how the international red cross describes the situation in the besieged port city of mariupol. food, water, heat, electricity,

and medical supplies all are scarce. that's the same city where the russian military struck a children's hospital killing three. including a little girl. the u.n. now estimates that 549 civilians have been killed in two weeks of this russian onslaught, but they caution that the number is likely much higher even than that. and this is the situation in irpin outside kyiv, coming to the rescue of people fleeing russian shelling. while meeting with nato allies, vice president harris announced the u.s. is sending an additional $50 million to humanitarian aid in ukraine, on the diplomatic front, a face-to-face meeting in russia and ukraine and turkey failed to produce any kind of breakthrough. ukraine's foreign minister said he made it clear his country will not surrender. and cutting corporate ties, burger king, goldman sachs, western union, and caterpillar are among the latest companies to suspend or end operates in

russia. more than 100 countries are putting the economic squeeze on russia. >> and good afternoon, i'm garrett haake in washington. hallie jackson is on assignment and our nbc news team is here. matt bradley is in ukraine. josh lederman in warsaw, poland, courtney kube at the pentagon, and david, and he's also the author of 2034, a novel of the next world war out in paperback today. matt, let's start with you, you are in western ukraine, you had the cease fire talks in turkey. we're getting reports that russia might allow humanitarian corridors, how much faith should we put in those reports? >> yeah, i mean, garrett, these humanitarian corridors we heard about, really in just the last hour or two. they're important. they're not moving the ball

here. they're not a paradigm shift. one of the two corridors is from the sumy region down south to a little bit south of sumy to paltava that has been the scene of the first and so far really the only successful humanitarian corridor so far in this war. we have seen convoys of vehicles leaving the shelled town of sumy in the north. this has been done before, so again, that's not entirely new. the other one is actually very unique, and very very needed. this is going from the city of shatomer, a bit east of where i am, west of the capital of kyiv, and that is a humanitarian corridor that is specifically for a repair crew to go up to the chernobyl region so they can repair the electrical lines that will lead to the chernobyl power plant so that that power plant can start to get electricity and start to respark the cooling system so it can keep its nuclear wastes cool so it won't

suddenly defrost and start spreading all over the place, which was one of the major threats that has been happening for the last couple of days. i mean, that was something that the entire global community was begging russia to allow them to let a repair crew in to repair the electrical lines that had been damaged by shelling, and then cut off power to that defunct power plant. you remember the chernobyl disaster in 1986 that stunned and frightened the world, so both of these issues are not exactly, you know, moving the ball. they're not exactly new, and they're not exactly fitting the ball when it comes to places that are in dire need like mariupol receiving something like nearly half a million, 400,000 civilians who are actually possibly starving to death, dehydrated. we had one case of a young girl who died from dehydration, and 200,000 of those, half of those civilians are desperate to get out of that southeastern city. so yes, this does give us some glimmer of hope but it's not exactly the paradigm shift that everybody was hoping for. it's not a big breakthrough.

>> those pictures from mariupol shocking the conscience of everybody who saw them. josh, you have been following the vice president's visit. she's had a very busy day there in warsaw. what's been accomplished there on the diplomatic front, what's still to come? >> well, the top goal for the vice president here in poland, garrett, was to try to move past this diplomatic rift that emerged between the u.s. and poland over this issue of sending mig fighter jets to the ukrainians after the pols caught the u.s. completely off guard with a proposal to send those airplanes from poland to a u.s. base in germany to then be ultimately sent to the ukrainians. that was a non-starter for the u.s. you said they had no idea the pols were even going to announce that. now that the u.s. has completely ruled that out, there wasn't much of an interest for either side to relitigate what happened there that led to that communications breakdown between two nato allies. both kamala harris, the vice president, and the her polish

intermediaries making clear that they stand in firm support together of ukraine and plan to act as one as they figure out how best to support the ukrainians going forward, including, according to vice president harris, more military support, more humanitarian support, which the u.s. announced today. vice president harris also using her stop here today to meet with people that have been displaced by this war in ukraine, and not only ukrainians, garrett, she also met with two individuals from africa who had to flee ukraine as well as an lgbtq advocate from kyiv. here's what she had to say about what they're facing. >> we are here to support you, and you are not alone. i know there's so much about the experience you've had that makes you feel alone. you are not alone. people around the world are watching. people around the world are expressing their support and

asking how they can help. >> reporter: so you get a sense there, garrett, of what the vice president is trying to accomplish on this trip, trying to signal very clearly that the u.s. is not going to let up in its support for civilians but also for the pols who are very concerned that they could be the next target of president putin's aggression if he were to start to threaten countries beyond ukraine, such as here in the nato alliance countries, all 30 of those nations insisting they will defend nato territory, and to that end, vice president harris announced today that the u.s. has now completed the transfer of two patriot antimissile batteries, not to be used in ukraine, but to be used here in here to defend against any threats poland could face. >> admiral stavridis, we have been getting these updates, russia has lost hundreds of vehicles in the war, an

estimated 15 to 20 fixed wing aircrafts, something like 25 helicopters, but they say that russian forces are still capable of surrounding kyiv in another week or two and that the battle for kyiv could take longer, potentially four to six weeks. what do you make of that assessment, and how much do you think that potentially differs from what pentagon war planners, what russian war planners were thinking this was all going to look like when it got started two weeks ago? >> let's start with the russian combat losses, you went through the equipment. that's important. the one to watch are how many killed in action. i think very reliably, there are a minimum of 4,000 killed in action and as you're showing on that graphic, it may be much much higher. let's say, for example, it's 5,000, let's give you a point of comparison. that's in two weeks of war. 5,000 killed in action. in 20 years in afghanistan, 20 years, the u.s. lost 2,000 killed in action, so these are

staggering losses for the russian armed forces, which are themselves perhaps 1/5 the size of overall nato combat troop strength. in terms of kyiv, i think it's accurate that the russians, because they enjoy such a massive force will be able to encircle the city. it's a big city. it's about 3 million plus. and urban warfare, when you are fighting block by block and your enemy knows that terrain, ukrainians will know every shop, every alley, every doorway, every turn, the russians will be stumbling around a vast city. you're at a real disadvantage in there, so to say four to six weeks, to me, sounds on the short side, and i'll close with a very practical example, garrett, during the war in iraq, the first marine division, which

is arguably our most elite combat shock troops, first marine division had to take the city of fallujah. fallujah had 400,000 residents. it took the best troops in the world a couple of months to subdue that city. and it was a tenth the size of kyiv. from what we have seen of the russians thus far, they are hardly of the quality of the u.s. marine corps. look for a pretty long time for them if they ever take down kyiv. >> and we were covering the insurgency in fallujah for years after that, and admiral i want to play for you something congressman mike mccall, the ranking member on the house foreign relations committee. listen to this. >> we totally overestimated the strength of the russian military. they've proven to be not as effective as we thought.

they're in a slow crawl right now, but they are closing in, and we completely underestimated the strength of the ukrainians and the ukrainian people. their will is much stronger than the russian soldiers. >> admiral, i think about when this all started how the discussion was about how it was ultimately going to be a matter of time until the force of the russian military brought ukraine to its knees one way or the other, but you give the assessments like we heard from the pentagon, your analysis here, comments like that from a member of congress who i suspect is much more well briefed on this than i, is it possible to hope here that maybe ukraine can hold out longer or dare say it they could have something like an actual military victory here? >> war is full of surprises, and, you know, when you start a war, it's like kicking a door open into a completely darkroom. you really don't know what you're going to encounter, and i think vladimir putin is discovering that quite dramatically.

but mass quantity, it has a quality all its own, as the saying goes. having said that, i'll close with this, garrett. put yourself in that situation. you, the listeners, think about how you would feel if you were standing on the front lines as a ukrainian soldier, who's behind you, who are you protecting? you're protecting your children, your parents, your spouse, your cities, your nation. your opponent has come and dropped in to a strange land where he was told the people are going to welcome you. yeah, they welcome you with rifle shots, javelin missiles, stingers, so i wouldn't rule anything out, but unfortunately the scope and size of russia make this a very unfair fight. >> matt, i go back to think about conversations you and i had on the air before this war got started where you would say how calm people were in ukraine, that they were used to living with the threat of russia and

the conflict with russia particularly out in eastern ukraine. now that it's coming to the doorsteps of people across this country, when you hear something like that assessment of a four-to-six week battle for kyiv, how are the people you're still interacting with ukraine kind of mentally preparing for this, what do they think about the prospect of this kind of scale of fighting continuing for months, potentially? >> reporter: yeah, garrett, one of the things i keep hearing, well, first of all, you mentioned what we were talking about before how people never expected that this would happen, how almost blase they were, and actually in retrospect, it's sad. a lot of people weren't expecting this. they refused to believe this. a lot of anger was directed toward the americans when they saw us drumming up the conflict. it's come to pass and a lot of people had quite a wake up call, and they feel awful about it, and there's a lot of rage and anger at vladimir putin and toward the russian people. everywhere we go, you know, people there, even people who

are very religious, even people who are closely connected to russia, we hear them using the word hate. they hate russia. they hate vladimir putin. they use that word unsparingly, and it's understandable why they have these feelings. they feel as though they were attacked in a way that was completely unprovoked. and in a way that was just very unfair, and for many people here in ukraine, this is part of a continuum, this is part of a tradition of russian intimidation and bullying of ukraine that goes all the way back hundreds and hundreds of years, so for them, this isn't something that's entirely new. now, how are they preparing for it? well, a lot of them were really caught off guard. i was in the northeastern city of kharkiv a couple of weeks ago. people there speak russian. a lot of them studied in russia. they have at some level sort of like a russian identity but they feel themselves to be fiercely ukrainian, and these people were heartbroken, and they were surprised and they felt as though they really didn't know what to do. they had made no preparations.

a lot of them just simply hadn't, you know, packed their bags. they hadn't gone to the store to buy any supplies. they felt like they were on the back foot, totally caught off guard, and then they had to pile into trains, and cars and travel to where i am now, here in lviv or shelter in metro stationings. s -- stations. so a lot of people are willing to fight, because of the depth of feeling, and hatred for vladimir putin. they are willing to pick up arms as admiral stavridis said, they have something to fight for, the russians can only feel an abstraction, they're fighting on behalf of something that they didn't know was a cause until they were just thrown into the battle, for the ukrainians i speak to, they don't really think about preparation. they think about getting on to the front line and fighting as hard as they can and that's something you see just about everywhere. it's a fierce amount of pride, and it really helped that in the opening week, opening two weeks,

they managed to surprise and impress the world with their stallworth defense of this country. garrett. >> they certainly have. matt bradley, keep up the great work, admiral, thank you for your insights on all of this. still ahead this hour, what you need to know about the rising cost of basically everything, gas, food, rent, how much longer these prices could continue to go up. plus, breaking news from the january 6th committee, which former top trump official sat for an interview behind closed doors today, my new reporting on that coming up. first, living live in philly, where house democrats have kicked off their annual retreat. what a top progressive is telling our team told as the party tries to come together. telling our team told as the party tries to come together five professional benefits. one simple step. totally effortless. styling has never been easier. tresemme. do it with style. thanks to realtor.com's home alerts we were able to see the newest homes on the market, super fast. so we could finally buy our first "big boi house."

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new reaction this afternoon after democrats scored a partial victory with their bipartisan bill getting ukraine and the u.s. governments some much needed funding, but kicking the pandemic can right on down the road. right now, members are in philadelphia for a democratic retreat, trying to chart a path forward after those covid provisions were suddenly stripped from the bill. the omnibus bill moves to the senate where majority leader chuck schumer projected confidence earlier today about getting it passed before this night is over. >> once this bill arrives at the senate, republicans must work with democrats to pass the bill as soon as possible. hopefully tonight. there is every reason in the

world to believe that we can arrive at a path forward quickly. >> and joining me now, nbc news capitol hill correspondent, ali vitali, and msnbc contribute jake sherman, both down in philadelphia for the house dems retreat. and ali, i'll start with you, democrats are celebrating funding the government finally, and this effort to send money to ukraine, but they did leave d.c. without securing a path forward on the pandemic money that the administration has asked them for. what's the messaging been like on that issue today? >> reporter: yeah, garrett, perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the democrats here would prefer to focus on the success of passing the omnibus as opposed to the funding bill. >> i'm sure they would. >> that languished on the side there, but really what we're seeing, though, is the same party who had three democrats respond to a democratic president eets state of the union, those fi fis sures are on

display here. i'll let you listen to jayapal said first. >> the opportunity for us to know what is in a bill and to prepare for things that we either want to push back on or be able to defend is the best way to do things, i think, in a close majority situation. at the same time, let's really be clear that it was the republicans who didn't want to fund anything related to covid, and so we need to continue to move along. we're trying to find a way to fund that. >> reporter: jayapal's focus in talking to reporters seemed to be on the things that they had done, and the things that they could still do with their majority, sort of making the argument for voters that this is why they should continue to vote for democrats in 2022 so that they could expand their majorities and do more. sean patrick maloney, on the other hand, when he looks at how he's going to keep this majority

and try not to lose as many seats as he possibly can, his view is instead on messaging what's already been done really using the word empathy a few times in talking to us here, and therein is the rub, right, how much you can still do versus campaigning on what's just been done already. >> so jake, i was struck when you listen to pramila jayapal there, she's right, republicans don't want to put covid money into this omnibus bill, i go back to the american rescue plan, democrats decided they were going to do a big covid package, bigger than republicans wanted and alone. did democrats sacrifice any future dollars by doing that. how hard will it be to continue to find bipartisan votes for more money for covid going forward? >> this was the last train leaving the station, garrett. i think that's obvious to you and to ali. i mean, there were a lot of things hitched to this omnibus bill, and for good reason because it needed to pass, so i think going forward, it's just going to be really difficult.

this was a $15 billion bill. i mean, could they get a $5 billion covid relief bill to pay for vaccines globally, maybe, but it's going to be really difficult because republicans are demanding on offsets, they're demanding to pay for this entire thing, so i don't really know what the path is forward, and i don't think the leadership does quite frankly either. if you need a preview of what's coming the next couple of weeks, this is it, the house and senate, chuck schumer has said, joe biden has said, this was the most important part of the omnibus bill, the covid section which has money to prepare for future pandemics, so really a huge, in a big victory, a massive loss for nancy pelosi and chuck schumer. >> jake, real quick, you're a betting man, does the omnibus pass the senate tonight? >> reporter: yeah, probably. it's a thursday, garrett, they want to get out of town. they want to go home. senate doesn't work on fridays, but as somebody in the white house always says to me, bet the

over when it comes to congress. >> yeah, i think that's usually good advice, thursday night jet fumes are a tradition in congress. jake sherman and ali vitali, with a great looking background. thank you for being with us. and we've got more breaking news from the hill in this hour. national security adviser, michael flynn testifying. he was scheduled to appear virtually this morning. this interview follows the subpoena that the committee issued for flynn's testimony all the way back in november. a statement we just got in from flynn's lawyer indicates that this interview might not have helped the panel very much. it says flynn took the 5th, declining to answer the committee's questions. and yes, there is yet more breaking news we're following from capitol hill, where supreme court nominee judge ketanji brown jackson just met with republican senator john cornyn from texas. you see the two together there. this is her fourth and final meeting on the hill today. her confirmation hearings are

set to begin later this month. she will see john cornyn again. he's on the judiciary committee. and coming up, what intelligence leaders think vladimir putin's end game in ukraine actually is, and what else they told senators today about the invasion in the worldwide threats hearing they heard from today. but first, the president just moments ago reminding the ukrainian people that help is on the way during his meeting with the president of colombia. the american people and the entire world have rallied to support the ukrainian people. we have donated thus far a billion dollars in security assistance, and more shipments of defensive equipment are on the way as i speak. coordinating deliveries of antiarmor and antiair capabilities with a wide range of our allies and partners and, we're providing tens of thousands of tons of humanitarian needs from food, water, and medicine. and medici. that improves age-related blurry near vision.

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sources. you have new information for us. what are you learning? >> reporter: that's right. we spoke with a senior defense official at the pentagon. there has been, we have been talking for days about what the operational picture on the ground in ukraine looks like, and it's been pretty consistent in the north and in the east. the route down largely from belarus and from russia in and around kyiv has been largely stalled for days now, garrett, but the senior defense official says there actually has been a small amount, a moderate amount of movement and progress on the part of the russian military moving towards kyiv. not a lot, but a little. it's significant just because the russian military has been very stalled for days now, getting around the city. it's important to point out, they are still, in some cases, they are as far away as 15 kilometers or further from outside kyiv, and they have not yet isolated the city, but again, there has been some movement. in addition to that, one of the routes has gone through a city

called cherthat is circled by the russian military. significant because it's been a site of heavy fighting for days now. the russian military making again, a moderate, to small amount of progress there in the north. in the south, the russian military continues to make some progress. they have encircled the port city of mariupol, which is over in eastern ukraine, near donetsk, but they have not taken that city, of course that city, we have been hearing a lot about it in the past day or so, in part because of the horrific bombing of a maternity hospital there just yesterday, garrett. >> we're looking at those pictures now. kyiv continues to be the big goal. thank you for that update, courtney, at the pentagon. moving now to searing new intel assessments of russian president vladimir putin's status inside ukraine and back in russia. u.s. intel leaders earlier testifying before the senate intelligence committee on everything from russia's heavy losses in ukraine to new

potential false flag operations that could involve chemical or biological weapons, as well as putin's attempt at information crack down back home. caa director bill burns saying in part, putin is quote losing the information war over ukraine. here's more of what he said along with director of national intelligence avril haynes, and just a few hours after the highest level negotiations between ukrainian and russian officials since russian invasion began. >> i don't believe he can wall off indefinitely russians from the truth. president putin does not have a sustainable end game in ukraine right now. >> what he might be willing to accept as a victory may change over time given the significant cost he is incurring. >> joining me now is nbc's national security and justice correspondent ken dilanian, as well as former ambassador to ukraine, bill taylor, currently vice president at the u.s. institute of peace. ken, walk us through what we learned from intel leaders

today. they seem to be keeping a pretty close eye on a possible russian false flag operation. >> yeah, garrett, in fact, i spoke to a u.s. intelligence official yesterday that confirmed that by accusing the ukrainians of preparing to use chemical weapons, russia may be laying ground work for their own forces to use them. the russians would stage a chemical attack and accuse the ukrainians of carrying it out. the russians would use that fake chemical attack as a further pretext to step up the violence. take a listen to what cia director burns said today about the possibility of the russians using chemical weapons. >> this is something as all of you know very well is very much a part of russia's playbook, they have used those weapons against their own citizens, they have at least encouraged the use in syria and elsewhere. it's something we take very seriously. >> u.s. intelligence officials also pushed back today, garrett, on what they said was russian

propaganda about another type of weapon, contrary to what the russians have asserted, avril haynes said there's no biological weapons labs in ukraine. there was confusion after a state department official, victoria newland talked about biological research facilities, and some right wing pundits distorted that. haynes is clear there's no biological weapons labs in ukraine. another big take away is u.s. intelligence officials believe the russians may be able to seize ukraine after weeks of combat but they won't be able to hold it. they will face a determined and well armed insurgency, but that of course means a lot more human suffering, garrett. >> so ambassador, as we get into this conversation about potentially using chemical or biological weapons. i can't imagine the russian military needs to use those weapons to win militarily. there's something else about this, right, the idea of a false flag or to say, look what the ukrainians are doing to us to build support back home. how do you look at the

possibility that this might be something that's brought on to the battlefield and just in general, russia's rhetoric about what this war is right now, and what they have been saying over the last couple of days? >> so garrett, you're right, chemical weapons, false flag or not, this is something that the russians would use if they're desperate, it seems to me. they might be desperate. as you've indicated and as courtney indicated, they've had a hard time. the russian military has not done well. the russian military has under performed and the ukrainian military has way over performed. it has been amazing in its ability to stop the russians moving down towards kyiv. that said, there is some movement, as courtney just indicated and there's no reason that i can see that the russians would use any kind of mass destruction, whether it's chemicals or anything else, it's not -- there's no purpose to

this. they've got the overwhelming force and if they are making some progress, there's no reason to do that. that said, the ukrainian military is really tough, and is going to defend kyiv down to the -- >> i suppose we have to go through the whole try add of horrible here after talking about chemical and biological weapons. the dni, avril haines held back part of her answer about how concerned we should be about the possibility russia could use tactical nuclear weapons in ukraine saying that is a conversation that should continue in closed session, but she did say generally speaking it's the kind of thing of which we should be very concerned. i wonder what you expect to be part of that closed conversation, as someone who worked in the region, do the russians think differently about using tactical nuclear weapons than we do? >> garrett, we don't know very well. i mean, they have a doctrine that says if they need to, if

they need to escalate in order to try to deescalate against nato, that's the doctrine. that's where the doctrine comes from. it's a doctrine for fighting nato. a very formidable force. and they've talked about and their doctrine suggests they would use a nuclear weapon in order to try to deescalate, which makes no sense, and you're asking the right question, would they do that. part of it is undoubtedly putin's mental state, and people worry about that, but i'm prepared to believe, garrett, that he's not suicidal, that he is not prepared to use nuclear weapons at this point. he might threaten it. he's been threatening it, so we have to be prepared and the intelligence committee is exactly right, you do have to take into account what he said and what he might do, and be prepared for that. but this is not the time for panic. >> this whole conversation makes

me think about what admiral said at the top of the hour, you kick open the door, and you don't know what you're going to find on the other side. ken dilanian, ambassador taylor, thank you both for coming on. up next as inflation hits a 40-year high, a warning from economists that the worst is yet to come. plus, today's announcement from the tsa, whether you still have to wear a mask on public trains and transit, next. trains and transit, next

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and the markets are about to close in the next few minutes, all three major indices are in the red. the nasdaq and the dow both down, close to 150 points. all this as the country battles its highest inflation since 1982, like when e.t. premiered. i'm sure you've noticed your grocery store bill or the price at the pump is way more than it was just a few weeks ago. just take a look at your screen. the price of gas is spiking $0.07 in a single day. almost a buck over the past week, and that's not the only thing that costs more. look at the price increase of things like coffee or eggs, both going up around $0.50 in the last year, making your breakfast more expensive. joining me now is msnbc correspondent, christina, what more stuff is getting expensive now, and how much longer do we think it's going to? >> it's unfortunate, the consumer price index, measures the price increase of a basket of goods, i'm sure our entire

audience, everyone watching right now has seen the price of goods increasing. for the month of february, it increased 8% year over year, driven largely by food prices, gas prices, and energy, shelter prices, food, for example, milk went up 50 cents, and the concerning factor is that you have gas prices just continuing to store, of course you've got the issues in ukraine that are weighing heavily, sanctions weighing heavily, and this is a part of the fact of why we're seeing volatility in the markets as of late. you have concerns about growth, you have concerns about inflation, you have concerns that the fed, our central bank will increase interest rates as of next week. all of these are factors playing into it. the only thing i can say from this report is core inflation, when you take out food and gas, which is pretty volatile, core inflation came in line with expectations. some economists may say this report is as expected. >> cold comfort if you have to

drive or eat, though. i have to ask you, before the russian invasion, i think a lot of economists were saying they thought inflation would peak sooner rather than later. maybe even this month. now they're saying it might not be until this summer. do we have a sense of how much higher prices can go before they go down. >> i guess the price of gas is an excellent barometer, we're seeing energy prices continue to increase. you've talked about gas rate at the beginning. in the month of february, you saw gas prices increase 24% in the past month. 53% in the past year, and so everyone is talking about it right now, especially as we head into the summer, and we take these longer trips, and when you have inflation that is climbing, that's eating away at your paycheck so you're not able to afford that gas as you were maybe just a few weeks ago. and then on top of it, i've never gone on air before to talk about nickel prices, neon prices, palladium, and this morning, that's what i have been doing because nickel prices surged well over 200%. nickel is used in steel, steel

in electronics and construction, and the list continues, so there could be a triple effect we won't see for months because so many companies have to buy in advance, and it adds to their inventory, add to their cost which unfortunately they can pass on to you and i. >> if it's not one thing, it's another. christina, thank you very much. >> if you're due to be on a train, plane or greyhound bus, don't expect to take your mask off. the tsa saying earlier today they will extend a federal mask mandate on transportation through april 18th, previously set to expire next friday. the move comes as virtually every state as declared an end to their individual mask mandates over the last several weeks with hawaii being the last holdout announcing they would do so on tuesday. i want to bring in nbc news correspondent, who scooped this news earlier today. there was a lot of speculation the federal government would go the way of the states here. what do we know about this decision to continue this

mandate? >> and for that reason, there's a lot of incoming here particularly from politicians who don't like that decision. the news is more the formulation of a new policy for living with covid for the long-term that does not include universal masking on airplanes and buses and rail. that's more the news than the 30-day extension. there are consultations, garrett, going on right now between the department of transportation and the cdc to determine which benchmark should they use for when masks will be required and when they won't be. officials are telling me it's one thing to use new more lax benchmarks for masking when you're talking about individual local communities but when you're making health and safety decisions based on data coming from multiple locations which is the case with travel, it's a different challenge. here's the white house press secretary from earlier today. >> if we're in washington, d.c., and we're in a green zone or yellow zone, you can make a clear assessment. if you're moving from one zone to another and picking people up

from one zone to another, it's a little bit different and that requires some consultation, which is what they're going to endeavor to do between now and april 18th. >> so right now, garrett, as of march 3rd, more than 90% of the u.s. population is in a location with low or medium covid-19 community levels but all of the covid health experts that i've talked to expect there to be additional surges, including potentially the summer, potentially this fall, and if you recall, garrett, it was last year when the cdc told everyone to unmask, remember, the summer of freedom, but delta came knocking. this is about putting in place a policy that can respond responsibly to peaks and valleys of the virus that are really going to be part of endemic covid. >> i guess i'm struck by the tension here between states. you said 90% of the country is in the low transmission areas, states going in one direction, and the cdc going in a different direction here, i mean, unless you're flying from part of that 10% to another part of that 10%, how do they kind of defend that

part of the decision? >> really what they're saying is that this is not a permanent policy. this is a 30 day extension so they can figure this out, right, there may be tension. again, these are two different situations and the cdc put out the benchmarks that these localities should be using, so if in peoria, there's nobody hospitalized with covid, and in cleveland, the hospitals are on fire, what should the call be? this is really the questions that they're dealing with right now, and they say, you know, considering what happened last summer they don't want to rush into another situation where they tell everybody to toss their masks and we're dealing with a situation of unruly passengers, really angry if they've got to use them again. >> boy have we heard about that from the flight attendant's units and the pilots, heidi, thanks for staying on top of this. up next we're talking to ukrainian foreign exchange students in the u.s., worried about their family back home and

their country in the future. >> my friends texted me i love you. they didn't know what to expect because they heard a lot of bombing. a lot of bombing. a strategic and sustainable asset... the path is gilded with the potential for rich returns. with relapsing forms of ms... there's a lot to deal with. not just unpredictable relapses. all these other things too. it can all add up. kesimpta is a once-monthly at-home injection... that may help you put these rms challenges in their place. kesimpta was proven superior at reducing the rate of relapses, active lesions, and slowing disability progression vs aubagio. don't take kesimpta if you have hepatitis b, and tell your doctor if you have had it, as it could come back. kesimpta can cause serious side effects, including infections. while no cases of pml were reported in rms clinical trials, it could happen. tell your doctor if you had or plan to have vaccines,

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baseball. just moments ago a tentative deal is reached between owners and players to end the nearly 100-day lockout. the deal needs to be ratifying by enough of the teams' owners but then spring training could start as soon as tomorrow. the agreement would mean that the season starts april 7. imagine being in high school. thousands of miles away from the home and a completely different country and war breaks out in the home country and with little to no ability to speak to the friends and family dodging bombs. that's the reality of 200 ukrainian students in an exchange program with the state department. as war ravages the country back home they spoke about their fears of what to come. shaq joins us now with the reporting and what did they tell you about the experience? >> reporter: they said they're worried, stressed out, concerned

about the images back home. high school students so dealing with the stressors of classes and social elements and what they see back home and the reality that the home nation is under war and they have the family back there and worried about them. listen to what two of them told me about how they embrace this and hearing from the folks back home. >> six days ago they decided to evacuate themselves because russian troops, army are coming and they bombed all towns around my city. they're still driving already six days. >> you can't expect or predict the war. you can hear other people talk about it but you can't know that like your compatriots and people and friends and family need to hide from the bombs. fight for the houses and the

future of the country. >> reporter: and then the communication issues. as you know because of the war there's sometimes they call home and no answer on the other end and don't know if that's because the parents have gotten bombed or a communication breakdown. some saying they that they check the news too r every five minutes even in class and making sure the town is still protected and safe. they say they have been receiving support from the fellow classmates and colleagues. holding fund-raisers to be able to send resources back to ukraine and they say they're proud of the country and still say some of them want to go back as soon as they can. >> hopefully they can. get reporting. thank you very much. that does it for this hour. "deadline: white house" starts after this quick break. after this quick break

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hi there, everyone. 4:00 in new york. war in ukraine. the ongoing russian invasion apyres to have reached a deadly new stage. more brutal than anything we have seen thus far. ukrainian officials accusing moscow of consciously terrorizing civilian populations, targeting innocent people in places like hard hit mariupol. hundreds of thousands of people trapped there with no food, no water, no electricity, very few supplies. the word hostages was used by ukrainian authorities today to describe them. russian forces today dropped bombs on the green corridor designed to get civilians out of that city. yesterday we shared the images of a decimated