americans are already hurting, but this aggression cannot go unanswered. if it did, the consequences for america would be much worse. america stands up to bullies. we stand up for freedom. this is who we are. putin's action betray a sinister vision for the future of our world, when nations take what they want by force, but it is a vision that the united states and freedom-loving nations everywhere oppose with every tool of our considerable power. there is a complete rupture right now in u.s./russian relations, and so it is going to be a cold day for russia. >> president biden addressing the american people yesterday. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, february 25th, day two of russia's unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation. ukrainians woke up to another day of fear and horror as russia pressed ahead with its invasion of the eastern european country.

explosions rocked the capital of kyiv and air raid sirens sounded for a second day this morning as u.s. officials warn that russian troops were just 20 miles outside the capital city, cautioning that the city could fall quickly. early friday morning a rocket crashed into a civilian apartment building injuring three people. ukrainian officials say there were multiple missile strikes in kyiv, but the targets and the damage remain unclear. ukraine's foreign affairs minister condemned the robert attacks in a tweet saying, quote, horrific russian rocket strikes on kyiv. last time our capital experienced anything like this it was in 194 when it was attacked by nazi germany. ukraine defeated that evil and will defeat this one. stop putin. isolate russia. severe all ties. kick russia out of everywhere.

according to president zelenskyy, at least 137 civilians and military personnel have been killed so far in ukraine. u.s. officials say russia has launched more than 160 missiles since the strikes began yesterday. this as thousands of ukrainians huddled in underground subway stations to protect themselves from the russia military assault. >> i have a child 1.7 years old and a sister 3.5 years old. we don't just feel safe, you know, risking with our kids, trying to live anywhere. so for now we're here. >> it is safe place. i mean subway, underground is safe place. and for now i'm mostly fear about future days because i don't know what we should do. >> meanwhile, russian troops yesterday took control of chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the 1986 reactor

explosion that released massive amounts of radiation into the environment. an advisor to ukraine's interior ministry warned that a strike on the nuclear waste storage facility could release radioactive dust that could blanket ukraine, belarus and european union countries. >> so, willie, the democratic world order that, of course, was brought into effect after world war ii and has ruled our world since that time, since 1945, has been shattered by this invasion. and for all of putin's talk of nazis, this invasion parallels so closely what happened in the lead up to world war ii. the question now is whether europe and whether the west, whether they're going to be neville chamberlain and whether they're going to keep giving and giving to vladimir putin what he wants by not cracking down or

whether they're going to be churchillian. you look at the pictures of the ukrainians huddled in the subway system. of course, anybody that studied the history of world war ii is brought back to what happened in london, and yet let's look at what is happening in london today. you have boris johnson, who refuses to stand up to russian oligarchs. the "wall street journal" is writing about it this morning. other people are talking about it. he is putting down weak, pathetic sanctions, refuses to go after vladimir putin's cronies, refuses to go after the russian oligarchs who have been buying up property in london for 10, 15 years now. of course, joe biden put his sanctions, more sanctions down yesterday. much of those, of course, he's trying to line that up with our european allies who don't want to move too fast.

but i'm really not sure why there's a need for subtlety at this point. joe biden says they're going to throw everything at putin that we can throw at putin. well, that's what the united states needs to do. that's what britain needs to do, and that's what our nato allies need to do and they're still not all in. >> we were talking yesterday morning to ambassador michael mcfaul, who will join us in a moment again, and he said this is not a time for incrementalism on sanctions. you have to throw everything at them and you have to throw them at them now. that was 24 hours ago. it will be interesting to see his take on that. as you say, a lot of the oligarchs are left untouched so far by sanctions and the major oil and gas companies because so much of europe depends on that russian oil and gas. that obviously would hurt putin and would hurt russia. meanwhile, ukraine's president, volodymyr zelenskyy, says he is russia's number one military target and that his family is number two. zelenskyy spoke from an undisclosed location last night

and says he remains in kyiv and his family is still in ukraine. he thanked international partners for their support but pleaded for more help saying, quote, we are left on our own to defend our country. i asked 27 leaders if ukraine will join nato. everybody is afraid, won't answer, but we are not afraid. president zelenskyy also claimed moscow wants to discuss the, quote, neutral status of ukraine. he said he is willing to talk and that it is time to end the invasion. let's go right to ukraine. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel is in mariupol. what does it look like there this morning? >> reporter: good morning. i'm in the center of the city right now and people are lining up here in front of a pharmacy. people are buying whatever they can before they feel this city also comes under attack like kyiv is under attack right now, like kharkiv is under attack. there have been military strikes around the edges of this city, but so far the civilian area has

not been touched or not been touched in a significant way. most traffic is very light. people are staying off the streets. people are staying in their homes when they can. some people are living in shelters, but i just was at a blood donation center and people are lining up here so that they can rally behind their government, rally behind the troops. i asked people why they are still here and they said they don't have any place to go, that it feels like there is no safe place, that the roads aren't particularly safe, that the russian offensive is scattered all across the country with military targets being hit, with convoys being hit. so they think it is better to stock up on supplies like they're doing right now and try and ride it out. each city has its own dynamic. in kyiv, in kharkiv there are deep subways, subways that you were talking about history, subways that were also built in the cold war when this was part of the soviet union in order to

double as bomb shelters in case there was an american attack. this city is on the sea of azof so it is low lying. there are no subways here, but some buildings do have shelters. >> richard, is there a sense of shock there among the citizens? obviously the military, intelligence agencies expected putin to take this step and to cross the border, but there's now talk of civilian targets. there are talks of apartment complexes potentially being hit by the russians. what is the sense among the people of, oh, my gosh, he's really doing this? >> reporter: there is -- i think there's always a shock when something happens. even if you are bracing for it, when it does happen there is a degree of surprise. but i don't think anyone is surprised that russia is being aggressive. i was talking to people here, and this city has a -- is a russian-speaking city and many people here are directly connected to russia. they have relatives who live

across the border. there are about 3 million ukrainians who live in russia, and a lot of them are from the far east where i am, but they are not surprised by brutality from vladimir putin, and that is why they say they are fighting. they don't want to live under putin's dictatorship. they know exactly what it is about. they say it is a regime that is built on lies, it is built on repression. that is why in 1991 they left the soviet union and why eight years ago they broke away from putin's puppet and established their own path, and they want to keep their democracy. they've tried it. they are enjoying it. they've had eight years of it. they don't believe the lies that there's some sort of genocide going on against the very people in this city who are russian speakers, and they are willing, they say, to fight and lay down their lives if necessary to protect the political gains that they have achieved. >> by the way, russian foreign minister a short time ago,

sergey lavrov said this of the people standing behind you, the people you are talking about, the russian operation is being carried out to free ukrainians from oppression so they can determine their own future. incredible. nbc's richard engel reporting from southeast ukraine in the city of mariupol. thanks so much. mika. thousands of russians hit the streets to protest their government's actions despite the threat of being arrested. demonstrations took place from the capital city of moscow to vladimir putin's hometown of st. petersburg. more than 1,700 people were detained in rallies in more than 53 cities. unauthorized protests in russia are against the law and yet, joe, the people were out there on the streets. >> they were out there on the streets. contacts that we had with those in russia saying there's a sense of shock among many russians that vladimir putin invaded

ukraine. they don't see it in their national interests. many of them having relatives actually in ukraine. this is -- >> it is amazing. >> this is not something that -- it seems enjoys support from the widespread of russians, but, then again, it is not a democracy, as vladimir putin makes clear every day. let's go to moscow. nbc news senior international correspondent keir simmons is there. why don't you tell us about the protests and the aftermath. >> reporter: well, those protests, yeah, took place as you mentioned across multiple cities in russia. they are a sign of unhappiness, but there are many other signs of unhappiness, joe. when you talk to ordinary russians, and even i have been talking this morning to people well connected at the higher levels of russian society and government. there is real shock. people behind closed doors are kind of stunned, didn't think

this would happen. a little story i just got told this morning from the meeting that president putin had with his business leaders, with his business leaders yesterday. some of it was shown on television. i'm told by one source who knows that when the doors were closed president putin told those business leaders, if you think that you will not do business with banks and organizations that have been sanctioned in order to not be punished, well, hear this. if you try and do that i will punish you. that's the kind of message that president putin is sending to those business leaders. it gives you a picture of this question of sanctions, and the idea -- and it is not just about the sanctions obviously, but the idea that the oligarchs are going to go to president putin and say, this is too much, we can't do this, that's not the society russia is. >> keir, let's talk about sergey lavrov and his press conference. you were there and had an

opportunity to ask a question. tell us about it. what did the foreign minister have to say this morning? >> reporter: yeah, actually nbc news was the first western news organization to get a question to any russian official since this war started. sergey lavrov held a news conference and i asked him, what is the plan basically, what's the objective of this operation? is it to remove a democratically elected president, president zelenskyy, and what is your exit plan? if you say that you don't plan to occupy ukraine, how do you plan to install a pro-russian government and then remove russian soldiers? his answer was, frankly, what you would expect. he repeated many of the things that president putin says. we don't believe it is a democratically elected government, repeated the claims that russian speakers are not allowed to speak russian in schools and things, called that genocide. of course, that -- there are so

many questions about -- i mean this is not sergey lavrov speaking, it is a russian government minister speaking so you have to understand that, take it with a pinch of salt. he went on to say we want the ukrainian people to be independent and for the ukrainian government to reflect the multi-national population because the current government is controlled from outside. there again sergey lavrov, the foreign minister, just openly making clear that their aim is to bring down the zelenskyy government just as president zelenskyy has said. just to finish, i have been thinking about how it fits with president putin's m.o., if you like, how does this operation fit with previous actions of president putin and i have been thinking about what we have seen, the attempted assassinations around the world on multiple occasions including, of course, alexei navalny, that attempted assassination. you know what this is? this is the attempted assassination of the ukrainian government. this is an attempt to remove president zelenskyy. what we know about president

putin is he gets fixated on individuals. think about the fact he want say alexei navalny's name, he is so fixated, and i think he is fix fixated on removing president zelenskyy by whatever means and i think that's what this operation is about. again, what sergey lavrov is that they want to install a government that isn't a puppet government of the united states. but the ukrainian government is not a puppet of the united states. we have seen again differences between president zelenskyy and president biden. that's democracy. that's democracy. >> and, of course, he does have -- he is targeting a democratically elected president of ukraine, one that he calls a nazi despite the fact he is jewish and democratically elected. nbc's keir simmons in moscow. thank you for your reporting. we appreciate it. let's bring in former ambassador

to russia, nbc news international affairs analyst michael mcfaul. also columnist and associate editor for "washington post" david ignatius, former aide to the george w. bush white house and the state department's elise jordan. mr. ambassador, let me begin with you. we heard keir's reporting about business leaders. obviously very upset about the invasion. we saw the protests on the street last night, protests throughout russia. we've heard interviews of russians on the streets speaking out against this invasion. mika and i spoke to a business leader in america who told us that his russian -- those that worked throughout russia for his corporation were just -- the reports were coming back is they were despondent. they were aghast. >> petrified. >> they were petrified by what was going on.

i want to ask you, obviously you have extraordinary contacts, better than any of us. are you hearing the same thing, that this is the obsession of one man over one leader and over one country, and despite the fact that almost everybody else in the country is horrified by his actions, he's moving forward and they can't stop him? >> yeah, well, both those things are true. by the way, my contacts were a lot better until i got on to the russian's sanctions list so i can't travel to russia these days. i did speak in russia yesterday at the andre socorov, named after the human rights leader, and there were over 100 leaders on the zoom call, think about what it means to be enemy number one, that's me, it is a demonstration of solidarity and

everybody in the meeting was against the war. journalists letters circulating right now, over 200 well-known journalists signed up to say they're against the war. other religious leaders, civic leaders are speaking out. informally i would say i speak to russians every day, all the time. you know, big businesspeople and just normal friends of mine from before. i think people were in shock. they didn't expect this, right. they didn't expect that putin would go this far. so if everybody -- you know, i don't know of a single person who has come out and said it was a great idea, except for mr. lavrov that you read this incredibly ridiculous thing he just said. i don't know how that guy goes to bed at night, by the way, because he is a smart guy. he knows what he is saying is complete nonsense. but if you are seeing that public stuff already, 1,700 already arrested, 53 cities, not

just in moscow, alex any navalny as he is about to be sentenced for 15 more years, the russian opposition leader, he uses that moment to speak out against this war, i think that means that millions more share those preferences, they just don't want to express them because they don't want to go to jail. but the other thing you said, joe, is very true, too. it is not a democracy. it is a dictatorship. so the translation of those preferences into any influence over vladimir putin is going to be measured over months and years, not days and weeks. >> ambassador, president biden rolls out some new sanctions yesterday as anticipated, and just as he does that vladimir putin continues his march now to the outskirts of kyiv. clearly the sanctions are not a deterrent. is there something else in terms of sanctions that can be done? and if not, what is the recourse for the world? what is the recourse for the west other than to issue condemnations, to roll out more sanctions and to watch putin continue to roll through this country?

>> well, i thought the package that the president announced was comprehensive and serious, very disruptive to the financial system in russia, two of the bigges banks were on there. slightly different sanctions for btb versus bear bank. it was serious. i hope they get around to kicking russia out of s.w.i.f.t. my understanding is that the biden administration wants to do that but a couple of european allies did not want to do it. remember, we don't control s.w.i.f.t. but, you know, you asked, willie, do i still think what i said, yes, i do. i think they should be throwing everything at them right now, shock and awe economic sanctions. i do not believe this is the time for incrementalism, ratcheting up, save some things for another day. i think the time to act is now. second, if you listen to ukrainians -- and we need to talk about what president zelenskyy just said recently. you know, he's already talking about wanting to sit down with

the russians, and he's already using the word neutrality because he says rather boldly and correctly and tragically, but it is true, we're fighting alone. i think we need to watch what kind of russian reaction will be to what the president just said, but right now they need military assistance. they need economic assistance. they need assistance, as they tell me every day -- i talk to ukrainians every single day -- you know, for territorial defense. one of my colleagues yesterday said, mike, we need knee pads. i was surprised by that. he's like, well, yes, we need knee pads because when you are on your knees shooting you need knee pads to stay the course. that's the way common ukrainians are thinking about their country today. >> so, david ignatius, your latest piece for "the washington post" is entitled "putin's assault on ukraine will shape a new world order," and you write in part this. when russian president vladimir putin launched his all-out invasion of ukraine on thursday,

effectively ended the post-cold war era. a newark tech tour for global relations should be built, and its shape will depend on whether putin's brutal campaign succeeds or fails. you continue, the ukraine assault, pitting a messianic russian autocrat against the wishes of every other major nation, perhaps including china, will determine the shape of a new world order to come. if putin loses his battle to sub you gate ukraine, the new order will have a solid and promising foundation. if putin wins, the new era will be very dangerous indeed. so then would tha -- with that arithmetic laid out, how long do you think it will take for the financial disruptions that were laid out by the president yesterday to take hold? >> so, mika, i think this is a

process of weeks and probably months. i agree with ambassador mcfaul that these sanctions be as tough and as quick as possible, and it is more important that they stay the course, that they are applied patiently, that there's no escape, wiggle room, that when people find ways that the russians are getting around them those ways are closed. this really is, as i tried to write this morning, a campaign that will shape the world that we live in, that i live in for the rest of my life, that my children and grandchildren live in. we need to see it as that. if putin can succeed in this, we'll live in a world where might rules over right, there's no other way to put it, where you blow across borders because you don't like somebody and you think that you have a mystical oneness with that other country and borders be damned.

it will be the world of the autocrats. the structure that we've lived in, that i think has been a foundation for prosperity not just in the united states, in europe, but in china, around the world, that structure is at risk. so i think those are the big issues as we watch the fighting today and every day for a while to come in ukraine. i think the problem for the russians is that seizing kyiv is not as easy as they may have thought. it is obvious that they intend to install a puppet government there. i think putin may be caught in his own illusions. he has talked repeatedly in his speeches to the country and his crazy, rambling essay he wrote last summer about the oneness of the ukrainian and the russian people. he doesn't seem to understand that ukrainians have developed an identity that's their own. you know, they don't feel that

they're kindred spirits with another country. they feel that their ukrainians. it is sort of like america during george w. bush's time rolling into iraq with this idea that we will be greeted with flowers and hugs and they will love us. maybe putin imagined that. maybe he imagined that all of the stuff he was writing was really true and the ukrainians really believed that they were one people with russians. well, they're finding out as this war goes forward, it appears the ukrainian resistance is tough. they're fighting back. those coffins are beginning to go back to moscow. putin is finding out that the kind of rhetoric, the language that he has been using to describe this may be absolutely wrong, and then he is caught. then what does he do? what does he do once he gets to kyiv with hundreds scores, hundreds of thousands of troops, what does he do then? i think that's what we will be watching. that's why the continuity and

consistency, duration of these sanctions is crucial. you know, as he sits there in kyiv trying to think, how do i get out. >> so at least these sanctions, the goal is to turn the screws on vladimir putin and make him think what he is doing and turn the tanks around. he is a guy, as the ambassador and others have said, who thinks he's on crusade for history, to try to bring back the soviet union, as much as he can. what sanctions are out there to cause him to rethink it? >> that's what i want to talk to ambassador mcfaul about. you look how ambassador mcfaul is sanctioned by the russian government which is far reaching. it is to silence his voice because he is speaking for the press in russia. but you look at our sanctions and it is still sanctions that ultimately protect elites around the world. you look at boris johnson and how tepid he was yesterday. you look at all of the dirty money flowing into places like america, like london, and we

aren't really necessarily doing anything that hurts those elites, that hurts the russian elites and their families, frankly. i want to ask ambassador mcfaul, how do you feel about sanctions on putin's cronies and their families that are taking the plunder in the west and going and effectively affecting their lives because sanctions affect ordinary people and cause ordinary people, causing them to starve, what about going after elites and how could we do that? >> i'm all for it. i think it is a moment, it is a time -- by the way, the biden administration even before this horrific war was talking about this, having anti-corruption as one of their core foreign policy directives. jake sullivan is quite focused on this issue. as my russian opposition friends

say, you can't allow these people to plunder the russian money and then enjoy it in the west. we have to stop that. we have to expose it. we have to shut it down and freeze it and take it. i completely agree. i do applaud the biden administration yesterday in a qualitatively different step than had been done previously started to sanction the kids of some of the elites around mr. putin. if you look at the list, and i know all of the parents, by the way. every single one of them are people i used to deal with as ambassador. they're not sanctioning the kids. i think tragically that's the right course. at the same time i want to say this very clearly, i do not believe that even the most wide-ranging sanctions will change putin's calculus in this war right now. because russia is a dictatorship, so those oligarchs we are talking about, you know, they can't get on the phone and say, hey, vladimir, i'm really suffering here, i can't get my yacht into st. bart's, will you

please stop the war. it is not how that system works. remember, a lot of these elites, we think of them as being like businesspeople and independent from the state. a lot of them have their money because putin put them in charge. the two largest banks that were sanctioned yesterday, both of them, the heads were put in those jobs by putin. they don't have any leverage against putin. that's the first thing. then the biggest thing, the second thing is you show these incredibly brave demonstrators that i really want to express my respect for them, but they're not going to the polls. you know, they're going to be arrested. so the boomerang effect of sanctions in a place as rich as russia and as powerful of a dictatorship as russia is hard. the last thing, putin has oil and gas and the world will continue to buy that oil and gas no matter what. that gives him a buffer against

sanctions for a long, long time. >> so, david ignatius, the question is what are we going to do with our allies who have -- joe biden has done a great job bringing nato together, keeping them shoulder to shoulder, but right now you look at our nato allies. they don't want to move as quickly as the biden administration does, whether we are talking about s.w.i.f.t. or whether we are talking about what boris johnson is doing. it just is pathetic set of sanctions that don't touch the oligarchs that finance a good part of london. >> joe, i think, again, the stakes are so high in this battle. ukrainians are fighting alone and, as ambassador mcfaul said earlier, there's a concern the ukrainians may decide, this is just too much. we would prefer some neutral status to fighting this giant alone and having our people

slaughtered in their homes and streets. but to prevent that, it is essential that this coalition have teeth. the u.s. does not want to get into war with russia, but there are lots of ways in terms of supporting the ukrainians, providing them military and other equipment, in terms of helping them in all sorts of ways to resist russia occupation. we just look at america's attempts to occupy iraq and afghanistan. russia's attempt to occupy afghanistan. you see how difficult that is. these ventures do not work out well. that's one lesson that our history teaches us over the last 20 years, but it requires that people be disciplined in supporting those who resist. that's going to mean supplying them with weapons, with training, doing that from neighboring countries. that carries a lot of complicated questions and risky ones, too. you know, a safe haven in poland

could be a place that is subject to russian attack. but i do think this is a process we have to think of playing out over months, maybe over years, but what comes out of it is the shape of the world we're going to live in. that's why it is crucial that people not lose hope, not look for easy exit ramps because those could take us to a very dark place. >> well, and the cold war went from 1947 to 1991. so when joe biden is talking about waiting a month to see how these sanctions go and reporters at the white house are shocked and stunned and deeply saddened, you actually wonder if they have any sense of history at all, that you're not going to put sanctions down and stop vladimir putin from going into a country or turning around magically.

as ambassador mcfaul said earlier, this is going to be measured over months and years, not over days and weeks. so we do need discipline. we need to keep these in place, and we need to get boris johnson to actually start targeting oligarchs, to start targeting people who have become billionaires because of vladimir putin, and we need to keep upping the pressure on them and on other russians. >> and reports from the polish border as u.s. troops are getting ready to receive many, many, many evacuees and that it will be complicated and painstaking because computers aren't working. they will do it all by hand, but they're ready to go. still ahead on "morning joe" this busy friday morning, we will be joined by someone who knows a thing or two about how vladimir putin works. former secretary of state hillary clinton will be our guest this morning.

plus, senator ben sasse, member of the intelligence and finance committees on whether the new sanctions laid out yesterday are enough to make a difference. also ahead, are cyberattacks on the table when it comes to taking on russia? what we know about the options being presented to president biden. and it was a wild day on wall street yesterday. we'll take a look at where the markets stand this morning as investors assess the fighting in ukraine. you are watching "morning joe." we will be right back. we will be right back.

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♪♪ 38 past the hour. a live picture of kyiv, ukraine. the "wall street journal" editorial board writes this morning a piece entitled "putin's new world disorder." quote, mr. putin's bet is that a

shock and awe attack will result in a quick military victory, decapitate ukraine's leadership, and mute any resistance. then he will promote calls for a cease-fire on his terms, and he will try to exploit western divisions to mute sanctions. the false hope will return that mr. putin can be lured to join the west to counter china. the larger meaning of russia's ukraine invasion is that the world has entered a dangerous new era, or perhaps it is more accurate to say the world has returned to its pre-world war ii state in which the strong take advantage of the -- the strong take advantage of the weak and authoritarians are on the march. some americans will want to concede russia this sphere of influence and say it is europe's problem, but a world in which russia dominates eastern and central europe, iran dominates the middle east and china dominates east asia will not be

safe for u.s. interests. >> no, it will not. >> regional powers have a habit of becoming global threats, especially when they work in concert, as russia, china and iran are already doing. >> hear, hear. i think we all agree with that. >> frightening. >> david ignatius, i want to pull something out when the "wall street journal" talks about putin wanting to mute dissent. yesterday we had a conversation where, i think it was tom nichols who said vladimir putin, what does he want? he wants it to be 1975 again, which reminds me when we talk about muting dissent and controlling this country of ukraine, pandora is out of the box. i remember in 1983 dr. chotner teaching me soviet history at the university of alabama. we were talking about the deployment of the pershing 2 cruise missiles and the question was asked of the doctor, how fearful are the soviets of the

cruise missile? she goes, they're far more worried about a xerox machine, which, of course, that takes you back. it was all about the spread of information, that they feared the spread of information. here we are in 2022. it ain't 1975. it is not 1983. vladimir putin is a man out of time, is he not? if he thinks he is going to be able to stifle dissent in this information age. >> joe, he is a man out of time and he is a man out of touch. he sits in the kremlin isolated. the circle of advisers around him, i'm told, has shrunk and shrunk until it is just a handful of people. they're hard liners, nobody who might say, "mr. president, i don't really get the plan for how you are going to get your troops out of kyiv once they get there." that person is not allowed to talk to the leader. he's been in this isolated,

brooding period during covid. nobody sees him. people can't even get in to talk to him. remember the crazy pictures of him at the long table? you know, what kind of leader is that, who sits -- you know, it is like a bowling ally table, and that's putin. we are seeing i think the effects of that isolation. putin imagines it is a different time. he resents the way ukrainians are becoming western, modern people. he doesn't like it. he wants things to be the way they were in the old days, and these essays brood on how the soviets wrecked our russian oneness and they go back to catherine the great. they are just all over the lot. but putin is now going to have to have his own reality check as russians begin dying in this war, and the evidence that

ukrainians do believe they have a country and are fighting for it comes back to him. then he has to think, as we had to think with iraq and afghanistan, how do i get out of this. as he breaks it, he will own it or he will own the consequences. so i think your point about putin being out of time and out of touch is one we should remember, even as we think of the brave people in these -- you see the pictures. i saw a picture on social media of a mother near kharkiv as a russian jet was storming past her house and dropping bombs, and her little child just screamed, wailed, and this mother grabbed the child and you thought, as we need to in war, that could be me, that could be me and my child, my grandchild, and this howling child was taken down to a basement while the

bombs fell all around her. what did that poor little child do? nothing to deserve what is happening to her. these are people like all of us, like you and me, who are facing something that they clearly never imagined would happen. it is just we want to be in solidarity with them. >> so sad. >> even as they fight alone. >> yes, we do. mr. ambassador, yesterday listening to the questions that the president of the united states was fielding at his press conference, i was struck how we lived in an age of instantaneous gratification. >> impatience. >> an age of twitter, an age of instagram where the questions were, okay, if you put these sanctions in, vladimir putin will leave, is that what you are saying? if you do this, what will happen tomorrow? can you explain to our viewers, expand a little bit on what you were saying before, that this isn't about days or weeks?

it is about months, it is about years, and it is about the fact, at least i believe, time and history simply is not on vladimir putin's side. >> that's right, joe. let me talk about it from putin and then the people he is oppressing. so time is right. i could not agree more about what david said about staying the course. the larger the country, the more powerful the economy, the longer it takes for sanctions to take hold, right. oil and gas is his big trump card. if you go back to apartheid south africa days, i teach about sanctions here at stanford and when they're not. they're most effective when the country's economy is small and integrated into the international system. they're least effective when the economy is big and is not integrated, and if you have oil and gas because people will buy oil and gas no matter what. until just recently we were buying a lot of oil of russia,

by the way, more oil of russia they're saudi arabia. i bet a lot of your viewers don't know that. that's going to take time. the pressure on the regime will take time and i think it will be measured in years, but it is the same with the society. if you think about putin, he said very clearly, i want to destroy the ukrainian military and i want to, in his words, de-nazify the country. you have lavrov saying we will do that so people can be free. now, that framing is complete nonsense. there's no nazis in power in ukraine. mr. zelenskyy was elected in a free and fair election. by the way, go look at the map some day. where he was elected, you know, giant majorities even in the east that are so-called loyal to russia, complete nonsense, right. but it is not nonsense that putin might take control of ukraine for a while. we need to be sober minded about that, that he might overthrow the regime and install a puppet regime for a while.

you guys were talking about the cold war. it does remind me of what stalin did in eastern europe after world war ii, but it doesn't mean when that happens, it is very important for us to remember it doesn't mean people are agreeing to it. we used to call them captive nations during the cold war. ukraine will be a captive nation, but it will never, ever be loyal again to mr. putin. i really do think this is the end of the putin regime. i just don't know how long that will be. some day ukraine will be free, i have no doubt about that. i also just don't know when that will be. >> ambassador michael mcfaul, thank you so much for your insight this morning. we will see you again soon. coming up, the u.s. and china spar over russia's invasion of ukraine. we are going to get to that back and forth. plus, a look at how newspapers around the world are covering this story, and the one sanction against russia that world leaders appear to have

ruled out for now. "morning joe" is coming right back. "morning joe" is coming right back and feel what it's like to get your money right. ♪♪ ♪♪ move to a sofi personal loan. get up to $1,000 in rewards points and get your money right. ♪♪

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51 past the hour. we will go back live to ukraine in just a moment. coming up, former secretary of state hillary clinton will be our guest, but first some of the other news stories making headlines this morning. two sources familiar with the situation confirm president joe biden has decided on his supreme court nominee. the white house has said biden, who as a presidential candidate pledged to nominate a black woman to the supreme court for the first time in u.s. history, will make his decision known by monday, but a source tells nbc news an announcement could come as early as today. the biden administration will significantly loosen federal mask wearing guidance today according to sources familiar with the matter. under the new guidance, most

americans will no longer be advised to wear masks in indoor public settings. >> i can breathe. >> the cdc today is also expected to announce a change in the metrics it uses to determine whether to recommend mask wearing. the agency will shift from looking at covid-19 case counts to a more wholistic view of infection risk to a community. the new metrics will consider covid-19 case loads but also take into account hospitalizations and local hospital capacity. and three former minneapolis police officers have been convicted of violating george floyd's civil rights. a federal jury found jay alexander king and thomas lane deprived floyd of his right to medical care when derek chauvin pressed his knee to floyd's neck for about nine minutes while floyd yesterday, "i can't

breathe" at least 25 times. thao and lane were charged with failing to intervene to stop chauvin. conviction of a federal civil rights violation that results in death is punishable by life in prison or even the death penalty. the officers remain free on bond until sentencing. >> let's bring in the host of msnbc's "politics nation" and president of the action network. you talked about some changes in the brunswick press conference, changes you talked about after derek chauvin's arrest and after his conviction, that after having you on this show for years talking about trayvon, talking about eric garner, talking about other black men who were killed, and yet those who killed them didn't face consequences, it seems we are now entering a new era of sorts

that you talked about, again, in brunswick. >> we seem to be headed that way. this is the second federal grand jury -- second federal trial jury this week that convicted based on race. you had the conviction of the three that were convicted of murder on state charges were now convicted this week of federal charges of civil rights in brunswick, georgia, of the killing there of ahmaud arbery. now yesterday the conviction of these three policemen. i think the implications of this conviction, joe, is significant because it says to police that we will convict you if you don't stop your partner from doing something wrong. they were convicted not of having their knee on the neck, but for not intervening on derek chauvin having his knee on george floyd's neck or doing anything to help george floyd. so i think this sends a real

message to police culture around the country, something we fought for. ironically, tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of the killing of trayvon martin, and as you remember we had to march and fight to even get george zimmerman, the killer of trayvon arrested. ten years later as his mother comes to join us in new york at the national action network, ten years later we can say we have two federal conviction and i must give credit to christian clark and the civil rights division of the justice department for going after both of these cases aggressively. >> rev, you've been fighting for change for so many years now, and this is a positive development that these officers who were complicit or killed george floyd, they were convicted by a jury of their peers. it is not change at the federal level to the laws. do you think the biden administration is doing enough to implement concrete change to the legal code of the nation so

that these abuses happen less frequently? >> i would like to see them do more. i would like to see them aggressively go after the george floyd policing act. we have now seen in court with these convictions, both on a state and federal level, finally we can get some convictions. but we can't go on a case-by-case basis. we must change the law. there must be legislative change. what made civil rights change in the '60s was the civil rights act, voting rights act, open housing act. we have proven now we can win some cases. we saw daunte wright, they're not going to be every case, but what we must do is we must change the law and the framework. i'm glad to see that these convictions happened. i think it sends a message to policemen that they have to abide by the law even if it is one of their colleagues, but we need the law to protect all of the citizens. >> reverend al sharpton, thank you very much for coming on this

morning. still ahead, we are live from poland where europeans are fleeing the violence in their homeland. nbc's kelly cobiella has been on the ground talking to the refugees there. she joins us at the top of the hour. we're back in two minutes. p of e hour we're back in two minutes. so get allstate. - common percy! - yeah let's go! on a trip. book with priceline. you save more, so you can “woooo” more. - wooo. - wooo. wooooo!!!!! woohooooo!!!! w-o-o-o-o-o... yeah, feel the savings. priceline. every trip is a big deal. when traders tell us how to make thinkorswim® even better, we listen. because platforms this innovative aren't just made for traders —they're made by them. thinkorswim® by td ameritrade

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street journal." "the los angeles times" leads with, "we now have war in europe." and "the new york daily news," "putin will pay." a look at the papers around the world. "the guardian" with this headline, "putin invades." germany's leading paper features a photo of a tank. "the financial times," "putin's forces storm ukraine." and the french paper shows destruction of a burnt out building in ukraine. russian forces are said to be only 20 miles outside ukraine's capital. nbc's news correspondent erin mclaughlin is in kyiv speaking to residents there. >> reporter: the sound of war, not heard in this european capital since world war ii. ukrainians' worst nightmare now realized. thousands trying to flee the capital kyiv, either stuck in gridlock or unable to fill their cars with the gas needed to get

out. i'm very, very scared for my boy, says this father. some families crossed into poland on foot, their belongings stuffed into plastic bags, this man carrying packs of diapers. while on the eastern front in kharkiv, they sheltered inside darkened subway cars, bracing for the next missile strike. >> we were sleeping and my wife woke up and say like, it is bombs. >> reporter: in the capital when the sirens sounded we went to an underground garage. we were told four ballistic missiles had been fired to the center of the city. this hotel does not have a bomb shelter as so many places here in kyiv do not. this is just an illustration of how people are making due when there are sirens, when there are missiles. less than 24 hours into a war that no one here wanted, the psychological trauma is palpable. >> reporter: are you scared? >> yes, i am, and i think it is normal. i think it is normal to be scared. it is normal to be afraid for your life, for your kids, for

your families. >> reporter: at the national police headquarters, a line of people waiting to be handed weapons. the government encouraging all ukrainians to take up arms and fight. this man leaves with two ak-47s, even though he's never fired a gun. >> reporter: do you know how to use that? >> to tell the truth, i am not good at it but i understand. i just need to -- to have some -- to find some quiet place and figure out how it works. >> reporter: a nation known for its resolve, now fighting for its future. >> and as the crisis unfolds in ukraine, hundreds of ukrainians are pouring into neighboring poland for shelter. when the conflict broke out yesterday, many of them packed what they could and took refuge inside a train station in poland. the country's interior ministry yesterday said that the polish border is open and ready to host people who are fleeing the

conflict. poland has set up reception centers and hospitals to deal with the expected russia of refugees coming in. officials expect about 1 million to 2 million refugees crossing into poland. here is an image of the beds already set up and ready to go, set up by american troops stationed in poland. ambassador mark b spent the morning touring there. kelly cobiella, tell us the latest. >> reporter: well, mika, we have been here for a few hours now and we have seen a steady flow of women and children arriving from ukraine. you don't see them arriving behind me because that's actually the crossing for automobiles, but just off camera

there is a crossing for pedestrians about a quarter of a mile from here. we are seeing women and children walking down this pathway, just crossing into poland, carrying what they can, dragging their suitcases. the women pushing baby strollers and walking with their children. one woman i spoke to came here, she said it took her hours, more than 12 hours to get to poland. she was walking with her young sons and with her niece and nephew. but what you don't see are men crossing into poland and that's because ukraine has said that men ages 18 to 60 cannot leave the country. one woman said she has been separated from her husband. her husband, a mechanic, had to stay behind. i asked her, does he want to fight? she said he doesn't have a chance, he doesn't have a choice rather. it is not just one-way traffic

here. we also have seen men crossing back into ukraine, knowing full well that they won't be able to come back to poland. we spoke to three of them, two of them brothers, all of them work in finland. they say they came here for one reason. take a listen. >> i go to home, my family. >> reporter: are you going back to fight? >> yes, of course. like that. >> reporter: why? >> why? >> reporter: so many people are leaving and you are going in. >> yeah, i know, i know. >> reporter: why go back? >> this my country, i love ukraine. >> reporter: it has been a very emotional scene here all morning long. we actually spoke to one american woman who has lived in kyiv for 29 years. she was standing by the side of the road with her suitcases, with all she could carry out of the country. she was in tears, frankly, and

very distraught at having to leave her ukrainian friends behind. she said, my heart is back in ukraine, i desperately want to go back. please, everyone, don't forget ukraine, don't forget this country. mika. >> nbc's kelly cobiella reporting live from the ukraine/poland border. thank you. there's also word that women who are doctors and nurses being asked to stay in ukraine to help. it is a dynamic situation for sure. let's bring in the editor of "the new yorker" david remnick and former nsc director for european affairs and the executive board member for the renewed democracy initiative, retired u.s. army lieutenant colonel alexander vindman. elise jordan and david ignatius are still with us as well. >> david remnick, you spent your life studying russia. give us your insights on what has happened over the past week. >> it is a horrendous tragedy for ukraine above all, a

horrendous tragedy for ukraine. in the coming days i expect it to get worse. i think vladimir putin from the start has made very clear what he has intended to do and what he is going to do. it looks like he is going to take kyiv and take the ukrainian government, and the rhetoric in moscow is so ugly as to embarrass orwell. that he this are somehow the salvation of ukraine, that they are saving ukraine. this is the language of some orwellian novel. so i don't expect anything remotely good. they're taking their time. they're moving in on the capital. they're subduing other cities, and your excellent report showed a young guy with an ak-47 and he didn't know the first thing about how to use it.

there's bravery everywhere in ukraine, but nothing like the military resources, the defense sources, the intelligence sources that would be necessary to stave off an assault like this. >> david, looking forward, we had the ambassador -- we had ambassador mcfaul on earlier saying don't measure this conflict in days and weeks, you have to measure it in months and years. in the coming months, give me your prognosis. the fact that we are in 2022 and not 1975 where people would have to run underground and have a printing press and try to disseminate information anyway they could, information flies across the world in a second. it is lightning in a bottle. is vladimir putin a man out of time? is time just not on his side

here? >> in 1968 when soviet troops went into czechoslovakia eight people went to red square, eight. they unfurled -- one of them with a baby in a baby carriage, and they unfurled banners saying "we are with you" meaning with the czechs. soviet union get out of prague and all of the rest. they were arrested within less than a minute. they were beaten and put in jail and suffered the obvious consequences. out of that, out of that moment in 1968 came or blossomed -- there had been obviously dissidents before, but a dissident movement that had a profound effect on the soviet union. it wasn't the only factor by any stretch of the imagination, but it put pressure and it influenced power over time, despite how repressed it was by various soviet leaders.

i was heartened to see yesterday, and i did not expect it because the crackdown in russia has been so severe with navalny in jail and all of the rest, that there were demonstrations not only in moscow where you might expect it, but in st. petersburg and cities in the regions, in the regions. i can't begin to say how important that is. now, were they gigantic, were they mass uprisings, arab spring or anything of the like? no, absolutely not. were they shut down rather quickly? of course they were. but some see there's some element of bravery, to hear the nobel prize winner editor of the new newspaper go on twitter in a video and say that we are -- he not only posted this, but ashamed of our impotence, our ability to stop it, but we will publish our newspaper in russian

and ukrainian, and to see navalny get up in a quote, unquote, court in prison and speak out against this. yes, russia television is highly restrictive and full of propaganda, but there are ways slowly but surely in the world of the internet that contrary opinion can percolate. putin fears one thing above all. he knows he can control the oligarchs. he has nothing but yes men around him. what he fears is what he saw in ukraine twice during the revolution and then again in 2014, and what he saw in other countries in other parts of the world and in the former soviet union like georgia, and that is popular uprising. it may get extremely ugly in the interim in the way he puts those uprisings or at least protests down. so it is very important to watch what happens not only in ukraine, which is horrific,

horrific and offense to humanity, but what is happening in russia, too. >> so, lieutenant colonel vindman, you have a recent opinion piece in "the atlantic" entitled "america could have done so much more to protect ukraine" and you write in part, u.s. leaders cannot absolve themselves of guilt by claiming they did all they could to prevent another invasion. they offered a necessary response, not a sufficient one. like every administration since the end of the cold war, joe biden fell victim to wishful thinking about the kremlin's ambitions in ukraine and russian president vladimir putin's basic commitment to internationalal norms. in doing so, the biden administration continued the decades-long practice of allowing deterrence to erode. the paths to prevention were not taken. long-term tremors have culminated in a seismic shift that has injured both western credibility and the foundations of international treaties. overnight, the geopolitical

outlook has become significantly worse for u.s. national security interests, and now the u.s. must manage the fall-out accordingly. i want to put my question there at that last point. is there going to be a period of acceptance that ukraine is a captive nation as we witness these measures potentially taking hold against russia or waiting to see if we need to crack down more? how would you characterize this and is this the right strategy? >> it is not the right strategy, and i certainly hope we don't end up with ukraine as a captive nation, the largest country in europe, a population of 45 million people with a powerful will to resist authoritarianism. so it could get very bloody. but i think nourngs you started that with the tale of how we ended up here, which is really

important. over the course of 20 years, certainly in the '90s there was a great deal of optimism about the direction of russia, but once putin came to power there was something else, something else seeped in. you had a case officer that fundamentally understood how to deal and handle his opponents and he preyed on the two kind of basic notions, hopes and fears. the hopes that there was an opportunity to work with russia, that somehow cooperation was going to turn russia to be a model state and an example for the region, and the fears. the fears of a belligerent russia attacking the u.s. with the most potent nuclear arsenal in the world. right now we have certainly been a party to both, right now we are probably succumbing to the latter, the fears. vladimir putin is highly effective at sabre rattling, at signaling the fact it will turn into a bilateral confrontation and warning off what we should be doing, what we know we should be doing as a values-based

nation, and to protect our interests with regard to european stability. we should be doing a lot more, but there's a fear somehow we will end up in a war with russia. we won't. putin is deathly afraid of that. >> let me ask you. what would you have us do. >> what is more? >> what would you have joe biden do. i have had people tell me, oh, we should put troops, we should put u.s. troops into western ukraine. let's just be very clear here for everybody that is watching right now. that is an invitation to world war iii. not an invitation, actually it is a trigger for world war iii. if you are sitting there -- not you, but if somebody at home is sitting there and going, biden and the united states was weak because they did not introduce u.s. troops to ukraine, no sane, rational thinker in any administration would have done so. >> he's promised not to. >> with that off the board, what could you have suggested to joe biden to do that would have stopped vladimir putin from continuing on this messianic mission of his to bring ukraine

back to the mother land? >> we're in a whole new world now with shots fired. i think a lot of options that we had beforehand, including probably not u.s. forces because u.s. forces are too provocative and the potential for russia to feel like they need to respond to u.s. forces in ukraine is too high. but nato forces may have made sense before shots were fired. now our options are very, very limited. as you pointed out, it is a recipe for disaster. there are more things -- >> let me just stop you right there. >> yeah. >> you would have introduced nato troops into ukraine? >> what i would have recommended doing is positioning small nato support troops in eastern -- in western ukraine, outside the front, and they could continue with some of the basic missions that they were doing in that part of the country. it would have been a warning to russia that they shouldn't pursue that far. they don't need to, frankly. their aims are, frankly, more limited to regime change, and

that doesn't necessarily require going and occupying the whole country. right now their operations are almost entirely limited to the eastern portions and southern portions of the country, the central portion of the country. basically the western portion of the country except for strategic strikes with regards to basis, they're not really touching it. so there are -- >> so let me -- >> uh-huh. >> let me ask david ignatius here. i apologize for interrupting. >> it was a delay. >> there's a delay. david ignatius, let me ask you, how would vladimir putin have responded if nato troops were introduced into ukraine? i ask this question because those who seem to have criticized joe biden suggested the introduction of u.s. troops or nato troops when he clearly said, vladimir putin clearly said that the consequences of that would be world war iii. >> joe, we can't be certain how putin would have reacted, but i

think that would have been way too high on the risk calculus for, as you said, any responsible president. the distinction that biden has made, and it is a correct one, is that there are nato members to which the united states has an iron clad guarantee of security. if you are attacked, we are attacked and we will go to war for you. countries that are not members of nato do not have that commitment, and i think blurring the line, putting troops into a country with which we don't have the article five commitment is a mistake. it is a line that should not be blurred. it has got to be bright and clear, and if you cross it thern there are severe consequences. so i, with due respect to colonel vindman, i disagree about the wisdom of putting nato troops in a non-nato country. it may be there are other things that we could have done that would have deflected putin's decision calculus. i don't think so.

everything i hear is about a leader who has just become ever more obsessed with this, who has not been susceptible to rational calculus and has been moving at least since july towards this invasion. we sent our ci director, bill burns, who speaks russian to see him in november to say, hey, we have the intelligence, we see what you are doing, stop it, here are the consequences. he blew right through that. i would come back to what we were talking about in the previous hour with ambassador mcfaul. this is a long fight. it is not going to be over next week, next month probably. it will require the thing that americans are worst at and that's patience. >> colonel vindman, i apologize for interrupting you. i was going to get back to you because we interrupted you. colonel vindman, obviously we disagree on the introduction of whether we should have introduced nato troops into

ukraine or u.s. troops into ukraine. i guess the question now is what do we do moving forward. >> so just to be clear, we are talking about a world that no longer exists. this would be a situation in which russia is not at war with ukraine yet, and i completely agree with david that we were headed towards a confrontation. there was very little that we could do. it is just two decades of impunity and looking the other way as russia's beligerence. my point is that russia is not interested in a confrontation with nato or the west. we see it bear out when u.s. special operations forces were attacked in syria and the u.s. killed 300 mercenaries there was no response. i have been in the meetings where the russians were deathly afraid. i translated when cruise missiles were flying into syria and the russians were pleading

to make sure that no russian forces were struck because they feared having -- having to be compelled to respond. now in this different world though, i think our options are very limited and we are no longer talking about being able to put troops on the ground. russians are suffering major casualties. this has not gone the way the russians wanted it to. the russians have not been able to actually hold -- they've ben penetrated but they keep moving. they may keep trying to by pass and move toward the primary targets. now our options are limited to provisioning ukraine with munitions, we have head room for sanctions. the program for the international community is nowhere near where it needs to go. those are probably the major things we could do at this point.

ukraine, plucky ukraine is on its own fighting a superpower. >> david remnick, elise jordan here. we have talked a lot about putin's mindset this morning, and you have followed him and studied him for so many years. can you talk about testify lugs the evolution you have seen and his decision to invade ukraine? >> well, i think there are aspects of putin that are the same and aspects that have changed over time, elise. what is the same, what is the core of the man? he is a man of the soviet union. a man who is a trained operative in the intelligence services. as they say in russia, once a member of the kgb you are forever. that part of his psychology has always been at the core of him, both in -- and he's extremely cynical about human beings and about politics. for example, when he sees a protest he believes there's no

way people could sincerely come out on the square to protest him, they must be paid by the cia or the state department, which is why he hated hillary clinton so much. he blamed her and others for the 2011 uprising. but what has happened over time is that there are fewer, if any people around him anymore who give him any contrary advice because the price of that is so draconian. he's more isolated. he is more paranoid. he has been in office for 22 years, which is never a good recipe for anyone, much less an autocrat like this. he has failed to do the most basic things that he set out to do, which was to diversify the economy of russia to make it a healthier country. you know, in the very beginning on the basis of rising oil prices, there was a kind of urban middle class that grew up in certain cities, but it is

extremely limited as joe has pointed out repeatedly. the economy there is about the size of texas, and considering their oil and natural gas reserves that is a pathetic performance. and so he is making -- he's historically minded. he has delusions of grandure, and in this self-drama of vladimir putin he is in line of the great czars that protected russia and expanded the empire. he is living in the past in so many ways, but the problem is that he does not live in a political realm. he doesn't live in the land in which congress or his advisors or economic interests or popular opinion impinge on him in a significant or decisive way, or not yet. >> david, do you believe as i do that this will prove to be a historic blunder given the size

of the russian economy, given the weight of the sanctions that -- eventually europe and the united states will get to, given the fact he is now confronting about $40 trillion of gdp per year with the united states and the eu, while, again, his gdp is about $1.5 trillion. they don't have the money, they don't have the ability to withstand this, do they? >> in the long term, no. in the long term, no. but what david ignatius, my former boss, pointed out so effectively is that sanctions take time to make any impact and the financial arrangements of the oligarchic world with all of the precautions that they've taken in building up financial reserves over time, in the short term putin can absorb it or at least he thinks he can. i think what history has shown is that empire is extremely

expensive. why did the soviet union kol lance in 1991? first of all, one of the triggers was the ukrainian independence vote which went 92% for independence, but also it was because of the price of empire which could no longer be sustained. the external empire of eastern and central europe and the internal empire of the 15 republics, that just was no more sustainable than the austrian/hungarian empire or so many previous and it collapsed. the recipe that putin is cooking now, it may have some perverse, dark satisfaction to him, to him personally within, it may be a spectacle that he enjoys being at the center of in an imperial czarist way and seeing himself

as the second coming of -- you know, pick your model of imperial russia. but in the end, sustaining something like this is a disaster. >> yeah. >> "the new yorker's" david remnick. thank you very much. retired army lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, thank you for your perspective. his recent book titled "here, right matters." here on "morning joe," former secretary of state hillary clinton will be our guest as russia moves further into ukraine. plus, why should you care what is going on overseas? republican senator ben sasse has a good explanation for that and he joins us ahead right here on "morning joe." . also, additional u.s. troops are being deployed to europe amid an escalating situation, plus a look how cyberattacks could come into play. we will have more from the

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♪♪ it is 32 past the hour. we are following the breaking news out of ukraine. an additional 7,000 u.s. troops will be deployed to germany amid the fighting in ukraine. according to pentagon officials, those troops will be able to quickly reposition to other nato countries in eastern europe as needed. president biden has said no u.s. troops will be deployed directly to ukraine. in total, 12,000 u.s. base forces have been sent to europe this month. joining us now nbc news national security and military correspondent courtney kube. courtney, what more do we know about the mission for these troops? >> so you said one thing there, mika, that i really can't underscore enough, and that is that the biden administration has made it very clear, president biden himself, that they have no intention of

putting u.s. troops inside ukraine to fight russia. so despite the fact they have now sent these now thousands of u.s. troops or prepared to deploy thousands of u.s. troops into the region, what they are really doing is shoring up the nato allies in the area. now, the one difference that we heard just yesterday, these 7,000 troops are coming from fort stewart, georgia, going to germany, at this point when nato activates the nato defense force those 7,000 troops likely will be dedicated to that. we heard about the nato defense force weeks ago when president biden decided to put 8,500 on a prepare-to-deploy order, basically on a heightened state of alert that they would most likely have to deploy into the region. the assumption for the past several weeks was that this response force most likely would not be activated unless and

until vladimir putin started this large-scale invasion. now that he has, officials are telling me that most likely they will activate it, these troops will be assigned to that. so what this nato response for is, tens of thousands of nato ally forces that will most likely just move around ukraine, into the baltic area, and they will be there training. it is a show of presence, it is a show of unity in the face of this russian aggression in ukraine. >> all right. there was a report yesterday that president biden has been briefed on options for cyberattacks in russia. what can you tell us about that? >> reporter: that's right. so this isn't particularly surprising. you know, in the face of this invasion it would be pretty much standard for the u.s. government to present options to the president for potential offensive cyber operations. so in this case what we are talking about is after vladimir

putin would invade, a large-scale military invasion of ukraine, the u.s. would have options to do things like cut the internet in russia, cut the power, the kinds of things -- and, by the way, there would be options that would be much more aggressive than what we are reporting on, but the kinds of things that would be disruptive. they would have an impact on russian society but they wouldn't be long term, they wouldn't be permanent. they're the kind of things that send a signal or send a message to russia. that being said that at this point the officials who ken delaney and i spoke with said no decision has been made, the biden administration has not made any kind of decision to actually do any of these options. i should say the white house pushed back pretty hard saying they're not really considering any of these options but we have been told according to a number of officials they were presented to the president and they were potential ways the u.s. could respond in the cyber world. the one thing about cyber as you

all know, mika, and i'm sure everyone on our panel knows, attribution is very difficult. it is way for the united states to send a signal, to send a message to russia weather and without getting pulled into it. it was said years ago that aircraft changed the nature of warfare. now cyber is going to change warfare. it is something that has to be seen as a tool in the arsenal for u.s. governments to use. we see some of the u.s. adversaries using cyber in very effective ways. >> nbc's courtney kube. thank you so much for being on the show this morning. very helpful. we appreciate it. coming up, as russian forces are advancing on ukraine's capital this morning, there are some u.s. lawmakers who have claimed this conflict is not our problem, but senator ben sasse says that's just not true. the republican from they brass

kay joins us live to explain why this invasion should matter to all of us. "morning joe" is coming right back. back

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americans on both sides of the political spectrum are right to be asking the question, why should putin's actions matter to the united states, why should we care? why can't we just be indifferent to ukraine? what's our rooting interest against putin? some are asking this question in good faith. others are asking it cynically to try to land cheap, political points. those advocating for indifference want us to believe no vital american interests are at stake in this conflict. those voices are wrong. indifference is not an option here. whether you are an optimistic idealist or a realist, americans shouldn't be indifferent. >> see, he's right. that proves bobbie bowden right as well. if you saw that coffee cup behind him, bowden was right.

that "n" stands for knowledge. senator ben sasse last week explaining why americans should care about what is happening. >> of course. >> in ukraine and the nebraska republican joins us now. bobby bowden said he went up to a huge nebraska player first time they played hem and he said, son, what is that "n" on your helmet stand for? he said, knowledge, sir. that's when he said he knew they were sunk. thank you for being with us, senator. i want to get your feel for the people you represent. i think most republicans have been responsible on russia, even while donald trump was saying crazy things during his presidency. the senate, one tough sanction after another. i am just concerned as an american about the base. are they hearing a lot of this nonsense about putin and ukraine and it doesn't matter who wins or loses? are you finding some of your constituents are actually buying into that or is the base still the republican party of ronald

reagan and gene kirkpatrick and margaret thatcher? >> it is a fair question. obviously, joe, most americans aren't paying attention to global affairs most of the time, and that's not a disparagement. they've got to be raising kids and putting bread on the table, so i'm pretty sure if we polled it the majority of americans wouldn't be able to find ukraine on a map. when they're passively not attentive to it, it is all right. it is in a moment of crisis how do they respond. obviously there are a bunch of click bait voices that want to exacerbate isolationism. i don't like to give oxygen to click bait because it gives oxygen to click bait. but i think ultimately americans will make a wise and smart choice about understanding why our rooting interest here should be against the evil vladimir putin because the guy's got big ass weapons and he is evil. you could think he is a genius and evil or you can think he is a mad man and evil, but the reality is that he has a lot of weapons and a lot of will and so we have to care. >> i want to read you what the

"wall street journal" editorial board wrote this morning. some americans will want to concede russia this sphere of influence and say it is their problem. but a world in which it will not be safe for u.s. interests. regional powers have a habit of becoming global threats, especially when they work in concert as russia, china and iran are already doing. obviously those three countries are a grave threat to global stability and future problems. what do we do now? i know you weren't pleased with the first round of sanctions. i think a lot of us thought they didn't go far enough. i'm curious, do you think the second round of sanctions are moving in the right direction? the second part of my question is how do we get europe to move along further on oil and gas and how do we get them to move along further on tougher sanctions for banking? >> yeah, great question.

let's talk about the to-do list, an potentially if you have time let's come back to the russia/china alewnes because it matters a lot. first of all, the intelligence community did a goods job getting intelligence out faster than they usually do to help deny putin the cover. putin lies all the time but usually gets away with it and the u.s. intelligence community helped thwart that this time. we need to keep that up and get tactical, actionable intelligence on the ukrainians on the ground so they can kill the russian invaders. number two, we need to arm them to the teeth. president biden shib coming to congress right now asking for an emergency dup letal for defense spending. the administration cut defense spending last year. it was a bad idea then. this isn't the time for re-krim nations. the question is what to do now. we won't be boots on the ground in ukraine, we don't need to, they're willing to fight but we need to arm them. number three to your sanctions point, we need to do more sanctions, do them faster.

there's no reason to hold the s.w.i.f.t. sanctions in reserve. it should have happened yesterday, it should happen today but we need to get it done. fundamentally we need to have sanctions against the 16 oligarchs, the mobster cronies who enable putin's madness. we need a made-for-tv lifestyles of the rich and famous for the american people and people around the world to understand who these guys are. we need germany to step up on energy sanctions. there should be no nofrd stream nord stream 2 ever. we need the brits to step up and acknowledge there's a ton of russian billionaire money bouncing around london and we ought to perp walk them out of the country. their kids should be kicked out of the country and they should go back and live in russia's hell holes. there need to be more consequences and we need to act faster. >> that's another "wall street journal" editorial page about boris johnson's weak sanctions.

he doesn't go after the oligarchs that basically are propping up a good part of london's economy. i'm curious, how do we put pressure on them? how do we put pressure on germany, as you said, to move faster and swifter on sanctions? obviously we can't unilaterally decide to move forward with the s.w.i.f.t. sanctions. how do we get europe's buy in there? >> it is a very fair question. we don't want the s.w.i.f.t. sanctions to end up being something we put pressure on and europe uses as an excuse to try to mediator moderate between us and russia. we need to bring people along, but there is not nearly the urgency at the u.s. treasury department and the u.s. state department there is at the intel community and at the pentagon. we are not leading those discussions as urgently as we should. again, s.w.i.f.t. is being held in abeyance when the conversations should have been advanced two and three weeks ago pre-invasion when we knew what russia's intentions were. to your point about the germans, i get that the german political leadership has a hard problem when pushing half of that

populace is passivist, but we have a problem with berlin and german executives around the world who the main thing they want is to lust for money from other countries regardless of whether or not they sponsor genocide. we see it with german business being willing to constantly deny the fact we are living through a genocide in xinjiang. the u.s. needs to bring along our people and allies to idealism and realism can go together. we should care about the suffering of these ukrainian families but not just for them but because it is in our and europe's realistic interest for putin to know the world stands against him and we are willing to suffer consequences. if the economic sanctions are costly, we need to cut him off from the global financial system. >> senator sasse, the biden administration is watching right now. can you be specific? i say that, they watch the show. can you be specific about the weapons? because we talk generally about needing to arm the ukrainians with defensive weapons, it is something that barack obama

didn't do in 2014 until late in the game. what do we need to do specifically? what weapon systems need to be sent to the ukrainians, that's first question? the second question is how many u.s. troops should we put in sh put in estonia? >> to your last point i compliment the fact that the administration acknowledged we need more troops in germany and poland over the course of the last 72 hours. it's happened twice and the administration is making the right choice. i want the american people to understand because there are click bait isolationists who pretend we are talking about ground troops in ukrainukrainia. we're talking about putting troops in our nato allies to make sure putin doesn't cross those borders. we need more troops in western and eastern europe getting to the edges of nato border territory, but at the level of what weapons, i think it's probably best to let the pentagon officials make those

arguments, but we have seen in the past with javelins and staining rays in 2014 we've never been urgent enough. we have to make sure that the youk neeb resistance fighters have any fear that they're going to run out of ammo. basic level stuff. you have grandma's trying to defend high-rises around the outskirts of kyiv this afternoon. those folks need to know there won't be some dumb bureaucratic answer that says we put in the requisite request form and it was a cr and three and six months later we still didn't get around to it. there needs to be an urgency and the president needs to lead on that, the president should make the announcement today to your question about the administration officials that he's going to send up an emergency supplemental request for expense spending because they underfunded the pentagon last year. we need to make sure they can get weapons to the ukrainians this week and this month. >> david ignatius is with us -- actually, i think we lost his picture so i will ask you, we

will circle back to the china question, senator sasse. the chinese will not call this an invasion despite the fact they understand economically, their economy slowed down, there's zero covid policy has been an absolute disaster, omicron sweeping across hong kong and will soon sweep across the entire country. they are not in a strong position and yet they seem to be siding with a country that has a gdp smaller than texas instead of the united states and the eu whose gdp is well over $40 trillion. what do we do? >> first of all, when you asked at the beginning of this segment what do nebraskans think or what do conservatives think on the ground? one of the sort of reasonable arguments i heard people say is but isn't china our long-term threat? it's the expansionism of the chinese party the number one geopolitical threat of 2030? i think the answer is yes. that means not that you can be

indifferent to putin's invasion of ukraine but you should be mindful of the fact that this invasion was green lighted by beijing. russia has 11 time zones and they were able to move their troops from the far east back to belarus to be able to invade not just from their russian actual territory in the east and crimean seas territory but invaded from belarus as well and are encircling kyiv as we speak. that was able to happen because they moved the troops back because xi said, hey, i'd love it if you could help destabilize europe and the u.s. and i'd love you to be the team offense on what a cyber war looks like so we may know what it looks like if we try to seize taiwan. xi green lighted this thing and our european allies need to understand that. it's difficult to think of anything silver lining-ish out of this when you have moms and dads, males 18 to 60 are being called up to service and are tried to load their wives and

kids into cars heading as an immigrant bandwagon towards the west. in the midst of that sadness, one of the small silver linings is you have a bunch of european capitals where in 2010 when nato wrote its strategic plan they agreed to leave the word china out of it because there were so many people wanting to make money in beijing. i don't think the next strategic plan that will probably be written this summer or fall, they are not going to leave the word china out of it anymore because they understand that chairman xi is interested in russia destabilizing the west. >> all right. nebraska senator ben sasse, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. a lot of great points made. really appreciate it. and this news just into nbc, a senior administration official confirms to nbc news that president biden will announce his nominee to the supreme court at the white house this afternoon. a busy news day just got even busier. we are back in a moment with

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i go to home, my family. >> are you going back to fight? >> yes, of course. like that. >> why? >> why? >> so many people are leaving and you're going in. >> i know. >> why go back? >> this my country, i love ukraine. >> that was nbc's kelly cobiella moments ago on the polish border with ukraine, there as thousands flee toward the west. a few head in the opposite direction, back into ukraine, into the line of fire to fight against putin's invasion. also doctors and nurses are asked to stay. america's ambassador to poland, my brother mark brzezinski spoke about the crisis while meeting with u.s. troops deployed in

poland as part of nato's mission. this is just moments ago. >> poland is safe and poland is secure. we are standing shoulder to shoulder, the americans are standing shoulder to shoulder with the polls at this uncertain time. >> you know, mark has said, mika, to both of us and to others u.s. troops there just have been greeted as heroes, they walk from town to town and the polish people have welcomed them with open arms and they are so grateful. he said in setting up the facilities, in setting up the shelters, he said they are just doing an extraordinary job. it makes him so, so proud to be

an american to see our best come into a place like poland and immediately have such an impact. >> yeah, the spirit of their efforts would make anyone proud to be an american citizen for sure sunshine credible. >> it comes as ukrainians woke up to another day of fear as russia pressed ahead with its invasion of the eastern european country, explosions rocked the capital of kyiv and air raid sirens sounded for a second day this morning as u.s. officials warned that russian troops were just 20 miles outside of the capital city. cautioning that the city could fall quickly. early friday morning a rocket crashed into a civilian apartment building injuring three people. ukrainian officials say there were multiple missile strikes in kyiv, but the targets and the damage remains unclear at this hour. ukraine's foreign affairs minister condemned the rocket attacks in a tweet saying, quote, horrific russian rocket

strikes on kyiv. last time our capital experienced anything like this was in 1941 when it was attacked by nazi germany. ukraine defeated that evil and will defeat this one. stop putin. isolate russia. sever all ties. kick russia out of everywhere. according to ukraine aez president zelenskyy military personnel have been killed. russia has launched more than 160 missiles since the strikes began yesterday, this as thousands of ukrainians huddled in underground subway stations to protect themselves from the russian assault. >> i have a child 1.7 years old and a sister 3.5 years old. we don't just feel safe, you know, risking our kids, trying to live anywhere so for now

we're here. >> it's a safe place, i mean, subway underground it's a safe place and for now i'm mostly fear about future days because i don't know what we should do. >> meanwhile, some protests against the invasion have broken out in russia. nbc news senior international correspondent keir simmons has more. >> reporter: protests across russia. in more than 50 cities according to an ngo. vladimir putin unbowed, confidently declaring russia remains part of the global economy, reassuring russian business leaders, his comments made before president biden's latest sanctions announcement. his early morning television address was unscripted and often ominous, saying his security demands were ignored by nato and america. referencing russia's nuclear

capability. warning if his enemies interfere the consequences will be such as you've never seen in your entire history. but we found some of his own people are now frightened. >> it's a tragedy. >> reporter: though others supporting the russian president. the west ignored russia, russia has spoken this man said. then there's tatiana and her 11-year-old daughter who live in moscow. the grandfather is in ukraine. >> just scared about her grandpa to be killed. >> reporter: they haven't seen each other for three years because of covid, now their family is torn apart by war. >> if you could speak to president putin now what would you say? >> please stop the war now. we are not -- we are not enemies. >> all right. joining us now former secretary of state hillary clinton. it's very good to have you joining us this morning during this difficult time.

i first want to ask you what you think of president biden's response so far in terms of getting collaboration from our allies, as well as messaging the strategy to the nation. >> well, mika, i think that it has been well-executed. there is no doubt that we were not in a position just a few years ago to rally anybody and now with president biden rallying nato, rallying not only western europe and eastern europe but far beyond those borders, to understand the very real threat that vladimir putin poses, and then to begin imposing sanctions that will ratchet up. i think that is exactly what he should be doing. >> so earlier in the show joe was talking about some of the impatience among reporters who were interviewing president biden during his press conference about what the

response is going to be, how long this is going to take if the strategy that the president has laid out will take months or a month even to see if it's going to work -- >> i cannot hear you at all. >> okay. can we make sure -- we're going to work on the audio for secretary clinton. i'm going to turn to david ignatius as we work on that and, david, i guess my question to you, i will pose to madam secretary in just a moment, but what is it that can be done in the meantime as we wait for sanctions to work their way through the russian system? is it perhaps aiding an insurgency? i'm thinking about the ukrainians right now who are crying out for help and i wonder if they know the world has its back. >> so the situation, mika, in kyiv appears to be dire with the missile attacks and troops moving toward the city center.

the "washington post" and "the new york times" are both reporting at this hour a threat to kyiv. and so in part this is going to be a story of underground resistance, people will have to move into the shadows to fight the russians as best they can. i was struck in your opening by the comment from the ukrainian man coming across the polish border in the ukraine at a time when there's so much danger and he said this is my country. and that's precisely the thing that vladimir putin has been trying to deny. he claims ukraine isn't a real country. here is this man ready to risk his life to go into the war zone because he says it's my country. so as long as there are people like that man and there must be thousands of them, this is going to go on, but it will go on in the shadows because russian forces are overwhelming, they're moving into these key areas to

take control. >> we have secretary clinton back with us, we've got the audio fixed. madam secretary, i will ask you again is supporting an insurgeny inside ukraine an important component of the strategy and if so how without getting drawn in too far? >> well, mika, i do think it's important to support both the ukrainian military and then depending upon what happens and how quickly events unfold, supporting those who are putting up resistance. i want to make another point which is that we have to also make sure that within our own country we are calling out those people who are giving aid and comfort to vladimir putin, who are talking about what a genius he is, what a smart move it is, who are unfortunately being broadcast by russian media, not

only inside russia, but in europe to demonstrate the division within our own country. i just published an article about the national security emergency for democracy and it starts here at home where we have to be much more united in the face of what is a very real threat from vladimir putin and his imperialistic ambitions. >> you know, madam secretary, i'm so glad you brought up as we former republicans used to call -- call people that were sympathetic to the old soviet union these useful idiots on the trump right that we now have. and the former republican in me remembered the stories of the dissidents who would say they remembered hearing of what ronald reagan would say during the cold war and it would spread around the gel cells, it would spread around the gu lags. this morning as i was thinking

about that i was so saddened because they're replaying this propaganda from trumpists in moscow and that has to be getting to the ukrainian people. how distressing, madam secretary. how distressing. >> well, joe, as you know so well, we had a bipartisan agreement, a commitment starting after world war ii with harry truman all the way until the soviet union collapsed. we would -- people who loved freedom like we do stand with the dissidents who were speaking out about human rights and against oppression and death at the hands of regimes, you know, the soviet union both cells and supported elsewhere. so this is heartbreaking, but it's also dangerous, and i think it's time for what's left of the

republican party that has any common sense not just to say, okay, go help defend ukraine against putin, but to stand against those people in politics and government, in the media and elsewhere in our own country who are literally giving aid and comfort to an enemy of freedom and democracy. it can't -- it can't continue because it plays right into the ambitions of not just putin, but also president xi of china to undermine democracy, to literally divide and conquer the west without ever invading us, but by setting us against each other. >> you warned about this in 2016 and here we are six years later, russian disinformation has actually made it in the mainstream media and in america. it is now being replayed on russian state television.

there are also quite a few -- quite a few opinion makers who clearly are parroting russian disinformation every day, whether it's on cable news or -- >> members of congress. >> -- or newsletters or whether it's members of congress. >> yeah. >> how has this happened? >> right. well, i think it's happened because starting with the assent of trump there has been, sadly, a total loss of spine and conscience among too many republicans who at first saw no harm in echoing and parroting the kind of crazy stuff that trump would say, totally against history, against common sense, as you know so well, and now they're kind of caught in a bit of a downward spiral where they're afraid to stand against even the most outrageous comments. there's also another element

which is these people are naive in such a dangerous way. they somehow believe that because putin presents himself as a strong leader on behalf of certain values that are, you know, anti-gay, that are anti freedom and democracy that's so pretty that somehow that corresponds with the views of certain members and elements of the republican party. they could not be more mistaken. you know, this man is not -- you know, he takes no prisoners, he kills them, poisons them, imprisons them, whatever. and i think the na naiveté we s starting with trump and has been accelerated is hard to understand. nevertheless, we have to deal with it and call it out. more people in the press and in politics need to be doing that. >> and for those who are

watching who don't quite follow that logic about a certain element of the far right and vladimir putin, mika, the same thing has been happening with hungary where the certain element of the trump right are bowing down to a guy celebrating the collapse of western democracy, liberal democracy. >> madam secretary, your new piece for the atlantic you mention -- the piece is entitled "a state of emergency for democracy" and it really is. in part you write this, republican leaders are abandoning core tenets of american democracy even as the stakes and the global contest between democracy and autocracy are clearer and higher than any time since the end of the cold war. over the years republicans have often invoked ronald reagan's cold war dictum, weakness only

invites aggression, usually to argue for less diplomacy, bigger defense budgets and more military intervention, yet they seem blind to how their attacks on american democracy make our country look to our adversaries. whether putin continues testing nato's resolve and whether the trajectory of our competition with china veers toward conflict will in part be driven by russian and chinese perceptions of america's decline or resilience. when our democracy looks weak our country looks weak and as reagan said, that only invites aggression. >> i do wonder, madam secretary, if all the chaos of the last five years hasn't just encouraged vladimir putin and other enemies to move forward. >> well, i think the answer to that is absolutely yes and it's tragic because president biden had to rebuild trust and confidence in nato, in the

united states. none of this that he has now engineered to respond would have been possible in the prior administration. in fact, i'm not even sure that the prior administration would have cared enough to ask. so this is a rebuilding of our credibility, of our leverage. i want to just make two quick points. one is that you have had excellent conversations with your prior guests about what should be done, and i strongly believe in supporting with military weapons if necessary and they are both the ukrainian army and any kind of resistance, but i also support putting in more troops and it was very touching what you talked about with your brother, mika, because, you know, when push comes to shove people are in nato because they need collective defense against a resurgent russian imperialism. the second thing is i would hope

that the administration and our european allies and others would move even more quickly to impose sanctions not only on the economy of russia, but also on individual actors within that economy all the way up to putin. i think that the only pressure that putin would respond to or that could have any kind of impact on his thinking would be those who he relies on to launder his money, to keep the funding going into his secret accounts robust. we've got to go after those oligarchs who are supporting putin financially. they need to pay a price, whether their yachts or homes are seized or whatever it might be to get their attention. this is a critical moment and we've got to try to bring maximum pressure on putin as quickly as possible. >> you know, david ignatius,

again, this is the second time we've heard this point this morning because putin cares about things like that. he may not care about his people starving or economies being, you know, destroyed, but he cares about his friends, his oligarchs and his yachts. >> he cares about all those things, mika, and he cares most of all about what the russian people in the end think. i want to ask secretary clinton, madam secretary, back in 2011, 2012 putin attacked you claiming that you were supporting opposition to him, putting aside what happened a decade ago i want to ask you a basic question now. are there ways that the united states can support those brave russians who are now in the streets, reports say in 53 cities across russia, protesting this war? what can we do as a country to encourage and support those

people? >> david, that's a great question and even though i did not encourage the demonstrations back in 2011, i did point out on behalf of our country that they were in response to what was an obvious effort by putin to stay in power and to literally rig his elections. now we are looking at russians once again in the streets. they don't want a war with ukraine. there's a lot of family and other connections between russians and ukrainians. i think we can have both. what i would argue for, government support, but also nongovernmental support. there were reports overnight that anonymous, a group of hackers took down russian tv. i think that, you know, people who love freedom, people who understand that, you know, our way of life depends upon supporting those who believe in freedom as well could be engaged

in cyber support for those in the streets and russia. we did some of that during the arab spring when i was secretary of state. i think we could be also attacking a lot of the government institutions and, again, the oligarchs and their -- you know, their way of life through cyber attacks. and it will be difficult to get actual physical support, but i think we should be looking at that. i mean, the old days of radio free europe and beaming in accurate information into the homes of russians, we should be doing everything we can now online to replicate that. it will be very difficult for putin to plug all the holes in that dike. information going into russia about what putin is actually doing with this unprovoked attack on ukraine can keep people energized. i think that's something that we

should be doing as i say both through our government but also individuals who have the capacity to do that. our tech companies should not be aiding russia in this attack in any way, they should be aiding those who are standing for freedom which after all is something that they're supposed to be on the side of. >> secretary clinton, i want to talk about -- you had just made reference to senator ben sasse and were associating yourself with some of the comments of the republican senator from nebraska. it reminds me -- and i want you to tell americans who may be discouraged right now that republicans and democrats can actually work together, it's happened. i remember talking to trent lott soon after you came to the united states senate and i asked the senator how is secretary clinton doing? it was a bit of a mystery. were you going to run around and be a show boat? everybody thought you were going to act like you owned the place and senator lott said she is a

great colleague, one of the hardest working senators i have ever had the honor to work with and i can't say enough positive things about her. that was just about everybody's take who worked with you in the senate. we have seen mitch mcconnell saying he supports some things that joe biden has done and we've seen some other republicans line up. of course, we also hear the attacks, we understand that's true, but can you just explain to the american people that behind the scenes these senators, we have senator rich and senator menendez trying to find common ground. can you give americans hope that that really does happen behind closed doors in the senate. >> it certainly used to and i hope it is now and will continue, joe. maybe this terrible aggression by putin will stiffen the spines of a lot of republicans in office who understand, you know,

you cannot continue to give trump and his enablers a blank check because they will lead us to a very bad place. so i'm hoping that some of the examples you just mentioned will not only happen behind closed doors but i would love to see some of the smart, articulate, you know, republican members of congress go ahead and be more willing to take on the craziness on the far right. i mean, it is something that needs to happen. i mean, i can say from now until the cows come home and talk to half the country about how dangerous it is what is happening in what used to be the republican party but it would really be a profile in courage for some of these other republicans to say, look, there are things i agree with, but i am not going to be on the side of vladimir putin, of russian aggression. i am going to be on the side of america. we're going to pull the world

together, we're going to show what we stand for. i think that's a winning argument. now, will there be the crazies who keep yelling and screaming and talking the stuff they do on one of your competitor networks? of course. but let's narrow that audience by getting voices out there that have credibility and let's show through the hard work behind the scenes what bipartisan foreign policy cooperation looks like. >> so there's some news this morning about china. we learned that china urged russia and ukraine to negotiate to address their problems. state tv cited president xi jinping as saying following a phone call with russian president vladimir putin. now, that comes after china refused yesterday to call russia's move into ukraine an invasion. president biden said yesterday any country that backs russia's aggression would, quote, be stained by association. this morning china's foreign

ministry hit back saying it will be countries who interfere in others domestic affairs whose reputations would be stained. when asked yesterday if he wanted china to help isolate russia the president said he's, quote, not ready to comment on that. >> madam secretary, let's talk about china. they've sent mixed messages, before the invasion the foreign minister said that russia should respect the territorial integrity of ukraine and all countries but have been a bit mute since the invasion. what's your read on china. >> what should we do? >> look, i think china is in a bit of a dilemma because it's clearly an extra territorial invasion that russia is carrying out against ukraine and, you know, china claims and has always argued that taiwan,

tibet, hong kong have always been part of china and, therefore, there are mixed signals that they have to contend with coming out of putin's aggressive behavior. i think it's important for china to recognize that europe in flames is not good for china. when i was negotiating the iranian sanctions, i had, you know, a difficult set of conversations with the then chinese foreign ministry officials because they got a lot of energy, they got a lot of gas and oil from iran, they had in their view no dog in that hunt, but it became a very strong point that i could make that they also didn't want to see the middle east in flames, they didn't want to see the gulf states, israel and others, taking action against iran to avoid a nuclear armed iran or in response to iranian aggression.

i think the same argument should be made right now. no matter how ambitious xi is for the future of china, and those ambitions are rather global as we know, they cannot want to see war in europe. so the more pressure that they can bring on putin, the better. in my article that mika referenced, i talk about how, you know, putin and xi may have slightly different agendas but they are the same. they are against democracy, they are against freedom, but china is more cautious and i think they have a longer game in mind and it should be, i hope, apparent to them that they need to go even stronger in private against putin in order to get this under control. >> so you've just pointed out one of the many different moving parts here. president biden of course meeting with leaders of 30 nations today. i just wonder how long, how

quickly can a strong response come together to stop the bloodshed, understanding that this is about getting the world community and getting our allies to join us in everything that we're talking about here. >> well, i do think it will take some time, but that's why i advocate ratcheting up the sanctions faster. i was very impressed to see a member of parliament in the uk parliament stand in parliament with the parliamentary protections that provides against defamation and listing a lot of the oligarchs in the uk who have interfered in british politics, who have been in lockstep with some of the terrible things that russia has done on british soil, like poisoning people, for example. i think we need to call the oligarchs out. we need to call them out by name. we need to go after their assets, whether it's temporary

suspension of access to assets, like yachts and huge houses or whatever other steps can be taken like bank accounts, because if we don't up the pressure now, whatever we are doing, which i think is absolutely right to bring the world together, to bring more troops to protect our nato allies, it will take longer. ukraine will be burning. ukraine will be, you know, devastated by a further russian attack because some of the attacks, as you hard from former lieutenant colonel vindman and others haven't gone as well as russia wanted. that will only inflame them. they will get more vicious and they will attack even more randomly and indiscriminately. there is an urgency. sanctions take time, but not only signaling sanctions on individuals all the way up to putin, but beginning to implement those sanctions. for our european friends who are wary about this, back when i was

secretary of state i started an energy dialogue with the your means, i said you cannot be reliant on russian energy that will come back to bite you, but you know, everybody has their own timetable. what we need to do with the europeans is persuade them the tougher we are now the faster we can try to get this under control. i hope that that will be part of the conversation that president biden has with the heads of state that he's talking to. >> all right. former secretary of state hillary clinton. thank you so much. we greatly appreciate you being here with us today. >> her new piece for the atlantic is entitled "a state of emergency for democracy." it's a must read. i will see you in a week. thank you very much for being on this morning. >> thank you. you know, david ignatius, as we -- as we listen to the secretary of state, as we listened to senator ben sasse earlier, there is not a lot of space actually between what

secretary of state clinton said, who has been there as secretary of state, as she did issue those warnings to europe, stop being so dependent on russian gas and oil. what ben sasse said and also what the "wall street journal" editorial page is writing this morning. not a lot of space between any of those major opinion shapers. >> that's the way it should be when we're facing an attack like this, lawless violation of international rules, the united states should come together. it's encouraging to see secretary clinton and a leading republican senator singing essentially from the same song book. i think secretary clinton was right in saying it's essential now for republicans to speak out in their own ranks.

it's wonderful for ben sasse to be on your show and talk the way he did, but, you know, i'd like to see him out in his state speaking to republicans directly and saying, you know, this is our fight, this isn't a fight of the liberal elites trying to impose international order, this is a fight for every american for the things we believe in. and if that happens then you can have some confidence that we will have the staying power because it's going to be a long fight. we have talked about that all morning. this is not days or weeks, this is months and years. >> right. >> and it's going to take unity. without that unity we are in trouble. >> we are in trouble. mika, how good it was to see, as we came in from break before interviewing senator sasse, that he was actually speaking to the people of nebraska, saying you may hear some crack pots on

tv -- i'm paraphrasing -- saying there is not a difference between putin and the ukrainians. >> right. >> but he said this is why ukraine matters to you. let us hope that other republican senators -- and i think a lot of them are, actually -- also take that directly to their constituents and explain this is a fight for freedom. >> yeah. >> this is what ronald reagan fought for and it's not just about ukraine, it's about western democracy. it's about liberal democracy. it's about the freedoms -- >> better economy -- >> that ronald reagan and margaret thatcher and pope john paul ii and your father and gene kirkpatrick and so many other conservatives, republicans from america, conservatives from britain, religious leaders across the globe, it's the battle they fought during the cold war and unfortunately it's vladimir putin who has decided

to take us back in history. so we need a strong unified response and it certainly is good to see that we're getting that in morning certainly from some major players. >> as we go to break we have breaking news from the associated press. russia's military says it has seized a strategic airport outside the ukrainian capital and claims it cut off kyiv from the west. so what can congress do to help counter russia's escalating aggression in ukraine? we will ask democratic congresswoman and former cia analyst elissa slotkin. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. >> americans on both sides of the political spectrum are right to be asking the question why should putin's actions matter to the united states? why should we care? why can't we be indifferent to ukraine? some are asking this question in good faith, others are asking this cynically to try to land cheap political points.

those advocating for indifference want us to believe that no vital american interests are at stake in this conflict. those voices are wrong. indifference is not an option here. whether you are an optimistic idealist or a hardened realist, americans shouldn't be indifferent. a hardened realist, americans shouldn't be americans shouldn't be indifferent.ack. standing up... ...even walking was tough. my joints hurt. i was afraid things were going to get worse. not being there for my family, that hurt. woooo! i had to do something. i started cosentyx®. i'm feeling good. watch me. cosentyx helps people with psoriatic arthritis move, look, and feel better. it targets more than just joint pain and treats the multiple symptoms like joint swelling and tenderness, back pain, helps clear skin and helps stop further joint damage. don't use if you're allergic to cosentyx. before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. an increased risk of infections—some serious

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the union of european football association has officially announced it will move the champions league final out of russia in response to the nation's attack on ukraine. in a statement this morning uefa says the may 28th match will be relocated from st. petersburg to paris. it also said russian and ukrainian clubs and national teams participating in uefa competitions will be required to play their home matches at neutral venues until further notice. meanwhile, pressure is

mounting to strip a russian oligarch of his ownership of chelsea which beat manchester city in last year's champions league final. the team owner was discussed in british parliament yesterday when a member of the labor party said he has documents that show elicit finance and brns activity by abramovich. this just coming in, an ex trord move by the pope. the pope went to the russian embassy in rome to personally express his concerns about the war in ukraine. popes usually receive ambassadors and heads of the state at the vatican. according to the ap for pope francis to travel a short distance to the russian embassy outside the vatican walls was a sign of his strong feelings about moscow's invasion. an unprecedented move in modern

times. up next, the ripple effect of the russian invasion of ukraine. the conflict could raise gas and food prices even more here in the u.s. we will look at how soon that may happen. keep it right here on "morning joe." on that may happen keep it right here on "morning joe.

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45 past the hour. the crisis in ukraine could have big economic implications for our country, particularly on fuel costs. nbc news correspondent tom costello has the details. >> reporter: from the west coast -- >> i think it's kind of ridiculous. >> reporter: -- to the east coast. >> i'm scared. i don't want to pay like 10 bucks a gallon. >> it hurts my pockets and my heart. >> reporter: and everywhere in between. >> it's out of control. it's hard to believe it's over

$5 a gallon. >> reporter: americans already feeling the pinch when they fill up are facing new economic uncertainty this morning. less than 24 hours after russia's military invasion into ukraine, oil on the global market temporarily topped $100 a barrel for the first time in eight years. experts say for every $10 increase gas prices can jump 20 cents with a national average now of $3.55, prices have surjtds 89 cents from a year ago but it's even higher in some areas, california currently the highest, $4.77 a gallon. >> california is going to be probably paying $5 a gallon in a matter of one to two weeks, potentially this summer california could hit $5.50 with some stations nearing $6 or $7 a gallon in rural california. >> reporter: russia is the world's second largest exporter of oil and gas and prices are set globally. president biden says his administration will use every tool possible to limit the

impact. >> we're taking active steps to bring down the cost and american oil and gas companies should not -- should not exploit this moment to hike their prices to raise profits. >> reporter: but it's not just fuel, ukraine is a major global exporter of wheat and a disruption could mean higher food prices globally. experts say how long the situation in europe lasts will determine the strain on our wallets. >> there will definitely be an impact on americans' pocketbooks from this, but the question is what is the cost of defending a democracy? up next, congresswoman elissa slotkin a former cia analyst will be our guest. we will be right back. e our gue. we will be right back.

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we need to call the oligarchs out, call them out by name, we need to go after their assets, whether it's temporary

suspension of access to assets like yachts and huge houses or whatever other steps can be taken like bank accounts, because if we don't up the pressure now, whatever we are doing, which i think is absolutely right to bring the world together, to bring more troops to protect our nato allies, it will take longer, and ukraine will be burning. ukraine will be you know, devastated by a further russian attack, because some of the attacks, as you heard from former lieutenant colonel vinman and others, haven't gone as well as as russia wanted. that will only enflame them. they will get more vicious and attack even more randomly and indiskrim natdly. so there is an urgency. >> all right. i have a feeling our next guest is going to completely agree with what you heard from former secretary of state hillary clinton on "morning joe" a few minutes ago. joining us now, elissa slotkin

of michigan. she served as a middle east analyst for the cia and served as acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. she's a member of the armed services and homeland security committees. given that this is a very complicated multidimensional geostrategic conflict and problem that is being dealt with on many levels, are we moving fast enough? and how do you feel about america's response so far? >> yeah. i think we're off to a good start, but we could certainly strengthen some of what we're doing. it's true, calling specific folks around putin out, hitting them, their families, not letting their kids go to fancy western institutions, those kinds of things i think hit them where it hurts. i do think it's very difficult once you make a decision that you're not going to send american men and women to fight in this conflict. you know, our tools are

different than putin's tools, and that's painful to watch. i do think that we're using an arsenal of sanctions, but i would's going to take a minute for those to develop. >> mm-hmm. congresswoman slotkin, you are proposing a temporary pause on the federal gas tax, and by my estimation this would mean around $5 off on a full tank of gas for americans. do you think you'll get support from your fellow democrats on this measure? >> yeah, well, there are some who certainly support it. there are some who are worried that it's going to take away money for infrastructure funding. it's not a panacea. it's not a perfect option. but i think when you look at the inflation rates and what we've been paying in gas and now this russian conflict is likely to increase the price of gas, i'm looking for some tools to affect people's pocketbooks.

in my district, people often drive 40 miles one way to work, and that makes a big difference when you take that munl off. it's an option. >> i want to pop in some breaking news here. a source familiar with the matter, president biden intends to nominate judge ketanji brown jackson to the supreme court. he's going to make that announcement a little bit later on today so a very busy day for the white house. ketanji brown jackson, a judge, will be nominated this afternoon by president biden. she's been viewed for months as a top contender. she's 51 years old and it fulfills the promise president biden made during his campaign, a black woman for the supreme court. that news, ketanji brown jackson will be nominated by the president to the supreme court

this afternoon. stay tuned to msnbc for much more on that. back to congresswoman slotkin, given the impact on our economy, how important is it going to be that republican and democratic senators and members of congress message why ukraine and engaging in this conflict through nato is important. >> yeah. it's been a long time since we've had kind of the cold war kids, the generation i grew up with. i think we have a responsibility to explain to the public why it's important that someone like putin is invading another country and why we can't allow that to stand. in my part of the world, you know, we have a lot of ukrainian americans, ukrainian michiganders very worried about their family, but we talk about what this means for the competition with china. we know china is taking notes on everything going on right now. they're looking at every sanction being levied, what that

would mean for them if they ever went into taiwan. and we know that should they go into taiwan than they're attempting to make us a continental power instead of a global power, and people back home in michigan are not interested in that. we talk about the connection between putin and china, but i think it's also just important for congress to speak with one voice. i was at the munich security conference on a bipartisan delegation with senators and members of congress, and it was like we were tag teaming in all of our meetings, right, because domestic differences aside, and there are a lot of them, when it came to putin and strengthening our nato allies, there was no day light, no disagreement. that's also just a good thing not to just show the world but share our american citizens we can still work together and function as a country. people need to hear that. >> david ignatius. >> congresswoman slotkin, you and i were together at munich last weekend, and i remember

talking with you about how important those discussions were. but the essential need to make them real for your constituents in michigan, that we're not focusing on ukraine or the world necessarily, we're focusing on their own economic security and difficulties. how do you bring this home to your constituents in michigan who are worried about their lives? >> it's not hard to make the case we're part of a global economy and what happens abroad affects us at home. we just have to do it and look apt our economy here. we're a heavy manufacturing area and i have an auto plant in my area that's been off work most of 2021 because we can't get a 14-cent microchip out of asia. you don't have to explain to anyone we're connected to the world economy. i think people understand we've made ourselves frankly pretty vulnerable how integrated we are with the world economy and now

they'll watch gas prices go up. i think the thing that is harder to explain is what we're doing with russia and putin right now is else in because if you don't have a strong response in the beginning, i would just emboldens bad behavior by other would-be autocrats. that's the connection we're trying to make. but people understand we're connected to the global economy. i frankly think we've outsourced too far to the global economy. >> congresswoman elissa slotkin, thank you very much. back to the breaking news, president biden intends to nominate judge ketanji brown jackson to the supreme court. very interesting pick. she's 51 years old. she has two kids. she went to harvard law school, worked in private legal practice. interesting note about her, she had a family member who served a life sentence in prison due to a

nonviolent cocaine conviction and took on his case, persuading a law firm to take on his case pro bono later on. this announcement of judge ketanji brown jackson will happen later today by president biden. that does it for thus morning. chris jansing picks up the coverage right now. coverage right now hi, there. i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters here in new york city. it is friday, february e 25th, and we begin with the breaking news. extraordinarily dire developments over just the past few hours as russia's attack on ukraine comes within miles of the capital city of kyiv. we've got new details coming in by the minute. as we go on the air, president biden right now joining an emergency nato summit virp actually from the white house situation room to plot the alliance's next steps respond