avocados that are not going to be able to make their way to the united states. what's going to happen to that avocado crop, they're probably going to rot. >> so many thing interrelated. that what happens up the hour for me. yasmin vossoughian picks up with more news right now. hey there, everybody. good morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian in for my friend craig melvin here at msnbc headquarters in new york. first up, enough developments with the