the thing to emphasize, we always focus on the reactors, there are two things. the reactor and the unguarded and unshielded fuel ponds that holds radio active waste. those unprotected fuel ponds are vulnerable and it is inc inconcie inconcievable to me. >> jim walsh, thank you very much. that's going to wrap up this hour, i am kris jansen, "jose diaz-balart reports" is next. >> good morning, we begin with breaking news. president biden is set to speak and he's expected to announce the u.s. will revoke russia's

trade status. we'll bring you what he has to say in just a couple of moments right here on msnbc. the news opens the door for congress to hit moscow with terrorist on a slew of russian goods. it comes just days after the president announced the ban on russian oil imports. joining us now is kelly o'donell. talk to us on what you can expect from the president. >> reporter: good morning jose, this is another example the u.s. trying to ratchet pressure against russia. we heard the president say he wants to work with coordination with our allies. the g7 country is also taking this kind of step. this is taking russia out of the club of those nations that have the most preferred ability to engage in financial trade and commerce around the world. the kind of financial

flexibility that makes big countries effective in commerce. by knocking russia back yet again, this is another tool and what it would do it requires congress to act as well and we have seen bipartisan support for this idea. the president will remove what's known as most favorite nation status of the highest level of credit if you will for the nation of russia in partnership with the united states knocking them back. it allows the u.s. to impose tariffs, taxes on goods that would be imported from russia. think in terms of the variety of goods come in, we would see oil and gas. the u.s. have said they'll no longer import that. set it aside. could be things like caviar and vodka and ply woods, other things coming into the u.s. number 26, we get many more goods from other countries, name

my china and the far east and so forth. this is another tool to constrict russia's ability to function in the world's marketplace and that's an important tool to limit the financial resources that vladimir putin has and the money he has is a war chest to fund this war. that's what we expect the president to talk about today. jose. >> kelly o'donell, thank you very much. now on day 16th of war. russian forces moving closer to the capitol and prepare to circle the city. our senior u.s. official says it could take the russians one or two weeks to encircle the city and another four to six weeks to take control of the capitol. russian strikes have hit military airfields and factories

into cities. as the russians continue their seize of mariupol and other major cities of central and eastern ukraine, nick martin has this report on how people in the city of odesa are preparing for a potential russian assault. >> reporter: 350,000 sandbags have been filled by these people in the last two weeks alone. while they are doing that, they fear out there in black sea there is a build-up of russian military navy that have plans to make some kind of assault on the beaches of odesa and the people here are not going to have any of it. these sandbags are put out across the coast here to prevent that from happening. >> meantime president zelenskyy released a message saying the country has reached a strategic

turning point. it is impossible to say how long the fight has continued. president putin plans to bring thousands of fighters in the middle east to join their russian troops and fighting the ukrainian forces. richard engel in kyiv, what are things looking like around you this morning? >> reporter: we are now on day 16 and russia had a slow start to its campaign. its military offensive was troubled with logistic issues and supply issues and soldiers running out of food and fuel and moral. it seems now they are readjusting and have put things into a much more aggressive posture. we are seeing attacks by russia in places they have not attacked before in the far west of the country, we are seeing that convoy which is heading towards

kyiv back on the move again and we are seeing much more punishment attack on cities like kharkiv and mariupol. so it was a slow start but vladimir putin made it very clear yesterday in his public statements that he's not backing down and he had no intention of being deterred by economic sanctions. we saw diplomatic talks in turkey failed completely and the russian foreign minister goes as so far as saying there is no invasion, clearly denying what has happened. putin has stepped up his defense and i am told by sources well connected to the intelligence of moscow that putin is furious of his own intelligence chief that he put two under house arrest. after being unsatisfied, we are seeing a much more aggressive

stance from russia, targeting cities and targeting them relentlessly regardless of sanctions. >> this could be a new phase of this horrible war, richard, and just using your experience in 2019 in syria where russian forces targeted healthcare facilities and schools as part of a terror campaign within the war. >> reporter: so we have seen this maternity hospital targeted in mariupol, it is one of more than a dozen medical cities that have been hit already. vladimir putin is using the same strategy that he used in syria to backup and that's to pour as much fire power as he can possibly do on civilians and

population centers onto medical cities. that's why you see so many medical cities moving their patients down into the bunker because they know russia has and continue to strike on them. he's using world war ii style tactics, bombing civilians on purpose. that's why the sanctions appeared not to be deterring him because in world war ii, they also used different approaches to avoid sanctions and one of them was to loot the countries they attacked and here in ukraine many officials are worried as russian forces come into this country, they'll try to recoup the money and the financial cost that the west is imposing on vladimir putin by stealing art work, radiating the banks here and doing everything that the russians can to try to claw back some of the money they are losing.

>> while people are fleeing they are going, among other places to lviv to head on out. with russian forces launching an attack, are people in lviv worried they could be next? >> reporter: they are indeed, jose. just to show you, 5:00 a.m. this morning, air raid sirens went off in lviv and people had to leave their homes and hotel rooms and get into bunkers because of those raids towards the west of the country. ukrainian officials said they were targeted three times in a space of a few hours. they hit a kindergarten and shoe

factory. we spoke to a gentleman here to lviv with his wife and mother-in-law and he took another woman with them, a small child. let's listen to what he had to say. >> i didn't recognize my city when i was driving out of there. it was kind of terrible feeling to see what's happening to my hometown and yeah -- >> reporter: and what are you hearing from your friends now? is it still being shelled heavily? >> yes. a lot of buildings destroyed since the time i left there and i guess the situation is getting worse. >> reporter: jose, the

resilience is incredible because after that i asked eugene what are you going to do now, he said i have to keep working to keep this country going. everybody wants to do a bit no matter how small and large, they're all adamant they're going to win this conflict. >> ali arouzi and richard engel, thank you so much. i want to turn to mariupol, the humanitarian crisis there is getting worse by the hour. joining us now the department mayor of mariupol, sergei orlov, what's the situation right now? >> for many days, eight days without utility and water supply

and electricity, supplies people just collecting water on the street and making fire to collect in snow to melt some water and this is happening under continuous shelling. they just destroy and flatten the city hour by hour and minute by minute. >> it is important that we get a perspective of just -- we are not talking about a small town here, this is a thriving city until just two and a half weeks ago was really thriving, how big of a city is it? how many people are there and how many people are left? >> mariupol's population is half a million citizens and today

400,000 citizens are still left. we have 15,000 children, so they are suffering each hour and second and it is soulful situation. i can't tell what the real situation is in mariupol. >> how long can your city survive like this? food, water, supplies and medicines? >> russian troops blocked every site. i was able to provide trucks with humanitarian help so cities control to bring water.

we should understand the humanitarian situation decreases each second and i don't know how many days it is possible for people to live in such condition. it may be days or weeks and you should understand all this is happening while still the bombings. we could not protect our children and our lives. it is a crazy situation, we don't have weapons to protect our lives. >> how is your family, have you been able to speak to them? >> the same situation, my native district does not exist anymore. i could not connect my parents and brothers for eight days. >> what would you tell the president of the united states if you had a chance to speak with him right now? >> we see a strong support and we are thankful for support from

all over the world from the usa but we realized that we are faced with an awful situation when putin started his operation. we understand putin taking ukraine. 16 days before we were a peaceful country and we were proud to be ukrainian and live in mariupol but after invasion of russian army now we faced with -- we'll do our best to protect our lives and the lives of our children and women. we ask for to continue this help and strengthen sanctions and give us an opportunity to protect our lives from this. we ask for the weapons to the tun to protect our lives.

>> sergei orlov. thank you for being with us, thank you, thank you. >> thank you. we are keeping an eye on the white house. susan wild joins us days after returning from the poland/ukrainian borders. what brought her and fellow members to tears. next, you are watching "jose diaz-balart reports." art report. for investors who can navigate this landscape, leveraging gold, a strategic and sustainable asset... the path is gilded with the potential for rich returns.

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19 past the hour, any moment now president biden is expected to speak. we'll bring it to you live as soon as it happens. meanwhile, the senate passed a bill last night. with us garret haake and geoff bennett. how big of an impact will it have? >> it requires an act of congress, jose, the house senators are poised to move as early as next week. this is another way isolate putin regime for its retaliation and bloody invasion of ukraine. >> garret, the funding for

ukraine is more than double than what the white house initially asked for. is congress prepared to pass these additional funds as geoff was saying it could happen as early as next week. >> that's right, congress has been itching to get into the fight here and try to do more to support ukraine and punish russia. geoff is right, we could see tariffs passed as early as next week. and pointing the president in this direction asking i am to review russia's status as far as being a trading partner is concerned and ask for appropriating more money to send ukraine. that's probable to likely depending on how long this conflict goes on. that money added to this bigger spending bill kind of help speed the passage through the senate. lawmakers may have otherwise held their nose at passing a giant government funding bill.

this money specifically to get out the door to ukraine as fast as possible and we are willing to vote for that reason. >> garret haake and geoff bennett, thank you. joining us now is congresswoman susan wild, she just returned from the ukrainian border and also in the house affairs committee. great seeing you. any moment we'll be hearing from the president set to revoke normal trade relations with russia. what's your conversation with your colleagues on this issue. >> the bipartisan trip i was just on with an equal number of democrats and republicans on the trip, there was no light between us in terms of supporting for ukraine and feeling the united states and administration and congress has to do everything we possibly can. and so look i will take a hard look at further funds that are being appropriated next week for ukraine, i first want to know

how we spend the first amount, more sanctions are essential. let me just say i am a little bit concerned of the fact that we have not yet authorize the transfer of these old russian war planes that are in poland's possession. i defer to general millie and secretary austin on that decision. the bipartisan consensus when we left poland needs to happen as soon as possible. they may well be in possession of intel that i am not aware of. i am not second guessing them, i want to know eventually what the reason is. >> it is interesting because it seems like poland is proactively doing everything and anything they can to help ukraine, not only taking in millions of people that are leaving that country because of the invasion but also willing to get rid of

their planes either without receiving american planes apparently until that can happen. yet it seems like i don't know -- what is it the united states you think could be doing more? >> well, as i said when we left poland with a full expectation that this transfer of the war planes that poland had in possession, old russia war planes that ukrainian pilots are well equipped to fly. we thought that was going to happen and i don't know why it is not happening. i defer to the top on that, i hope they have a really good justification for it. the problem is modern wars are flattening air. it is wonderful that the united states and all of the nato allies are sending all kinds of military equipment and ammunition and bullet proof vests and everything else in ukraine including weapons that are being used by civilians at

this point. i am very, very concerned about whether we are seating the aerospace to putin. i just, i am not comfortable with that at this point. i understand the concern of escalation and that kind of thing. putin considers everything we do including providing humanitarian aid to be escalation. i am worried we are delaying the inevitable. >> yeah, i keep on thinking the concerns for maybe the invader will react negatively. thousands of people taking out of that city during chernobyl and there were people there that could have helped, the concern is let's not upset the upsetter. go ahead. sorry.

>> i was just going to say i don't want to under state how much we are doing and the nato allies are doing. there is awfully a lot being done but i want to make sure we do everything we can. >> what did you bring back from that visit to the border? >> i brought back the sense of urgency. as i said, we were in complete consensus, there was not anything we disagree on as we were flying back and talking about what needed to be done. we were all talking about the fact that we got back on monday evening, we are talking about the fact that we really wanted to see a vote that night on appropriating this money for ukraine. as it turned out it happened on wednesday night. but, what i have took back is the incredible heart aches, we saw thousands of refugees coming

in the border, mostly women with their children and some elderly people and some disabled folks. the look on their faces, the exhaustion and the small amount of possession they were carryings with them which was so clear they had left in a great hurry. it was devastating. devastating to be that close. we saw them, we heard them and we touched them. i will never forget that experience and i will never forget the ukrainian people that we saw and most of all, we all need to grieve for the ukrainians who have already lost their lives in this terrible, illegal invasion. >> congresswoman susan wild, thank you so much for being with us. i so appreciate it. >> thank you. >> any moment president biden is set to announce the u.s. will cut normal trade relations with russia. we'll bring it right here to you live as russian troops get

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let's go right to the white house, president biden. i talked to president zelenskyy, i told them they are bravely fighting to defend their country, they are doing that. as putin continues his assault the united states and our allies are continuing to work in lock steps. later today together other nato allies and g7, canada, germany, italy and japan and united kingdom as well as the european union, we'll join to announce several steps to hold him accountable for his aggression against ukraine. i want to speak to a few points today. each of our nations are going to

take steps in our most favorite nation status to russia, two countries have agreed to trade under the best possible terms, low tariffs and few barriers and the highest possible imports allowed. in the united states we call this permanent normal trade relations, pmtr, revoing pmtr for russia it is going to make it hard for russia to do business with the united states. their economy is already suffering badly from our sanctions. i want to thank speaker pelosi and leader schumer and mcconnell, for their bipartisan leadership on this in the congress. i would like to offer especially thanks for speaker pelosi for

reving pmtr and agreed to hold off until i can line our allies to keep us unison. unity among our allies are critically important. standing for democracy in ukraine, pushing russia aggression should not be one of those issues. the free world is coming together to confront putin. our two parties at home are leading at home. i am looking forward to sign into law the bill revoking pmtr. which is again most people think it is most favorite nation status. we are taking further steps banning import goods from several signature sectors including seafood, vodka and diamond.

putin is anaggressor, he's the aggressor, he must pay the price. he's doing the foundation of international peace and stability and asking for finance help from the international community. the g7 will also step in pressure on corrupt russian billionaires. we are adding new names to the russian oligarchs and their families we are targeting. we are increasing among g7 countries. they support putin, they steal from the russian people and they seek to hide their money in our country. they must share the pain of these sanctions. and, while we are going after these super yachts and vacation homes worth hundreds of millions

of dollars, we are also going to make it harder for them to buy high-end products and manufactures in our country. we are banning exports of luxury goods to russians. it is not the last step we are going to take, at the beginning of all these steps, we'll hit putin harder, we are acting in unison with our partners and allies. we are crushing russia's economy. the ruble lost more than half its value. it takes about 200 ruble equals $1 these days. they know the moment it opens, it will probably collapse. credit agency is downgrading russia's government to junk status. their economy to junk status. a group of businesses and

international corporations leaving russia by the day. we are continuing to close corporations with our allies and partners to make sure the close cooperation we have for the ukrainian people to defend their own nation. the united states sent $1 billion in assistance to ukraine, including antiarmour and tanks and helicopters. we in the united states facilitating security assistance from our allies and partners to ukraine. we are working closely with the u.n. and humanitarian organizations to support the people of ukraine who have been displaced. we are providing tens of thousands of tons of human supplies, humanitarian supplies, food, water, medicines coming pie truck and train every single day. yesterday in poland, vice

president harris announced additional $53 million additional humanitarian support to ukraine. that brings the total humanitarian assistance to $170 million in two weeks. we are joined this effort of more than 30 countries providing hundreds of millions more. last night a great credit to congress passed the bipartisan spending bill that included additional $13.6 billion. assistance to the ukrainian people. i will look forward to signing that immediately. i want to be clear though, we'll make sure ukraine has weapons to defend the invasion force. we'll send money and food and aid to save ukrainian people. i will welcome ukrainian refugees, we welcome here with open arms because they need access and we'll provide more support to ukraine. we'll continue to stand together

with our allies and europe sending unmistakable message. we'll defend every inch of nato territory, we'll united and galvanize nato. we'll not fight a war against russia in ukraine, direct confrontation between nato and russia is world war iii. something we must strive to prevent. we already know putin's war against ukraine will never be a victory. he hopes to dominate, he failed. he hopes to split apart american democracy, he failed. the american people are united, the world is united and we stand with the people of ukraine. we'll not let autocrats dictate our direction of the world. our democracy are rising to meet this moment, rallying in the world of the side of peace and

security. we are showing our strengths and we'll not falter. god bless all of you, and ukraine and god bless our troops. >> russia may use chemical weapons, what evidence have you seen showing that and would the u.s. have a military response if putin launch it? >> i am not going to speak about the intelligence but russia will pay a severe price with these chemical weapons. >> president biden at the white house announcing the united states will revoke pmtr. joining us now, ambassador william taylor, former ambassador to ukraine and now

vice president for russia and with us clint watt. ambassador, i want your reaction to these move just announced by the president. >> jose, another indication of this strong united push against russia and in favor of ukraine. i am very pleased to see that president biden said he talked to president zelenskyy just before he made this announcement. that alliance, that partnership between united states and ukraine is really important and the unity of the broader alliance that is taken these economic measures and military measures is also key. that unity is what president biden emphasized and i think he's right to emphasize that it is important that allies join these sanctions and allies

continue to provide weapons to ukraine. as he said ukraine is fighting this alone. there are no other nations that have troops on the ground there. they are fighting russia alone and russia will not stop ukraine if they are allowed to succeed. they can't be allowed to succeed. >> ambassador, it is interesting so pretty much universe now understanding sanctions and embargoes are actually good, effective policy to change the behavior of governments, autocrats, dictators. >> jose, we had hoped the threat of these sanctions would deter president putin from making this horrible decision, this strategic blunder, he's going to regret having made that decision knowing what was coming, knowing the extent of and the depth of

and he made a decision to attack any way. many of his own soldiers. he was not deterred and now these sanctions are affecting the russian people and russian families and they are not able to understand why their leader is causing this. they're not understanding why their sons and daughters and brothers and fathers are coming back to be buried from ukraine, from a friendly nation that they have no beef with, no complaints and no threat from ukraine and solely russian people are burying these price and sanctions and seeing the ruble going out of site, 200 to 1 and

seeing the exchange rate that's hammering them. this is the end. they're saying their soldiers die. russian people are paying the price for their leader's bad decisions. >> clint, you have been so clear on the movement of the russian troops throughout ukraine, we see a change in tactics or is this really part of the play book of the russians in other war experiences they had, syria? >> what we saw over the last three weeks is a shift from week one where they tried do a daring and three-front attack with a political coup, that failed. here in the south you probably remember last week we were talking about them taking mariupol and taking kherson and

now mykolaiv, they are more successful here. i think an important thing to look at is what's happening in the north, you ask jose about what we have seen from russia and other theaters, i think this is what we have seen. last week we were speaking a lot about this convoy that was bogged down here, that convoy is now making a move, essentially trying to move west and the reason is they want to grab battle positions out here to the west and create a blocking position to stop, most of this humanitarian aid, president biden is talking about is coming in from the west. if they can establish positions here, slowly trying to surround the city, however, even with this army formation here, up here, same thing, ukrainian military is doing particularly well. that's the footage of what we saw last night if you are out on social media, you are seeing these russian military convoys,

no disciplines and no tactics, this is a uav strike. you can see ukrainians using tanks, causing a lot for the russian military. i am concerned of resupply, at the same point i am not sure russia can sustain and actually take kyiv the way the battle is going now. >> we are so concerned of mariupol, we had the mayor there talking about they have no electricity, no water, no access to anything and yet there they are still continuing to fight but it is like -- they're starting -- >> yes, in the east, whether

sumy or kharkiv, these are cities complete devastation and in direct fire. we are here in kharkiv, ukrainian military still have success and this is close to the russian border. that's why that notion of chemical attacks came up from the white house surpass a couple of days. chemical attack, the location is not far out of kharkiv, something to watch here if you are by passing population centers, the russian military are doing that. you can't clear them but you don't want to level a city. that's when chemical weapons come into play. we saw that in syria of a similar play book in terms of

the assad regime. this is something we have to keep an eye here the next two or three weeks. thank you both very much. >> up next, we are going to ukraine, speaking to a baker who's making sure his neighbors have food to eat. you are watching "jose diaz-balart reports." tresemme. do it with style. here's candice... who works from home, and then works from home. but she can handle pickup, even when her bladder makes a little drop-off. because candice has poise,

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only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. ♪ 52 past the hour. right now millions of ukrainians are under attack and many are struggling to find food. our next guest has stepped up to find bread for those in need. joining us now from outside of kyiv, creator of bake for ukraine. what exactly are you doing? how are you inspired to do this? >> well, the first hours of the war, no one was prepared. no one from the ukrainians ever believed that this could happen to us. but after shock was gone, then there was question, what do we do? do we escape?

i have national family, my wife is dutch. but then somehow after praying and thinking god laid on our hearts, we have a bakery. the bakery was a charity project for employment for down syndrome kids and i'm working for a bakery ingredients company and we have a lot of ingredients on stock, which obviously already we could not use because in the first hours of the war, we were cut off from the rest of ukraine for some period because i'm located, where it was bombed yesterday. so we decided we'll use all those things we have to bake bread and to distribute it for free among people and then we started also making soup. so now already for the third week every day we give free of charge bread and warm soup and in all this craziness of the war, we try to give the people

sign of home and normality and we do it with quite a big group of volunteers. it's becoming smaller and smaller every day because people are still leaving this place but a lot of older people and especially families with disabled kids or families that are caring for disabled people, they stay and they cannot move and we distribute those foods and breads every day to the families and in this way we try to fight our war. >> and how many pieces of bread, how many bowls of soup are you able to give people? >> well, now we are making 1,700 loaves of bread and we are giving out about 2,000 portions of soup per day. and so far we have -- the beauty is when i started i went on my facebook just giving daily

updates and people stepped in. you know, we are getting so much support, collecting funds in the u.s., in europe and some people provide us with chicken, some people are bringing sugar and flour so we are able to feed the people and for the third week and we have enough now for two months to feed the group of people which are coming to us. >> and of course the prayers are that this doesn't continue, that it doesn't get worse. are you prepared for this continuing, for this to get worse, personally, your family, the people? >> it's a difficult question, my family decided to stay here as long as they will announce a full occupation. in some places the russians are just making complete bombardment

so they just flatten down the cities. so in case it will happen with this town, then of course we'll have to flight because there is physical no possibility to go out or to serve people and there will be physically no people and normally bringing army in before. somehow they know this moment. so until that moment we stay and actually i'm collecting now as much as possible raw materials in case we'll have a blockade of kyiv, and we have enough supplies for a few months even. >> thank you for being with us and thank you for what you're doing. it really says a lot about you and where your soul is at. thank you for being with us this morning. >> thank you. >> the u.n. estimates more than 2.5 million have fled ukraine, most of them women and children. the u.n. population fund warns the conflict compounds the

vulnerability of women and girls as humanitarian needs spiral. thank you for being with us. what are the risks now for women, children, other vulnerable people that are forced to flee their country almost instantaneously? >> unfortunately, jose, there are a lot of risks when it comes to that, particularly because they're flowing into a lot of countries where there are criminal elements and gangs that thrive on the human trafficking and sexual trafficking business. and these are women and children coming in. the most vulnerable. they're not coming in with their husbands, they're not coming in with their fathers or their brothers or male family members so it makes them particularly vulnerable. and we're seeing this outpouring of support we didn't see in 2015 with people showing up at the train station, showing up at the border offering their homes and i have no doubt that the majority of them have a pure genuine intention. unfortunately, there are also groups that do not have that

pure intention and we have to think about those refugees that are going to be caught in their traps. so i'm hoping that these governments are going to work harder with these refugee organizations that are there, organizations that have experience in this. we saw in 2015 that the governments and these organizations were able to build facilities to hold the refugees, to register them until they could find them placement. and what i hope that these governments would do more and i'm not really seeing that is that they would work with these organizations to register the refugees but also register the people that are offering their homes. so we know where these refugees are going. unfortunately we're not seeing much that much and it terrifies me. it really does terrify me for what that means to some of these women and children. >> it's so important and i thank you for bringing this to life because there are millions of people that are flowing into different places, many don't

have any family, don't know anyone. and then there are those who aren't working from the goodness of their heart. how can we help them? >> how we could help is actually to reach out to these organizations to push and put pressure on them to make sure that they're doing this. it's easier to just assume that someone has good intention and let them go through, but we need to put pressure on them and the government, really talk to the organizations, talk to the police, talk to representatives to make sure that they're doing more. unfortunately we, you know, when this is all said and done, there are going to be great stories that come out of the human heart when it comes to the support that the refugees did receive but we also have to brace ourselves for the horror stories. we can't say that we didn't know it was coming. >> always so, so important. thank you.

that wraps up the hour for me. i'm jose diaz-balart. i'll see you tomorrow night on nbc nightly news saturday. be sure to follow the show online. thank you for the privilege of your time. craig melvin picks up with more news right now. and a good friday morning to you. craig melvin here following new developments with russia's invasion of ukraine. president biden says that he just spoke to president zelenskyy and in that conversation he reinforced u.s. support for ukraine. president biden also announced a new way, a new way that the united states is going to demonstrate that support, an end to russia's, quote, most favorite trading status. >> doing it in