working the phones to avoid war with president biden, so far as we know speaking or scheduled to as we speak with the leader of germany. trying to prevent what nato is warning about, that russia remains capable of a full-fledged invasion at any

time without any warning. in just a minute, we'll talk with the chairman congressman gregory meeks. also the spokesperson for the u.s. state department ned price will be here live later in the show. and we're also watching what is scheduled to happen any minute in virginia. you're looking at a live shot of the state capitol here and the state's new governor glenn youngkin about to sign a bill into law to ban mask mandates in schools. with federal officials today promising a new update soon on masking guidance all across the country. what else the cdc director is now saying about the pandemic coming up. plus, could another lawsuit be on the way for donald trump. we'll tell you where the former president might be getting into another legal fight with the january 6 committee and what happens if he sits this one out? i'm hallie jackson in washington, joining you this morn, along with the rest of our nbc news team. kristen welker and erin is live in kyiv. kristen, let me start with you and the news that has begun to bubble this afternoon.

this discussion of a russian media report about donbas, allegedly mass graves there and the growing concern that that is potentially one of the false-flags that the u.s. has been warning about for weeks here. i know this came up in the white house press briefing that you just stepped out of. fill us in. >> reporter: that is right. and the potential for a false flag report coming out of russia has been the focus of the biden administration for several days now. we learned last week that they had intelligence which suggested that russia was planning a so-called false flag or false staged report of an attack out of ukraine as a precursor or justification for russia to move in so now the reports that you just laid out, russia said it is investigating mass graves in the donbas region. jen psaki was asked today, does the administration believe this is, in fact, a false flag

operation. take a listen to what she had to say. >> those could include, but 23409 limited to the report you just referenced, the claims of mass graves in donbas and every should be aware of a potential, faked videos, false accusations and accounts on russian soldiers that have not actually occurred. >> reporter: so that was the response from jen psaki. and the other focus is on what the russians are saying versus what the administration is actually seeing. russians have been saying that they have been withdrawing their forces from the border with ukraine. as you know, as you've been reporting on. and yet the secretary of state saying they are seeing the opposite, they are seeing a build up of for troops along the border with ukraine. and so this is clearly quite a tense situation, jen psaki reiterating they believe an invasion could still come at any moment now.

even as they say that they are still focused on diplomacy and as you underscored, the high stakes phone calls going on. of course president biden speaking with his german counter part today. in an effort to try to move the diplomatic talks forward. >> courtney, pick up on the threat that kristin just laid down there, what russia said it is doing versus what the u.s. sees what russia is doing, and the idea that they are contrary to what we've heard from the kremlin here, adding troop presence along the ukrainian border. give me the view from the pentagon. >> reporter: that is right. that is something we frequently hear when it comes to rhetoric or anything out of the russian government is from this building, we often here look at what they are doing, not necessarily what they are saying. and that rings true. so far, the russian government announcing they will start pulling some troops back. but as we've been hearing about this same time yesterday, in fact, they have moved some troops even closer to the border with ukraine.

so there are no signs of a de-escalation. i should say, you know, it is early. it is still possible they could move some back. but, again, at this point, according to the defense officials i'm speaking with her there are no indications that they are doing that. secretary of defense lloyd austin is in brussels right now meeting with his nato counterparts and met for the first time with his german counter part today there. as part of it. and some of the things that we're watching for out of there are additional troop commitments. one we've already heard about, the british government and ministry of defense would send additional troops to astonia as nato allies to bolster and shore up defenses of some of the smaller allies that are in the neighborhood of ukraine. and also, according to defense officials, there is the sense that there may be some requests for additional troops as part of this bolstering of defenses, some requests of the united states, none have come in that

we know about but that is another thing we're watching to come out of there. again, this ministerial this year is showing a sign of unity among the nato allies against this potential russian aggression. >> and i know you have some reporting that we're learning about over the weekend about a close encounter between u.s. and russian planes. >> reporter: some may be pointing to this as an example as russian aggression in the area. what we learned was that there were u.s. navy poseidons, these flying over large bodies of water, three of them came in close contact with some russian fighter jets. it is what the military calls an intercept. when they fly near one another. in some cases they are considered, they're deemed unsafe and unprofessional. this happens quite often. especially in that area. in this case it was in the mediterranean in what the u.s. navy was saying was international waters. while this happens quite often, they are generally deemed professional and safe. that is what makes this case a

little bit different. this one was -- these cases were deemed unprofessional. it also of course comes on the back drop of all of the tensions going on right now with russia. so that also adds just a new level of tension here. the u.s. navy and the u.s. military and the russian military with this close encounter right there in the region, hallie. >> and then you have the view from what is happening on ground from ukraine, erin, where you are and this show of unity today. tell us about it. >> reporter: that is right, president zelensky here in ukraine very much focusing on keeping people calm and unified, declaring today that the very first national unity day and in his speech to the country this morning saying that no one can love and protect ukraine like ukrainians. and flags were flying all over the country today. they unraveled a 650 foot flag in the stadium here in kyiv. people were wearing blue and yellow ribbons, posting pictures

on social media. and people here in kyiv were telling us that this was important to them. take a listen. >> unity is important for any country or society. especially it is vital and necessity for our country in these circumstances. the president made a smart decision with this impending threat coming from our neighbor. we show that people are united and nothing can break us apart. >> reporter: in a recent poll, 59% of ukrainians responded that they would be willing to do something physical to protect their country in the event of some sort of russian escalation. that is up from 50% in december. and i have been speaking to military experts here and they say that that is actually a critical deterrent and likely to be a factor in the kremlin's calculus going forward, hallie. >> erin, thank you, and kristin,

before i let you go, we referenced at the top of the show that we think it was supposed to start around 2:30, this call between president biden and the new leader of germany, no update on that yet, right? >> reporter: not that we have. but as soon as we get something. we certainly will read that out broadly. >> i hope to see you in front of a camera before 4:00. kristen welker, thank you. and i want to bring in chairman of the house foreign affairs committee congressman gregory meeks. thank you for being back on the show. >> good to be with you. >> is what you heard from the white house and publicly and in the briefing confidentally made you hopeful that vladimir putin could hope for this diplomatic off-ramp? >> he has the opportunity to. i think that united states and our allies have clearly given him an opportunity to go the diplomatic route. but it is up to him. russians are the only ones that have been aggressive here. nato is not an aggressive body.

and we are waiting on him and what he will do. so the president has done everything that he can to thread the needle here. working with our allies very closely as i saw when we went to the ukraine as well as visiting our friends in nato as well as e.u. friends. we're locked in closely together. so, i don't know if putin knows what he's going to do yet either, but the president has done well in making sure that it is a diplomatic off-ramp for him to take and we're ready for plan b. and russia will fill extensive pain it f it decides to cross that line. >> i want to get into the reporting that we just discussed at top of the show, that russian state media has been reporting on mass graves in donbas which we are taking with a huge grain of salt because of so many warnings from u.s. intel officials from others about the possibility of a flag-flag

report exactly like this one. have you heard anything in your briefings that would indicate to you that this is, in fact, that, a false-flag report? >> i'm not going to talk about what i have in my briefing. but i will say that president has said continuously and let out what russia's plan was. so that is not in a briefing. that is from the president of united states himself. and why our diplomats have laid out to the world exactly what our intelligence said they would attempt to do. and that is to come up with some excuse, so they could try -- so they will cross that line. so the american people and our allies know we're not going to fall for that trick -- that trick. it is up to putin to decide to pull back his folks from the borders of ukraine, or to do something that is devastating to all by trying to cross the line of the borders in ukraine and

get into a solvent nation which we could not stand for. it is a threat to democracy everywhere if we just allow that to happen. >> you talked about plan b., of what would happen if vladimir putin does not, in fact, take that diplomatic off-ramp, you have a number of sanctions bills out there, from your committee, from the senate, from the republicans, are you confident if the worse case were to happen that congress would align behind those sanctions. >> absolutely. i think was important that the delegation that i took to ukraine as well as to belgium was we were unanimous on our message and one of the things that i think is significant here, unlike what happened in 2014 with crimea, you can't do this alone. it is the fact that it is the united states, the e.u., nato

allies, canada, all are locked in together. so there won't be unilateral sanctions it will be multi-lateral crippling sanctions that will hurt the oligarchs and putin himself and also hurt some of the people in russia. so i hope that those advisers around putin and i don't know whether he won't listen to them or not, are telling him that this will be devastating. as well as the, you know, from hi visit in ukraine, they will fight back. they may not have all of the capabilities that russia has. but to think there will not be russian body bags that go back to russia or so, would be a mistake on putin's side. so, um, i just hope that putin realizes that the world, the democratic world, democracies are united against his aggression on a sovereign state.

>> before i let you go, we heard president biden actually on our air 24 hours ago and the remarks he delivered to the american people acknowledged there could be a relation to energy prices and gas prices if there were to be military action and russia were to invade. some of your colleagues in the senate are talking about a halt to the gas tax, a gas tax holiday is a way to help alleviate some of that. do you think that would be the right fix. would you support something like that if came over to the house? >> look, we'll look at it. i'm not -- i think that we want to do is to come up with a plan that refocuses the conversation to helping fight inflation as well as, you know, part of the inflation, because the greatest part is energy. 40% up. so we need to come up with a plan like the infrastructure plan that passed that will provide millions of jobs and working people and the past build back better, i think, at least in portions of it. but i would look at anything that would help the american

people get through this crisis and i think the president was very correct in making sure that we know that should mr. putin continue his aggressive ways and cross that line, that the world, not just the united states of america, but the world will pay, will have some pain, short-term pain. but from my view point it is short-term pain for long-term gain and preserving democracies here in the united states and around the world. >> congressman gregory meeks, chair of the house foreign relations chitty. thank you very much for being on the show in what i know is a busy week for you. we'll have more on the ukraine/russia crisis when ned price joins us here live one-on-one. but before that, the cracks between masks versus no masks at schools. the brand-new bill virginia's governor has just signed into law. you see that happening just in the last couple of minutes. plus the big update for january 6 investigators who are fighting

to get white house visitor logs from the day of the insurrection. but the head of the national archives told former president trump, after president biden tossed out that claim of executive privilege. m of executive privilege.

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we've got states and parents picking sides on how to best protect kids in school. illustrated by while we've been on the air. glenn youngkin, signing a bill in virginia to ban mark mandates in schools. that is now the law. here he is. >> today we are re-establishing and restoring power back to parents. but we are also re-establishing our expectations that we will get back to normal. >> across the country, in san francisco, you have that city school board now down three members after they were zee feeted in a land decide recall.

more than three quarters of voters cast ballots in favor of their removal after parents were critical of how they handled pandemic precautions. all of it contributing to the pressure the cdc is feeling over masking. but the director of the cdc saying today that the agency is talking about making updates to their recommendations, we could see those as soon as next week. >> we are looking at an overview of many of the our guidance in masking and all settings will be part of that. we want to give people a break from things like mask wearing when the metrics are better. >> joining me now heidi pryzbyla and jake ward and alex seitz wald. heidi, you're not too far where i am in washington andowd of a school and talk about the parents an the move by governor youngkin signing this mask rule bill into law. >> reporter: this is fairfax county, northern virginia, which is one of the districts that was

defying the governor when he tried to do this via executive order. the reality is when you look across the country in other states that have tried to do this, it is the courts that have had the final say. so we talked to two mothers. first you'll hear from stephanie saying after the governor signed her executive order, their children went to school without masks and were suspended and she said we're not considering the long-term implications of mask wearing. and then you could hear from tasha whose son jack has cystic fibrosis and said this is a matter of life and death for her son f. school boards are now allowed to make rules to protect them. take a listen. >> so they wanted to go back to school with a -- with a message. and it was basically that these masks are useless. this is a useless mask. i absolutely think this should be 100% of the time a parents' choice issue. >> when we say we're just not

going to mask any more depending on each individual parent, what we're really saying is that your children with disabilities, your high-risk children don't matter. your child may enter their school with a mask on or a mask off. they have a choice. we don't. we have to do what our doctors tell us to do. >> reporter: so, hallie, what tasha said is an argument made across the country in these cases which is that taking this power away from school boards to protect children is really a violation of americans with disabilities act. whereas stephanie said the masks have become a political issue and if we don't give parents the control we're never get rid of this, even in periods of low tran mission, she said. >> when we look at where you and jake are, it is not just masking it is a broader discussion around parents' rights when it comes to their kids in schools. in some instances, jake, as you've seen there in san francisco, going up against some of the people in place, some of the officials to make those

rules. you have this recall election, we don't often talk about school board recall elections making national news. but in this instance, we are, jake, because of what this illustrates as far as the national picture. take us inside of the race and the fallout from it today. >> reporter: well, hallie, this was an extremely unusual event. school children arriving today were arriving after a first in a generation historic city recall. and nobody has been recalled in this city in about 40 years and suddenly three commissioners are out. now, opponents -- excuse me supporters of the recall effort, those who wanted them out, said that essentially this was a matter of incompetence, that at a time when the city of san francisco was suing the school board, demanding a better plan for reopening school nds a safe way, that the school board was bothering with things like renaming a third of the schools to more culturally appropriate and sensitive names. and so we spoke to both -- you'll hear first from a recall

opponent and he basically felt that this was commissioner is being punished for trying to work for social justice and then hear from someone who did support this recall and said it was really just a matter of competence. have a listen. >> i think that these three had been pushing a change to make san francisco unified and better more equitable place. which is uncomfortable, right. if one status is quo is being rocked, it is very uncomfortable. >> their just making day-to-day decisions and wanting to do things that they thought were politically beneficial to themselves without really thinking about is this the right time or is this being right. >> reporter: so, one thing i will point out that was really a flash point in this, because all politics is local and there is nothing more local than schools, the school behind me is lowell high school, the most prestigious and the only one

that operates on a merit-based system. now, more than 50% of students at this school are asian american, these board members voted 6-1 to try to get rid of that and it into a lottery-based system that would have presumably diversified the student body. well, we spoke to organizers here from the asia american community who said in one case chinese american voters, first time voters were registered over the course of six months, about 550 of them were registered. so this is another flash point. so you have all of these very complicates pieces of city politics coming together against the back drop of all of the frustration and politics in school boards across the nation. >> thank you so much for being there on the ground with that reporting. alex, let me turn to you now for some of the more political pieces of this. because we've seen the perspective from jake and heidi as to what we're hearing from parents an people in the communities. more broadly, it is not just glenn youngkin, you have some democratic governors who are

rolling back mask mandates. but in polling shows that nearly two-thirds of democrats think it is too early for the masks to come off. how are these leaders squaring that, alex? the numbers, right, versus the sentiment? >> yeah, i think these democratic governors are basically playing to where they think the ball is going to be if not where it is now. they're kind of trying to get ahead of the inevitable because the trend lines have that a growing number of americans, if not democrats, are saying we have to get back to normal. and you see this emerging message from some democrats saying mission accomplished, that the policies of the biden white house, and the democratic congress, democratic governors, they worked and our sacrifices were worth it and we got vaccinated and it is now time to enjoy these benefits. but that message hasn't been that loud because the base is divided. a large number of democrats are not there yet. so i think there is going to be a challenge for a lot of

democratic leader to get their base comfortable with the idea of going back to normal. i mean, for the past two years so much of the identity of what is meant to be a democrat, to follow the science, was tied up in masking and following these rules and regulations. and if you didn't do that, you were you know, a bad person, you were ron desantis, you're a denier. so now the leaders need to get their base comfortable with unwinding that. >> all of this plays into the political culture war decision we've been having for a while and you could confirm some reporting out from i think politico, about some of the attacks on democrats like critical face theory and defunding quote/unquote the police and are potent and present a danger in the midterms. tell me about this. >> this is some polling that the dccc, the house democrats, they conducted to test their own vulnerabilities. parties do this and they found that these kind of usual suspect

things work. and they're big message, my sources have told me, is that these vulnerable democrats need to get ahead of it. there is two ways to respond to attacks in politics, not give it air time, pivot to what you want to talk about it and not let it define the message but they're saying you need to address this head on. it is too big. an it is a challenge because the people who are pushing this defund stuff are not really elected democrats, it is not joe biden and these front line democrats who are painstakingly careful to triangulate themself. this is activists and people on social media and in the culture. so these democratic candidates need to find ways to differentiate themselves from the larger liberal movement rather than just the democratic party and talk about how they do support the police. but they also support criminal justice. so a much finer line to thread than republicans who could just come guns blazing at zee funding the police. >> alex, thank you very much.

next up, the new letter from the national archives on more of donald trump's white house records. how soon they plan to send those documents over to the january 6 committee. s over to the january s over to the january committee. cabenuva is the only once-a-month, complete hiv treatment for adults who are undetectable. cabenuva helps keep me undetectable. it's two injections, given by a healthcare provider once a month. hiv pills aren't on my mind. i love being able to pick up and go. don't receive cabenuva if you're allergic to its ingredients or taking certain medicines, which may interact with cabenuva. serious side effects include allergic reactions post-injection reactions, liver problems,...and depression. if you have a rash and other allergic reaction symptoms, stop cabenuva and get medical help right away. tell your doctor if you have liver problems or mental health concerns, and if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or considering pregnancy. some of the most common side effects include injection site reactions, fever, and tiredness.

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so if history is any guide, it seems like donald trump is probably getting ready to sue to try and stop the january 6 committee from getting access to more of his presidential records. here is why. just within the last few hours, the national archives have told the former president they plan to hand over more papers including white house visitor logs from the day of the insurrection, to the january 6 committee within the next couple of weeks. that is unless the court steps in and blocks them. we know that is something the former president has tried to do before and courts including the supreme court has disagreed with him. why did those documents matter? could give investigators some important and potentially damning information on who was coming in the oval office before, during and after the insurrection, as the washington post is releasing text messages between president trump's former chief of staff mark meadows and fox news anchors laura ingraham and sean hannity and donald trump jr. showing they begged

meadows to tell donald trump to release a statement condemning the attacks. joining us new, leigh ann caldwell and "the washington post" piece, jackie ali, and a msnbc contributor. leigh an, let me start with you logs are important to the january 6 investigation and what do we know about them and the timing here. >> reporter: visitor logs, call logs, text message logs to piece together what the former president did leading up to and on january 6. all we know is that the january 6 select committee has asked for these call logs, that is the number of people who came into the white house complex on that day. especially to see the former president or his top aides. we know that the current president, joe biden, has cleared the way for those call logs to be released from the national archives to the january 6 select committee and so the national archives said that

despite, if there is not a court order, they will do that on march 3rd. and so, this is more documents that is critical to the january 6 select committee. we know that there have been 700 pages of documents that have already been turned over from the national archives from the trump white house to the committee and where they're also waiting on documents from former vice president mike pence. those will be turned over absent a court order on march 1st. so there is a new trove of documents that the committee could receive in the next couple of weeks, hallie. >> jackie, let me turn to you. because your reporting showing some really interesting text messages between donald trump supersupporters and the chief of taf mark meadows. some were between sean hannity and meadows himself. tell us more about these texts and their significance as you see hannity asking meadows to make a statement, ask people to leave. no more election talk, no more

crazy people, et cetera. >> reporter: yeah, hallie and a lost text messages have already previously been released sort of like a trail of bread crumbs the committee has been leaving, teasingute why they're going after certain individuals to cooperate with the investigation. but we did reveal new text messages in our reporting that came out this morning between meadows and other fringe figures who were involved in the outside effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including communications with project veritas and clean aur mitchell and involved in local and federal efforts to over turn the results of the election. but i think what is different about the project that our graphics team undertook is just how -- the way that they threaded together all of text messages in their totality. and showing the importance of them to the committee's work in trying to paint the most comprehensive picture possible.

yes, mark meadows has not cooperated with the committee, but the trove of text messages that he did turn over, 4,000 of them, has painted a vivid, frantic and memorable picture this far and allowed them to piece together a forensic analysis of the social network of people involved in the legal efforts, peep that we previously didn't know that were involved. >> jackie and leeain, thank you. coming up, ned price will join us live with the update on the russia/ukraine crisis and his reaction to a new letter we just got from republican senators related to evacuation of those in the country. it is coming up. o evacuation of those in the country. of those in the country. it is coming up. yeah! then your bank should help you budget even better. virtual wallet® is so much more than a checking account.

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obviously a ton of skepticism from the u.s., from our allies about stuff like this. let me bring in now spokesperson ned price who is back on the show. i know it is a very busy week for you. thank you for being with us. good afternoon. >> happy to do it. >> let me start with the latest claims by russia. what the u.s. has said is, in fact, russia is putting more forces, putting more troops close to the border with ukrainian. is what we're seeing from them just trickery. >> quite simply, it is a lie. there is no truth to it. the secretary has been very clear and he told mika and joe on this network this morning that we remain open to a diplomatic resolution to this. we want to resolve this peacefully. but in order tor diplomacy to succeed, it has to take place in the context of de-escalation. the russians have to de-escalate. they are not withdrawing troops. they are in fact adding troops to the border. there is another reason we're concerned.

we're starting to see indications that the russians are returning to the playbook they used in 2014, that was a playbook that called on them to manufacture a pretext, to point to something, some sort of fabricated provocation and say because of this, we have to take this action. we're concerned they're planning to dot same thing. we've seen misinformation and disinformation and we have very clear indications that the russians may be planning something similar here. all of these things have only led our concern to grow in recent days. >> do you believe specifically that this report from russia about mass graves in donbas reason is a pretext, one of those fabricated provocations? >> i would say two things. number one, it is not true. there is no truth to that allegations, there is no truth to the false allegation that the united states is sending chemical weapons into ukraine. there is no truth to the

allegations of the false statements we've heard from the russian federation. second and concerning, we know, again, that the russians previously in 2014 went into ukraine the last time around after making very similar claims. it is concerning to us that president putin has spoken of genocide, we've seen other russian senior officials speak of mass graves, as you said, genocide, human rights abuses, other allegations that have absolutely zero truth to them. our concern in all of this, is that the russians are gearing up and that they are going to use this as a pretext to go ahead with what they have planned all along. >> and just the last few minutes we've learned that ten republican senators have sent a letter to secretary blinken asking for more specifics about the state department's plan to evacuate u.s. citizens from ukraine, we're showing the letter on screen. they're calling the response so fall wholly inadequate. i want to give you an opportunity to respond. >> well we are happy and we have

provided congress with a bevy of specifics about precisely the message we're sending to americans and the report to americans in ukraine. our message to americans in ukrainian was simple, they should leave now. commercial options remain available. our embassy, our team on the ground in ukraine has provided american support for those americans who have sought to leave commercially. we've provided them loans if they're not able to afford the plane ticket home. we've provided them guidance if they wish to make the overland passage into poland, which specific border stops they should go through. we've conducted diplomacy to facilitate passage across the border with no advanced notice. so we've been clear and providing support to americans on the ground. but here is the thing, hallie. americans should leave ukraine now. the situation there has the potential to destabilize rapidly. this all goes back to our concern that we've been saying for sometime now, the russians

are poised on the border to undertake action at a moment of their choosing. we are now in the window where it could start at any time and our concern has only increased in recent days. >> do you have an update of how many americans have left ukraine since the crisis escalated? >> so what i could tell you is that in october, we may have theed -- we estimated there were 6600 americans in ukraine at the time. that ve same month we urged americans not to travel to ukraine and telling americans consistently and repeatedly that they should leave ukraine. we have been in regular contact with americans in ukraine who have told us they are there to provide them with guidance and learn about where they are and what i could say is that the majority of those 6600 americans who were there in october, have either left or plan to leave. that is a good thing. right know we're focused on the americans who are still there and for whatever reason do not plan to leave.

we're urging them to leave now while they still have commercial or private options available to do so. >> before i walked into the studio, i watched your briefing at the state department and you said that secretary blinken would be ready to met with sergey lavrov at the appropriate time. when would that appropriate time be? what is the expectation on that front for when they might talk again. >> we, as you know, sent a written proposal to the russian federation and we've been waiting and told on a couple of occasions by the russians that they're response to that would be forth coming we've been told that a couple of times most recently a couple of days ago, they indicated it would be here within the next couple of days. so we look forward to receiving that response. we hope that response will allow us to continue forward with diplomacy on area where's we might be able to achieve progress on issues that we care about, missiles in europe, broader arms controls, and stability protocols, we are

ready, willing and able to speak to the russian federation in concert with our partners and allies on all of those issues because we believe it would be to our national security advantage, to the advantage of the transatlantic community and address the states concerns of the russian federation but we've yet to receive their response. we need to evaluate their response. and find a diplomatic resolution to this. secretary blinken has spoken to lavrov a couple of times in recent days, the president of course has spoken to president putin. we're prepared to do that again if the russians are true to their word, that they, too, want to find a diplomatic resolution. i think the jury is out on that. >> just to connect the dots so i'm clear here. is it fair say that secretary blinken doesn't have the intention of talk to lavrov until after the u.s. receives that russian letter. >> there is not a call or meeting on the books right now but we are expecting this russian response any day now. we have been expecting it for sometime.

so once we receive that, i think that would be a natural opportunity for the two of them to connect once again. >> ned price, state department spokesperson, appreciate you being back on the show. i know there is a lot going on right now. thanks. >> thanks, hallie. >> breaking news. the state state of texas is suing the biden administration of the mask mandate. you have to wear a mask on the plane. calling masks on planes silly and illegal. i want to bring in nbc news correspondent ken dilanian. tell us about this. the extension of the federal mask mandate on planes and et cetera, expires next month. >> there's been private litigation. this is the stat of texas suing the cdc and others alleging that

this order to mandate masks on airplanes and public transportation, amtrak, no justification for it and no finding that masks limited the spread of covid-19. of course public health authorities would challenge that. they filed the lawsuit in northern texas. attorney general paxton said biden's disregard is not only disrespectful to the constitution but troublesome while hard working americans stand by why this is a mandate that most comply with in the pandemic. some people protested it. now the state of texas challenging it and yet to see a comment from the federal government. >> ken, thank you.

appreciate it. >> you bet. over to an update in the death investigation of bob saget. the records are sealed from the public at least for now after the family filed a lawsuit to block the release of the documents. he died of head trauma in january. i want to bring in now for an update on the story nbc news correspondent gabe gutierrez. talk to us about the latest here. >> the family filed the lawsuit yesterday and a florida judge blocking the release of the records with a temporary injunction. i want to read jit the judge writing in part that the court finds that plaintiffs will suffer harm in the form of severe mental pain, anguish and

emotional distress. the lawsuit is filed by bob saget's widow and three daughters asking florida authorities not to release specific information from the investigation into his death. you will remember last week the family did release some information saying that saget died accidentally in that orlando area injuries. some photographs from part of the investigation they say it depicts saget in graphic terms and feel media outlets will try to get the information. so again the breaking new, florida judge today just cited with the saget family halting the release. >> i believe the judge specifically cited the family's

wishes here and paraphrasing saying it's -- this is their loved one and close with them. they have a right under the law to have a say to the records. >> they cite privacy concerns. his daughter posted on instagram citing poisonous gossip and the family trying to preserve his legacy. there are some questions of how he might have died. accidental. people are still looking into that. wondering how -- what exactly, what type of fall might have led to this. the medical examiner and the autopsy released said he died from head trauma and was an accidental death and so suspected foul play and no drug use and the family is trying to

keep a seal on you know some of the more graphic pictures from the autopsy and wanting the legacy to be tarnished in way and the judge cited with the family and citing the privacy concerns. >> gabe gutierrez, thank you. thank you for all of you for watching. find us on twitter. you can find me in just about an hour from now on the streaming platform tonight and every weeknight at 5:00 eastern. show number two. we'll go prep. we'll go prep. up, down. never lose confidence in how you run your business. intuit is bringing quickbooks and mailchimp together to help you set up and grow. dj khaled: man, i love this scent. ever notice how stiff clothes can feel rough on your skin? for softer clothes that are gentle on your skin, try downy free & gentle downy will soften your clothes without dyes or perfumes.

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which is now more important than ever. ♪♪ ♪♪ hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in the east. much has been made of the obstruction and stonewalling on part of trump dead enders like steve bannon and mark meadows. even as he faces the possibility of being prosecuted for defying the congressional subpoena the thousands of documents including text messages he turned over to the committee continue to point investigators toward new avenues of evidence and potential witnesses. the documents meadows turned over are part of a theme. there's tranches of evidence on the interworkings of the trump

white house and in that vein of new that is more of that indisputable black and white evidence may soon find the way into the hands of the january committee in the form of visitor logs. president biden once again rejected the ex-president's claims of executive privilege and ordered them to hand over logs citing the urgency of the work ordering them to do it in the next 15 days. "new york times," white house counsel remus said that the documents needed to be disclosed in a timely fashion because quote congress has a compelling need and constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield from congress or the public information that reflects a clear effort to subvert the constitution itself. "the new york times" adds this, quote committee