good morning, 10:00 a.m. eastern, we begin this busy friday morning with the latest of the changing war in ukraine.

a russian governor accusing ukrainian forces of striking a fuel depot inside russia over night. the ukrainian government has not yet taken responsible for that attack. evacuation efforts are underway right now in the war torn city of mariupol where civilians have been trapped for weeks, cut-off from essentials like fuel and medicines. we'll bring you the latest from inside ukraine. we'll ask congresswoman houlahan about what other military aid the u.s. should consider sending. president biden will address brand new jobs number that shows 431,000 jobs were added in march. the report comes less than 24 hours after the president announced plans to top the nation's oil reserve. the labor secretary marty walsh will join us to discuss

the new numbers. ♪♪ we begin with the latest escalating conflict between russia and ukraine. over night potentially major development, two ukrainian helicopters the struck a fuel depot in the russian city of belgorod. it would be the first time ukrainian forces launched an attack on the russian soil since the beginning of the war. the defense ministry would not comment when contacted by nbc news. we should note the claims following warnings of russian power that moscow's false flag attack. right now in mariupol, the red cross says evacuations are underway. workers were denied permission to bring aid to thousands of civilians and are now accuses russia stealing 14 tons of food

and medicines. other striking development, russian forces handed back control of the chernobyl power plant to ukrainian forces. multiple convoy of russian forces in that area have moved back to belarus. joining us now is richard engel in kharkiv, ukraine, peter baker at "the new york times" and our political analyst and the former commander of nato, msnbc's chief international security and diplomacy. richard, what more can you tell us about this allege attack of fuel depot in russia? >> reporter: that seems to be the big headline today. ukrainians leaving open the possibility that it carried out this attack and if it did carry out the attack, it would have been a bold move because

belgorod is about 45 miles inside russian territory, north of ukrainian border. the attack took place at night according to a video and according to the local governor that a fuel depot inside russia was destroyed. ukrainian officials won't confirm or deny if they had two helicopters flying through the night 25 miles into russian territory striking target. they would certainly if it was taken place. they do seem to be at the very least leaving open the possibility that they may have carried this out and eat comes after two russian strikes on ukrainian fuel depot over the last several days. one outside of kyiv and other is outside of lviv. that area belgorod has been a staging ground for russian troops to refuel among other things, to carry out this war in

ukraine so ukrainians would consider a fuel depot a legitimate target when the cities and towns in this country are under attacked on a daily basis. >> richard, you are in kharkiv, and speaking to you over these last four weeks plus, do you sense that a change in the conflict now as we enter the fifth week? >> reporter: yes, i think there is been so many different changes but i think right now the ukrainian certainly feels they have the momentum if they in fact carry out the strike and not confirm or deny sort of leaves open the possibility that they may have done it. it suggests they are taking new kinds of initiatives and also russian forces from chernobyl, the ukrainian foreign minister says that the russians did not

just pull out of chernobyl. they pull out after an environment of catastrophe that backfired. ukrainian officials including the power company and the ministry says russian forces on the chernobyl site a radio active disaster zone has been since 1956. ing digging trenches into the soils, driving their vehicles through what's called the red forest, the highly contaminated area, kicking up radio active debris and contaminaing themselves so the russian soldiers had to leave because they had sicken themselves with radiation poisoning, they're going to go in and try reinvert some controls. when you have more russian missteps, it was possible missteps, the ukrainians appearing to take new ground and they have been taking new ground here in around kharkiv and

apparently taking bold initiatives outside the country. it shows a level of confidence from the ukrainians, particularly right now that there are peace negotiations ongoing or negotiations to reach some sort of cease-fire settlement at the very least. the more the ukrainians show they are capable on the battlefield, the more mistakes the russians make. >> and admiral, if ukrainian helicopters did in fact strike the fuel depot, is this is a change in this war? it looks like we are talking about two mi-8s that did this 25 miles inside russia? >> let's hope so. we know vladimir putin has been pounding the way at ukraine in a barbaric series of war crimes. this would be a legitimate act of war by the ukrainians.

you know i would compare it to after pearl harbor, the united states wanted to do something to demonstrate that it could reach out and touch the empire of japan. this was the famous colonel dolittle launching bombers, far enough to bomb the japanese home island. it is an historic story and it gave a huge boost to the united states in the dark days after pearl harbor. this could be an event like that. i believe that this has the fingerprints of the ukrainians all over it. >> and admiral, when we are seeing now and richard was saying about the difference that we have been seeing over the course of the last couple of days and a week and a half now, it seems like, they're out of

chernobyl, it is clearly they're not attacking kyiv as much as they were before. do you see, admiral, a change in how russia is dealing with its presence in ukraine? >> i do, jose, the most striking thing is let's go back to five weeks ago when this started, plan a, was let's decapitate those zelenskyy regime in the case of zelenskyy and put a puppet government there and effectively conquer the country in minimal losses, that was plan a. it failed utterly. plan b starts to look like consolidate forces in the southeast and become a tougher target for the ukrainians and more fortification in the southeast, consolidate a land bridge from russia itself down

to crimea in stark positioning yourself for a tough negotiation. i feel that's the change we are seeing up close with this however, vladimir putin still has many tricks up his sleeves to include mercenaries, syrians and wagner group, to include using weapon of mass destruction of chemical weapons. how about assaults from the south that goes at odesa and choke the ukrainian economy. putin still has some cards to play. we should not be triumphed at this point. >> putin's officials are too afraid to tell him the truth. it seems though president biden has a lot of cards he has been playing and continues to play. >> well, he played an important one yesterday and decided to

release the oil of strategic reserve. he's going to reserve a million dollars a day trying to keep gas prices from going up higher. that's about 5% of the american daily use. that's important move by president that no other president had done that since it was founded 50 years ago. he's got other cards in play in terms of putting pressure on president putin. first of all, choke the russian economy and the elites who had their assets overseas and pursuing these efforts to chase down russian wealth that's parked in the west over the years. he has weapons they have been providing and ammunitions to the ukrainians that's an important part of what ukrainians have been able to accomplish there. there is a lot of demand more for. ukrainians are likely to see more and pushing hard for

greater and more weaponry. thank you so much for being with us. joining us now is our ukrainian activist based in lviv. the last time i spoke with you was seen in safe haven during this war. what are things like now? >> it is okay here. still other than that it is relatively calm here, people are working and we are accepting refugees and trying to help them out with medical aid and humanitarian aid and trying to give them shelter, either that or trying to help them to go abroad. we had our hands full. >> yeah, i mean you also mentioned that some of your

closest friends and family joined the front lines to fight for ukraine. have you heard from them? >> most of them are okay. a friend of mine was killed in combat on the 23rd of march. other than that, everybody else is doing relatively okay. and we are helping them as much as they can and their spirits, the moral is very good and it is just a job for them now. that's the job to protect our land and they're very committed to that job. >> today top diplomats are considering negotiations. what do you want world leaders of the people of ukraine, what they need and want? >> we need weapons and the most

important thing we need and the problem is i do not believe many ukrainians would agree with me. we don't believe in any sort of talks with russia because russians, their president, their government they always lie. there are no guarantees for us. ukrainians would not accept any succession or whatnot of any of our territories. the only way we make it go away is our western partners supply us with everything they possibly can. that includes machines and weapons and everything, we need all of this. we are capable to fight back. it is a matter of resources at this point. i hope and i hope that our western partners, the united states, europe and everybody at some point will agree and

realize the fact that any sorts of conversation and compromises with russia will lead only to more ukrainian deaths. the south eastern part who don't have time toll wait. we need to make sure that russians leave. the only way we make them leave is more weapons and jets, everything that our military needs. >> it is amazing to think that just in these last five weeks, 10% of the population of your country had been forced to leave their country. it is as though this is going to take time. these are scars that are so deep, so profound. >> yes, it has been. it is a terrible thought. i see these people everyday. people either to stay or go away

some where. they miss their home, they want to go home, they miss their pets. some of them had to leave relatives behind. it is heartbreaking and terrible. there are children who were left their houses and know war as their childhood and left here houses in ruins. our people are great and they don't deserve any of this. i see the way our people trust our military as well. incredible, amaing bond how people welcoming american soldiers when they are deoccupying certain cities and villages. it is heartbreaking. we are strong, we'll figure it out. we'll win. we'll come back and rebuild and everything will be okay. it pains me that so many children had to die and tiny babies had to live this way. some of them were born in shelters underground and it is

mott how a 21st century european country should live. we didn't deserve any of this. the faster we resolve this, the faster we take over, the better. >> yes, it is not how anyone, anyone should live. >> thank you so much for being with us. i very much appreciate your time. still ahead, we'll talk to congresswoman chrissy houlahan of the action she called on the biden administration to take on ukraine. what today's jobs report is revealing about the u.s. economy. we'll dig into it when u.s. secretary marty walsh joins us live, next. you are watching "jose diaz-balart reports." hing "jose diaz-balart reports. in the pot ♪ ♪ just till they taste what we've got ♪ [ tires squeal, crash ] when owning a small business gets real, progressive gets you right back to living the dream. now, where were we?

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seeing an increase in labor participation as well and that's really what we think of the rest of 2022 and getting more people back into the work force. we need to continue to raise that participation rate. that was a good sign indication moving forward. the last 11 months, we averaged 450,000 jobs for month. we never seen that jobs growth in the country. having people left the work force early or retired, some of those folks coming back to the work force. we want to see those numbers pick up more. >> where are you seeing the best news of all of this as far as different sectors of our economy?

>> well, certainly we are seeing retail hospitality has been a good one. retail is not only recovered but gone beyond the prepandemic. in-store retail is a little low. manufactuing we saw a little dip. we seen gains back at prepandemic level. on wages one of the areas we see of the largest increase in wages is in those low paying jobs, manufacture and hospitality. the average work you take out as managers is as high as from 11% to 14%. it is outpacing inflation. we need to continue those moves

forward. quite honestly when i go, i talk to business owners, we are looking at more participation of workers coming back to work. >> you mentioned inflation. the federal reserve showing prices rise. at some point this could end up having an impactful effect on hiring, for example. >> well, it could. the president is aware of the fact that it is having an impact in people's house and their kitchen table and that's why he's working as an administration to reduce the cost to work to increase wages by bringing these costs down and we have to keep a focus on the fact that this is not a typical inflationary number. we are talking about a global

pandemic lodged impacts of supply chains and other countries are dealing with it. we have vladimir putin of what he's doing to the people of ukraine, that impacts on the global supply chain as well. we certainly want to do everything we can to release the pressure of the average american that's struggling right now. >> yeah, it does not seem as though inflation has a downward trajectory any time soon. that's something that a lot of people as you say secretary are feeling and are feeling very viscerally. >> yes, we are seeing a little bit of fluctuations at the gas pumps and the president made some moves to bring those costs down for gas and oil. those are big ticket price items for folks. we are trying to get those. we have a piece legislation in the building behind me.

the bipartisan innovation act the so-called chip bill will help us manufacture in this country long-term. when we think of the time we live in today, we have to deal with the present and that's inflation and continuing to get people back to work. we have to put in the safe guards down the road that over the last 40 years of this country, we lost out of manufacturing and chips, we created them and we don't make them. we have to really lay down the foundation. the president is laying down the foundation with the future of america as well, bringing more ability to do manufacturing in the country so we are less reliance on foreign imports. >> secretary marty walsh. thank you very much for being with us. i very much appreciate your time. >> thank you. let's get to our senior analyst and our senior adviser, it is always great to see you especially on friday when we get these numbers, i need the

interpreter. tell us about the jobs report and what secretary walsh had to say, ron? >> as you said the labor force participation rate went up. it is 1% point below where we were prepandemic levels and wages are going up and keeping pace with inflation. i would argue it was a very good number and political affiliations, it is hard to suggest that we have not come almost completely back from a labor market perspective to where we were before the pandemic. there are still more open jobs than there are unemployed americans. we need people with more than anything else with respect to how the labor market is functioning. >> the whole issue, ron, of

inflation showed prices rising 6.4%. how do you see this turning up? it does not seem as though inflation is just a transitory thing that we are going through. >> yeah, i wish the fed never used that word. i think it is temporary in the sense that if we were to restore supply chains to where they were prepandemic and we had cars that is were available. we did not have a 5.8 million unit shortage of homes relative to current demand. if those things were true, if indeed the war in ukraine and the pandemic was not affecting china still. you would start to see prices fall. as long as these two factors are in place. food prices and energy prices and the price of homes are going up. that means federal reserve is going to raise interest rates later again, probably by a half point to cool the economy and presumably bring down inflation. >> well, always a pleasure to

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32 past the hour. jared kushner, don's son-in-law, spoke with investigators for more than 6 hours on thursday. joining me now is ali vitali. what can you tell us? >> it marks one of the highest profile members of the trump administration to cooperate with the committee and a first member of trump's family to do so. a source telling us kushner was cooperative. this person believes that

kushner did not invoke the fifth amendment. i was outside the room, i could see on the screen through a blind what looked like text messages, blue bubbles on an iphone so it gives you a sense of what was being talked about during those six hours as the committee continues to try to get more answer. >> and ali, what's the latest on president biden's pick for the supreme court, judge ketanji brown jackson? >> this is an intervening week. the committee began its mark up. they have to wait a week until next monday where they can do the committee vote to send ketanji's nomination to the full senate floor. we are getting a sense of how they're going to vote here. senator susan collin is going to be a yes, maing this a

bipartisan confirmation. lindsey graham announced he was going to be a no. and really that leaves us with just a few republicans left to look at. senator mit romney could be someone that may be able to get to yes. he met with the judge and he said he's probably not going to announce how he's going to vote until the day of. the full senate has said they want to do this as quickly as possible. that judiciary vote coming on monday and they're hoping to do that senate vote at some point next week to confirm biden's first nominee. >> ali vitali, the reporter looking through blinds if she needs to. >> we do what we have to. >> and you do it well. congresswoman and air force veteran chrissy houlahan will join us to talk about what more to the u.s. need to do to aid ukraine. you are watching "jose

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the ukrainians have been able to defend because of unprecedented supplies from the u.s. the white house says the u.s. will deliver 4600 javelins and tank missiles to ukraine. current supply will run out as ukrainian forces rapid ly burning through them. joining now is our congresswoman chrissy houlahan. the u.s. have sent ammunition and armors and helmets.

what else should the u.s. be giving at this point to the ukrainians? >> thank you for having me. there is still as much to be done. we need to back fill those items that have been used in active warfare. we need to make sure delivering systems they additionally asked for. s300s, they asked for drones and a lot for them to continue their fight. their fight for democracy and the world's order. it is important that people believe and understand as ukraine goes, so do we. it is not just about democracy. it is also frankly about some of the kitchen table issues we are thinking about now. all of the issue we are

experiencing with inflation are impacted by what's going on in ukraine. >> yeah, have you had conversations with the biden administration about how to keep up these weapon deliveries to ukraine? >> representative ted lou and i both encouraging the administration to continue to push on these s300s, that the administration had been asking for and have yet to be delivered. it is my responsibility to push this administration to make sure that we are doing everything we can to support the ukrainian people and also as a result to provide the opportunity for peace around the world. >> and so it looks as though this attacking side of russia

where no one is taking full responsibility carried out by two mi-8s. the ukrainians have been asking for the meg jets that poland had been giving to ukraine. nato rejected that the idea because concerns of widen the conflict. how much of a conflict widening it had already been when you have javelins and stingers and the 300s that's going on. >> sure, what's beyond the pail? one of the reasons i have been pushing and my colleagues have been pushing for things like drones and 300s. these are things less aggressive in the sense of migs and aircraft like that. they have been pushing for tanks

to make sure the ukrainian people can defend themselves against tanks. as this conflict lengthens in time, the opportunity we have to provide systems that were off the table to begin with need to be pursued now because they should be on the table since the war has been prolonged much more than we thought it would be. >> i know you and your colleagues received a classified briefing on the ukrainians. i know you can't talk about details and etcetera, but how do you feel about what you learned, what did you take away from that briefing? >> i think it is an open source of what i would tell you that the ukrainian people are fighting hard. they are succeeding. yesterday was the first day that they gained more ground than they lost. we need to continue to help them in that success. the consequences of us not doing that are very, very grieve. and so that i think is the

headline that i would say to take out those briefings and everything i hope we are seeing in the open press. >> congresswoman chrissy, thank you so much for being with us this morning. >> you are welcome. thank you. the u.s. is preparing to welcome up to 100,000 ukrainian refugees. up next we'll talk to the former policy director from michelle obama about what's happening on the ground to support them. any minutes now, president biden will make a live report on what's happening with the jobs report. you are watching "jose diaz-balart reports." "jose diaz-balart reports.

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49 past the hour, the u.n. says more than 4.1 million ukrainian refugees have fled for neighboring countries. the biden administration announced that the u.s. plans to accept up to 100,000 ukrainian refugees fleeing the war. joining us now the president and ceo of the lutheran immigration and refugee services, she was the former director for michelle obama. thank you so much for being with us. the u.s. prepares to take in

100,000 refugees from ukraine, is that something that is doable? >> it is doable but its got to be more than an announcement. we are more into russia's invasion and what we need to see is action. and i think what's worrisome is while the president clearly reflected a commitment, that commitment isn't time bound. we don't know the precise pathways the white house will use. and, look, we've seen this language before. when the president announced refugee resettlement would go to 125,000, we're six months into that system and only about 8,000 refugees have come from places all over the world. so in march knowing that we only resettled about a dozen ukrainian refugees, the proof is in the pudding. >> so just -- and it's important and thank you for bringing those

numbers up. so the administration said that we're going to take in 120,000 and so far 8,000, is that correct? >> exactly. so 8,000 coming from all over the world, only 12 ukrainian refugees. >> and then last year, the biden administration struggled to handle tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the taliban in afghanistan. what are the lesson we need to learn? >> what it meant was that we used a temporary system called humanitarian pull. so there are tens of thousands of afghans that are here and there is no clear legal pathway for them to leave. we've been calling for the afghan adjustment act, which would allow evacuees apply for permanent residence.

we have to realize we need to respond to humanitarian crises time and final again, whether it is the afghan crisis or the ukrainian one. >> yeah, let's kind of underline the massive migration that has occurred and continues to occur out of venezuela, the situation in nicaragua, the situation in cuba, in haiti. meanwhile, the biden administration is preparing to lift title 42, which blocked more than 1.7 million migrants from having their asylum claims heard. should these people now be allowed to request asylum? >> absolutely. we are heartened by the administration's indication that they may rescind this rule called title 42. it was a purported public health rule but public health officials have been crystal clear that there is no health rationale for it. so this is a long overdue recognition if they do rescind

it that every person, every child fleeing violence and persecution has the right to seek protection. that's a right protected by u.s. law, it's protected by international law. and we've seen the human toll when we saw a ukrainian mother who was turned away twice before she was admitted. but we have to realize there are mothers and children fleeing terrible violence from central and south america who are also running for their lives and each and every one of them deserves protection on american soil. >> those images out of del rio, texas when thousands of haitians were not only not allowed in but then they set up an area where they were and they've pretty much all been deported back. deportations of haitians occur on a daily basis. deportations of people fleeing cuba occur on a daily because of and nicaragua, people are not

even allowed to request asylum. what can and should change? >> we see it at our border unfortunately every day. two weeks ago when we had an 11-year-old ukrainian boy who fled as an uncompanied minor, he was hailed as a hero. but when you have them coming from el salvador, they're called illegal. who they ultimately become are our doctors, our kids' teachers, our older parents' care giver. the guy down the street who runs our convenience store. two years into a pandemic, we have to realize we have to allow for refugee resettlement to be a robust system for humanitarian

crises. and we've got to realize there are a number of reasons for why we welcome immigrants, for national security reasons, economic reasons and for who we are as a nation. and i think that's an opportunity for the biden administration not just to kind of go back to the system as it was but to reenvision a better system and there's strong american support for that. >> thank you so much for being with us this morning. >> thanks for having me. according to the u.n., of the 4 million refugees who have left ukraine, more than 350,000 have registered in hungary. the governor there is not set on keeping those refugees in the country. raf, how are ukrainian refugees being received in hungary? >> we're seeing church groups

and ngos, civil societies stepping up to welcome the refugees as they cross the bored per the situation with the hungarian government more complicated. this is the anti-refugee government and this time he is allowing ukrainian refugees in but he's not eager for them to stay. the hungarian government is offering very cheap train tickets to ukrainian tickets -- >> i have to interrupt you. let's go right to president biden. >> in march we created 100,000 more jobs than we thought. the economy has created 500,000 jobs a month. our recovery has now created 7.9 million jobs. more job created over the first 14 months of any presidency in

any term ever. and that's striking. but what's even more striking is this -- in march, the unemployment rate fell to 3 3.6%, the fastest decline in unemployment to start a president's term ever recorded. there have been only three months in the last 50 years where the unemployment rate in america is lower than it is now. and it's very clear, americans are back to work and that's good news for millions of families who have a little more breathing room and the dignity that comes from earning a paycheck. just the dignity of having a job. and more and more americans get jobs as they do, it's going to help ease the supply pressures we've seen. that's good news for fighting inflation, good for our economy and means our economy has gone from being on the mend to being on the move.

you know, the american people, i think they're beginning to understand that this american rescue plan, there's no reason why they should know the names of all these pieces of legislation that got passed. with the american rescue plan we were able to get people vaccinated, schools open and businesses humming. moodies estimate because of the rescue plan, 4 million more american jobs were created and unemployment is 2% lower than it would have been had we failed to move that legislation. thanks to our infrastructure law, we have more than 4,000 projects getting started this year, 4,000, in every single state in america, a total of 4,000 and all 50 states rebuilding in america. we're building a recovery worthy of american workers, strong and resilient. and we're going to be able to overcome the head winds of

delta, omicron and even more in europe. our policies are working. we're getting results for the american people. record job creation. record unemployment declines. record wage gains and, by the way, jobs and unemployment are not just another statistic. they go directly to the core of what the economy represents. the ability for hard working americans to live with dignity, support their families and build a better life for their children. people are making more money, finding better jobs and after decades of being mistreated and paid too little, more and more american workers have real power now to get better wages. and to do what's best for themselves and their families. some people see that as a problem. we've had this discussion in the past. i don't. i see it as long overdue. so when you hear these numbers, they're not statistics. it's a statement of the type of economy we're fighting for, an economy, as i've been saying from the beginning, built from the bottom up and middle out, not from the top down.

when we do it that way, everybody does well. everybody wins. i know this job is not finished. we need do more to get prices under control. yesterday i authorized the release of one million barrels per day for the next six months of our strategic petroleum reserve. this by far is the largest release of our national reserves in our history. it is a wartime bridge is the way i look at it to increase our oil supply as we work with our u.s. oil producers to ramp up their production to get us through this period. i've coordinated this release with partners and allies around the world. this morning over 30 countries from across the world convened in an extraordinary meeting and agreed to the release o