♪♪ hi there, everyone. 4:00 in new york. a grim milestone as the war in ukraine enters the second week. 1 million people fled the country including half a million children. million more people displaced and on the move within ukraine. russian forces are ramping up attacks on civilians and while ukrainians are quote fighting with extraordinary skill and courage against russian forces as the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff general milley put it today the darkest days of the invasion lie ahead. kharkiv is site of devastating

attacks. there's a moment that rockets strike a residential areas. residents seen scrambling for cover. the attacks on civilians prompted the international criminal court to fast track the investigation into whether russian attacks are war crimes. attacks that have drawn condemnation from around the globe and left russia isolated on the world stage. today new sanctions from the biden administration target elites people like putin's press secretary and the families. it is part of a multi-pronged campaign by western allies to increase the pressure own those close to putin and the regime. the campaign includes actions like these. the french government seized the yacht of an oligarch, a close ally of vladimir putin but the pressure on the government and those russian elites yet to change the course of the war in ukraine.

both countries agreed to a temporary cease fire in certain areas in order to let civilians evacuate. but ukrainian officials caution details need to be worked out and a pathway to ending the war seems elusive. ukrainian president zelenskyy spoke to richard engel. >> reporter: vladimir putin so far not been willing to meet with you. do you have a message for him now that ukrainian cities are under attack? this city is under attack. convoy on the way. is there a way to prevent the escalation? >> it is not about i want to talk to putin. i think i have to talk with putin. the world has to talk with putin because there are no other ways to stop this war. that's why i have to. >> wow.

russian president vladimir putin though shows no signs of wanting to talk or wanting to back down. today putin said that the war was going according to plan and once again deny it is sovereignty of the nation of ukraine claiming that they are one. one people. in a tense call with the french president putin dismissed reports of casualties and justified his unprompted invasion of ukraine. a source tells nbc news, the goal is to take control of all of ukraine. a senior defense official tells our colleague that the pentagon set up channels to communicate directly with the russian military and to a void close encounters to lead to conflict with assets stationed near

ukraine and russia. that's where we begin. joining us is keir simmons. you interviewed sergey lavrov today. tell us about it. >> reporter: yeah. that's right. interviewed the russian foreign minister, and it was an exchange when i was open and frank with him as i would always be and asked him about president putin's reasoning, whether or not president putin is isolated, whether or not he is erratic, and i also asked him about the question of those nuclear threats that are coming outside of -- coming from the kremlin walls. take a listen. >> translator: mind your president's statements. mr. biden's statements. when responding to a question whether there's an alternative to the sanction from hell. he said that only alternative is a third world war.

a nuclear war. >> reporter: and that was part of his answer. he said some other things that are quite interesting. he said that he's talked about the question of whether or not they have a policy of escalated to de-escalate and do not. that's a little bit of positive news i guess for western officials because that policy is basically described as threatening nuclear -- not threatening to fire in order to win a conventional war but people are hunkering down for terrible episode inside ukraine, outside ukraine. that call you mentioned with president macron, the french leader, 90 minutes and the french, the french who tried to be diplomatic, who have tried in a run-up to the conflict to try get a resolution to prevent it from happening coming out of

that sounds like a very uncomfortable call. the french saying that the russians appear determined to make ukraine. that looks like strategically looking at the map what their forces appear to be aiming to do and raises the question of russian forces on every border and contact with other nato countries and the examples go on in the ways in which this is looking grim right now. here in russia as the news filters through and i say filters because they watch state television not getting messages and the evidence comes through the russian state is clamping down on opposition and that's not to mention the impact of sanctions where we are beginning to see western stores, brands closing. that iron curtain between russia

and the west coming down. >> keir, the calls with other world leaders, the kurt manner in which lavrov quotes biden and not putin and the drumbeat of atmospheric evidence that putin is not playing with a full deck came up. i want to play your question to lavrov about putin's stability. >> minister, president putin is described by many in the west as erratic and isolated. can you reassure people about his reasoning? is he taking advice and when was the last time you were able to advise him? >> translator: president putin in the past weeks has provided detailed comments on our position that is the position of our leadership. >> so listen to what they don't

say. there was no reassurance that putin is in command and has the confidence. not like america with a 25th amendment and maybe they google that and implement one but i guess i want to ask this in two parts. your reaction to what he didn't and, two, it's my understanding that 90% of russia's military is in ukraine. doesn't have the bandwidth to occupy forever and didn't have a plan it is clear. >> reporter: yeah. i think you're exactly right to point out that minister lavrov didn't say is as important as what he did say. honestly from the people that i talked to here, there is an inner circle for president putin. we talked about that and saw it again today. honestly, lavrov is not in that

inner circle. you mentioned the security council. president putin has a security council where he made the speech on television today. they were there by video link. a distance between him and his advisers. we don't know honestly who it is who's giving him advice. he is close to the bodyguards. there is a unit, a unit -- presidential protection unit with links to the kgb and insiders tell us that they would give their life for him and picture a kind of history to this if you like a bit like this. this is speculation to some extent but maybe like this. two years of covid. he is isolated by covid. he's not able to get as much contact with the oligarchs, with those advise everies whereas, of course, protection team, that

crowd will be around him and what conversations were had, what impact did that have on his thinking. inside ukraine and whether or not going do plan, truth is that the truth is it is not going to plan but that it's likely that russia will prevail, at least initially in ukraine in terms of what appears to be the plan to occupy the country. of course they say they don't want to occupy the country so that basic contradiction in what they want to do and playing out over time and i think the impact and implications are bad for president putin and the russian people. >> no doubt. nbc's keir simmons live for us

from moscow, thank you for having that interview and on every day and grateful for your coverage. joining our conversation is congressman angus king. i wonder if you can add anything to the assessment of vladimir putin's civility. >> first that was an outstanding piece of reporting. helpful and captured the situation. everyone in the world trying to psychoanalyze vladimir putin but the saying is somebody tells you who they are you should believe them. number one, he told us for years to reconstitute the soviet union. he thinks he's frederick the great and on a mission and ukraine is the first step. second thing he told us is in

chechnya he is willing to engage in enormous level of brutality in get his way and in chechnya 20 years ago it was essentially carpet bombing and i'm afraid that will be the next step in this war. it is almost humorous to hear him say the war is going to plan. he was talking about the people being peacekeepers. i think he thought they were liberators and anything but and the reverse of that. so the war is not going very well for putin. the question now is, is he going to lash out and will it be in terms of more brutality in ukraine or, for example, a cyber attack on the west? >> the hell that is war is the new reality for ukrainians who

eight days ago -- we have seen extraordinary reporting from colleagues and news organizations, eight days ago living the lives the way we were why trying to get back to new normal after covid. now some in the subwayizations with pets. a million of them left the country. children without parents. sometimes with older siblings. what is your feeling as a member of sort of the two committees most tied to what we can do to help them as you watch war come to the city that eight days ago was just going about their lives? >> we are helping them. we have supplied an enormous number of javelin missiles and stingers. surface-to-air missiles. air defense missiles and javelins for armor, tanks.

i think the president has done a magnificent job of rallying nato and the west. getting switzerland involved you know that's a significant diplomatic triumph. i think putin has already lost this war. by that i mean he may prevail through shear brute force over the next several weeks or months but he has to hold what he's got and alienated. that's a mild word for what he's done to the ukrainian people. he won't be able to hold this place as part of russia. he's created hatred for russia and for him to last for generations and an incredible pride in the country of ukraine. it is one thing to bomb a country into submission and then what do you do when the bombing is over and trying to rebuild?

and the ukrainians have experience in kicking out russia pup pets. they did it six or seven years ago. this has the opposite effect what putin desired. >> we covered yesterday putin critic navalny's long missive to the country men and the world that the war must also be won inside russia. they must fill paddy wagon and paddy wagon and jail after jail. what is your understanding of what's happening inside russia? >> i think there's significant developments. literally i received word 15 minutes ago that luke oil has come out publicly against the war.

derapisco, a lieutenant in 2016, has come out publicly against the war and protests. over 6,000 people arrested why that's not a lot in a large population but the risk that the people are taking when they do protest it is extraordinary. of course, the sanctions are biting i think more -- been much more hurtful to the russian economy than anybody thought. a guy came up to me with a joke and said you know what the difference is between a dollar and the ruble? the answer is a dollar. the ruble is worth less than a cent now. >> yeah. >> so they have runs on the banks. now, the question is, do sanctions affect dictators? because putin is going to have the mercedes. whether or not he cares about the streets of russia is an open

question but even a guy in his position has to have an eye on public opinion. >> senator king, it is great to talk to you today. thank you. >> always a pleasure. thank you. let's bring in former ambassador to the u.n. sandy soderberg. also former cia director john brennan is back. director, i want to ask you to help me understand this question. i understand and everyone has made clear the russian military advantage but to the question whether this is going to plan, 90% of russia's military is inside ukraine. many didn't know they would be in combat. but this convoy while large and mighty is not really running like a well-oiled anything. that there are abandoned vehicles and that again not to take away from the military

supremacy of what russia has inside ukraine but in terms of putin's competence as the architect of the invasion where are your thoughts? >> russia's military, particularly ground forces, do not have the battlefield experience to take part of an offensive against another country. walking into crimea with a lot of russian sympathy. in chechnya, that took place over 20 years ago. in syria they served as advisers. so what they're best at is standoff artillery barrages and in some respects unsurprising to bog down on the ground with logistical problems because they vptd had this type of experience. for better or worse, the u.s.

military had this sperps but the russians do not. therefore looking at the pure capabilities of the russian military putin thought it would be a cake walk. >> i also want to show you something that house armed services chair adam smith said. i think americans are heartened by what the president said. switzerland is the but of a joke. even switzerland is involved but it is a big deal. it is a huge departure from the typical role but i think people trying to understand where the lines are for the u.s. may have caught this. i want to ask you about it. let me play this and talk about it on the other side. >> chairman milley said it best. we want to support the ukrainians in every way we can without going to war with russia. and when it comes to intel sharing and targeting that's a fine line. we provide intelligence.

not providing the realtime targeting that you see our military having gotten in conflicts like in iraq where instant to instant. we have got uav. unblinking eye as they say giving the data. we are not doing that because that steps over the line to make us participate in the war. >> i think it's important for us to understand where that line is. can you just add some more context about what we are doing? what is on the other side of targeting? >> we are providing fair amount of lethal equipment, weaponry. maybe even advice. that stops short of target jeff gordon if you do active realtime target you can be considered a co-combatant. for advice and over time could be training and other things

that are done. from an intelligence perspective and a military support perspective there are things to bolster ukrainian forces and allow the paramilitary and civilian forces to see more of to allow them to have greater capability against the russian war machine. i think there's more to do to bolster the capabilities and the effectiveness of the resistance forces. >> madame ambassador, the ukrainian resistance is -- i think the piece that seems to have surprised everyone and vladimir putin and the west. i want to show you some sound from ukrainian tennis player who returned to his country, returned to ukraine to fight. >> what is your message to your

wife and to your kids? >> my message is that i love them very much and they understand why i'm here. the country i love and a citizen of one i would like it to still be on the map. to become better, become european more and eventually my kids can see the transformation of my country. >> can we tell sergei -- guarantee him that that will come to pass and ukraine will be more european and the kids will live to see all that? >> we can't guarantee him anything but i think what we can say is vladimir putin is trying to fight a 20th century war, even a 18th century war, in the 21st century and it is not going to work.

he is delusional, out of touch. we have seen the social media what putin's lies are and the heroes throughout the ukrainian population. and in the long run this is not going to work. the only question is, how bloody is it going to be in the near term? that's where the west comes in trying to do sanctions against putin. tighten that ring of pressure around him and his cronies. and to dramatically increase the support for the ukrainian people. humanitarian aid. support for the force there is. in the long term, this will not stand. vladimir putin is trying to invade a sovereign country in the 21st century. it will not work. it's going to be bloody. they have lost 500 soldiers from russia. many thousands more wounded.

how is he going to justify that as a victory and hide that from his people? i think in the long term, yes, this will be a major defeat for president putin and an end to his regime. how long that takes? how bloody that's going to be is the big question. >> yeah. that's where the focus has shifted to what the cost will be and i will ask you about that on the other side of a break. when we come back, as we said, more on the russian invasion and the response to it. a war that all experts we talk to have predicted will get worse. plus another first having to deal with ex-president trump. a congressional committee accused a u.s. president of committing multiple felonies, including conspiracy to defraud the country. what the select committee's latest bombshell legal fighting

says about where their investigation and perhaps the department of justice are heading and both stories with chairman adam schiff. stay with us. [winter wind noises] you wanna go out, walter? let's go. yeah! mush, walter! pace yourself. ♪♪ whoa. that's incredible. oh yeah, it's a chevy silverado trail boss. this thing's built for off-roading right from the factory. no, i meant the cat. it's like nobody's seen a cat before. the chevy silverado trail boss. find new friends. find new roads. chevrolet.

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...for the lowest price ever. plus, choose from the latest 5g smartphones— like a free samsung galaxy s22. so switch to the network that helps your business do more for less—join the big switch to t-mobile for business today. we're back with ambassador soderberg and john brennan. madame ambassador, what are you hearing from your former colleagues and sources about inside ukraine, this sort of -- again, unanticipated willingness to take up arms, to go to the

internet to learn how to use them and follow government instructions to make homemade molotov cocktails and to hunker down in cities that face bombardment from the supreme military and the russian forces? what are you hearing about the fortitude and the determination of the ukrainians? >> an absolute still demonstrate nation to defeat the russian invasion of their sovereignty. also talking to people in russia who cannot believe that this is happening. there's a small section in russia who believes the russian tv that the fake news coming out of ukraine means no one is really dying but the vast majority are relatives in ukraine hearing the stories so the idea that this is happening today in 2022 is extraordinary

to people and terrifying. they're seeing dead bodies. suffering the bombs. they're at risk. seeing dead bodies on did streets. it is absolutely horrific. what this means is that the people of ukraine are suffering from an attack by president putin on a sovereign nation and the entire world is supporting them. look what happened in the umpltn. general assembly. only four countries supported vladimir putin. the vast majority say this has to stop and seeing the world unite against vladimir putin and in the end not sure how bloody this is going to be but he will not succeed. this is a colossal mistake and many hope that this is the beginning of the end of his brutal regime. >> we have had conversations

about the ambassador used the term fake news and they will see fake news which is putin's fabricated phony excuses for what 90% of the russian troops amassed on the border are doing in ukraine, slaughtering brothers and sisters in ukraine. what are your thought about the need for all of us to treat fake news and propaganda like the lethal threat to democracy that we can see on the tv screens it is? >> just shows how at autocrats shape the minds and attitudes and actions of their citizenry. therefore, i think the truth is something that vladimir putin fears and why he is going to try

to choke off the flow of information about what is happening in ukraine but in this day of social media, text messages and emails i'm certain more and more of the accurate information gets into russia and this is putin's war. i'm sure more and more russians will be appalled by what is being done by their country in ukraine where they have family ties and other types of tie that is run back centuries upon centuries. so therefore this is where i think he has a vulnerabilities and what worries me is he doesn't see an option except to double down. he knows he won't turn back the clock and held to account for the death and destruction of ukraine and so therefore putin and the henchmen around him i think believe the only option

they have is to continue and trying to devastate ukraine but i think as the ambassador said this is only going to lead to i think putin's unravels in terms of position in russian government. what will be the trip wire in terms of pressure on oligarchs and the russian people and commodities is unclear but i believe putin's days are nubbed and maybe in the double digits. >> wow. ambassador nancy soderberg and drerk john brennan, thank you for helping us understand the day's events. switching topics, the january 6 committee laying out possible criminality on the part of the ex-president in his zealous quest to overturn an election that he lost. that news breaking in the last minutes. another subpoena for a close, close trump family ally. that's next. stay with us.

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every business is on a journey. and along the ride, you'll find many challenges. ♪ your dell technologies advisor can help you find the right tech solutions. so you can stop at nothing for your customers. there's breaking news from the january 6 select committee, a brand-new subpoena targeting a name you will surely be familiar with. kimberly guilfoyle. a former republican operative who worked for the re-election campaign of donald trump and happens to be engaged to donald trump jr. in a statement committee chair thompson writes, miss guilfoyle

met with donald trump inside the white house, spoke at the rally that took place before the riot on january 6 and apparently played a key role to organize and raise funds for the event. the select committee is seeking information from her about these and other matters. because she backed out of her original commitment we issue the subpoena to compel her to testify. he expect her to comply with the law and cooperate. joining us is legal analyst neal katiel and now a georgetown law professor and jonathan carl, author of "betrayal." on the breaking news, this is clearly part of the follow the money part of their investigation? >> absolute. she was there on january 6. she was in the oval office when donald trump had that conversation with mike pence and

told him as he admitted to me you can either be a patriot or a whatever. >> right. >> and -- but i think if you look at the letter from bennie thompson the role in raising money by lying about the election. talks about how she was at that rally. bragging to somebody. we raised so much must be for this. literally one of my donors juliet 3 million. she is bragging about how much this was a big cash cow. >> and the potential criminality there is that with the committee has focused in on is that it was a lie and fraudulently raised money? >> yeah. keep in mind the committee is not only looking for criminality here but that is the potential. you could have potential wire fraud, could have -- clearly marketing in a fraudulent way and the committee is also i think building a broader case of what was happening here. we know trump's attempt to keep

power and the other thing that's not gotten the attention which is how much this entire operation was an effort to raise money and raise money with lies and nothing to do with overturning the election. >> the grift. neal, i remember before trump left office, after he lost, a very close former trump adviser said this is about padding the legal defense fund. he is under investigation and faced tons of legal fights and at some point it seems to become convinced of delusions but what do you make of the probe on the fraudulent funds? >> that's right. donald trump created jobs for one segment, for lawyer why is

now he has to pay them and not surprising that you have this investigation into this just trying to clearly fund raise off of it and not surprising that she is subpoenaed at this point because she said last week i will voluntarily cooperate. i don't think anyone who knows about the trumps thinks that's likely but delayed things out and now she said she won't cooperate learning what the questions are like tell the truth. the subpoena is done to try to enforce that and presumably trying to claim privilege. she can claim spousal privilege. there is nothing in the law like fiancee privilege of the person who is the czar triggering the libs why that is not a thing in the law. not sure what she's got.

coming on the heels of the news yesterday that chilling filing by the congress saying there was just tons of mischooef you engineering to try to steal an election and accusing fomally the president that think think he committed federal felonies and all an astounding 24 hours from the 1/6 committee. >> one thing important is raising money for the legal effort but not paying the lawyers. rudy giuliani wasn't getting paid. >> still hasn't been. >> the rnc covering legal bills. raising money but not spending the money on the legal effort. >> pick on what neal is talking about and i think used the word chilling. what's chilling about it is that the first place we learn about stitching together the evidence to accuse the ex-president of a

felony conspiracy to defraud the government is congress and not doj. >> yeah. there's a lot of frustration there and we'll see if this ends up being a referral and if the doj will act upon it but what i thought was interesting is the way that they framed the case. they point out that the president went through the efforts in the courts to challenge the election results. 60 daises. losing all of them. this line stuck out to me. they began to plan extra judicial efforts to overturn the results and prevent the president-elect from assuming office. he had every right to challenge, to go through the process of challenging results through the courts. they went and tried to do something that's extra judicial. frankly illegal. >> i think extra judicial isn't in most vocabularies and reminded me of mueller's riddle

if i could say he didn't commit a crime i would. the extra judicial means illegal. talk about the framework that was laid out that you described as chilling. i think that's the right word. >> yeah. i think this is basically a criminal referral to the justice department. it is not formally one but has the exact same -- you and i are reading this and merrick garland and the prosecutors at the justice department and i understand jonathan's frustration. we have waited years for trump to be held accountable but congressional committees won't throw out language like what we saw in yesterday's filing. and that filing is signed by doug letter, one of the most respected lawyers in d.c.. bipartisan individual at the justice department for 40 years. what this filing says is we're willing to take this to a judge ex-partae because we think a

crime is committed and hard for the justice department to ignore that. i think a criminal investigation is different because you have to show criminal intent. a kind of state of mind. we have 550 interviews with the select committee. hundreds of documents and very, very shady emails. not just a solid foundation but a month worth of trial exhibits and the best in defense is donald trump thought that he won. the documents revealed yesterday suggest he was told repeatedly not and being an egomaniac is not a defense to a criminal prosecution and why the filing yesterday isesn't make me tall. i want to read this piece of evidence because it comes from something they learned through the probe. according to the president's

senior campaigniser jason miller an expert told the president is pretty blunt terms that he was going to lose. the president knew he lost. if you stitch together extra judicial he lost in the courts immune to the fake news stuff that washes on oan and fox. anywhere where the lies ran up against a state or a local court it failed but it almost prevailed inside the government he ran. just talk about the filing building on your reporting and how close the committee has now sort of run down the evidence of how close we came. >> what's significant is the line you just read and not for what it said but for who said it. the footnote from jason miller's sworn deposition to the committee so this is one of the president's top advisers on the campaign. so close he stayed with him

after january 6th. stayed with him after january 20th. went to mar-a-lago with him and saying, look, we told donald trump bluntly that he was going to lose. i describe that in my book. i describe a scene saturday after the election where the top advisers say pennsylvania is gone. you don't have a chance here or there. really a long shot, mr. president. one thing for me to write about it. this is a top person going through the committee and telling them under oath he was told by jason miller that he was losing the election. the steal was a lie. that's all a lie. >> jason miller didn't lie to the commit tee. the news is on three levels. jason miller went in and went in and told the truth and the charade they keep up of attacking the committee is just

that. they've taken it seriously. >> cooperated and the steve bannons, the john eastmans trying to fight but a great number of people very close to the president and seen a bit of it. testified under oath and presumably truthfully. >> i want to tease out of you what this tea leaf exercise portends and the iceberg looks like. more on the other side of this break.

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yes! ♪ wayfair you got just what i need. ♪ we're back with neal katyal and jonathan carl. neal, i'd like you to speak to this notion, and it does have some parallels to how we covered the mueller investigation. every 12 weeks, somebody was indicted. what is this body of evidence and the little glimpses we have seen of it suggest to you about the fact that there is just silence from doj? there's no evidence they've interviewed any of these people, that any of these people have lawyers representing them in a doj probe. >> well, as i said, the justice department standard is going to be whether or not there's criminal intent. and it's totally reasonable to me, as frustrating as it is, that they want to wait fgt congressional investigators to do their job first and i think that makes some sense here because you know, one of the reasons -- one of the things congress is trying to do, and the whole point of the filing

yesterday, was to try and get access to john eastman's records. he was functioning as trump's attorney, even though he never had a signed engagement letter from him or anything like that. but if the heart of trump's defense is -- excuse me, if the heart of trump's fraud is intentionally violating the electoral count act and stuff like that, you can bet that the records from his lawyer are going to play a pretty big role in trying to find that out. and so, that's one reason why the justice department may be waiting. the second thing i would say is you and jonathan were so adroit at talking about the three points of evidence and what we learned from jason miller and so on, but there's also this other thing happening right now, which is bill barr's book, because right now, he's up there peddling his book, which he says trump -- he told trump that there was no election fraud and that the claims were b. s., and you know, i never thought i'd say this, but what a convenient time to hear from good old bill.

if he'd only been so kind to share his views during the impeachment, that would have been one thing. but now, we are getting to the point of public hearings and possibly a criminal prosecution, and if bill barr is saying, look, i told the president this and he went ahead and did it anyway, that is as damning as it gets. >> so, will bill barr be -- well, bill barr has already been in contact with the committee. i won't strain myself and say cooperating with the committee, but pick up on all of that, and you know, the -- the record that we have does include these tweets and it seems that the testimony is filling in what trump knew at the time that he was tweeting. >> one of the little droplets in this 61-page filing is that when trump tweeted that mike pence didn't have the courage to do the right thing, that he knew what was going on, that he knew that the capitol was under attack, that he knew that the rioters were breaching the capitol building, so he knew what was happening, and instead of raising any concerns about that, he's condemning his vice

president, who is fleeing underground for his safety. as for bill barr, i've thought all along, this is the star witness for the committee. and what privilege can bill barr now claim to stop -- to keep from testifying if he's already written it all in his book? >> i'm going to play it. i wasn't going to play it. you both talked about bill barr. here's bill barr. >> and i told him that all this stuff was [ bleep ]. about election fraud. and you know, it was wrong to be shoveling it out the way his team was, and he started asking me about different theories, and i had the answers. i was able to tell him, this is wrong because of this. >> you're trying to set him straight. >> yes. and you know, he listened -- he was obviously getting very angry about this. i said, okay, well, look, i understand you're upset with me, and i'm perfectly happy to tender my resignation, and then boom. >> he slaps the desk. >> he slapped the desk and he

said, accepted. accepted. and then boom, he slapped it again. accepted. go home. don't go back to your office. go home. you're done. >> so, by the way, somebody that was in there for that meeting, when that was all going on, not barr, somebody else that was in that meeting said that donald trump, that moment, had the look and manner of a madman. this is somebody who had been in a lot of meetings with donald trump and said this was the angriest and most uncontrolled that he had seen him. >> and it sounds like when sessions goes in and gets teary-eyed after mueller's appointed. >> it's the same kind of anger and in this case, it's because he knows how important barr is. he knows that barr is the guy, that his own supporters actually like more than anybody else in his cabinet. he's the guy. so if barr, if loyal, you know, bill barr is the guy saying, this is all b.s., you know, it takes the wind out of the sail. >> barr tells you you're full of

bull, you know, it's usually over. neal katyal, jonathan carl, thank you for getting me there to the point where i willingly played bill barr. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts after a very short break. deadline white house" starts after a very short break. i brought in ensure max protein, with thirty grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! (sighs wearily) here i'll take that! (excited yell) woo-hoo! ensure max protein. with thirty grams of protein, one gram of sugar, and nutrients to support immune health. ♪ ♪ ♪a little bit of chicken fried♪ ♪cold beer on a friday night♪ ♪a pair of jeans that fit just right♪ ♪and the radio up well i've seen the sunrise...♪ get 5 boneless wings for $1 with any handcrafted burger. only at applebee's

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call 833-317-4673, or live chat at calhope.org today. we waited until everything was like, every day, shelling, shelling, shelling. we tried to go to the shelter, there's no place and for a little child, it's not okay, it's cold and everything, so i don't want my daughter to get sick, plus running from the russians, this is not okay. >> one week in this war, you

can't see making plans. sometimes you are texting your friends, and you don't understand what you are speaking because your brain not working. so we just -- now we're in lviv. next step, go to poland. >> hi again. hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. midnight in kyiv. the end of the eighth day of war that came to ukraine completely unprovoked, but that country is facing intensitifying assault from russian troops. after seizing control of their first major ukrainian city yesterday, they continued their offensive, seeming to make the biggest advances in the south. the mayor of the city of mariupol said hours-long shelling cut off water and food supplies. ukraine's foreign affairs minister tweeted out this photo of a bombed-out residential building near the capital with a message calling out the russians for lying when they say they're

not attacking civilians. here's some frightening video recorded from a dash cam of explosions. today in belarus, delegations from both ukraine and russia met for the second time. it resulted in an agreement to some temporary local cease-fires that would create humanitarian corridors. those would be used to evacuate civilians. meanwhile, the u.s. continues to ramp up sanctions against russia. president biden announcing this afternoon a new round of sanctions, these targeting an expanded list of russian oligarchs and their families. the war in ukraine has fueled an immense humanitarian crisis. in just one week of conflict, already 1 million people have fled ukraine to travel to neighboring countries. the other blockbuster headline, though, that we have been covering today is a significant development to a story we've been following for quite some time on this program. that's the investigation into the january 6th insurrection. at the united states capitol.

last night, we learned the 1/6 select committee has evidence now that donald trump and his allies engaged in potential crimes when they tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including conspiring to defraud the united states and obstructing an official congressional proceeding. these alleged acts were revealed through a court filing that challenges conservative lawyer john eastman's claim of attorney-client privilege as he tries to prevent the committee from accessing thousands of his emails. the court filing says this. quote, evidence and information available to the committee established a good faith belief that trump and others may have engaged in criminal and/or fraudulent acts and that eastman's legal assistance was used in furtherance of those activities. while there is not yet a criminal referral by the select committee to doj, it certainly seems to indicate that one could be on the horizon. they have the evidence now. it leaves open the question of what doj will do when and if it

receives evidence from the committee. in just the last hour, the committee issued its latest subpoena to donald trump jr.'s fiancee, kimberly gilfoyle of fox news. the committee noting she was in direct contact with key individuals and raised money for the rally. we know they're following the money. that's where we start this hour. joining us now is congressman adam schiff of california. he's a member of the house select committee on january 6th and the chairman of the intelligence committee. we'll get to the latest in ukraine. i want to ask you about this filing. you have been as transparent as you can be in the midst of an ongoing investigation but this does create for the public the fullest picture of the evidence you have that supports a conspiracy in which donald trump participated. are we reading that correctly? >> you know, you're certainly

reading it correctly that we believe that there is good faith basis to conclude that donald trump and members of his campaign were engaged in acts that violated the law or were designed to defraud the american people. it is, for example, a crime under title 18 to obstruct an official proceeding. it was a quintessentially official proceeding and the statements you just aired from bill barr, you know, frankly couldn't be better timed in terms of this court proceeding because basically barr is saying, i told the president these claims were b.s. and part of demonstrating the corrupt intent is showing that the president and others knew that their claims were baseless. so yes, the committee believes that there is, you know, good faith reason to conclude that the evidence we're seeking from eastman's documents contain

evidence showing crime or fraud. >> and for better or for worse, i think everyone that covered the mueller investigation became an armchair legal analyst in understanding the importance of proving knowledge of the criminal act or intent to commit the criminal act. it seems that the filing includes this testimony, sworn testimony from jason miller, that makes abundantly clear they made donald trump -- they made sure he knew he had lost, that the election was not winnable and had not been won. it had been lost. bill barr's interview with lester holt and what he writes in his book, he tells donald trump, you're more elegant than me, so i'll keep it clean. he tells donald trump, it's b.s. that anything happened, other than a fair and square, legitimate win from joe biden. tell me how that knowledge that everything he did to try to seize voting machines and overturn the election, how that knowledge plays into the potential criminal exposure donald trump has. >> well, nicole, you're

absolutely right. in the mueller investigation, one of the things that bob mueller analyzed was, did don junior and paul manafort and others know when they were meeting with that russian delegation secretly to get dirt on hillary clinton that they were breaking the law? because he felt he would need to prove their effective guilty knowledge. you know, there's -- there is some similarity here in that the statute, at least one of the statutes, requires that that obstruction of an official proceeding, the obstruction of the joint session that was designed to pass on the peaceful transfer of power, that it was corrupt. that means that there was a corrupt intent, and the president's knowledge and those around him that there was basically these claims in court were completely baseless, that the vice president lacked the constitutional authority to simply refuse to count certain electors from states that donald trump didn't want counted, the fact that he was told that by his own attorney general and

others is, i think, clear evidence that goes to his corrupt intent. >> i want to ask you about the pence piece. i know his chief of staff, his other counselors and advisors have been in to the committee. i know you don't want to talk about what they've said, but again, the filings give us our fullest picture as a very interested public in how much you know, and my question -- well, let me read some of what the filing says. the president and eastman engaged in an extensive public and private campaign to convince the vice president to reject certain biden electors or delay the proceedings without basis so that the president and his associates would have additional time to manipulate the results. had this effort succeeded, the electoral count would have been obstructed, impeded, influenced and at the very least delayed all without any general june legal justification and based on the false pretense that the election had been stolen. there's no genuine question that the president and plaintiff

attempted to accomplish this specific illegal result. eastman seems to be facing some legal exposure outside of his engagement with the committee. is that a fair understanding of his role and what you're alleging in the filing? >> i think what we've alleged is a very fair understanding. he was trying to get the vice president to do something that the vice president couldn't do without violating the law and constitution. and he was urging the president to do it, and he was advocating it publicly, so he is a pretty central figure in this. he produced a lot of documents on a university system that we're trying to obtain. he's making the claim that he was representing the president. now, we don't think he has established any kind of attorney-client relationship. just because he's an attorney, doesn't mean that he's the president's attorney. but even beyond that, the court inquired of us, what about the crime fraud exception?

do you think that applies here? and as we have shown in this quite lengthy filing, yes, absolutely, we believe it applies here. >> we -- again, as observers, chase shiny objects like mark meadows halting his cooperation with the committee and now facing criminal contempt of congress, whether or not the vice president will sit with you. what do you need them for? do you have what you need? >> we've learned an awful lot. most people are cooperating. there are some people who are not. but there are still, you know, missing pieces of the puzzle that are significant. we certainly want the best inside information we can get from those who were in the white house, those who are around the president, in particular about his role on january 6th, what he did and most importantly what he didn't do and why he didn't intervene to stop the violence,

why there was such a profound dereliction of duty, so yes, we know the broad outlines, and we've, throughout our investigation, gotten a lot of granularity as well, but there's still more to be learned and so we're pressing on in every way that we can, as you can tell, we're being comprehensive and aggressive about it. because this was an attack on our democracy, and we're determined that it not happen again. >> bill barr is on a book tour. he writes about some of these episodes. i know he's communicated, been in contact with the committee. is there anything that he has written about that weakens any resistance he may or may not have expressed to cooperating fully with the committee? >> you know, i can't comment on his interaction with the committee, and you know, more broadly, i can say that i think second only to donald trump, bill barr did enormous damage to the rule of law and to our democracy. and he got to a point, as many

others did in the trump administration, where even he couldn't carry the president's water anymore but that was very late stage. he was doing everything he could to re-elect this president and use that department as the president's criminal defense firm, and even worse, to go after the president's enemies, so i think part of what bill barr is doing with this book is trying to resurrect his own reputation, and while i'm grateful that he didn't go the extra mile and go along with these bogus claims of election fraud, nonetheless, he went awfully far to tear down the rule of law in this country. >> yeah. i mean, somewhere between repelling prosecutors from criminal cases and participating in a coup, he found an off-ramp. i want to ask you about this filing. again, it gives us a picture of the evidence that the committee has gathered around donald trump's participation in a potentially criminal conspiracy

to defraud the united states and to use fraudulent means to overturn the election result. if you had to file a filing on anything that dealt with the violence, have you connected him to the conspiracy to commit violence at the capitol? >> you know, i can't comment, really, on what evidence we've developed or not developed. in terms of the link of causation between the president's actions and his words. and the violence of that day. that's obviously a key part of our investigation inquiry. there are other things, though, that we -- that are in the public realm that i think also are deeply disturbing and in some cases, as our court filing indicates, but otherwise move into the realm of criminal. i think, for example, the justice department ought to be investing the president's role in georgia, his efforts to get the secretary of state to find

11,780 votes that did not exist, the exact number he would need to overturn the result. so there's a lot in plain view already that i believe merits investigation, and not just by us in congress but by the department. >> has the committee started turning evidence over to doj? >> you know, i don't want to comment on our interactions with doj, but i will say this. doj is not waiting for us. that's not what doj does. they're not waiting for a criminal referral. they are not waiting, i hope, to see what evidence we turn up. because that's not their job and it's not really our job either. they ought to be independently investigating any serious, substantial evidence of crime or evidence of fraud on their own. and you know, it certainly may be at the end of our work that we make criminal referrals. we haven't reached that decision yet.

but they have an independent responsibility to uphold the principle of the rule of law applies to everyone equally and that includes former presidents. >> speaking of former presidents, the fiancee of the former president's son was subpoenaed today. the letter makes clear that what you're looking for is -- i'll read from the letter. the investigation revealed credible evidence of your involvement, kimberly guilfoyle, in the events within the scope of the inquiry. president trump met with you, several members of his family, and others in the oval office the morning of january 6th, which was also when he last spoke to vice president pence by phone prior to the joint session of congress to certify the results of the presidential election. jonathan carl, who's written a book about a lot of these events and covers them closely over at abc news says she may very well prove useful in the following the money aspect of the investigation. i wonder if you can speak to your level of confidence that she will comply with a

congressional subpoena. >> you know, i don't know, as she has disclosed publicly, she came in after having agreed to do a voluntary interview, and then she walked out, and so whether she will comply with the subpoena, time will tell, and not much time at that. we expect that she will do her lawful duty, but we'll see when she comes in. >> congressman, i want to switch gears. you ran the investigation, the impeachment inquiry into donald trump, the first time he was impeached and not convicted. you know many of the individuals who know just what ukraine and its new president at the time, zelenskyy, faced from russia and it was in your -- in the trial that was put on in the senate that the country first met people like ambassador bill taylor who spoke in a harrowing way about the war in the donbas region and the impact of delaying congressionally approved military assistance. i wonder your thoughts as you see russia do sort of the

world's nightmare move and invade that country. >> i have a lot of thoughts about it. watching that older ukrainian man stand in front of the tank, throw himself in front of a tank, just, you know, brings back, of course, memories of tiananmen square, but it just shows the cost of freedom and democracy, and you know, here in this country, where one of america's two great parties has this flirtation, some would say love affair with authoritarianism, you get to see in that one image of that man standing in front of the tank where that brings you, and you know, i have to say that in the impeachment trial, where the cub country, as you say, got to meet some of these incredible public servants like bill taylor and fiona hill and alexander vindman, it also got a glimpse to the volodymyr zelenskyy, but now the world has a real sense of who he is, this heroic wartime leader. this is the same zelenskyy that

donald trump was essentially trying to extort by withholding hundreds of millions in military aid that ukraine needed to fight the russians. because you know, what many people may not realize is this has been a long simmering conflict in which ukrainians have been dying every week, sometimes every day, for years. and to imagine now that we see what ukraine is going through, that the former president so abused ukraine by withholding military aid to try to get ukraine to smear his opponent, it just shows how appalling and destructive that act was. >> well, and he was also destructive toward the individuals who brought to light the attempted extortion of president zelenskyy. colonel vindman now is available to help explain this war to the public, because he's not in the government anymore, and others left their posts, the brain drain that resulted from donald

trump's conduct there. i wonder what you think about the fact that you are still the target of ire and vitriol from the right for aggressively wanting to understand donald trump's love affair, if you will, with vladimir putin. but it went on until wednesday night. i mean, as the bombs started to fall in ukraine, the ex-president was on fox news still praising the ingenuity of vladimir putin. i wonder what you think the impact of all those years of praise and running room, of holding vladimir putin in higher regard than president joe biden, had on putin's conduct over the last eight days. >> i think it had a big impact in a couple ways. i think it signalled to putin that the united states really didn't care about ukraine. if the president of the united states was going to use ukraine as a political play thing, as a lever merely to get help in his

election, didn't care about the democracy there, didn't care about their fight with russia, then it meant that ukraine didn't matter at all to the united states or to the west. i also think about the fact that, at the time, trump was trying to extort zelenskyy, zelenskyy was a brand-new president. he had been a comedian and an actor. he was very inexperienced, and here he is, the president of the country in his first major interaction with the president of the united states, the leader of the free world, and what's happening? the leader of the free world is shaking him down, and you wonder whether he must have concluded, is this what america's all about? is this what -- the way it works in the real politique? so i think it was singularly destructive in terms of the u.s.-ukraine relationship. i think it was -- is so encouraging of putin to think that he could do whatever he wanted and have his way with ukraine because the united states didn't care about it.

and i think that putin also concluded that americans were divided, that the republican party, which, as the party of reagan, formerly would have stood up to him was now willing to get in bed with him, and that too was an encouragement. >> yeah, former senior intelligence official said to me that perhaps one of the most important things that happened during president joe biden's state of the union was the resounding standing ovations that first chunk of it about ukraine received to show putin a united united states, at least on the question of ukraine. which obviously stands in contrast to what we lived through over the last four years. congressman adam schiff, i know you have to go. thank you for being so generous with your time and starting us off this hour. we're grateful. >> thank you. a quick break for us. much, much more on the new developments from the january 6th committee with two reporters who have been leading the coverage of that investigation. later in the program, the worsening conflict in ukraine. we'll ask pentagon press

secretary john kirby what it will take for russia to stop what it is doing, end the war in ukraine. plus the growing humanitarian crisis. our friend and colleague will join us from budapest, hungary, as ukrainian refugees continue to flee their homeland. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. to run a growing business, is to be on a journey. and along the ride, you'll have many questions. challenges. and a few surprises. ♪ but wherever you are on your journey. your dell technologies advisor is here for you - with the right tech solutions. so you can stop at nothing for your customers.

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joining our conversation, the most perfect moment in the program, jackie is here, "washington post" congressional correspondent, author of the early 202 newsletter and now, lucky for us, an msnbc contributor. we're also joined by nbc news

senior capitol hill correspondent, garrett haake. i'm going to get to your conversation with bennie thompson, but first your reaction to what the congressman's saying about -- i think it's interesting they're not waiting for doj but they are certainly marshalling the evidence and making some of it, at least a little bit of it known in this filing. it feels very much like pressure will be brought to bear on garland, whether that was their intent or not. >> reporter: yeah, i thought that was very interesting and i heard something similar from thompson. adam kinzinger said something similar as well. we're not prosecutors, we're not the doj, but we have this 220-page piece of evidence here that we think lays out specific crimes. we're going to file it in federal court in california and let y'all go read it. the committee is taking great pains to argue they are not a prosecuting entity, but they have compiled this incredible cachet of information and we don't know if the doj has done the same thing so the fact that they are making so much of their

information public, even before public hearings, before an interim report, it's not just for you and i to be able to talk about it, and i think it's reasonable to think that it's not just for the federal judge who's going to make a decision in this eastman case. they want this information out here and it's possible that the audience is those folks down the street at the doj. >> yeah, i mean, jackie, we're not prosecutors, we're not investigators, but what, 11 of them work for us, former investigators and prosecutors? we're not committing any crimes. however, liz cheney can read from these specific codes -- if we were to say a crime had been committed, this is what it was. i mean, they're saying -- it is exactly like mueller standing up and saying, if i could say crimes hadn't been committed, i would, but i won't. the opposite of, you know, we're not prosecutors is, and, but, crimes have been committed here. somebody do something. >> yeah. and i think that lawmakers learned their lesson from the

mueller report and i think some of the frustrations that arose out of that entire processing and that's why i think you see the committee, while they have said up front that their referrals don't carry any actual criminal weight, that they are not bound to a legal bar the way the doj is, and that their referrals carry political and practical weight, they are still trying to lay out the case as clearly as possible for the doj to potentially follow a road map. this is why we saw at least 11 different aides so far, several of those included in the depositions last night, telling trump directly in the weeks after the election that there was no fraud and no legal way to overturn the election. they are trying to make that case publicly, and it could put pressure on the doj to unspool that evidence that trump was intentionally lying to his supporters and pushing his vice president to break the law. that being said, the deposition also raised those depositions included with the court filing

last night also raised a bunch of potential complications that doj investigators could face in establishing that trump committed a crime, if they do decide to take up that referral and that's because it's going to be challenging at the end of the day to show that trump was repeated -- yes, trump was repeatedly warned that his rhetoric was untrue, but that trump believed this crazy, and that's evidence and especially take a look at richard donoghue deposition where he said it was challenging for them to play whack-a-mole with all of these claims of election fraud that the president was constantly throwing at them. >> i want to play your great interview, garrett, with bennie thompson, but i just want to come into it with one more piece of sort of question for you. barr functioned as his favorite lawyer until, as barr said, he told trump it was bull, all this stuff that he's saying, this quote with lester holt, our colleague. and so then he went form

shopping and he found john eastman and here's your interview with bennie thompson about the importance of john eastman. >> reporter: how important do you think these emails you're trying to get from mr. eastman are to the case you're building? >> they're very important. as you know, mr. eastman represented himself as the attorney for the president on the stop the steal campaign. a lot of us are concerned that the information received by the committee has yet to prove that there was any fraud or anything illegal that went on with the conduct of the election. and for him as an officer of the court and a representative of the president to continue to promote something that is, in the eyes of every official review body, not true, we think

it warrants consideration by the court. >> explain the significance of that, garrett. >> reporter: well, i'm glad you mentioned the barr interview because that's the kind of thing i was trying to get at here. if there's a crime committed here, we're going to get into this discussion of corrupt intent. i'm not a lawyer, but we've all gone through this with mueller. we're going to go through it potentially again here. did the president know that this was b.s. and that he was trying to force not just bad legal advice but something that was clearly illegal, something he understood to be fraudulent, on the american people, and i was trying to get thompson to kind of weigh in on what the committee really thinks about that, what do they think eastman might have in these emails that suggests that, that backs that up, and you saw him give, i think, a very careful answer there to say, you know, it's not just what we know but what every court has said, what every independent body, basically everyone who has reviewed this after the fact agreed that there was no fraud, that there was no basis there in the president's statements.

i just think this is going to be -- become super important. having, obviously, the top lawyer in the country and the person of the attorney general tell you to your face it's b.s. is material. and our colleague, peter alexander, asked a similar question of marc short today. remember, short has said the president was getting bad advice. he tried to push short, the former vice president's chief of staff, was that advice to break the law? i think getting into the -- it sounds like, you know, splitting hairs here, but i think legally speaking, it's going to become important that the president understood these weren't just bad theories. they were illegal attempts to change laws around presidential elections and how they're doing. >> well, and jackie, just really quick, back to you, i mean, we have it in writing that the campaign, bill stepien went and researched all the stop the steal claims, put it in writing, put it in a piece of paper that none of them were true. we have it in this filing that jason miller told donald trump none of them were true. we have all the countless losses in court from rudy giuliani because none of the claims were true, and now we have this

bombshell from bill barr that he told donald trump to his face, it's b.s., none of them are true. either donald trump's going to start saying, tomato, man, woman, camera again as his alibi or he's going to come in and make up some lie that he didn't believe all of the evidence his own campaign, his own campaign advisor and his own a.g.? >> yeah. i spoke with jamie raskin on the phone just before your show, nicole, and he very clearly said -- echoed what bennie thompson said. trump understood what he was doing was wrong, that he never doubted from the beginning, and that all of this evidence makes it certain that he had a consciousness of guilt as he proceeded to try to overthrow the election results. also, we should note that these depositions that were provided in the court filing last night are only a sliver of the 60,000 documents that the committee has collected overall and we know that investigators have asked very pointed questions to people like rich donahue, jeff rosen, marc short, greg jacobs about whether or not they directly informed the former president if

that -- that whether his election fraud claims were misinformed and false, all of which said, were. there's likely to be a slew of other questioning that reveals, basically, the same. >> jackie alemany, garrett haake, two of the best reporters on the beat, thank you so much for spending time with us. when we come back, brand-new nbc news reporting about the pentagon's plans to de-escalate the conflict in ukraine. pentagon press secretary john kirby will be our guest after a short break. please stay with us. guest after short break. please stay thwi us. thanks for bringing me with you guys today, mr. and mrs. lopez. not a problem, josh. hey, you two. check out all these camera views in my silverado i can see in front of me, behind me, on either side of me. and it has this cam, so i can see if there's any funny business going on. you see any funny business going on? no, sir. let's have a great day! the chevy silverado offers eight cameras with up to 15 different views. find new views. find new roads. chevrolet.

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today, they have bombed my city, destroyed many houses. they didn't launch rockets. they dropped bombs. destroyed many, many houses. it's not target, target. i mean, the rocket, which target -- targeted one. one building, one window. they had to just drop bombs, which -- >> it destroys everything. >> yes. >> the devastating, unceasing human toll, people's lives upended, their homes destroyed as russian forces advance in ukraine today. it comes amid continued de-escalation attempts beyond those borders from president joe biden in washington today with a new round of sanctions and from

the u.s. military that has stayed out of the ukraine physically. courtney kube reporting that the u.s. european command set up channels this week to communicate directly with russia's military. it's a way of trying to deconflict its tactical movements around ukraine. let's bring in the reporter who broke that news, nbc news pentagon correspondent courtney kube. >> hi, nicole. >> courtney, stay with us. we're going to be joined by john kirby, pentagon press secretary. john, i'm sure you read courtney's reporting or you let her ask you about it at the end of this, but tell us the latest of what you understand as night falls in ukraine. >> i'm sorry. was that to me? >> yes, john. sorry. >> sorry. >> it's okay. >> that's all right. i'm sorry. my fault. no, look, we've seen the violence escalate here in major population centers like kyiv and kharkiv, certainly kherson as the russians try to inch closer to these population centers

which we believe they want to control so that they can better control the country. obviously, a lot of attention on what they're trying to do in and around kyiv but it's very clear, whether these strikes are intentional or not against civilian infrastructure and residential areas, they are hitting residential areas. they are causing civilian casualties and a lot of damage inside these cities and there's no reason for it. there is a diplomatic path forward here if mr. putin would only choose that, de-escalate, stop the fighting. there's no reason for this war. ukraine was never an aggressor and never presented any kind of threat to russians and their national security. >> john, i've watched all of your briefings this week and i know you're careful to never take the bait on any question about what putin's thinking or what putin's doing or what putin's going to do next. but adjacent to that is what we expect the ukrainians to have to contend with next, and my question is, are we helping them prepare for brutal onslaught, a

brutal slaughter as it feels like everyone fears? >> well, i'll tell you, we are doing a couple of things, nicole. one, we're making sure they can continue to defend themselves, and they've been defending themselves bravely and quite effectively, very creatively. they're up against a military force that outnumbers them and has a lot of significant combined arms capabilities available to them but they're fighting back bravely and that's because the united states has helped put together and lead a coalition of other nations also providing them arms and ammunition and ways to better defend themselves. but we're also working, and this is really the state department has the lead on this, working with nongovernmental organizations and humanitarian organizations to make sure that we can martial humanitarian assistance to the ukrainian people both inside and outside ukraine and the u.n. said today more than a million now have fled the country and that's not counting the tens of thousands that are displaced inside ukraine. there's a lot of work to be done

and the united states will be at the forefront of that. >> john, my colleague, keir simmons, interviewed sergey lavrov who was given a question about putin's stability. lavrov notably dodged it, was -- i'm sure it was not lost in translation. i wonder what the assessment is about vladimir putin's stability. >> yeah, you know, i don't think we're capable of getting inside mr. putin's mind here and to make any kind of psychological judgment. what is clear to us here in the pentagon is that he has no intention of, right now, backing off this invasion of ukraine and limiting the use of force. in fact, quite the contrary. what we're seeing is an escalation in the violence and the bombardment and the damage inside these cities and the killing and wounding of innocent civilians so we're very concerned about that which is why we're focused in the pentagon on the effort to increase and expedite the delivery of security assistance to ukraine so they can better defend themselves and that's what we're focused on, in addition, of course, to making

sure that we can continue to defend nato's eastern flank. >> my colleague, courtney kube, a very familiar face to you, has some brand-new reporting and i wanted to give her a chance to ask you about it. >> john, we have a story out this afternoon about this deconfliction channel that the u.s. military set up with the russian military and i think a lot of our viewers may question, what is exactly is this? it's a direct line of communication between the u.s. and the russians, but can you explain why the u.s. military, why the pentagon thinks this is a necessary step and what exactly it's intended to do. >> yeah, court, thanks for that. i mean, as you well know, this is not atypical for us in other places such as syria, where there is a deconfliction mechanism with the russians because if you've got u.s. aircraft and russian aircraft anywhere near each other, you want to be able to make sure you can communicate to reduce the risk of miscalculation, to reduce the chance that you're going to escalate the conflict. well, now, the air space over ukraine is contested. the russians don't have air

superiority, but they are flying in that air space and they are launching now hundreds of missiles inside that air space. so, that air space buttresses up right against many eastern flank nations of nato. so, we believe it's important that we also have a mechanism here to make sure that we can take the risk of miscalculation down. what it is, basically, courtney, is a phone line. it's a chance for somebody, now, this is going to be run out of the european command there in germany, to be able to pick up the phone and have a conversation with the russian ministry of defense, not to give approval for anything, but simply to deconflict that air space and make sure that there isn't a chance for a miscalculation or an escalation in conflict between the united states and nato and russia. >> is this any sign that the u.s. military and the russian military are coordinating in the area or that the u.s. military has any plans to put troops over ukrainian air space? >> no, court, there's no coordination. this is not about coordination. this is about communication, and that's really the limit of it,

and the president has been crystal clear. u.s. troops are not going to be fighting in ukraine, and that includes in the skies over ukraine. this is not about any kind of escalation or moving towards that goal or to that end. it's really about being able to reduce the risk of escalation and make sure that there is an open channel of communication here so that it's very clear to the russians as well how seriously we take our article v commitment and our collective security requirements inside the nato alliance. >> let me ask one quick follow-up. i think that people don't understand that perhaps in a conflict, you're always talking to everyone to avoid anything -- and i'm picturing "top gun" and russian migs and making sure no one misreads anything that happens high in the sky, but can you just give us some context, historical context, john, for how often and how frequently and when and where this happens? >> it's not uncommon for -- in the conduct of our air

operations and international air space for us to come into proximity to russian aircraft. even in the indo-pacific region with chinese aircraft. and it's important that the rules of the road are followed and that everyone understands what we're doing. just as importantly, nicole, what we're not doing. and so we have those mechanisms in place elsewhere, given the fact that the ukrainian air face is so contested and so dangerous, we believe this is the right step here for -- going forward as well. >> and we thank nbc's courtney kube for her reporting on this. we thank you, pentagon press secretary john kirby, for spending time with both of us. we're really grateful. >> thanks. i'm sorry i flubbed it up at the beginning there. >> this became a three-step map and we've got a map, clint watts, you're welcome to stick around but we know you're very busy. thank you, john. joining our conversation with a look at where things in ukraine stand right now is our colleague, clint watts, former consultant to the fbi's counterterrorism division, now a distinguished research fellow at the foreign policy research

institute and msnbc national security analyst. clint, this is where your stomach, you know, has churned two or three times watching the people of ukraine, the civilians who, for now, war is days old. the shock has worn off and the horror of it has set in and you look at their country, their beautiful country, being invaded and occupied by russia. the map tells that story. >> that's right, nicole. the first week in a day, essentially, of this war, we were talking about russia overestimated, ukraine underestimated. we're starting to see where russia is having success. here in the south, which has been the big story today, the forces in crimea, these are the ones that essentially took that peninsula in 2014, they are creating a land bridge here over the sea of azov and joining forces with those that are in donbas. what's key about this is meriupol. they are laying siege to this city. they are going to destroy that town and i think that's

foreshadowing of what we could see in the north. more importantly today has been this advance to kherson. you heard secretary kirby talk about that. kherson is the bridge over the river and it's at the mouth to the black sea. if the russians can cross that bridge, that gives them access to go all the way to the moldovan border. essentially, they would take the entire coast of the black sea and this would shut off the entire southern relief supply for ukraine. that would be very damaging. also just in recent hours, this is becoming significant. there's a nuclear plant up there and there's some early reports they're advancing on that. key in all of this is the dnipa river. it runs through here. that is essentially a southern boundary so they have to get across this in the south. if they can take that, they can also bring in things like landing craft here into odesa, which allows russians to do resupply from the south. let's jump to the other part we've been talking about which is where they're not doing so well in the north. the convoy, this is not what i was taught when i was at west point.

>> what is the problem? are they out of gas? did people leave? is it fake? what is this picture? >> this is saying several different things. one, it's not the russian army that i was trained on. very disciplined, armored convoy, separation. you can just look right here. look at the spacing in different places. they're not worried about air power coming in and destroying them. now, there has been some successful strikes on it today. separately, this convey essentially chose the weakness of the russian military, going back to when they invaded georgia, they couldn't go as far as they wanted to, probably, because they're terrible at logistics. now, they are just actually just annihilating, with combat power now. they're starting to advance. they're essentially building their bulkhead in from the north in belarus such that they can resupply. secretary kirby made a very important point there about population centers. that is not a particularly significant place, but what it is, it's a large population center that's in the rear area of their advance. you don't want to allow insurgents to mess with your

logistical supply chains. so, that's incredibly important. and the last thing i would say, just as we close up, is when you look at what their advances are, we're seeing a very different scenario playing out, which is the siege of kyiv, but also logistics. we say food, fuel, and ammunition. that's what determines long that thousand is going to need support and the supply lines are going to be out here in lviv and that's where i think we'll see the fight really shift and where i'm worried about refugees, supply chain and one more factor, foreign fighters, the russians are going to be concerned about foreign fighters coming in across these borders. >> it's horrific, but the picture helps us understand. you look good in front of the

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refugees fled their homeland for places like poland and hungary, ali, in hungary, tell us what you're seeing. >> reporter: we got about more than 10% of that million come in through hungary. you hit us an an unusual lull, no trains here but see the long train across parked here, yesterday, four or five of those, more than a thousand came in yesterday, a few hundred today and about to hit midnight now, another 300 expected within the next hour. you see when they come in here, signs for free transport and housing, food and shelter being organized. i spoke to a young man, camar 0, onian man from kharkiv in eastern ukraine describing the trouble he had getting in here, let's listen to what he had to say.

>> it's just no longer safe. if i'm safe here, i'm okay. >> reporter: will you stay in hungary or you planning to go somewhere else? >> for now, i don't know. i don't know. but for now, i'm here. >> reporter: you brought everything that you can carry. >> well i can't carry everything. my books, my shoes, i can't carry everything. nicole, there are several different buckets of people coming in, some, budapest is a big hub, some have family here, some going to other countries so when they arrive to this place, you see the embassy set up receiving lines, a number of indian citizens came in yesterday, bussed to the embassy, return to india, places like that, but everyone can get medical supplies, food, sandwiches made, there are

drinks, and then there are shelter and transportation. people here, of the 300 expected in the next hour or so, maybe 50 will not have a plan. it's midnight here so even if they got some plan for tomorrow, they don't have one for tonight, they got lists of people in bud a, pest with who will take them in, house them, plan for transport so cars, people to take them. unicef said in a few days will be a status for temporary work for people who come in. hungary has had a bit of an issue with that, some struggles with immigration in this country but i'm told they're working that out and hungary will accept these refugees in and give them work permits and residence, but we will see, a few more hundred expected in the next hour. >> we'll continue to check in with you, what an unbelievable

human calamity, so grateful to you being there covering. thank you, my friend. a quick break for us. we'll be right back. quick breaks we'll be right back. ♪ your dell technologies advisor can help you find the right tech solutions. so you can stop at nothing for your customers. i brought in ensure max protein, with thirty grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! (sighs wearily) here i'll take that! (excited yell) woo-hoo! ensure max protein. with thirty grams of protein, one gram of sugar, and nutrients to support immune health.

thank you so much for letting us into your homes in these extraordinary times, "the beat" with ari starts right now. >> thank you so much, i am ari melber tonight, following the fight in ukraine and the global crack down on putin. investigators laying out potential crimes by donald trump, we have a january 6th committee member, exactly why they're seeing a criminal conspiracy and not only outrage from parents but students speaking out against florida governor ron desantez, i have my thoughts about freedom for him later by the end of hour. we begin with russia's tightening grip on ukraine, forces continue to bomb civilian areas, part