tv Craig Melvin Reports MSNBC March 4, 2022 8:00am-9:00am PST
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what else they're not doing to help protect these refugees. we need america to get involved, other countries that are far away and not just the neighboring countries to help those neighboring countries. it's going to be hard. it's going to be difficult and there will be unfortunately some issues that we can't take care of, but we need to try our best. >> thank you both so much for being with us this morning. that wraps up the hour for me. i'm jose diaz-balart, thank you for your time. next is a special edition of "white house reports." good morning, everyone, i'm kristen welker. my partner, peter alexander is on assignment. we are following the global
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alarm and what comes next as russia attacks the largest nuclear power plant in ukraine. right now it's still under the control of russian forces. it has prompted the united nations security council to call another emergency meeting. that is expected to happen in about 30 minutes from now around the same time president biden is expected to talk to the president of poland by phone. here's blinken speaking just over an hour ago. >> we are faced together with what is president putin's war of choice, unprovoked, unjustified. >> in moments i'll go one on one with jill hruby. she spoke with president biden last night as the world was learning of the nuclear attack.
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and meanwhile the russian assault on kyiv appears to be intensifying today. explosions and air raid sirens exploded this morning. also ahead this hour, we'll go in to dig into those jobs numbers released this morning, 678,000 jobs added just last month, much more than economists were expecting. what this means for the historic inflation everyone is feeling. but we do begin with the very latest in eastern europe. nbc's matt bradley is in kyiv, western ukraine and raff sanchez is in moscow and will join us in moments. a senior u.s. defense official just telling courtney kube that 92% of the masses are at the
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border of ukraine and. pentagon said there's no leakage at the nuclear power plant but it could have killed millions of people. what are you hearing there? >> reporter: this fits perfectly into the rhetoric we been hearing from the ukrainian government, which is if you think this is just the ukrainian's war, think again. this goes to show for ukraine this is what the russians are capable of. if they're capable of attacking a nuclear power station and unleashing a disaster that could be six to ten time as bad as the chernobyl disaster in '96, what else are they capable of doing? this is what the ukrainian government has been saying, when you help the ukrainian government, you're not just helping the ukrainian people, you are helping all of europe
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and all of the world because when it comes to nuclear disasters, it is a decidedly internationalized problem, just like the chernobyl disaster back in 1986 when all that nuclear dusk picked up in the wind and moved all across europe. this is fitting exactly into what the ukrainian government has been saying time and time again. they are fighting a war not just for themselves but for this entire continent and the entire world. for folks here, just like for our audience, this reminds them of that chernobyl disaster in 1986. but for ukrainians, it's the latest in a long line -- not the latest but it's one of the long line of episodes where they've seen the soviet umpire persecute and victimize ukraine.
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this is one other grievance that plays into the way that ukrainians see russia and the way that ukrainians think russia sees them. this fits in perfectly with what the ukrainians have been saying and can make a very, very argument that this is an international problem and that the world needs to sit up, pay attention and do everything they can to help ukraine to beat back the russians kristen? >> that historic context is so important, matt. i think you're right, it underscores the key question this morning, what if anything western nations, nato and the eu will do in response to what was a horrific scene that unfolded overnight. secretary blinken is in brussels. are you getting the sense that this attack has changed nato's calculus, what matt was just talking about? what are the discussions that
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are unfolding there where you are in brussels? >> you know, it's interesting, kristen, it's actually the exact opposite. this incident involving this nuclear plant in ukraine seems to have crystallized for the nato allies just what is at stake here, just what the risk is if this conflict were tho escalate, mushroom and start to include other nations nearby. we heard from the head of nato, secretary-general stoltenberg saying that nato has not only an interesting but an obligation, an obligation not to get drawn into this conflict and not to bring the rest of europe into what could be an extremely dangerous situation for the continent. and secretary blinken likewise saying the u.s. and nato want no war, no part of this conflict. they are distinguishing that should any nato countries come under attack, that is a conflict that they at that point would be obligated to engage in. but short of that, we are not seeing any additional interest
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from nato allies in getting directly involved. they have closed the door to a no-fly zone, even as there are protests outside of nato headquarters calling for a no-fly zone to be enforced into ukraine. >> that is what everyone was asking overnight, what will nato's reaction be. it's fascinating to hear your reporting and that putin is watching this reaction quite closely. raff sanchez is with me. putin is warning russia's neighbors not to escalate tensions. there is global concern, though, about what he might do if he feels backed into a corner. what are you hearing this morning? what are your source there is on the ground telling you? >> reporter: this was a thinly veiled threat from the russian president as his military plan in ukraine is not going as
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planned. he said do not interfere with what we're doing. nato's current position is they will not currently intervene in ukraine but even the position they're taking is not without risk. western american weapons are being used and that is being noted. nobody has a good sense of where putin's head is at. the deep fear is he could somehow expand this conflict if he feels he needs to cut off that supply of weapons. we heard from president putin yesterday after his call with president macron of france. one very discouraging line from the read out of that call according to the french side was putin saying he will complete all the goals of his military operation regardless of what is happening at the negotiating table between the ukrainian and
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the russian sides, which suggests this is a man determined to press ahead. meanwhile here in russia we are seeing the kremlin cracking down on any alternative to the official government narrative. just this morning the russian parliament forced through a new law which means that you can be jailed for 15 years for spreading, quote unquote, fake news about what is happening on the ground in ukraine. it is the latest blow to free speech in this country after the kremlin has already cracked down on the very few remaining independent russian media outlets. kristen. >> well, you're right to point that out. there have been so many horrific image, one of those being the protesters out on the streets of moscow who have been arrested, taken away. i do want to go back to you, matt bradley. obviously we know that the fighting has intensified and yet
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you do have this russian convoy that still seems to be stalled outside of kyiv, some 40 miles it stretches. what is the latest sense there about the russian invasion, about the russian attack? are they bracing clearly what seems to be worse days ahead but where does this stalled convoy play into all of it? >> look, i have people that i know, i'm not kyiv and where i was last week, but i talked to people there and they say actually things have kind of quieted down over the last 24 to 48 hours. obviously there's continued bombardment but relative to what was happening before, it seems as though the russians are concentrating their efforts now on the south, which is where they're winning in the north, or
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in kyiv in that two-pronged attack. it seems they're consolidating their advances in the south towards zaporizhzhia, the nuclear power plant area. they're gaining ground, gained their first regional provincial capitol, and they could make their way continuing up the river toward the capitol of kyiv or go back and branch off. they seem to think that's where they should be concentrating their forces.
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and very troubling we're seeing naval assets off the coast of odessa and there's lot of talk they could be planning for a brazen amphibious assault on to odessa. that's bad news for the central part of the country that so far has escaped the wours of this war. >> that just outlines what we're hearing from european leaders, including france president macron, who spoke to putin, who warns now that the worst is yet to come. matt, please continue to stay safe. we are joined by the undersecretary for nuclear security and administrator for the national nuclear administration. we know it was a very long night and tough day for you. the pentagon is saying it's
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working closely to assess the damage. it was tweeted overnight "we have seen no over limit radiation limits near the facility." is that still the case in. >> yes that, is still the case. the monitors are reporting background levels and we don't see any evidence of any dalk that would create a radiological or nuclear incident at this plant. >> undersecretary hruby, we know that the nuclear site and works are there are still operating at gunpoint under russian forces. how concerned are you and how concerned is the administration this is still a very unstable situation given that? >> we have conflicting reports
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at the plant with respect to the operators. some say the operators are being held at gun point. other reports say they allowed a shift change this morning. moscow time, in the evening. so we're keeping our eye on what's going on there but we think that's a very high priority, to make sure there's a safe zone to get operators and shift changes in and out of the facility, ukrainian operators. so we're watching that closely and that is a concern. the whole world would prefer not to have tired operators or operators under gun point at that planned. >> just to be clear, is it your assessment, though, that russia still has control of the power plant? >> it is. we do believe that russia still has control of the power plant but ukrainians are operating the power plant. >> you were among those who briefed president biden last
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night. can you tell us what you told him about the attack? what was his reaction? does it seem as though the u.s. agreed to have a response? >> well, we didn't speak about a u.s. response other than about the conditions at the power plant. what i spoke with president biden about was the fact that we were not seeing increased radiation levels and we laid out what worst case scenarios for that plant might look like. we have not seen any evidence of those scenarios but we feel well prepared for those scenarios because we've been on fairly high alert since the beginning of this conflict on anything that could go wrong on the nuclear front. >> well, you take me to my next question about worst case scenarios because i think a lot of people watched frankly in horror the images that were coming out of the power plant
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last night. and it was hard to understand just how large the threat might be. president zelenskyy said, quote, we experienced a night that could stop history. he said it could have been worse than the 1986 chernobyl disaster. can you help us understand what is at risk? what's the worst case scenario? >> well, you know, the worst case scenario at this power plant would be that the backup power generators, the diesel power generators would not be able to work. again, we have contingencies for that scenario. it's important for people to understand that nuclear power plants are designed against a high level of threat, including this, which is a russian-designed plant and their design to take a lot of shelling or a jet airplane crashing into them. so we did not see any evidence
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that the russians were using anything other than fairly small arms fire at this plant. there was, you know, there was reports of a fire. there did appear to be a fire, but there was nothing that looked like an attack on the reactors themselves that was aimed at creating a nuclear disaster. >> so you say the russians were using small arms. do you think this was an intentional attack? have you assessed that? >> it's quite difficult for me or for any of us to understand what the intent of the russians are -- is at this point. it does seem clear that they are interested in having control of this nuclear power plant and maybe others, but obviously we think fighting around nuclear power plants is a bad idea and
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discourage the russians from doing that. fortunately they do seem at least at this attack to have been fairly careful about not creating a nuclear disaster. >> well, if the radiation had gotten out, would it be something that would threaten europe or could it threaten beyond the borders of europe? could it threaten the united states? help us understand how big the threat could have been. >> this was a big nuclear power plant, the biggest nuclear power plant in europe. it has six reactors. several reactors were already shut down and the ukrainians appropriately began actions to shut other reactors down. that helps from a safety perspective. all the right thing were done but obviously if there was shelg
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-- shelling that penetrated reactors, that would be difficult throughout ukraine and honestly in a much greater region, but we didn't see anything anywhere close to that last night. >> when you say a greater region, throughout all of europe? >> well, you know, the radiation damage depends -- there's so many uncertainties here so let me just say we don't know. it depends on exactly what the mode of failure would be, exactly the mode of release, what the weather conditions were at the time. again, i just want to stress we never got close to those conditions last night. >> and i'm glad you are stressing that. that's so important for people to hear and to understand. senator ed markey said that if this had destabilized, that it could have and would have amounted to a war crime. is that consistent with how the administration sees what happened last night?
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>> yeah, i think it's certainly beyond my expertise and a little premature for me to make comments about that. i do know that we just want to discourage russia from violently taking over their nuclear power plants. we want to encourage the continued safe access of the ukrainian operators and try to stabilize both the grid and the security conditions around these nuclear power plants in ukraine. >> do you expect russia to send its own nuclear experts to the facility? is that your understanding? >> i don't -- we have not received any information on that. it wouldn't surprise me if they did that, but we don't have -- we do not have any confirm augs -- confirmation they plan to send their own experts there. >> i think a lot of people are
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wondering if the radiation were to somehow get beyond the power plant there and seep into a nato country, would that trigger an article 5 of nato and thereby a u.s. response? >> look, i think, you know, my perspective is we just have to bring everything we have to make sure that doesn't happen and to suppress any leak as fast as possible. i don't want to speak for nato at this time but i do say we are seriously thinking about everything we can bring to radiation limitation to making sure we can control things, to encouraging everyone to act responsibly at this point. >> undersecretary jill hruby, thank you so much for your time
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on this really important morning as we are trying to understand everything that happened last night. we really appreciate hearing from you. >> you're welcome. thank you. >> and we will have more ahead on the crisis in ukraine. we're expecting that emergency united nations security council meeting that's happening in just 15 minutes. but first, breaking news from the supreme court. just in the last hour, the high court is reimposing a death sentence for the boston marathon bomber. and the february job support is here and it's a big one but that positive sign could be threatened by because playing out in ukraine. we're going to talk about how the white house could be preparing for that next. you're watching "white house reports" only on msnbc. we're back after a quick break. c we're back after a quick break '. with rybelsus®. the majority of people taking rybelsus® lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than 7. rybelsus® isn't for people with type 1 diabetes.
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it shows that 90% of all jobs that were lost in march and april of 2020 have come back. we saw gains. this month was really unique because we saw good job gain across all sectors. >> that was labor secretary mart marty walsh. it showed the u.s. added 678,000 new jobs and the employment rate has now ticked down to 3.8%. and i want to bring in robert gibbs, now an msnbc political analyst. ron, i have to start with you. this is a big number and beat expectations. what does is say about the economic recovery? >> it's an unambiguously good
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report. the unemployment rate ticked down. we saw job gains across the board in manufacturing, in leisure, in construction and so it has, as the labor secretary suggested, returned us to about 92% of where we were prepandemic. it also on the flip side is a slight negative in so far as it gives the federal reserve to raise rates. then again, we have a strong economy. it is being hobbled by inflation effort and now with this ongoing war in ukraine, we're seeing further interruptions like the export of corn and wheat and palladium used in computer chips and automobiles. we're not out of the woods on inflation but from a mainstream report, this is a very good number. >> let me bring to you the fed
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has indicated they're clearly going to raise rates. what should people be bracing for if and when that happens? >> so far it hasn't ban major factor for consumers. we haven't seen mortgage rates go much above 4% and they've since retreated from those levels. inflation is at the moment more harmful than the interest rate picture going forward. the feds likely to raise rates at a quarter point. that seems the market holds up well and the economy is not dunked by persistent rate increases by the fed. this is something that jay powell expressed this week. the economy is strong enough to withstand the beginning of normalizing the interest rate picture. that will get tested at some point down the road. the bigger impact on markets is
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the war in ukraine than the federal reserve. >> robert, before we get to ukraine and the impact that it's having on this economic picture, as ron just said, the unemployment rate is now almost back down to prepandemic levels but of course the average american isn't necessarily feeling that because you have inflation, you have prices at nearly a 40-year high. what do you make of the white house's messaging on all of this? we heard from the president on his state of the union address. do you think he is doing a good enough job expressing what the white house wants him to do, which is to say i feel your pain, i get it, we're not quite there yet? >> i think they did do a pretty good job of this in the state of the union. look, the challenge is and i'm sure they're hearing it a lot from capitol hill and their
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political allies, you got to go out and say things are great and this is good. the report is really good. we should pause and say this is a good thing. if you're the white house and you're joe biden, the next sentence has to be we understand there's still a lot of work to do and that work has to be on, as ron said also, normalizing the supply chain and creating downward pressure on prices and therefore alleviating inflation. i think that's what their focus is going to be. i think politically they have to continue to message this in a place where people's lives are. you can't tell people things are better than they are. you have to, in a sense, feel their pain and i think that's what they have to do here. >> yeah, and of course, and i put this really to both of you because this isn't happening in a vacuum, it is happening against the back drop of where we start our coverage every day, the war in ukraine, the fact that you have the administration, which has imposed several rounds of sanctions now against russia and they're discussing cutting off
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russian oil imports. do you think, robert, that the president has done a good enough job of connecting those dots, of explaining to americans why they should care about what's happening in ukraine right now, not just because of the humanitarian crisis of it all but also because it obviously impacts the economy. >> yeah, i think this is where they probably needed to do a bit more in the state of the union or they need to continue to do as part of the daily messaging that they do because, look, i think we've got big humanitarian and foreign policy stakes here. but we have to understand oil hit the 11-year high this week. oil's a global commodity, right. it's the pressures of geo politics are going to force a change in that. gas prices are up more than 25 cents over the course of the last week according to triple a. i think it's important that the president message that while it
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is important we do what we do in ukraine, there's going to be some economic pressure and people are going to feel it. but what they feel is important and it's being caused not by anything that's happening in the united states but by the recklessness of vladimir putin. >> and just quickly help us understand because there is a debate right now within the administration, should we cut off russian oil? that is what they're asking themselves here. of course the ripple effects would potentially be felt here within the united states and european countries rely more heavily on russian oil. help us to understand how significant a move like that would actually be. >> well, it's significant in the sense as you point out correctly, kristen, that europe gets 30% of its oil and 40% of its natural gas from russia. cutting off those exports to the outside world, in my heart and soul and from a foreign policy perspective, i think at this
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juncture is absolutely required with the absence of us being able to square off with russia and cripple their economy even more than we already have. with that said, the president then has to come out and tick off each of the things that will be affected by deepening sanctions against russia, whether it is higher gasoline and oil prices, whether it's higher wheat prices, ukraine is the bread basket of eastern europe today. palladium prices go up and that goes into computer chips and catalytic converters. there a whole host of supply chain disruptions that will come as a result of deeper sanctions. the president needs to be explicit about the cost we will bear even as we're struggling through the reemergence of the pandemic. >> really great conversation. thanks to both of you for being
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here and break these new economic numbers down. breaks news ahead, the supreme court is reimposing the death sentence on the boston marathon bomber. more on that decision next. you're watching "white house reports" only on msnbc. msnbc ve. so if there's a better treatment than warfarin that's a trail i want to take. eliquis. eliquis reduces stroke risk better than warfarin. and has less major bleeding than warfarin. eliquis has both. don't stop taking eliquis without talking to your doctor as this may increase your risk of stroke. eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. don't take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. while taking, you may bruise more easily or take longer for bleeding to stop. get help right away for unexpected bleeding, or unusual bruising. it may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. the number one cardiologist-prescribed blood thinner. ask your doctor about eliquis.
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right now we are keeping our eyes on this emergency meeting of the u.n. security council. this is a live look at what's happening right now. they are meeting on the threat posed last night by russia's attack on the largest nuclear power plant in europe. we were just talking to the undersecretary for security here at the u.s. we will of course bring you up to speed if there are many major updates. and we are also following breaking news out of the supreme court. the justices have reimposed the death sentence for the brothers marathon bomber, dzhokhar tsarnaev. he was convicted with his brother in detonating two pressure cooker bombs near the boston marathon, killing two and injuring others. pete, what can you tellus about
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this? >> this was a 6-3 vote. the federal court of appeals tossed it out saying the judge should have allowed more questions to jurors about the news coverage they had seen and heard about the marathon bombing and the judge should have allowed evidence to a triple murder in waltham, massachusetts that happened three years before the bombing in which the older brother was thought to have been involved. the supreme court said, no, the appeals court was wrong on both counts, that trial judges have a great deal of discretion over the kind of questions that jurors should have during the preselection process when they seat the jury and the judge did the right thing there. and, secondly, they said the trial judge was right to say that the evidence about the waltham murders would have confused the jury, that it wasn't clear exactly what happened. the defense had argued that the
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evidence was important to show that the older brother was violent and had enormous sway over his younger brother and that it was the older brother who was the mastermind of the bomb being and that reduced the guilt or the culpability of the younger brother. the three descenters agreed on that second point. they said the judge should have allowed that evidence of the triple murder but they were only three votes. the majority opinion holds. so tamerlan who was killed in the shoot-out, his younger brother dzhokhar tsarnaev remains on death row and this exhausts the appeals. >> obviously a case the world has been watching. thank you so much. we appreciate you bringing us up to speed on that breaking news. we are watching the u.n. security council meeting on russia's attacks on the nuclear
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and it's easy to get a quote at libertymutual.com so you only pay for what you need. isn't that right limu? limu? sorry, one sec. doug blows a whistle. [a vulture squawks.] oh boy. only pay for what you need. ♪liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty♪ . and as we come back on the air, we want to show you a live look at the u.n. security council's emergency meeting this morning on russia's attack on the largest nuclear power plant in europe. this right now is the u.k. ambassador to the u.n. who is speaking. we anticipate the u.s.'s ambassador, linda thomas greenfield will be speaking shortly. we will bring that to you live. they are discussing whether the attack in ukraine was a violation of international law. also this morning, secretary of
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state antony blinken meeting with nato's secretary-general on the margins of a nato meeting in brussels. they reiterated their support for ukraine and encouraged nato allies to get them the supplies they need. they intend to create corridors to let ukrainian civilians safely evacuate the country. and kelly, we know president biden is set to speak to poland's president at this hour. can you give us a sense what you are seeing on the ground from the refugees arriving there. what kind of assistance are they getting? >> reporter: well, kristen, as we've been talking about for the past couple of days, there have been pretty bad bottlenecks at these border crossings and infrastructure is limited to get them across. the polish border guards have gotten much more efficient at
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processing people and getting them into the country quickly. once they arrived at the border crossings and the train stations, that your met by this huge volunteer army and many of them are connected through social media and they're talking to each other, they're coordinating, they're getting people to these big reaccepts centers, there are about eight or nine of this many right along the border in border towns. and they're then given the immediate necessities. so they're kept warm, they're given blankets, warm clothing and then connected with someone who can get them to a place where they can seek shelter and often that's with family or friends in poland or beyond. but we're getting to the point, kristen, where we're seeing people who don't have family members to go to, and in that case they're either spending the night in shelter or being connected with some of the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of polish families and beyond who are offering space in their homes. so it really is sort of a
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citizen mobilized effort, much more so than sort of a tent city or a people ending up in shelters. a lot of people are ending up in private homes. but still, the need is astounding. just yesterday, kristen, 99,000 people came into poland from ukraine. that's just poland. and this morning as of 7:00, another 25,000. i mean, the numbers are just hard to believe. >> the numbers are hard to believe. the images, kelly, are heart breaking. they're almost impossible to look at, to witness. and i know that you are on the ground there as these families, including these children, are crossing over. your work has been extraordinary. i want to ask you, i know that there has been a lot of discussion and calls for the u.s. to grant temporary protection status to some ukrainians. are you hearing that some families may try to come to the u.s. in the wake of learning that news?
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>> reporter: oh, absolutely. we've spoken to people who have relatives in the united states and would like to get there. as a matter of fact, today we met a grandmother, a 72-year-old woman who has family in chicago. she just got to poland -- excuse desperately want to get to family in the united states but there's a process. because of the language barrier, it's difficult to get a complete picture why she hasn't been able to move on yet. but it's not as simple as getong a plane and going to the united states. i know that's the same with refugees trying to get to family members in the u.k., where there's a policy of yes, we'll allow people living in ukrainians in the uk and have
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residency states to bring in immediate family members but there's still a visa process, application process people have to go through. but absolutely there is a demand, there is a desire on the part of some people to go to the united states. >> there's a part of the story we'll continue to track and i know you have dry throat also because you've been working round the clock to bring the world these really important stories. so, thank you for all of your work and we'll be right back. of work and we'll be right back
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ever wonder what everyone's doing on their phones? they're banking, with bank of america. his girlfriend just caught the bouquet, so he's checking in on that ring fund. oh, that photographer? he's looking for something a little more zen, so he's thinking, “i'll open a yoga studio.” and as for the father of the bride? he's checking to see if he's on track to do this all over again...and again. digital tools so impressive, you just can't stop banking.
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♪ right now on "white house reports" january 6th committee is zeroing in on former donald trump jr.'s fiance. she briefly appeared before the committee last month but her interview did not go well according to sources. joining me on capitol hill. so, what kind of information is the committee looking for from kimberley gillfoil and what are their next steps?
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>> the committee argus that she sits at the center of multiple aspects of their investigation. they say she met with then president trump and members of his family at the white house on the morning of january 6th. they note she spoke at that rally that immediately preceded the insurrection and say they have evidence she played a key role in organizing and funding. i'm going to throw this back to you because i believe we have breaking news. >> thank you for being here. secretary of state tony blinken is speaking. >> we have to defend and we are. and we are in no small measure because of the extraordinary work that we've been able to do together. the united states and the european union. when president biden took office, one of the first trips he asked me to make was here, to see you, the leaders of the european union because president biden was convinced that this partnership between us was
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really a partnership of first choice. that looking at all the problems our citizens face in their daily lives, we would be so much more effective in dealing with those challenges, opportunities together, not alone, not individually. and over the course of this year, in this effort that we've taken together to revitalize, reenergize the partnership between the european union and the united states, we have done some remarkable things in so many different areas. from climate to covid to emerging technologies. but now, now we're being tested in a moment of cries. and i think that precisely because we have invested together in this partnership, we're responding. and we're meeting the test. as the president said across so many different areas. the support for ukraine, the
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sanctions against russia, the help being provided to people in disterous. we're standing up together. i have to say that as someone who's watched this over the years, both from europe and from the united states, i am -- it's hard to find the right word for it but let me simply say it's almost been overwhelming to see how quickly, how effectively the european union has come together and acted in the face of this aggression. things that none of us thought were possible. weeks ago, now are reality. because this union is strong. it's united. and it's acting. and we're grateful to have this partnership because it is making a difference. i think we know something else. and the president eluded to it. unfortunately, tragically, horrifically, this may not be
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over soon. and so, these efforts we're making together, we have to sustain them, build upon them. we have to get to the point together and, as the president said, so many other countries around the world who are the united in their abhorrence of what president putin has unleashed. we have to sustain this until it stops. until the war's over, russian forces leave, ukrainian people regain their sovereignty, territorial integrity. we're committed to doing that. thank you. >> that was secretary of state anthony blinken saying we, meaning the united states and its nato allies, have to sustain this, the pressure campaign against russia, against vladimir putin until it stops. we'll bring you more from the emergency counsel meeting.
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but that does it for me on this very busy friday morning. thank you for watching "white house reports" all this week. you can catch me on "weekend today." "andrea mitchell reports" starts right now. >> in washington. we were just listening to secretary of state, tony blinken speaking at nato ministerial meeting after a day of discussions with european allies. the fierce resistance in major cities by ukrainian soldiers continues at this hour. but so do the russian attacks and they're under fire from russian troops and russian-backed separatists. they say the fire is out at that nuclear power plant, the largest in all of europe. but the plant is now under russian control after a night of intense fighting. the incident is sparking fears of a potential nuclear incident more than three decades a
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