grassley. chairman durbin notes she's been confirmed three times before including for her current position on the d.c. court of appeals. we're going to start this very special coverage with our team of reporters and experts. chuck rosenberg, a senior u.s. attorney and eugene daniels, co-author of the play book "news letter." chuck, what will you be looking for and listening for from the committee and judge jackson as these hearings get under way? >> academically and experiencially she's a sue superb candidate. i was a prosecutor for many years, i never wanted to be a public defender but thank goodness we have public

defenders, we live in a country that values their work, the protections of the 4th, 5 and 6th amendments. we need advocates on the other side, she did that work. she did it honorably and well and i just hope, i just hope she's not attacked for doing that. that would be sad and it would be pathetic. >> and we are seeing ketanji brown jackson now talking to some members of the senate. it's worth pointing out and dick durbin talked about this this morning that she spent a lot of time on capitol hill. she met with every member of the judiciary and dozens more. members of the u.s. senate, he said some treated her like a start. as we watch this, they're getting ready to be seated, ali. who is going to speak first? how long are we thinking this is going to last today? >> chris, once this kicks off, we are in for several lengthy days up here on capitol hill. today we're in for about five

hours. senators on both sides of the aisle will give their opening statements and then once they're done, we'll hear from judge ketanji brown jackson. we know she has been having conversations with lawmakers as you laid out meeting with more than 40 of them, according to the team that has been sherpaing her and the hill here. there are going to be questions about judicial philosophy, something we have heard from multiple senators who have met with her and of course on the republican side, the jackson team up here, the confirmation team is prepared for those attack lines of her being soft on crime. instead what they hope to do is bolster her resumé by those endorsements she's gotten from chiefs of police, trying to make this as elevated from the partisanship of the hill as possible. this is often a building that gets bogged down between right and left. what the white house is hoping their nominee can do is bring it

out of that and instead focus on her qualifications. >> let's go listen to dick durbin. >> welcome, judge jackson, to you and your family. >> thank you, senator. >> this is a moment that you have much to be proud of. i know you have members and friends and we all look forward to hearing those introductions later. at the outset i want to note that i was sorry to hear that clarence thomas was hospitalized yesterday. i speak for all the members of the committee in wishing him a speedy recovery. the committee has ten minutes to make an opening statement. we'll hear from thomas griffith

and professor fairfax. each will have five minutes for the opening statement. finally we'll administer the oath to judge jackson. for those sitting in the audience, welcome. i ask you to be respectful and quiet during the hearing. don't stand up unless you're entering or exiting the room. if you refuse to sit down when asked, you will b escorted out. any disruption will result in immediate removal. judge jackson, as i said, again, thank you for being here today with your family.

the supreme court has a long and storied history, has been filled by many superb justices. the rule of law has stood the test of time. but the reality is that the court's members have never really reflected the nation they served. when the supreme court met for the very first time in 1790 in the exchange building, there were nearly 700,000 slaves in this new nation of nearly 4 million. neither african-americans nor women had the right to vote. there was no equal justice for a majority of people living in america. for more than 230 years, the supreme court has had justices, 108 have been white men. just would justices have been men of color and just one a woman of color.

justice. >> it's not easy being first. you have to be the best, in some ways the bravest, not prepared to faus that kind of heat and scrutiny. but your presence here today is to brave this process will give inspiration to millions who see themselves in you. as i mentioned to you i was on the steps of the supreme court this morning to see the rally. there were so many young african-american women there seeing your pursuit.

equal justice under the law. so today is a proud day for america. we've come a long way since 1890 and we know we still have to form a more perfect union. it's a moment that the lapt senator from illinois paul simon said to judge ruth bader ginsburg at her hearing. he said you face no harsher judge than this committee. and that judgment is likely to revolve around the question, did she restrict freedom or did she expand it in.

>> while we cannot replace experience or wisdom, i will seek someone with a record of excellent and integrity and dead case to the rule of law and a keen understanding of the daily lives of america. we keep -- we have a nominee who

embodies the same qualities in the justices. you're independent minded and i understand the critical importance of judicial independence. your record speaks from integrity from the championship debate team to harvard and harvard law school. to your three judicial clerkships. throughout your career you've been a champion for the rule of law, even at the risk of public criticism. at the state sentencing commission, a bipartisan group which reflects america's thinking on law enforcement, you set up a truly represented congressional attempt. and you did it by finding some common ground. during your tenure on that commission, 85% of the

commission's votes were either unanimous -- for example, they reduced the 100-1 disparity and you joined every one of your colleagues to make that change retroactive. the vote in favor of retro activity is unanimous. and you've got to great lengths to explain how the law affects people. we can be confident that the court, its role and its decisions will be more understandable to the american public. in your time on the bench you take the time to explain your decisions and the consequences. when you were before this

committee for a d.c. circuit hearing, you spoke of how you take extra care to communicate to parties. quote, i speak to them directly and not just to their lawyers. i use their names. i explain every part of the proceeding because i want them to know what's going on. the cameras and the light here today can make it easy at its core to know the responsibility you seek is one of service. i'm confident you'll serve all americans fairly and faithfully. there may be some who claim without a shred of evidence that you'll be a rubber stamp for this president. for them i have four words, look at the record. your complete record has been scoured by this committee on four different occasions. all of your nearly 600 written opinions, read and reread, 12,000 pages of transcripts, reading minute and other

materials for the sentencing commission. your sworn testimony before the committee was a year ago. every word you've written or spoken. for those who say they need more, i would answer that you have sat down personally with every member of the committee, democrats and republicans. a fair review of all of this makes clear your values and your guided principles. you've ruled for and against both parties and you've been faithful not to any person or political cause. there may be others who allege that you're before us because of a campaign of dark money groups. once again the process would belie that claim. in selecting you as a nominee,

president biden undertook a transparent selection process. senator grassley and i met in the oval room with the president. he invited us to proffer any nominees that we cared to do. at the end of the day the president alone chose you. he's put his faith in you to deliver justice to the highest level of the court. i share that faith. in announcing your nomination the president spoke to many reasons that you deserve to sit on the high court. he noted you as the third justice since thurgood marshal and only the second current justice, only the second to serve as a federal trial court judge he also noted your upbringing, the fact that you come from a law enforcement family. despite that shared family experience and your record, we've heard claims that you're, quote, soft on crime. he's baseless charges are

unfair. a conservative national review columnist call claims brought by one of my colleagues demagoguery. fact checkers including "the washington post," abc news and cnn have exposed some of these charges as falsehoods. critics have even stooped to accuse you of sharing the views of the clients you represented, even though they know your work as an attorney was in service to a bill of rights. with law enforcement officials and organizations, including the international association of police, the national organization of black law enforcement executive have endorsed your nomination. if you were soft on crime, of course not. in closing i want to share the

words of one more illinoisan, a rather famous one of abraham lincoln. >> president lincoln addressed the 166th ohio regimen, he said to the soldier, quote, i happen temporarily to occupy this big white house. i am living witness that one of your children may look to come here as my father's child has. judge jackson, we are all just temporary occupants of the senate, the house and even with a lifetime appointment to the highest court of the land. you are one of mr. jackson's living witnesses, willing to risk change and confident of the basic good of our citizens and you're living witness to the fact that an america all is possible. i now recognize my colleagues

and friends. >> judge jackson, congratulations. welcome to you and your family. i thank you for taking time to visit with me in my office after the president nominated you. sin president biden announced his nominee for the supreme court, i've been encouraging my colleagues to schedule meetings with you, judge jackson. and in addition, i've continually emphasized the need for a thorough, respectful process by the committee. now i want to talk a bit about what everyone watching should expect from this hearing and what they shouldn't expect at the hearing we will conduct a thorough, exhaustive examination of judge jackson's record and views. we won't try to turn this into a spectacle based upon alleged process faults. good news on that front, we're

off to a very good start. unlike the start to the kavanaugh hearings, we didn't have repeated choreographed interruptions of chairman durbin in his opening statements, like democrats interrupted me for an hour during my opening statements on the kavanaugh hearings we will ask tough questions about judge jackson's judicial philosophy. in any supreme court nomination, the most important thing that i look for is the nominee's view of the law, judicial philosophy and view on the role of a judge in our constitutional system. i'll be looking to see whether judge jackson is committed to the constitution as originally understood. we all know there's a difference of opinion about the role judges should play. some of us believe judges are

supposed to interpret the law as understood when written, not make new law or simply fill in vacuums. those of us who share that view think that under our constitution congress and not the federal courts are given the authority to make law and to set policy. now there are others who believe that the courts should make policy. they believe in a so-called living constitution. they think that the constitution's text and structure don't limit with a judge can do. to them deciding what the constitution means is really a, quote unquote, value judgment. under that approach, judges can exercise their own independent value judgments. one of the leading advocates for this approach explained that as a judge, you, quote, reach the

answer that essentially your values tell you to reach, end of quote. in other words, those who subscribe to this philosophy think that the founders really meant to hide elephants in mouse holes and then with a bit of creativity, these judges can always find that elephant. that sound like a good job description instead for legislators and not for judges. but for at least four years democrats systematically voted against many well credentialed nominees that were diverse professionally, diverse geographically, diverse religiously and diverse ethnically. was it racist or anti-women for

them to do so? i don't believe that it was. democrats did it because the nominees didn't agree with living constitutionalism, just as republicans have opposed nominees waste upon their judicial philosophy. there are lots of problems with living constitutionalism. in the senate, we spend a lot of time writing legislation. we argue over the language. we negotiate over how broad or narrow certain provisions of laws should be. if we can't convince our colleagues of all of our ideas, we've been known to compromise once in a while. we rely on judges to interpret laws as we write them. if judges impose their own policy preferences from the bench and essentially revise the laws we pass, it makes it harder for us to write good laws.

sometimes we need to include a provision that's very broad to get a colleague's support. if a judge rewrites a law later because of vague notions about fairness or equity or common good, that unravels all of our work here in the congress. more importantly, the american people should be able to read the law and know what it means. they shouldn't have to ask how a federal judge who disagrees with the law could reinterpret the words on that page. all of this leads to the conclusion as to why we must carefully examine federal judges' record, especially supreme court nominees. judging jackson served as an assistant public defender,

priority practice and as a federal district court judge and served on the d.c. circuit suns since last year. i'm sure people will have questions. there have been some accusations that we cherry picked some of judge jackson's criminal cases. well, don't worry, we're going to talk about other cases as well. i was disappointed that we weren't able to get bipartisan agreement to ask for judge jackson's documents from her time of the sentencing commission, an independent agency created to advise and assist congress in the development of effective and efficient crime policy and that's a quote. unfortunately it sounds like we'll have to wait until those

documents are required to be released and that will be about 20 years from now. democrats have argued for time -- democrats have argued that judge jackson's time on the commission is an important part of her experience that she'll draw on as a judge. the democrats are right on that point. that's why it would have been good to see what her views were as the head of the commission explained in a letter to senator durbin, the public documents turned over to this committee represent the consensus views of the commission and not necessarily judge jackson's own views. the obama white house sent us roughly 68,000 pages of

material. but more than 38,000 are keeping track of the tweets about the garland nomination. those contain just one tweet about judge jackson. more than 13,000 of the 68,000 pages are just lists of previous nominations. so that leaves only 16,000 of 68,000 that we received from the white house that aren't obviously useless like all the other documents we received. but for comparison, the white house has still withheld 48 48,000 pages under the presidential record and foia exemptions. that's a lot of hiding.

but the limited number of useful records we receive from the obama white house show why the sentencing commission documents would have been important. there are a number of dark money groups on the left that argue medical judges hud make policy decisions based on judges' own values. i i talked about the troubling role that dark money groups have played in this jujs selection process. when they demand justices give short lists and new litmus tests and cam pawns attacking the independence of the judiciary, they strongly supported the so-called progressive prosecutors who are soft on violent crime in the face of rising crime waves in cities luke san francisco,

philadelphia, boston and los angeles. now what does that have to do with the nominee before us? the obama white house record indicate that a co-founder of the demand justice played in an important role in judge jackson's nom naugs to the stensing commission -- not nak to the sentencing commission and the district court. it would be helpful to know what demand justice co-founder learned from that process and why they strongly support judge jackson. however, it hasn't all been bad on the document front. i want to make clear. we asked for briefs that aren't valuable online for d.c. circuit cases judge jackson worked on as an attorney. at first we were told they might not be able for a few weeks, but

to our pleasant surprise, we received them early, apparently because the white house had asked for the documents as well. >> does this corn judge jackson's time as an assistant public defender. democrats have accused republicans of vilifying nominees who have represented criminal defendants. that's just not the case and i think that's a very unfair sakes. previous nominees have also represented defendants on appeals. chief justice roberts was appointed by the supreme court to represent a defendant in an important criminal law case and he also helped represent an

inmate in a florida death row. and justice barrett represented a criminal defendant appealing their conviction while she was in private practice. now, i distinguish between two types of nominees who have worked in criminal cases there are bill of rights attorneys, who want to protect defendants' constitutional rights. then there are what i call criminal defense lawyers who disagree with our criminal laws. they want to undermine laws that they have policy disagreements with and of course that's a very important difference. just a year ago -- maybe it's now two years ago democrats had no trouble opposing nominees based on arguments these nominees made on behalf of clients. i could read off quotes of democrats doing that to trump nominees, but we only have a few minutes for these opening

statements and i've run out of time. on a final note, during justice barrett's confirmation hearing, democrats said that she would, quote, unquote, judicial torpedo aiming at protecting protections for preexisting conditions. we heard that argument repeatedly. conservatives and anyone who actually looked at her record and laws said that that was strictly nonsense. but democrats were sure otherwise. well, when that case was finally decided, democrats were proven wrong. i'm sure that won't deter my democrat colleagues this time around as well, but the public record should remember their track record and perhaps take those claims with a grain of

salt. they were wrong in their strong declarations how justice barrett would rule. judge jackson, congratulations on your nomination. i look forward to hear and your jujs philosophy. thank you. . >> okay. so we are going to continue to keep a very close eye on the hearing, that historic moment at the capitol. i'm craig melvin picking up our coverage now. you just heard from the chairman of that committee, senator dick durbin and senator chuck grassley as well. senator durbin unsurprisingly hailing judge ketanji brown jackson and her judicial record.

we should also note that judge jackson will be introduced and give her statement. that will not happen for several hours now. we'll check in and go back to listen live once judge jackson starts. perhaps you've noticed at the bottom of your screen there there's a qr code. we have put that qr code at the bottom of your screen because if you'd like to watch and listen, you can do that by scanning the qr code. that will take you to the hearing live in full but, again, you just heard senator durbin start the hearing and then you heard senator chuck grassley as well, also perhaps unsurprisingly spending a fair amount of time talking about the obama white house, talking about missing documents, talking about the hearing for justice kavanaugh and also heard him mention trump. he heard about living constitutionalism as well.

and then what could perhaps be viewed as a prebuttal of sorts, he all but said that any attack that judge jackson might experience over the next few days should not be viewed as sexist or racist. we'll dig into that in just a moment but back in with me, ali i vitale is on capitol hill and chris jansing is back with us as well. let me start with you, ali, just outside the hearing room. any clues we should glean from those opening remarks, the ranking member or the chairman of the committee about this process and how it could play out? >> reporter: craig, i think there's a lot we can predict off just those last 20 or so minutes that we've heard so far. the mood in the room is somber,

it serious. the friends and family who are there supporting judge jackson listening intently to what the senators are saying there. what we heard from dick durbin is likely what we're going to hear from other democrats who are going to speak today and what we heard from ranking member chuck grassley is also what we'll likely hear as those who will accuse of her being soft on crime. she's done dozens of meetings with both parties. i've been standing outside the room for an hour as senators have been coming in and as her friends have been coming into the room. i talked to the judge's three close girl friends from harvard. there's a lot of nervous energy around them. i asked if they've talked to

their friend yet this morning and they said yes, with a grin. that learned to the energy in the room. in terms of choreography here, we have a long day here today and it going to be longer tuesday and wednesday. what we've seen so far, charm durbin and senator grassley, i believe it's his 16th confirmation hearing. they each get about ten minutes they will ping-pong back and for the between the 11 democrats and the 11 republicans on this 22-person committee, each giving their opening statements, all but with a little bit of a break for lunch in just a little while here. we're going to have a long day here hearing from both members of both parties before we even

hear from the judge herself. >> we just saw senator leahy. these are opening statements. this is not the questioning period. we will take that in its entirety tomorrow. but chris jansing. senator grassley said for at least four years democrats systematically voted against many well credentialed nominees that were diverse professionally, geographically, religiously or ethically. the democrats did it because the nominees didn't agree with living constitutionalism. one would assume, chris jansing, that is going to be a theme or variation of a theme we're going to be hearing a hot of over the next few house about that. >> if ketanji brown jackson is actually confirmed as expected,

she'll bring tremendous diversity to the court and i'm not just talking about the historic nature of her being the first black woman on the court. she glue up in florida, the third most diverse state in the country, she was on the sentencing economics and was also a public defenders. those are positions that don't exist on the court right now and also she comes from a law enforcement family. that's important because many of her supporters will use that against those charges that we heard and we, again, that you mentioned, heard a bubble on that that she's soft on crime. the reason that's going to be a theme over and over and over again are the political some say joe biden is trying to stack the court with people who are soft on crimes. there's another aspect, which is that three of the republican

senators on the judiciary be committee, cruise, ot so it wouldn't hurt them if they go a. even though we have heard from some of the leaders of the republican party that they want this not to be that kind of hearing, they want her to be treated respectfully. look, bottom loon is this is a 50-50 senate with vice president harris as the tie-broking vote if it's needed. virtually her. it not sure that the hearings will be free of drama. >> you have a number of folks pras. >> the moment that stuck out to me, chairman durbin saying that some on the panel are likely

going to and husband answer to them, again, a prebutt al of sorts was, quote being look at the record. how will her record speak for itself, chuck in? it's a great question. every judge decides rng on the facts and the facts and the law line up for a particular party and that's the way she'll decide. i don't believe for a moment that she'll be a rubber stamp for nub. i think eem. and the statement that being a plk defender is the same as being soft on crime. i'd like to speak to that for a

moment. i was a prosecutor almost my entire career in the department of justice pi never wanted to be a blackdoo and two individual defendants reb and there's no need to point to the fact that she has family members with a law enforcement background. i think that's an aside. what matters is the 4, 5 and 6th amendments to our constitution, which afford rights to defendants, are not self-executing. they need someone to speak up for them and for their rights. she did that work. it's hon rashl work, it's good work and it important work and it is far from being the same as soft on crime. >> chuck, really, really quickly, this is a confirmation hearing that does not in any

tangible way change the ideological make-up of the high court. to are that reason do you suspect that maybe, just maybe these con fourmation hearings won't be the wind kind of side show that they have been in nominations past? >> gosh, i hope so. senator grassley said at the outset this wouldn't be a spectacle. we'll see. lucy always say she'll hold the football for charlie brown to kick through the upright and she never does. so let's see what happens. >> chuck rosenberg with the peanuts reference on a monday morning just right outside the room as it's always happening as we watch history unfold. and a very special thanks for chris jansing, not just for opening the broadcast today because i was stuck in traffic, but chris is going to be leading our coverage of these hearings all week on msnbc.

chuck grassley has seen about 16 of them and chris jansing not far behind. thank you for shepherding our coverage over the next few days. meanwhile, other breaking news on the supreme court, justice clarence thomas still in the hospital with flu-like and he's been getting intravenous antibiotics for an infection after being admitted on friday. he is still going to be participating in cases. justice thomas could be released in the next few days. we'll be keeping all u we expect opening stiemts last a few more hours. there is a 30-minute lunch break as well. we'll go back to the hearing live to hear from judge jackson when she spokes later this afternoon. first, though, the latest on the

war in ukraine. ukrainian officials say at least eight people were killed when the russians shelled this shopping center in kyivover night. we'll go live to western you and at this pour, what the white house wants to accomplish before the president's trip to brussels and warsaw this week. to brusses and warsaw this week i said, "i want you to talk about insurance." well, most people know that bundling home and auto -saves you money. -keep saying your words. but did you know that new customers who bundle and save with progressive can save an average of $800? shh. sleeping baby. i love you, too. [upbeat acoustic music throughout]

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. right now we are keeping an eye on the white house for any updates on a crucial phone call that president biden is on right now. the president is speaking with the leaders of france, germany, italy and the united kingdom. of course they're talking about the ongoing war in ukraine. the leaders are all set to meet face to face later this week in brussels for that nato summit. overnight we learned that president biden will also be making a stop in poland after the summit. meanwhile in ukraine's capital, in kyiv, russians shelling overnight and damaged apartments nearby. the mayor of kyiv is warning anyone going outside to protect themselves from air pollution caused from russia as air strikes. let's bring in our team.

mike memoli, we understand it started at the top of the hour, the call. have we heard anything yet about the call, any readouts yet or how it going to factor in to president biden's upcoming trip this week? >> not yet, craig. the latest guidance is that call convened at 11:14. it's been under way for about a half hour at this stage. when you look ahead to his trip to brussels, he'll be sitting down as one of 30 members of the nato alliance, joining the other 27 heads of government from the union countries, the european council, as it's called, wells the g-7. so this meeting with the other four members are the beating heart of all three of those bodies. it's been helping to set the table, the agenda, for what they

will be discussing later this week. this trip critical for this president, scheduled just in the last week or so. an opportunity for the president to lay out what the united states, what our allies have already done to further deter a russian invasion, russian aggression against ukraine. and lay out plainly why the u.s. is able to do some of the things, offensive weaponry rather than defensive weaponry, the no-fly zone, which the president has been clear would in his view put the u.s. in the position of world war iii. and an opportunity to show our support for an ally, see the refugee flow firsthand. an important opportunity today

for the president to prepare for the trip later this week, craig. >> mike, thank you. we've got a map up route now that's showing russian control of ukraine. we want to put that map back up so folks can actually digest the information. gabe, there are two subjects that are very likely being discussed as we speak between president biden and the aforementioned leaders of the european countries. russia's escalating attacks in kyiv, the capital and also in mariupol and the demand by vladimir putin that they essentially abandon mariupol. tell us what's happening on the ground. >> reporter: an increasingly dire situation in mariupol. i just got off a zoom interview with the deputy prime minister

for ukraine. she described an increasingly dire situation in mariupol. she says that there are essentially war crimes being committed, atrocities and she elaborated a little bit more ma council said that thousands of ukrainians were being rounded up, taken to these so-called filtration camps, being processed and some of them were being deported to russia. over the weekend, russian state tv says that these camps were for evacuees, that were going there willingly, but of course the ukrainians strongly disagree and say that thousands of their people are being forcibly deported. you mentioned this deadline that came and went. 5:00 a.m. local time where ukrainians were told by the russians to surrender. that did not happen. they remain defiant in the face of all of this chaos, and all of

this destruction. we spoke with one woman who desperately got out of mariupol just within the last few days. she is still in southeastern ukraine, so did not want to give too many details on her where abouts, but we spoke with her. she left the place where elderly people were screaming out of their windows, begging for food. she had no electricity, no water. for weeks. she left with her husband and her son. so many friends remain in mariupol at this time. then she called us back a few minutes ago, and heard her best friend's 15-year-old son had been killed in the city. an increasingly dire situation there. and briefly, i want to touch on, craig, what's happening in kyiv right now. the mayor there has now instituted a 35-hour curfew. another curfew, one was instituted last week, and this all comes after a bombing last night. a series of bombings that targeted, according to the

ukrainian authorities, several homes in kyiv as well as a shopping mall, at least 8 people have been killed according to ukrainian authorities and so far there doesn't appear to be any evidence that any of those were military targets and what we keep hearing from the ukrainians and from the deputy prime minister, again, is that any claims by the russians that they are targeting military targets only is a flat-out. according to the ukrainians we're seeing more and more desperate stories coming from southeastern ukraine as well as the outskirts of kyiv. craig. >> the evidence of which continues to be supported by our own very own eyes. gabe gutierrez stay safe in western ukraine. mike memoli, thank you as well, sir. for ukraines who have managed to escape the violence, is there a path to get not united states, what about for people who have family here, how much red tape do they have to get through? >> i start crying because i was

asking myself will my mom still be alive until this time or not. .

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more to help ukrainians who are fleeing their country. the administration says it's prioritizing immigrant visas for immediate family members of u.s. citizens. experts warn the u.s. resettlement programs are already overstretched. nbc's jesse kirsch is following that part of the story. >> reporter: from ukraine's train stations to border crossings, the refugee crisis growing more dire. the united nations says already more than 3 million people have fled ukraine. >> they are fearing for their lives. and we have to make sure we do the right thing. >> facing pressure at home, president joe biden promising relief. >> we're going to welcome ukrainian refugees with open arms. >> how does that compare to what your mother is going through? >> i say you should go because joe biden told that you will be able to reach me. and she just believe me. >> reporter: thankfully natalia's mom made it to poland. she's alone, her daughter trying to help her from the u.s.

natalia, a green card holder says a tourism visa was denied, something the u.s. government warns will happen for people who can't prove they'll leave. >> i can't understand why not, why my mom couldn't come and live with me just three, four months. i just want to hug her and say i love you, everything will be okay. >> reporter: natalia doubts the refugee program will be any faster. refugee admissions were cut by president trump to 15,000. president biden raised that number to 62,500. >> the trump administration eviscerated the whole infrastructure, brought the numbers of refugees admitted down to almost nothing. and we have to basically start from scratch. >> experts say that thinned down system can't handle another crisis after the highly criticized afghanistan pullout last year. >> the united states really has its hands full with the afghan evacuation. u.s. resettlement agencies are

completely over stretched. >> natalia says her lawyer thinks it could take five years to get her mother here as a refugee. >> when you hear it could take years to get your mother here legally, what goes through your nind? mind? >> i start crying, because i ask myself, will my mom still be alive to this time or not. >> our thanks to nbc's jesse kirsch for that reporting. and thank you as well, that's going to do it for me on a very busy hour here to start off the week. all day here on msnbc we will of course be keeping a very close eye on the supreme court confirmation hearing for judge ketanji brown jackson. and to watch it in its entirety, by the way, you can use the qr code at the bottom of your screen. just take out your cell phone to do that. a short time ago, south carolina's senior senator lindsey graham told the judge that the hearings would be a challenge, but that they would

be informative for the public. he also used a bit of his time to make his opening remarks to air his disappointment that a judge from his state, judge michelle childs was not ultimately president biden's pick. senator graham said had she been the pick, she would have gotten at least 60 votes, but we'll bring you more throughout the day. andrea mitchell picking up our coverage live from brussels, ahead of president biden's pick . good day, this is a special edition of "andrea mitchell reports" live in brussels as president biden and other nato leaders prepare for an emergency summit this week on how to end the devastating russian assault against ukraine. the president has been preparing for these meetings on a secure call with the leaders of the other top nato powers on how to bolster ukraine's defenses against