hi there, everyone. it is 4:00 in new york. it is day seven of the russian invasion of ukraine. where millions of people facing enormous and growing peril adds russian forces encircle cities there and ramp up the attacks on civilian areas. at this hour the city of kharkiv under siege from russian forces. missiles struck a university dorm and police headquarters. official says 21 people at least were killed. in southern ukraine russian forces seized control of the port city. ukraine officials tell "the new york times." first major city to fall to russian control since beginning a week ago. a massive russian convoy. still stretches for miles and continues to pose a threat to kyiv.

the pentagon says that forces are aggressive with missiles and artillery against kyiv. despite being outmanned and outgunned, ukrainians appear did i remembered -- determined to resist. this scene on a road in southern ukraine. blockading a road in the open of stopping russian forces from seizing control of a nuclear power plant and ukraines confronted soldiers urging them to leave the city. despite warning shots into the air residents got in front of the vehicles trying to push them out. in the west the escalation of the war in ukraine and the decision to put the nuclear weapons on alert sparking new moves to punish putin. john kirby announced the pentagon is postponing a missile test planned for this week to

quote demonstrate that we are a responsible nuclear power and limiting russia's ability to import technology related to the oil sector. "the washington post" is reporting that the administration is preparing a new round of sanctions against russian oligarchs taking aim at the people president biden called out last night in the state of the union address, some of the loudest applause of speech as the corrupt leaders that make millions off the regime and a new task force to endorse the sanctions in place. at a press conference earlier today secretary of state tony blinken shamed the russian government adding this. watch. >> president put b may have assumed that the united states and the allies were bluffing warning of mass ifr, unprecedented consequences. but as president biden likes to

say, big nations can't bluff. the united states doesn't bluff and president putin has gravely miscalculated. >> miscalculation where we start. igor is back with us. of course a former adviser to ukraine president zelenskyy remaining in the country with his family as does igor. i want to say i didn't say this yesterday. i -- you were here and invited you back and supposed to come back yesterday and not able to yesterday. do you want to tell us what was going on? >> hi. well, thank you for having me again. so basically what happened yesterday we had two major areas so we dashed for the shelter. when we returned i actually could make the show but, you know, it was day six of the war so my family's kind of psychological state disintegrating and my older daughter was crying.

my younger daughter disturbed and i couldn't afford to leave them alone and decided to stay with them and thank you for being very understanding of them. >> look. i'm a mom and i cannot understand. please tell me what you say to your kids. >> well, i mean, the older daughter gets everything and reads the news. talks to her friends. on one hand she appreciates that the position is way better than that of little girls in places like kharkiv and mariupol and hard far 13-year-old to kind of get a grip on a situation in the middle of a major conflict. that's something too difficult for adults to kind of process so i can't imagine what it is like for her and literally got home and broke down crying out of the blue with no warning. fathers of teenage girls know

that it does happen and at least there's a warning coming and yesterday was no warning whatsoever. >> every parent in the world is a parent in a pandemic and had to do in ukraine, as well. now parenting through a war. through that lens, tell me what's happening right now and what you anticipate in the days ahead. >> well, let's begin with the military situation. we are attacked by a far superior power in terms of hardware and soldiers. i'm not worried. ukraine is like a spring. hardly push. but what's more worrying is the humanitarian situation. we are witnessing intentional damage, intensal violence

against ukraine civilians. a horrifying figure is released. over 2,000 ukrainian civilians including up to 100 children have been killed in the last 6 days. civilians. talking only about civilians. that's excludeing the people in mariupol. russia leveled it to the ground. they are shooting at churches and yesterday to me like the most shocking thing happened yesterday because president putin claims that he's de-nazi-fying ukraine. shooting at the holocaust memorial is probably difficult for the russians to comprehend. it's just been opened, the place where the nazis, the real nazis

have executed over 30,000 jews and russia is shooting at churches. that situation is really grim. and you know, that's more difficult to process than the military situation. we'll kick him out sooner or later but it is the loss of life that's a worrying part. >> what is it that you need that's still on the table? i think you heard from the american president that closing the air space in his view sets up conditions for world war iii. i wonder your reaction to that, if you agree with that. short of that, what you need. >> yeah. we definitely need airspace closed one way or did other. my official reaction is a fully agree dealing with a mentally

unstable person potentially holing his finger on the red nuclear weapon. it might not be the best idea but russia is brutalizing the wash fare for now. annexing crimea they took the soldiers and said they are little green men so maybe there are ways around interfering directly so what needs to be decided behind closed doors is not for the public to discuss why what ukraine needs though obviously is weapons and economic support and two certain things that i would appeal to the west to do urgently. first i'm worried about the psychological state of the civilians, especially women and children. every little bit helps. i'll give you an example.

for example, a friend of mine who's in charge of one of the humanitarian centers. she's breaking down. she has ptsd. she is a fan of slit knot. if there's a message to the people of ukraine it would make a difference. why don't we get like western celebrities that record those messages, #stand with ukraine and we'll provide you with numbers of individual civilians. why not give them a call and support them? it's a -- same time it might save somebody's life. second thing i would ask everyone in the west to do would be to appeal to the businesses to get out of russia as quickly as possible because every stand that's being invested or earned in russia on russian territory is in fact paying for the death

of ukrainian children and that applies to everyone. i saw messages today saying we won't get out of russia. guys, money is not as important as people's lives and behind -- look. thousands of dead is a statistic. behind each one of those deaths is somebody's life and family and tragedy. and god forbid you have do live through that. if you could help us with that we would really, really appreciate it. thirdly, look. we need the appeals to the humanitarian corridors. we got a call from a fund called -- in ukraine belonging to the richest guy in ukraine and trying and fighting hard for two days to create a humanitarian corridor out of town and 600 people including 2 people close to me got out with a corridor and like no

documents. like plus 2 outside in underware and t-shirts. but there's 1,500 people still stuck there and need the corridors asap. because look. any military conflict will end. and people's lives should not be lost because it drags on longer than it should. >> how long are you prepared to stay there with your family and fight? >> we definitely prepared to fight. i said it last time. look. every time once in your lifetime faced with a situation to decide two things. who is the person looking at you from the mirror? real or hypocritical and fake. that's the first answer you need

to get. the second decision to make is, look, if somebody wishes you death in effect, that's happening in ukraine, do you keep running? because we can move to bulgaria and poland but i say doesn't matter. we're going to be faced with the same situation in two or three's time. there's no pride in running. look. i'll give you a positive. i've read the comments after the last show and i know people want something positive so two stories. one really tragic and shows you what it is like and the oh is really funny. i got a call from the volunteers and that situation is resolved. twins just got orphaned yesterday. mom and dad both killed yesterday by russian bombs.

imagine that situation. that's what i love ukraine for. nobody's left and said red cross deal with it. people just started to share the message saying here's the number. is anyone willing to take two kids in? not temporarily. are you ready to become parents? by god i nearly called. my wife probably would have killed me. i have two daughters and two families sheltering with us. that's a sense of what it is like. two days ago people in the village, some gypsies stole a tank from the russian tanks stolen by just gypsies camping out in the field. i didn't believe it but there's a video and verified and that kind -- those kind of stories keep happening. it gives you hope and a lesson i have learned from a week of this ordeal so far is if you try to

get rid of sadness, depression, desperation, whatever, you know, it is just an experience. hopefully we're going to learn from it and be better for it. if you adopt that attitude there's no need to run. it will end well. you just need to know it. >> what is -- i guess i'm listening to you and maybe have an answer to this, but you are a former adviser to president zelenskyy. i think he has surprised even western allies with his steeliness and sort of acceptance of what you are articulating. that to embrace the fate. where does that come from, from his part, and what -- i'm guessing you are not surprised by what the whole world is seeing in him. >> i am not surprised at all

because look. i have known him since 2018. and he's just an ordinary guy from the street from a central ukrainian town. it's a kind of town where you grow up on the street. regardless of who you are. a comedian, come from an academic family. you have to be tough to make it in that jungle. and you know, it is also a -- it gives you that injection of a no nonsense attitude so there's no time for hypocrisy and bureaucracy. there is no time for fear. you know? there's a problem. face it head on. see what comes out of it. he is like that. that's good for ukraine because as i said last time there are human beings and politicians. if we had a politician we would be signing the surrender.

i'm not surprised and by the way a person from the presidential office told me today and i fully concur is a positive from the war is the fact that you get to enjoy the little things you didn't notice. i remember when i was doing -- digital deep talks did an experiment and switched the mobile phone off for two days and heard the bird singing. there were singing before, i didn't notice it. i got a shower and shave today and i shave daily and it is not a big deal. i drink coffee daily and eat oranges daily. i go for a walk daily and now because of that scarcity that's created by the war it all tastes so good and feels so good. you live lifer to the fullest and that's strength to solve this situation and nights are tough because we have to go on

patrol where i live and i have a kalashnikov for the first time in my life. a guy from a boarding school in the middle of britain, you know, my parents sent me there. never thought to hold a kalashnikov rifle in my life but i held one. i can't say it feels good but at least i feel safer now but all that craziness means nothing if we lose this war so look. you can put your money on us. we still going to be here. tomorrow, the day after and a million years from now. >> what do we get wrong in the military analysis, which is that russia has more guns and more tanks? former intelligence official told me 75% of the standing russian army is inside your country.

what does the west get wrong about that as a mismatch? >> you don't take into account ukrainian mindset and mentality. we are a nation that was born and raised at the cross roads of what used to be three major ohm pyres. russian, hungarian and turkish empire. because of that, we kind of made of steel. i don't mean to brag. i'm sorry. but like look. if you look at the history of dignity you had people chasing out armored vehicles and snipers shooting at people with wooden shields and wouldn't run away and ran at the snipers and the snipers ran away. i think the major mistake is to discount ukrainian spirit because like look. even if we didn't have javelins, if russia acted more

professionally in the field, there's that, too. russians are just appalling in the military sense but like even if that didn't happen, you'd still have like people with molotov cocktails, saboteurs attacking them at night and would have we might have lost more civilian lives but they would be running scared. we are the -- best analogy is we are a john wick of a country. we are peaceful and go about the daily lives, brag about sports as humans and then like if you mess with us, that's a whole other story and that's what you see now. >> it is indeed what shines through every time we talk to you. igor, i will come back to you. i don't know celebrities but i'll take your list and see what i can do and keep us posted about the efforts to find a home

and 2,000 civilian lives lost there and the children. we'll keep asking you to come back and as long as you're free shaved or not you are welcome here every day. please stay safe. >> thank you so much. >> thank you so much. let's bring in nbc's cal perry live from lviv, ukraine. can you expand on what igor is talking about the 2,000 civilian deaths and i think he said 100 children. >> reporter: i can try. the thing that he's saying that rings true here more than anything is the psychological impact because we are starting to see it on the ground. took a week for us do get a look at what's happening in the east and the effect it is having on civilians but they have arrived now and with the trauma and it is unmistakable. shell shock is a real thing. i met a 24-year-old girl that

spent 5 years in seattle recently. she wanted me to call her kate. her name is katerina and fled kharkiv. her journey is harrowing. take a listen to part of it. >> i left kharkiv two days ago when things got worse and my house got burned by a bomb. and my loved ones died so -- >> reporter: who died? >> my friends. in the basements. they were hiding in basements because it is so hard that they use some new kind of -- new kind of forbidden bombs that destroy everything on a big distance. so it's pretty much done. my whole city is just dust. it was like giving your soul to god every second because the train stopped in the middle of

kyiv and they were, you know, they were shooting. and we heard bombs flying all over. planes. i thought this particular moment i can die. >> reporter: mentality, how did you survive? >> i don't think i did. we all are just super mentally broken. to be honest, i do have ptsd. i do. very bad kind of. every time i see -- hear a sound or anything i start shaking. >> reporter: anything else you want to say? >> please do, please do cherish a clear sky. every time you see a sky. cherish every moment of your life. >> reporter: 1 in 3 refugees, only 1 in 3 refugees ten years after a conflict goes back to the home you're from.

of those that go back to the home they're from on average takes 20 years to get home. statistics are pretty useless talking about human stories. my grandfather fled russia, went through france and until the day he died he held on to things from his home. never made it back. i'm sure there's that in america. people can relate to that. you have a generation now that is going to be forever affected and will look at the world in a different way and grow up in different countries and raise families in those countries and ukraine will forever be different. this will be a humanitarian catastrophe and that's it. >> you have chronicled the days for us. not just news gathering but the poetic art of what they wake up

every day from disbelief to horror and acceptance. i wonder what it is they accept. do they accept they will die saving ukraine? do they accept that russia is coming? what is that they think happens next? >> reporter: i think people are caught somewhere between disbelief that this is happening and that putin is coming for all of it. there's this fear that the disbelief was what led to the unpreparedness. that people woke up in the eastern part of the country and had to make a decision of what do i leave with? what are in the pockets? show me your pockets. because i can't imagine that decision of the house is shelled and split seconds to decide what to take and i spoke to a family today and they grabbed everything they could and left the passports because the house was on fire and trying to get to the train and save the kids so i

think it's this disbelief that this is happening. people like the girl i interviewed that hasn't slept in six days and shell shocked and not okay because of everything that's happened and so you have this growing not concern but growing pain, national pain. listening to you talk to igor. you have a growing national pain that's a national pride. i don't know what the tipping point is. i know that the russians are in shelling civilian areas in a way they weren't earlier in the week and we are seeing that. and that's a marked change because if you have been left behind in the cities and still there there is no safety. you're now a target. the other thing i have been thinking about a lot is the civilian defense forces and president biden said at the beginning of that address last night the russians came in and met the ukrainian people. that's not what they were expecting and you heard it from

igor and right and i would say with one qualifier of a reality here that i hate to bring but civilians picking up guns become soldiers and soldiers die and happening here and the citizen defense forces are fighting for survival and the country and the way of life but they could die very easily as the russians lob shells into the areas not knowing where they can land. that's the issue. >> your interview with kate, katerina, will stay with me. cal perry, thank you so much. when we come back, the panel will weigh in on everything we talked about so far and russia's response to the global condemnation on the attack and how worried the intelligence community is with putin isolated and cut off from the world. stay with us.

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joining our conversation jamiche sindar, also msnbc legal analyst dan goldman, former majority counsel in donald trump's first impeachment trial and served in a national security role in his time working for the house intelligence committee and with us is rick stangel. yamiche, first your reaction to the state of affairs. two ukrainians there we heard from. one talking about how much he savors the sound of birds and

the taste of oranges and the clean shave and cat tina interviewed by colleague cal perry urging all humans, you and me and rick and everybody to savor life. these are people who a week ago were going about the lives, taking care of families, balancing work and life. figuring out when to squeeze in some friends and now they are hiding from bombs. >> well, it is just heart breaking to think about all that the ukrainian people are having to endure and what might be to come when you think about the fact talking to experts saying this is the beginning and will likely get worse before it gets better. i was talking to democrats about what they wanted to hear from president biden and a things they reiterated to me is the american people grown in the support of ukrainian people because they have seen the

resolve, the resiliency of a population that's willing to fight. tanks with molotov cocktails. grandmothers who are having target practice to get ready to fight soldiers. people who are using subway stations as a bunker and yesterday heard president biden give what could be the most important speech by an american president since the cold war and talking about democracy versus autocracy. one other thing i would say is talking to democrats in particular while they're not of course the same situation but ukraine is a battle for democracy and people dealing with an outside force trying to do away with the democracy and some democrats say you can make the mental connection there to what's happening in america with january 6th and the challenges that american democracy is facing. of course we are not facing

tanks and invasion but there's a real worry there about the state of american democracy. >> and i think there's a real lesson there. dan, to exactly what she is saying, there's a direct line between covers on most days on this program and that is the effort not just to unearth the truth of january 6th and donald trump's role egging it on and continuing it after january 6th but in dealing with the disinformation that covers it like a blanket of snow. and you see the russian tactics. the lies about all that ukraine has to give in and surrender and the civilians will be saved. i wonder if we put too much distance between the threats. >> i think it's a plan and

pattern we saw from the russians when they interfered in the 2016 election. if you look at robert mueller's indimtds about how russia used disinformation to influence the election it was a road map for donald trump and others who follow him to use this same disinformation. you will remember fake news. the concept of fake news came out originally about disinformation online. that it was not real. donald trump co-opted that phrase. tried to turn it around and now parrotts it all the time about anything that he doesn't like. and so, the parallels between vladimir putin and donald trump are too long for us to discuss on this show but the originator of the disinformation was vladimir putin. he did it in 2014 with ukraine.

he has done it since then. and that's ultimately a lot of what led to the first impeachment of donald trump is two bogus allegations that were completely shams. they were not accurate. yet donald trump parrotted them and wanted to use them to benefit himself and the re-election. and so, the parallels have created serious unrest in this country. but it's also created a lesson and i think that the biden administration has done a fabulous job of pulling the sting on the disinformation. of undermining the pretext that vladimir putin was trying to use to invade ukraine. and i think igor made the point so okay rattly. he says he's trying to de-nazi-fy ukraine. are you kidding me?

the ukrainian president is jewish. he is left with only that kind of wild accusation because all of his other efforts to create a pretext for this envags failed in large part because of the work by the united states intelligence. >> to pick up on what they have pointed out, it is not a symmetry of tactics. it is also complete cohesion of message and i remember watching donald trump i think it was that first trip. hr mcmaster was national security adviser. i understood at the time that the trip was happening that at every stop they were trying to get him to publicly affirm the united states of america's commitment to article v. i think the only country to cash in on article v. anybody to be defended by a member nation after 9/11.

you'll correct me if i have that wrong but that was a sustained effort, not just to tarnish nato, to destroy it. it was a campaign picked up by carlson who until bombs start ds to fall from the sky questioned its usefulness in not just this country but in a free world. i wonder how much of this is sort of reaping what has been sown. >> people say why didn't putin do this when donald trump was president? and there's a very simple answer to that. he didn't have to. >> i have heard that before. >> the president was breaking the european union apart. he has whether it was the lackey or his partner, he was doing the work that putin aspired to do for 20 years.

what's happening now is that putin doesn't have someone doing that work for him. he is trying to do the thing he wanted to do all these years which is to kind of separate the west from russia, separate ukraine from the west. as inspiring as the example of the ukrainians is and zelenskyy has turned into a jewish winston churchill and what he said last night in that speech he said any country, this can happen to any country under prr. history makes any history. that's a parallel now. so that's why it speaks to us about democracy. but the bad news is that the precedent for russia is syria, indiscriminate bombing. chechnya and made putin's bones with mass bombing there. they don't have any sense of empathy for -- the people might

but putin doesn't. he is a sociopath. this has changed history not just for a few months or years but for decades and for the rest of the lifetimes reckoning with the consequences of this. >> what makes us so confident that we do nothing? u.s. policy is not to intervene and fight alongside the ukrainians. we won't protect the airspace. because we believe putin will stop if he wins ukraine? >> well, you know, i remember being in the situation room in 2014 when russia annexed. it is invaded crimea. president obama said will america want to send boys and girls, sons and daughters to fight for the ukrainians? >> i guess no.

does putin stop as ukraine or pick up latvia and estonia now? >> if you ask my opinion, i think he does stop at ukraine. ukraine has been his bet noir. the thing he wanted more than anything else and as biden says if there's one inch into nato territory then they come into effect. putin doesn't want a world war. >> he is a sociopath? >> a sociopath is doesn't care about the consequences and would care about being defeated by the united states and nato. he would care about a nuclear war. i think he does stop at ukraine. >> the united states prepared to see ukraine fall to putin? >> it is a hard thing to wrap your brain around but when i talk to white house officials and i'll say talking to democratic leaders they don't go past the idea of consequences of

finances for vladimir putin and don't talk about military engagement in ukraine and hard for the united states and others to watch ukraine get decimated. possibly a government that is not democratically elected installed by vladimir putin. but america as president biden said to our lester holt at nbc, the minute that russian soldiers and american soldiers shoot at each other that's world war iii. president biden doesn't want that, of course, because there are so many factors to impact americans here and campaigned on the idea of stopping endless wars and not being someone to get into military conflicts. he has had a presidency that begrudgingly in some ways continuously having to deal with foreign issues. of course, with the aftermath of

the withdrawal from afghanistan or now the in ukraine. this is not what president biden wanted to be focusing on and it's untenable from this white house's point of view and president biden's point of view to defend ukraine's sovereignty. >> this president managed to assemble not just a large and deep and unprecedented coalition but a coalition whose members are doing unprecedented things. to have switzerland involved and i feel like becoming a punch line. even switzerland. to have germany taking on a role and shipping arms to ukraine. i come back to what biden is making up for in terms of fortifying and strengthening and arming and advising or whatever the specific role is of the

united states. vis-a-vis ukraine. the last guy withheld congressionally approved military for ukraine. ambassador taylor looked over across the donbas region and saw the war, hot war happening. i wonder if you can speak to what you think of seeing war has come to this country and president biden's predecessor, i don't know the tv friendly world is. jerked him around when it came to military assistance. >> there's no question and it's haunting. we tried our best to warn everyone that this was a possibility and going on and the military support is not trivial or trifling but that is essential to defend a democracy in the face of an autocratic dictator and hard to resonate with people when you don't see the same images on tv that we

are now seeing. i would say this about the quagmire that we are in in terms of helping ukraine defend itself and one way to sort of analogize it is with russia with the convoys line up is surrounding kyiv and lay siege to it. and essentially starve out the people inside. if they could possibly do that. obviously all these weapons that number of countries are supplying to them is to try to weather and withstand and push that back. but what the its and the european union and all of these countries around the world are doing is effectively laying economic siege to russia right now. and these sanctions are not going to have a direct impact today or tomorrow but the longer

that this war goes on the more serious the sanctions will be and the greater consequence that the russian people will feel and one way out of this and the russian people and the russian oligarchs, of course. one way out of this is essentially to lay siege economically to russia to incite a revolution. as democratic revolution from young people. navalny and the democratic minded young people that exist in russia and to try to connect with them and have them lead the world out of this. so that's what the biden administration is effectively trying to do. >> that's a really important other half of this story. we are going to be talking to keir simmons in moscow. there's a missive from navalny on twitter. we'll talk about that and i

think what you are talking about is this strategy. i think to people who talking to the igors of ukraine it feels like too long to wait but that is precisely the strategy to make the sanctions, to make the economic price so brutal to 6700 russians arrested for protesting in the last week since the war began that we know about that those numbers continue to swell and the pressure bears down on him. dan, yamiche, thank you for being part of the coverage. assess of state blinken promising the ukraines will be supported. ned price joins us next.

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never be afraid of your strength, because your body is capable of amazing things. own your strength, and see how far it takes you. tonal. be your strongest. how you feel if you saw crowds storm and break down the doors of the british parliament. kill five cops. injure 145. or the germans or the italian parliament? i think you'd wonder, well, that's what the rest of the world saw. it's not who we are. >> president biden a short time

ago talking about the attack on january 6th on the u.s. capitol while the world's attention understandably has been focused on ukraine behind the scenes quietly, steadily, the mission to hold accountable those responsible for the attacks of january 6th. those accused of violently breaching the u.s. capitol building that day up to donald trump's innermost circle has been marching on ward. today, the opening arguments in the first riot related case to go to trial. prosecutors called guy -- the tip of the mob's spear who lit the match. he's allegedly a member of the texas three percenters stands accused of breaching capitol grounds with a pistol at his hip and threatening to his kill family if they turned him in. hmm. nice guy. he's pled guilty to five counts.

the prosecution today said he wanted to stop congress from doing its job. the same basic accusation of the committee's work. we told you yesterday about the six new subpoenas from the 1/6 committee directed at trump attorneys and allies, known about his attempts to delay certification. joining us now, betsy swan. dan goldman is still here. betsy, your take on what has become a little bit more behind the scenes, but the steady work of the 1/6 committee. >> there are two subpoenas in particular that jumped out to me in this most recent batch. those of a woman named catherine and another woman named christina. both of these subpoenas cited reported that we broke about a month ago. part of the reason these two women have been subpoenaed seems to be connected to e-mails that i obtained that one of them, catherine, was on. i obtained an e-mail at the

earliest known electronic copy of a draft of the executive order that was pitched to trump to seize the voting machines to either have the military or dhs go in and seize voting machines, which would have been just a stunning abuse of executive power. this earliest known draft of that order i reviewed, one person who was on on e-mail thread with that copy was krat catherine, who's been subpoenaed. she's not even a household name but is notable because after election day, she actually went to a county in michigan according to a local news report, and tried to gain access and then did successfully gain access to voting machines in at least one precinct and she said she was doing this on behalf of rudy giuliani. according to that news report, she was basically the boots on the ground for giuliani's evidence to try to find evidence

of voter fraud. the other is christina bobb. she's been an anchor for one america news. an official in the department of homeland security. he's a lawyer. the reason her name came up is because in that earlier draft copy that i know of of the executive order that would have had trump seize the voting machines, i got an electronic copy and the meta data say it is person who created it is named christina bobb. i reached out to her for comment. obviously, meta data doesn't mean a case is open and shut. not always correct. i reached out for comment to see if she could share anything about why her name might have appeared on it, she didn't get back to me. i'm not aware of her saying anything publicly in the month since we reported on the e-mails that would have clarified if she had a connection, but clearly the fact her name appeared on

that document along with what other information the committee has collected has made her someone who is a person of interest. it shows the extent to which they're not just going wide in their probe, but also digging down deep. >> dan, if i understand betsy's reporting, the cig tans is that this is the part to overturn the election that directly engaged donald trump and his willingness to use the levers of the executive branch. didn't he want doj to be involved in seizing voting machines? >> absolutely. i think what we learned in the two months between the election and january 6th is that donald trump was going to every possible measure that he could not to necessarily find fraud, although he was doing that as well, but to make up a case of

fraud to, in order to overturn the election. the parallel events of the january 6th committee and doj that are going on yesterday and today, yesterday with the subpoenas by the january 6th committee and today with the trial, the first trial beginning, it just strikes me that it's really inverted in some ways because absolutely, doj should prosecute everybody who was involved with the january 6th attack and the di kotomi between our democracy and what's going on in russia and ukraine should not be lost, but the committee is digging in to the lead up and potentially criminal acts of abuse of authority of a conspiracy to overturn the election, which is really what doj should be doing. and so you have the doj focusing on january 6th and you have the

january 6th committee focusing on the conspiracy to overturn the election in the lead up to january 6th. >> it's upside down and backwards every which way. betsy, the only reason i've heard of those names from yesterday's subpoenas is from your reporting so i'm so grateful we got to talk to you today. thank you so much. dan, thank you for sticking around. rick sticks around a little longer. the next hour of deadline white house starts after a very short break. stay with us. house starts after break. stay with us

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to the russian soldiers sent

to the front lines of an unjust, unnecessary war, i say your leaders are lying to you. do not commit war crimes. do everything you can to put down your weapons and leave ukraine. the truth is that this war was one man's choice and one man alone. president putin. >> hi, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. today, strong words from u.n. ambassador in a direct message to russian soldiers. your leaders are lying. put down your weapons and leave. that speech made right before a vote by the u.n. general assembly which overwhelmingly approved a resolution that russia stop the war. kyiv saw heavy shelling and in

40-mile long convoy is still slowly making its way to ukraine's capital. the city of kharkiv saw an overnight attack from russian paratroopers. according to a ukrainian official, at least 21 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in just the last 24 hours of fighting. to the south, russians seized control of kherson. for every report about a russian attack, there is a story of extraordinary strength and resistance from the ukrainian people. on the other side. like this side from the southeastern town where ukrainians took the streets to block russian forces to keep them from reaching a power plant. ned, one of the hallmarks of the biden administration's approach to putin to be as quickly as

intelligence is gathered, it is analyzed, verified and declassified i guess to keep putin off his game, to reveal him for exactly what he is. a liar making up false pretext. the intelligence community has been flawless in predicting what's going to happen next. i wonder if you can tell us what's going to happen next. >> i don't have a crystal ball, but here's what i can tell you. before i worked at the state department, i was at the cia. i have never seen a campaign like this to use intelligence to declassify information in an effort to deter violence and now to keep putin off of his game. that is precisely what we have done. starting in november of last year, we made very clear to the world our profound concerns about what, at the time, we had an indication putin might have in mind. at the time, there were tens of thousands of troops, later

50,000 troops, 100,000 troops, 150,000 troops. more recently, we told the world exactly what putin would do according to the playbook. he would manufacture a pretext. claim in a theatrical meeting of his national security council that he had no choice but to go into ukraine. he would deploy those forces. those forces would terrorize a civilian population. we have seen that play out very clearly and in many ways, nicolle, i wish we could, i wish i were sitting here with egg on my face saying we had it wrong, the intelligence wasn't accurate. this wasn't how it played out. unfortunately, this is precisely how it played out. the devastating intelligence that we started to speak to late last year of putin's dastardly plans, it has continued. putin has continued a pace and together with our partners and allies, we're going everything we can to bring an end to this conflict and save as many lives

as we can. >> it seems on the other side, putin made more than a couple false claims that were not tru. that there would be no street to street combat necessary. that he would, with little resistance, be able to install governors around ukraine and that an insurgency from the ukrainian people was not anticipated by putin. i wonder what, whether the assessment now is that putin is more or less dangerous no that he's been humiliated in the early days of this war? >> i think putin has really misjudged on this throw levels. on the first level, the one you spoke to. if he was under the impression, the misimpression that his forces would not face resistance, that their tanks, armored vehicles, soldiers, would roll across the border from belarus or russia into

ukraine without facing any fighting, we are seeing now that is just not the case. the ukrainian people are defending their own country with bravery and courage and dignity and we are helping them with weaponry and supplies and will continue to do that. he also miscalculated if he thought that the united states and our partners and allies around the world were bluffing when we said that the russian economy would face massive, massive consequences, putin to go forward with these plans. president biden likes to say big nations don't bluff. the united states was not bluffing. we have made good on what we said we would do and the russian economy is now in free fall. the ruble is at its lowest point in years. the russian stock market has been closed for days now in an effort to fore stall capital flight, essentially a no go zone

as russia's bonds have been downgraded to junk status. putin has also miscalculated if he thought he wouldn't face opposition at home. in recent days, we've seen thousands of brave russians take to the streets to make clear this is not russia's war. this is not the russian people's war. this is putin's war. this is the kremlin's war. this is a war that has been aided and abetted by those putin including his cronies, oligarchs, lieutenants. it is something that large segments of the russian people are staunchly opposed to. we know that people have, in russia, have taken to the streets knowing they would face almost certain arrest and detention. thousands of arrests have taken place across russia. the kremlin is doing all it can to clamp down on any indication that there is dissent within the russian population. yesterday, i spoke to an independent russian tv station in the morning. by the afternoon, it had been shut down. they're trying to shape the

russian landscape. but the truth of this disastrous decision by the kremlin, by putin, that is not something that putin has been able to entirely hide. >> ned price, i have a sense these are very busy days for you. we're grateful to you for making time to talk to us. thank you, my friend. perfect segue for my next guest. kier simons in moscow. just pick this up where ned price left it. i also heard from a former senior intelligence official that in some ways as perilous as these crippling sanctions are, if they find out about it, the death toll of young russian soldiers coming back to russia in body bags. tell me what that country is bracing for. >> well, i don't think most people in this country realize

certainly if they watched a television, what is happening. that kind of death toll. certainly the russian government, the kremlin, isn't talking about thousands of people killed. about 500 is their official number. that doesn't seem to be right or accurate. so the question you're asking really is will people find out and when they do, how will they respond. i think it will just put more pressure on president putin. i thought it was interesting to listen to ned price. i thought it was interesting to hear what blinken had to say today. at one particular part of what he had to say is getting attention from a lot of commentators and observers. i'm going to read it to you. what secretary blinken said. if russia pulls back and pursues diplomacy, we stand ready to do the same thing. now what we have seen today is plans for these talks.

so there does appear to be an attempt at diplomacy because in the end, no matter what's happening on the battlefield, the diplomats have to figure out a way to help president putin to get out of this. we should say even if he wants, if he wants to, we don't know that he even frankly wants to, but if he does, people talking about, it's fascinating to hear secretary blinken said we stand ready to do the same thing. now what does that mean? does that mean that america and the west stand ready for diplomacy or could it even mean talk of a cease fire? could it mean that the west would be offering to halt the sanctions, the ratcheting up of the sanctions? for sure, there will be

conversations happening in western capitals and in the white house and in the state department about, okay, this is where we're at now. how do we get out of this? >> kier, there's sort of this universal acknowledgment that zelenskyy has exceeded everyone's hopes. the ukrainian people. and again, i have an anecdotal window into this, but i think the reporting bears out there's a steelyness and a refugee crisis, that leaves 43 million of them there, i wonder if there's any parallel in russia of a misalignment of expectations about the russian people? >> i think there may well be.

i'll go back to a phrase i struggled to remember yesterday. that phrase is of course no plans first contact with the enemy. an age old saying about war and what it basically means is that war is kin etic, things keep things. you've got to keep remembering that though because as much the ukrainians has fought hard against the russians, it doesn't necessarily mean it will stay that way. things can develop. so there is a, there is clearly a gap between the russian people and the kremlin. not just the russian people, the thousands who have been arrested for protesting who know they're against this, but even a gap between the russian people watching state television and believing what they're being told, that this is a fight for donbas, that the russians aren't targeting civilians, that civilians aren't dying. all of those messages. the big question again, i just keep coming back to this, but we have to. is what is happening within president putin's inner circle.

what frame of mind is he in. >> and my understanding is that the advisers in his ear to the degree that there are any, are all those intelligence officials. is there rank -- because the intelligence seems to be what they screwed up. and some of those people have been with him for the 30 years that he's been on the world stage. >> yeah. well there's bound to be, isn't there? he do hear about it. we don't obviously speak to the people directly so but we hear about the rumblings and things and of course, any city like moscow, there's an establishment here and there's lots of gossip so you hear that kind of talk. but when people who know putin's story, people watching who have read the detail and things will know what i'm talk about when i say that in that story, the past 20 years, there are a succession of characters who have kind of fallen away who have stopped

being his closest confidants and he does have those people, like sergei, who he's known four decades. yet he dressed him down a week ago on television. it looks like the people that putin is really close to are the bodyguards, the leaders of the fsb, what was once called the kgb. that kind of crowd. his security crowd. intelligence crowd. quite a small, close knit group. they are incredibly loyal as far as we can tell and just another point about him being under covid isolation. that paints a picture of only those people being around him. >> we talk so much about the reaction putin has to being cheered by tucker carlson and donald trump and mike pompeo,

the former secretary of state what a disgrace to say that out loud. i was told the most important part of the speech in moscow wasn't anything joe biden said. it was the fact that for the first whole third of the speech, which is about standing with ukraine and going after and prosecuting oligarchs, taking their riches from them, both parties, everyone in the chamber stood and roared, that in the chamber, what the world saw is first time first time in a long time, a united united states of america. >> that's true. i don't think we should forget that then in the later part of the speech, the domestic policies came up and some people sat and some people stood. that's democracy. you cannot have disagreement in a democracy. i think it's a real good point because i think in the kremlin, they pay close attention. another anecdote, another story that's come out in the past few

days that i think may be quite revealing, when putin made his statement he was escalating the readiness of the nuclear forces, the kremlin spokesman talked about a statement made by the british foreign secretary on prish television. that was clipped and played on russian television. they saw what she said and she was being threatening. that seems to suggest a kremlin in a circle and a president putin who is watching tv then making statements about russia's nuclear policy. i'll let you fill in the gap about what other former leader that reminds you of. >> invaluable for us today. joining our coverage this hour, former u.s. ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul. former deputy secretary for russia and eurasian during the

obama presidency. and clint watts, now a distinguished research fellow at the foreign policy research institute and msnbc national security analyst. ambassador, i get to talk to you so many times on a day like yesterday and i want to go back to something we talked about in the 11:00 p.m. hour, which is the intelligence has been pretty good. the product in terms of what putin is going to do has been pretty good and it's my sense that what it says are indications is that it's a pretty grim picture in ukraine in the coming days. we found a line in the speech that comes the closest to leveling with the country about that. i want to ask you about something you said last night that in your phone calls with folks in ukraine, there are conversations about how best to keep president zelenskyy safe. can you update us on those?

>> nothing's changed since we talked. they are bracing for the worst and we need to be sober minded about what could be happening in the coming days and weeks. we're only a week into this war. the first phase didn't work. this is what we saw in chechnya, aleppo and syria. i think it's going to be horrific. to take nothing away from the ukrainian bravery and the way they're fighting, military people that i trust, they used to have four stars on their chest, unlike me, they all say the same thing. those two concepts need to be held together at the same time and that is the reality moving forward. the other piece i want to focus in on on the conversation there, we're going to be talking for a long time in the coming weeks and days so we've got to get into more granularity here about russia. first of all, you just said, i just want to underscore what you said. there are no advisers to putin.

that's the wrong word to use. i think americans have this concept he's got his security counsel, he sits down there in the -- i used to work with all these people. i know them. he doesn't do that. that makes it hard for us to know how do put pressure on him. second, really brilliant thing. you just referred to a former senior intelligence official that you talked to, right? i'm not going to ask you to disclose who that was. that's great reporting. that's exactly the kind of reporting that kier can't do in moscow. there is no former senior intelligence person close to putin that will talk to anybody like kier simons. people who will talk to him don't know what putin is thinking. the third piece, sorry for mcfaul today, but we've got to

break down this word, oligarchs. they're all sitting around putin. it's not correct. there are different kind of oligarchs. there are those that make their money from dealing with the outside world and they're the ones that live in london. the ones that have yachts there. the ones that made their money in the '90s, by the way, not under putin. then there are those oligarchs, the head of those two companies, who make their money out of oil and gas who are close to putin. they are intelligence officers and the problem with the way we're framing this is we think by seizing a yacht in london, that oligarch is going to put pressure on him? no. putin doesn't like that oligarch who has a yacht there. they're enemies. where as the guy who runs gas prom, those are people close to putin and the ones still pumping out their oil and their gas and they haven't been sanctioned. so we've got to be more careful the way we talk about the

politics of russia. it's just not quite as simple as we've been going on. because we're going to talk about it for a long time to start getting into these important distinctions. >> i need more school. i'm going to get a white board. and i do, i want to follow up on the first half. then i have a question about 2b, what we do. there are two sides. it makes the u.s. intelligence product more extraordinary. that we got it right. so i need something to write on and i'm going to follow up with you on the first part exactly what we should brace for because i think it's juliet who said the world now sees why people who know this region are in love with the ukrainians and i think as you and i talk about democracy, everyone around here,

we talk about that every day and to see people willing to die for it today, today. >> yes. >> in march of 2022, it's gutting to hear the limits of what we can do to help them. so we're going to come back to part a and 2b on a other side of a quick break. when we come back, a jailed putin critic is now calling on russian protesters to get back out on the streets, now, and demand an end to the war in ukraine. plus, a live report from the polish border where hundreds of thousands of ukrainians are seeking refuge from the russian invasion. later, after a largely mask free state of the union address, america has officially entered a new chapter in the fight against the coronavirus. president biden's pandemic response coordinator will be our guest later in the hour. stay with us, please. the hour. stay with us, please

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russians coming out in massive number to protest their own leader's invasion of ukraine. it's not a democracy. it is something that's continued for days now across russia despite the fact that more than 6,000 people have been arrested for speaking out. in a new 12-tweet thread, a putin critic called on more of his fellow russian citizens to do just that. take to the streets. quote, we must gritting our teeth and overcoming our fear come out and demand and end to the war. each arrested person must be replaced by two newcomers. if in order to stop the war, we

have to fill prisons and paddy wagons with ourselves, we will fill prisons and paddy wagons with ourselves. everything has a price and now in the spring of 2022, we must pay this price. let's not be against the war. let's fight against the war. ambassador, i'll let you get in on that will. >> i'm sorry i spoke so long last time. thanks for letting us speak so long. i know alexi. i've known him for a long time. his daughter goes to school here at stanford. we've talked about what an incredible figure president zelenskyy is. this is also an incredible, courage figure. i want to remind people of that. there are courageous people in russia. those people getting arrested, they are fearing. this is a dictatorship, a place

where it's costly to be arrested and nonetheless, they are going out. and i just agree completely that nobody i know, and i know lots of people in russia. i know people that work for oligarchs and have known people for 30, 40 years, i'm very old, in russia who i'm in touch right now. nobody support this war. i think there's only one person and his name is vladimir putin. i agree. now is the time to do something to try to end this war. not just for ukrainians who are going to die, but for the future of your own families in russia. and if there's a thousand people out like you're seeing right now, thousands of people being arrested, then guys can show up with those kind of outfits and arrest you. but if there's tens of thousands, if there's hundreds of thousands, they can't arrest you all and that's happened before in history around the world. it's also happened in the soviet

union. i think he's right. if we all need to stand together to end this war, the people in russia have a critical role to play in that. >> evelyn, you got a feeling watching president biden last night that he's so aware of the history being made by these men like president zelenskyy, by the ordinary citizens in russia taking to the streets at great peril to themselves and it had citizens going to the internet where it still works and learning how to make molotov cocktails in ukraine. i think there is a, an inadequacy of people who want to help and don't know how they can. can you speak to that? >> yeah, nicolle. i think the president, he understood this was the moment to start his speech talking about what was happening in ukraine and the challenge that russia poses to the international order. and to praise the heroic

confidence and the fighting spirit that president zelenskyy and his people have shown, have demonstrated, really, maybe to their own surprise, but certainly to the surprise of many of us. then also to applaud i guess in a way, his own actions, you know, working with the europeans because the europeans have also changed their perspective on russia and in response to that, their actions. what we see coming out of the german government, the turkish government. they've woken up to the real threat to them now. i wish that president biden had framed it a little more like that when he got to the domestic part of his speech. kept that framing. because you know, gasoline prices are going to go up. yeah, there's going to be inflation, but there are ways for our government to help the very needy in our country to kind of take some of the sting out of that. but the rest of us, you know, middle class and above, let's pay for more gas for crying out loud. let's pay more to help defend

democracy if that's what it takes. so i think he could have done more to buck us all up, but he certainly did the right thing calling attention to what the ukrainians are doing and what they're about to face from this day forward. >> i was going to ask you a drill down a bit on your last point. what are you bracing yourself for? >> right. so i mean, we know what putin has in terms of military mite. in terms of the power he has. unfortunately, he has a lot of fire power that's very imprecise. i, as somebody who have watched the evolution of the russian military and putin's management of it, have been quite surprised to see what happened because in 2008, russia invaded the republic of georgia and they kind of got some egg on their face, to use ned price's phrase from the earlier segment. you know, where their logistics were shown to be incredibly poor. their communication was poor. so they couldn't really go very

far into the republic of georgia or hold it. so part of what putin did when he came back to power in 2012, was he said i'm going to spend $7 million to modernize the russian military and i'm going to make sure that that doesn't happen again. and when we saw the lightning attack in crimea, we thought he had done it. because he had to use special forces. now what we're seeing is he's put a lot of money into these doomsday weapons he's publicized on television and building these very lethal cruise missiles and thermo baric weapons that are now attacking the innocent ukrainian civilians, they're not precise weapons. and in fact, his logistics stink. they seem to have not done very much about logistics as we know from various reports. the russian soldiers are not

getting resupply of fuel or food. that impacts morale, also their operations. what he's finding is he's relying on this fire power to do what he did in chechnya in the past and what he's done with his military in syria, which is bombard the civilians and it's horrific. so we need to listen to what the good professor ambassador mcfaul has said and put as much pressure as we can on the russian people to bring this to an end. one other thing, sorry. is that the putin oligarchs, the oil and gas, guys who run the oil and gas companies, they're actually sanctioned. but they don't care. they're more afraid of or loyal to putin. the oligarch thing can only go so far. i think it's the people we need to try to get on the streets. >> until there are ukrainians floating around in the yachts, i don't know that i'm going to feel that was a karmic solution. i want to ask you, clint, about the information space. because it seems like the quagmire for putin in the space

precipitated more fantastically, but it seems with the russian population, not enthusiastic about kill their brothers and sisters in ukraine. the slaughter of 2,000 civilians, which is what we heard from the ground there, and now the ukrainian health ministry is confirming that number of dead at the hands of the russians unprovoked illegal war, that the military successes may not actually do a thing for putin because his country is against this war and the military truth of the incompetence of this 40-mile convoy, out of gas, fuel, and in some instances, soldiers to drive it. >> there's two worlds. the one putin communicates to, which is mostly inside russia, then the rest of the world that sees what's going on inside ukraine. i think the important thing is, just like evelyn talked about,

our best mechanism to end this war is probably the russian people. we need to understand is does this information work. everything putin does on every day is a theatrical presentation where he is the victor and he's the victim who's being prove kated to do these attacks. if you watch in the information space, they've failed miserably, but where they have had minor successes, particularly in the south, they've begun redeploying their war correspondents to build this momentum, that yes, things are going great. there's one big problem with this. you can't hide dead people forever. so when russian soldiers die, parents want to know what's going on. whenever resources are being consumed, people want to know what's going on. ukraine has fired missiles over the borders. putin has to shut down those information portals coming into those country. this is the difference between the soviet union. money and information. those things are crippling to putin and as those two things go

away, russians will get worried and they'll take to the streets so we're really talking about time at this point. it's a race for putin to get to kyiv and at the same point, to control his own population at home. >> last word on all of this. you've been here an hour and a half. hearing all these reports from the field. what do you think? >> i think putin has multiple audiences. he has an internal audience that is disenchanted, but they don't get that much information. he's just been disastrous in terms of what he has communicated to the outside world. i would go back to what mike said. despite the increde heroism of the ukrainians, what we're going to see is the very, very brutal side of putin that we saw in aleppo, in georgia. i remember being in intelligence meetings about the bomb in syria and people wondered, the weapons are not accurate or he's just

trying to be indiscriminate? if we see that in ukraine, it will be devastating and horrifying. >> do you think it changes the calculation any country is making about what we're willing to do? >> i think it does. of what the nato countries are willing to do. the amount of weaponry that is now flowing into ukraine has increased, but i think if the war starts to spread outside of the borders of ukraine, that's a very, very dangerous situation. >> we're so lucky to have all of you. ambassador, michael mcfaul, evelyn, rick. thanks so much for spending so much time. the number of ukrainians fleeing their country is staggering and there are new warnings that millions of people could leave ukraine in the coming days. a live report from the border with poland after a quick break. stay with us. with poland after a quicbrk eak. stay with us

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as the crisis continues into a second week, european nations have opened their doors and borders to refugees who have fled. according to the u.n., at least 870,000 people so far, most of them women and children, are estimated to have left ukraine for european nations since the start of the invasion one week ago. with the u.n. expecting that number to grow to possibly 4 million refugees if the fighting continues. as everyone expects it will. the wave of ukrainian refugees is expected to be the biggest in

europe in years, surpassing both the 2015 migration crisis from syria and those displaced during the kosovo war in 1999. let's bring in kelly live in poland near the ukrainian border. you've done some extraordinary reporting on this. we borrow it from other places and it's so nice to get to talk to you. tell us what you've seen today. >> well, we've been watching this unfold over the past six days. day seven now, since the fighting began. we've seen and heard the same stories, sadly, over and over again for the past six days. people coming with next to nothing. women and children leaving their fathers, their husbands, their parents often behind in ukraine. some saying we're starting fresh. we don't know where to go or what to do.

many are stunned, shell shocked, confused. they can't quite believe what has happened and they're going through incredibly long and at times, terrifying journeys just to get to the border. in the opening days of this, it was taking one to two days to get across the busiest border crossing in poland and people were standing this line, lines that snaked back more than a mile, just trying to get across the border. there has been some progress in terms of just processing people. poland has really stepped up. they've got this army of volunteers greeting people on this side and dozen of charities as well trying to find people places to stay. polish people have opened their doors to refugees as well and giving them a place to sleep. a place to live while they figure out what's next for them. and the european union countries as well set to vote on a measure tomorrow to allow ukrainian

refugees to claim asylum without filling out all the paperwork essentially, to live in european countries for the next three years and they'll be able to work and access services as well. really, really crucial because these numbers are not slowing down. they're not abating at all. more than 800,000, nearly 900,000 people in just seven days, nicolle. it looks like we'll be potentially at a million or close to a million by tomorrow. that's, you know, a million women and children who are trying to figure out what to do next. how to live in these next few days, few weeks, they don't know how long. until this sorts itself out and they can hopefully be reunited with family members. >> i'm sure you know better than me, the expectations that the conditions on the ground in ukraine deteriorate in short

order in serious ways. i wonder what the preparations are for more desperate and more numbers of refugees there. >> well i think certainly here in poland, they are trying to make the process more efficient in terms of bringing people over and finding them just accommodation and other services. medical services, et cetera. for example, there's a specialized medical train that's been built here in poland to transfer people who are injured from ukraine to warsaw to hospitals in warsaw. there has been a call for people to make sure there are places for refugees to stay, but as i said before, especially not just in poland, but especially in the smaller countries like maldova and less wealthy countries like maldova and romania, there's going to be a crunch here. pretty serious crunch. already today, we were seeing

more people coming in from kharkiv and from kyiv because of the intensity of fighting around those cities. that's only going to increase. and there's only so much these border countries can do in terms of giving people places to stay and shelter. it's going to come to a point where these people, these countries, excuse me, need more financing. they're going to need money and support in order to take care of this massive potentially massive influx of refugees. i mean, 4 to 5 million people are the numbers that are being thrown around. given what we've seen over the past six, seven days, that's completely realistic. >> reporting has been stunning. thank you so much for staying up and spending some time with us. we're grateful. when we come back, a turning point in the pandemic and a new strategy to keep covid

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tonight, i say that we never will just accept living with covid-19. we'll continue to combat the virus as we do other diseases. >> that was president joe biden last night in the house chamber that told part of the story. it looked remarkably similar to pre-covid state of the union addresses. his cabinet, members of congress, supreme court justices. by in large maskless, indoors. the president announced a new faze of his pandemic strategy that his covid team further detailed today.

health centers all across the country. joining us to talk about it, one of the architects of this policy, the white house kor coordinator. it's nice to talk to do you, sir. the big turn for the country is what the president articulated. i wonder if you can flush out the vision for that and what lies ahead. >> i think the president did capture it well last night in the state of the union. he said we're entering new moment in our fight against covid-19 where we can move safely and begin to return to our more normal routines. 215 million americans are fully vaccinated. two out of three eligible adults are now boosted.

we have very effective treatment. we're starting a new initiative that enables people to get tested at a location where they can also get treated if they test positively for covid and get treated with very effective antiviral pills that are effective at preventing hospitalization. the test and treat initiative is a step forward. we have free tests and masks to protect people against covid-19. >> jeff, i have about 30 questions for you. i'll start one follow up. how much of what you all talk about is dealing with the psychology of covid, the anxiety which the poll show mostly in

the vaccinated population to take off your mask, to feel safe, to trust you have three vaccines if you're vaxed and boosted, your kids older than five can be vaccinated and how much is continuing to push on the science or is it always going to be both? >> i'd start by saying we're all tired and fatigued. it's been a long couple of years and this virus has proven to be unpredictable. we do have all the tools at our disposal to fight the virus. people are tired and weary. i think this is an important moment to move forward to safe return to our more normal routines.

there will be situation where is people will decide they want to mask. we will deploy the tools while we're always on watch to be prepared for any potential new variant. it's an important moment but we're going to continue to stay vigilant and support people through this process. >> i can hear the protest out there. i work in that building. i don't know if you know what that particular protest is about. i want to ask you about the campaign to encourage people to vaccinate kids 5 to 11. there's been reporting about the efficacy preventing infection. studies done during the omicron wave and i wonder if the effort to encourage parents to vaccinated, i gladly vaccinated my 10-year-old. i wonder if it's alternated by some of that new reporting.

>> here is where we look to our doctors, the public health expert, the cdc and follow the science. all say vaccination is our most effective tool, including the age group you're talking about, 5 to 11-year-old. the study is recommending that parents continue to get their kids vaccinated and there's other studies that show that the vaccine is quite effective particularly against severe disease and hospitalization. we continue to encourage all parents to get their kids vaccinated but if they have questions, out standing issues they should consult with health care providers and other trusted leaders in their local communities. >> that's always been part of the message to keep the politics out of it and talk to your doctor. thank you so much on what i'm sure is a busy day. >> really appreciate it.

thank you. quick break for us. we'll be right back. quick break for us we'll be right back.

thank you so much for letsing us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. we're grateful. "the beat" starts right now. thank you very much. welcome to the beat. the new york times says putin military haze taken over the port city. russian