>> we'll jam on, you say time flies when you're trending. i find that sometimes when i've been trending, time stops abruptly, and i can't leave that moment so i'm glad you're enjoying it. tiffany always good to see you. thank you very much, and good day from msnbc world headquarters in new york. welcome to "alex witt reports," as you can see i'm katy tur filling in for alex. it's the 37th day of russia's war in ukraine, and here's what we know right now, the red cross is trying once again to free tens of thousands of civilians, trapped by fighting in the southern port city of mariupol. new humanitarian corridors are open today from besieged mariupol to ukrainian controlled , some were able to get out, piled in cargo trucks. part of the red cross effort. the evacuations are urgent. the ukrainian government fears the fighting in mariupol will only get worse, worries the

russian forces that appear to be withdrawing from in and around the capital could turn their attention to the southern coast. as they move on from kyiv, ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy claims russians are laying mines around homes, and in some cases, the dead. he is once again calling on allies for more help. >> we don't want a million of bullet proof vests or some special brand helmets, just give us missiles. give us airplanes. you cannot give us f-18 or f-19, give us the old soviet planes. that's all. give them into my hands. give me something to defend my country with. >> new today, the pentagon says it is sending $300 million in military aid, including drones and machine guns to ukraine.

also new nbc news now confirms that ukraine's military helicopters were involved in yesterday's attack on a fuel storage facility in the russian city of belgrade. so far ukraine, though, has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in that attack. and here to break everything down for us, starting us off is molly hunter in lviv, and covering the president in wilmington, delaware. molly, i want to start with you in lviv. these humanitarian corridors it's been urgent since the war began, but never more so than right now. >> reporter: yeah, katy, that's right, we say it's urgent every day, and it is. every day an estimated 100,000 people in mariupol are without medicine, food and water. part of the agreements brokers facilities between the two

sides. the icrc is the neutral body. life saving humanitarian aid gets to go in as civilians go out. it failed thursday, friday, and it's in process as we understand again today. according to president zelenskyy they got 3,000 people out in private vehicles today but we're still waiting for those numbers today. take a look at a little bit more. >> >> new propaganda video, showing mariupol, inside, an estimated 100,000 people still trapped desperately trying to escape. trying to make it into the area this morning. on friday, the effort failed. it is critical, the icrc says that the parties respect the agreements and provide security guarantees. in recent days, these are the lucky ones. residents get a seat on the volunteer bus, and others tying white cloths to the cars in hopes it will protect them. overnight, president zelenskyy saying europe has no right to

keep silent about mariupol, adding that russian soldiers in the north are retreating, while leaving behind mines, a complete disaster. in kharkiv, ukraine claiming their counter attacks have pushed back russian troops, and yesterday, reports russian troops fled from chernobyl, the site of the world's worst disaster. the head of the iaea plans to lead a mission there as soon as possible. according to the u.s., more help is on the way. the defense department pledging $300 million, including access to so-called killer drones. and in the strategic port city of odesa they're preparing for a fight. we met soldiers 19-year-old vitally, and 24-year-old catalina, they met in the first days of the war. how could you not love her, he tells us. we ask katerina about after the war. i just want to grow up, she says, but now fighting to make that possible. >> that couple was so sweet. we met them in odesa earlier this week.

back to mariupol, and why we don't have minute by minute updates. cell phone service is bad. there are few cell phone towers left. picking up signal. not only are we getting updates from the convoy, it means that people inside mariupol forget, you know, contacting friends and family to see if they're okay. forget checking news from the outside. they're having trouble finding information about where those humanitarian corridors are meeting, where the buses are picking up, which is really dangerous and incredibly terrifying for the people stuck inside. it's incredibly terrifying. molly hunter, thank you so much. let's go to josh ledderman in warsaw, poland, speaking to an adviser of president zelenskyy in kyiv. he was telling people to come back to kyiv. let us start the process of trying to get back to whatever normal is now, and you've actually seen some cases with women and children heading back into ukraine. what can you tell us?

>> well, katy, it's hard to imagine why anyone who has made it safely to a country where there isn't an ongoing war would make the voluntary decision to go back into an active war zone. much less to go along with their young children. but in fact, it is happening, and it's happening in numbers that might surprise you. in fact, according to the polish border guard, since the war started on february 24th, about 2.4 million people have gone from ukraine over the border to here in poland. there's about 420,000 who have gone the other direction, from poland back into ukraine. and in fact, in the last 24 hours or so, according to authorities in lviv, more people have come back into ukraine through the lviv border check points than have left the country during that same period of time. and i wanted to understand why some of these ukrainian refugees are deciding that now is the right time to go back home, and

so i spent the morning at the warsaw west station bus terminal to ask them about it, and they told me why. >> translator: our city has been under russian occupation since february 24. it seems calm now, no one knows what happened next. children, sisters, everything we have in life is all there. >> what is your biggest fear about going back to ukraine right now? >>. >> translator: i just want everything to be okay, for the road to be safe, to help us get there safely. >> reporter: and i asked that first ukrainian woman we heard from, tatiana, what this journey is going to look like for her back to ukraine, and she told me it's not going to be easy. in fact, it's not going to be one bus. she was boarding a bus from warsaw to lviv where she expected to spend three or four days waiting for another bus to take her to kharkiv, closer to

where she's from, which is in the region of donetsk, and she expected to wait again, trying to find some way to make it through ukrainian check points, russian check points, back to a city where she doesn't know exactly what it's going to look like. from contact with her relatives who are still there, she says they don't have food, they don't have water. they don't have basic things like toiletries she's trying to find ways to bring back to them. she knows she's going into a very dangerous and volatile situation in a region that has experienced some of the most severe shelling and violence of this conflict, and yet her family is there. what's important to her is there, she said the risk at this point is worth it. katy. >> going back to kharkiv. that is remarkable and totally unexpected. josh lederman, thank you very much. let's go to michael mcfaul, msnbc international affairs analyst. ambassador, i want to ask you about -- >> you can call me michael. >> at this point, after all of our conversations, i hope so. let's talk about what nbc news

has confirmed, that ukrainian helicopters were involved in that attack on the russian oil depot. russia calls that an escalation. some people say how can that be an escalation when you have entered their country and attacked them. diplomatically speaking, what does it mean for the war? what could result? >> well, you know, the russians of course don't like it when their territory is attacked, mr. peskov says this makes things uncomfortable for the negotiations. if you're ukrainian and anyone else in the world for that matter, look at mariupol, and talk about uncomfortable conditions for negotiations, so i don't think it really will change anything in terms of whether they negotiate or not. they have been using this word escalation a lot these days trying to get the west to stop doing things, and the ukrainians are right to conduct the war given how they see fit given

they were invaded by mr. putin in an unprovoked way, they have the right to defend themselves, including attacking russia on russian soil. >> are these peace negotiations going to go anywhere. are these negotiators -- can they possibly be speaking directly for vladimir putin right now, given what we know from u.s. intelligence, at least, their claims that vladimir putin is not getting accurate information from his advisers. >> i think there's a pretty big gap between the negotiators and mr. putin. by the way, there always is in the russian system. even when i was in the government, the big hard decisions in any negotiation, including, you know, much lesser negotiations, like the new start treaty about nuclear weapons or russia's membership into the world trade organizations, those were negotiations i took place in during the obama organization, and every hard decision always went either to mr., president putin, the negotiations have reached as much as they can do and the hard

questions, like neutrality for security guarantee or where are the borders of ukraine ultimately, i think, will only be decided when president zelenskyy and president putin sit down and negotiate, if that day ever comes. >> is there any scenario where president zelenskyy will want to give up the eastern part of ukraine, want to give up the donbas and the donesque region, areas that are rich in oil and energy? >> well, if you look at what ukrainian officials have said, including president zelenskyy, from time to time, they have hinted at what i think is a very creative solution, which is on the borders to say we will never recognize annexation, including crimea, which happened back in 2014. but we will commit to reunification only through peaceful means. and that, i think, is a de facto way to agree to disagree. and i think it's a creative solution. what i don't know is what mr.

putin thinks about it. he clearly has not stated a position on this to this day. >> to be contrarian, i was reading an article, a wonder, essentially, by brett stevens of the "new york times." he was wondering out loud whether u.s. intelligence, western intelligence has gotten vladimir putin backwards, that in reality, he knew he wasn't going to take all of ukraine, wasn't going to take the capital of kyiv, but what he wanted were the eastern regions and by going in and looking as if they're not being successful, he will more ably be able to retake the eastern regions, which is what he wanted in the first place. >> i'm skeptical of those kind of arguments. it's always putin is the genius, always the master mind, always doing things to fool us. the attack they launched on february 24th was not just about those regions.

they fully expected to try to take the entire country. and vladimir putin said it himself. he said ukraine does not have a right to exist. they have lost around kyiv. it's not putin making some tactical decision. his soldiers are losing on the ground. they're retreating because they lost, not because of some master genius sweep, and the other thing i would remind you, before this horrific war started, de facto, russia already had control of crimea and donbas. so why would you launch this incredibly horrific war, all this destruction, massive sanctions against your country that mr. putin did not calculate ahead of time, all to get to basically work back to where you were on february 23rd. i think that's, you know, post rationalizing or what mr. putin did. doesn't mean we're not going to end there. i do not think that was putin's original plan. >> what about china? china has been sort of -- the

u.s. has been trying to pressure china into condemning the war and to backing away from putin, vladimir putin has been trying to get china more involved and support him. the chinese foreign ministry spokesperson today called the united states the leading instigator of the ukraine crisis. how does -- how do u.s. diplomats, how does the u.s. interpret that. >> very unfortunate. you know, this is a moment that xi jinping had, a real moment that changed the negative dynamics in u.s./chinese relations changed the negative dynamics in eu chinese relations. xi jinping has said many many times, ever since he's been the leader of china that they want to be a respectable player within the international system, within the united nations system. and he says that all the time, and compared to russia, by the way, they are.

they haven't invaded countries. they haven't annexed territory. but he wants to have his cake and eat it too. he says that on the one hand, and he says on the other hand, we're the troublemakers and he supports mr. putin. had he moved, and maybe he still will. let's see this war tragically could go on for a long time. he has an opportunity to say that china is part of the system, and wants to be one of those that enforces the international rules of the game, that russia obviously is violating and every country in the world knows that. but so far he's chosen to double down with mr. putin, and that, i think, is frustrating for the biden administration. but they're going to keep working at it because tragically i think this war is going to go on for a lot more time than the several weeks we have been in so far. >> information warfare, there was independent polling out of russia, and vladimir putin's approval ratings have gone up in

the past few weeks as this war has gone on or as they're calling it there, the special operation. how does the west penetrate public opinion in russia, get through to the millions upon millions of people there that what they're being told is a lie? >> let me say two things, on a public opinion polling, i know the company, the leader, i read those numbers, too. they're disheartening to me but i think we also need to be very careful about reading too much into them. in a dictatorship like russia, if some random pollster from russia calls you and says, i want to know what you think of putin, there's one rational answer, say you support him. i think we need to be careful to not over read quote unquote, independent polling in russia. that said, there's a tremendous propaganda machine, it works.

propaganda works. we know that in our own country, by the way, and people are living in these bubbles, and i think the west together, and the united states in particular needs to get smarter about penetrating that bubble, and i think first and foremost, the best thing to do is to help those independent russian journalists, many of whom have now fled russia, their companies have been shut down, to figure out ways for them to do their work in more creative ways. many of them for instance have moved to you tube because it hasn't been closed down yet. so western foundations, maybe governments, a lot of independent journalists don't want to take money from western governments, but creating the infrastructure to help them succeed is a very important first step. >> propaganda is hard to combat. look again, what we saw in this country on january 6th. propaganda really fueled that. ambassador michael mcfaul, thank you so much for joining us today. >> thanks for having me. it was exclusive, it was as

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i believe that we are stronger than any of these attempts to undermine us as a nation in terms of our democracy but i do believe our democracy is being tested. >> new reaction this morning from vice president kamala harris after she sat down for an exclusive interview with msnbc, with joy reid during a trip to greenville, mississippi, the vice president talked to joy reid about everything from ukraine to voting rights. nbc's gary grumbach is in wilmington, delaware, help us digest the interviews, what were the take aways? >> reporter: a lot of news.

a lot happened in this short interview. first on sanctions that the united states is putting on russia. those will continue as long as the war nt she says expect those to get stronger and more severe if russia is providing more severe action in ukraine. so that's on that part, but on those comments by president biden last week in warsaw, where he ad-lib add little bit, went off script and had administration officials cleaning up for a few days after him where he said this man cannot remain in power, referring to russian president vladimir putin, here is what vice president kamala harris had to say about those comments. >> there's going to be serious consequence for vladimir putin and russian aggression as it relates to ukraine, which is why our policy from the beginning has been about ensuring that there are going to be real costs exacted against russia in the form of severe sanctions. let me be very clear. let me be very clear, we are not

into regime change, and that is not our policy, period. >> reporter: now another big topic during last night's interview was january 6th and specifically the text messages that came out recently teen ginny thomas, the wife of clarence thomas, and chief of staff mark meadows, chief of staff to donald trump on january 6th, and those text messages had to do with the idea of overturning the results of the 2020 election, and there's been a lot of conversation in recent days about the role clarence thomas may have known or not known about those text messages and what should happen in terms of ethically with the supreme court. here's what harris had to say about that. >> i definitely think that the court needs to take a critical look at its rules around ethics and that relates to a series of issues that have come up over the years. >> reporter: and finally, vmt vice president kamala harris has a lot on her plate, a lot in her

portfolio, one of the issues she wanted to take on is voting rights. something she has seen vote blocked for decades now. she has strived and gone all over the country for voting rights and here's what she had to say about the process of voting rights in congress right now. >> well, it's not new that there will be a tax on our democratic systems from within. that's not new. the point has to be, what are we doing to stand up against that, right, and so we have been attempting, for example, in congress to get the john lewis voting rights advancement act passed, the freedom to vote act passed. we need to get those passed. we are going to continue to work on what we need to do to fight back against what's happening in those states, supporting folks at the local level who in many other states are strengthening the right to vote. >> reporter: and i'll tell you, i know you know this too. traveling around the country

talking to voters, there's no issue more important to some folks than the right to vote and ability to vote. in this case, republicans and democrats have a different view on what should happen legislatively. >> that's an understatement. what goes up must come down, but for how long, next up, the disconnect between the white house and oil companies. disconnect between the white house and oil companies. imagine enjoying chocolate cake. now, she can have her cake and eat it too. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? this is vuity™, the first and only fda approved eye-drop that improves age-related blurry near vision. wait, what? it sounded like you just said an eye drop that may help you see up close.

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march 2020 at the start of the pandemic. president biden extended it. now, migrants seeking asylum will have a chance to cross the boarder and make a claim starting may 23rd. that's when president biden is ending it. a federal judge denied ghislaine maxwell, after a juror came forward to say they had been a victim of sexual abuse in the past but that juror had not disclosed it before the trial. maxwell faces up to 65 years in prison and is set to be sentenced in june. and new today, a slight tick down in gas prices, but you'd have to squint really hard to see it as those prices are near a record high. right now, the national average far regular gallon of gas is $4.26. down a penny and a half from yesterday, this just days after president biden announced a plan to release a million barrels of oil a day from the strategic

petroleum reserve over the next six months. >> it is a war-time 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. >> joining me now from dubai is cnbc hadley gamble, fresh off a summit there. we have released oil from the strategic reserves here, what about the other oil producing nations around the world. what about opec? >> oh, katy, they are under serious pressure, and that's as a result of an energy crisis that frankly began many months before the invasion of ukraine. when i spoke to opec plus producers, the message was we are not going to be responsible for putting oil on the table when we don't frankly feel that other oil producing nations are getting a fair shake, and they're not giving us a fair shake either. what do they mean by that,

essentially what we have seen is president biden announcing 180 million barrels will be jumped on the market. americans consume 20 million barrels a day. this will give 1 million barrels per day for the next six months. we have demonizing the oil and gas sector for so long that we have chronic under investment. then we had covid, and the pandemic, and that essentially meant in order for prices to remain stable and not fall literally below 0 into negative territory, we had to come together as opec plus, the opec producing nations, we're going to tighten production, curb production, so we can figure out a way to stabilize the market. opec producers have said for decades now that their goal is to stabilize energy markets. that is their main focus. i had the chance to ask them, listen, at the end of the day, how can you trust a member of opec, and i was talking about russia, who would invade

a sovereign state, and they said the message is whether it's iran, whether it's venezuela, both countries under sanctions as you know, and even russia today, we have to keep talking to each other and try to figure this one out or we're going to be in a worst crisis than we are now. and opec producers are struggling, they're going to stick to 430,000 additional barrels in the coming month, but folks that watch the space, including myself are doubtful that they're going to actually even make that number. listen in to what the energy minister from the uae had to tell me. >> as you gentlemen have said to me, the purpose of opec plus is to stabilize the market, provide stability, how can you possibly trust a partner who literally destabilized global energy prices by invading ukraine?

which fundamentally took away what you are trying to do. >> if we mix politics to what we are doing in opec, and opec plus, we had countries in war and they are both partners. we did not take a side. and we're not taking a side today or saying this is right or this is wrong when we are inside that organization. we have one mission, and only mission, which is stabilizing the market. >> you know what's fascinating about this, if you take a step back and look at the global supply disruptions we're seeing right now off the back of this invasion, 5 to 6% of global demand is off. 5 to 6 million barrels per day, and one has to wonder where those new barrels, what they want to bring prices down are going to come from. now, essentially the biden team has said listen, we're going to start penalizing u.s. oil companies if they don't start

drilling on the land we have leased to them. we're talking about federal lands, and the oil and gas companies are essentially saying wait a minute, listen, we have had chronic under investment, you've demonized us, you can't find investment from additional sources, and we're talking about private equity, banks, the folks that have traditionally financed these things, and how is that going to actually change when you're basically saying to investors, oil and gas, fossil fuel investment, it's bad, it's not good for the environment, it's not good for the investors or shareholders, they don't want to put the money into this. they're saying to the u.s. government, you've got to help us out, communicating in an effective way. the white house said listen, we're doing outreach now, for opec, opec plus and the oil producers in the united states, it's a bit too little too late. >> president biden talked about incentivizing green energy, incentivizing electric cars, i wonder, your conversations generally around the world on this topic, is the idea of

electric energy, of green energy, is it building any momentum or is there a desire to still push it off because this country's are making so much off oil? >> honestly, katy, this is a conversation we have all the time, which is does the current energy crisis kill the energy transition, and it depends on what side of the fence you're talking to frankly. certainly what's happened over the last six to 12 months has put serious pressure on the green energy sector, and i'm talking about the fact that when you have stepped away from funding, traditional fossil fuel investment, that basically means you're in the midst of an energy crunch, before you can take the funds and reposition them elsewhere. when i sat on stage with vladimir putin in october, i asked specifically, are you using energy as a weapon. we were talking about gas at that time, the prices in europe were up over 400%, and this was a direct result of two things, one, energy in the pipeline, he was being very very cautious

about putting a constant stream of energy, and also about policy. every european country had a different policy. we're talking about germany deciding to go off nuclear. france trying to diversity, and a result of the politics and production being out of line had led to an energy crisis way before president putin invaded ukraine. >> hadley gamble, thank you so much for joining us and breaking that down. i appreciate it. and coming up, it is disney versus desantis, why the florida governor is going after one of the biggest employers in his state. "new york times" columnist charles blow is with us next. ewt charles blow is with us next

now to new developments on the oscar night slap. will myth smith says he's resig he apologized for slapping chris rock during the oscars.

nbc's steve patterson joins us. does apology, does this resignation end that review? >> no, it does not. we know that for sure. the academy was in the process of leveeing some serious sanctions against smith. we don't know what those sanctions are just yet, and i think we're just getting started on this story. meanwhile, what is the star's future? that's something that needs to be asked as well. all of these questions in the midst of we're learning a whole lot more about what happened backstage during the slap that was seen across the world. take a look. . a new twist in hollywood's biggest off screen drama. will smith, announcing his resignation from the academy of motion picture arts and sciences. in a statement smith saying his actions were shocking, painful and inexcusable. adding i betrayed the trust of the academy, i deprived other

nominees and winners their opportunity to celebrate and be celebrated for their extraordinary work. i'm heartbroken. smith says he will accept any further consequences from the academy, who last night issued its own statement saying it would quote continue to move forward with disciplinary proceedings against mr. smith. it comes as academy awards producer will packard spoke out about the now infamous night to abc news. >> my heart dropped, i remember thinking, oh, no, not like this. i never felt so immediately devastated like i did in that moment. >> first hoping it was an impromptu comedy bit. >> moments later, the lapd on scene asking rock if he would like to press charges. >> they were saying this is battery. we will go get him. we're prepared. we're prepared to get him right now. >> but rock declined.

packer learning there were plans to physically remove smith. the academy learning the superstar was asked to leave the ceremony but refused. packer explaining why smith was allowed to stay. >> i said, rock has made it clear that he does not want to make a bad situation worse. >> the comedian now wrapping up a series of tour dates in boston earlier this week telling the crowd he's not ready to comment. >> i'm still kind of processing what happened. >> again, despite the resignation, the academy says it will still move forward with disciplinary action, and again, we don't know what that action looks like but we do know their next meeting is april 18th. so still a whole lot more on this story to come. >> indeed, steve patterson, thank you so much. a fallout in the feud between the governor of florida and disney. ron desantis signaling he would support stripping the company of its special status that allows it to operate as an independent

government around the orlando theme park. it comes after disney criticized desantis for signing a ball into law this week, banning schools from teaching children about sexual orientation and gender identity, known as the don't say gay bill. joining me now is charles blow, columnist for the "new york times" and msnbc political analyst. a big part of the reason this is controversial is the language is broad, there is reason to suspect it could be used up and down, grades as high as seniors in high school. >> yeah, katy, it's beyond suspicion that the wording about the upper grades leaves it open. it's very open ended and ambiguous because it says it has to be a grade appropriate and appropriate for those classes, and so when it's that broad, who determines what is appropriate

and inappropriate, so that is why activists and educators are so nervous about what has been done in florida. i think, though, we have to analyze desantis's conflict with disney through the prism of desantis's ambitions. this man wants to have higher office, possibly the presidency. many people are mentioning him as a possible presidential candidate in 2024, many of the other candidates, including desantis are waiting to see how they navigate around trump, and whether or not he's still in the race, whether or not he's injured in a way that gives them a way in. what desantis is doing is herbal making himself trump 2.0. he is taking all of the venom and vi tree ol visit tree ol ang it into policy. it wasn't law. desantis is making law of the

trump aesthetic. >> i want to ask you, and this is obviously still a bit up in the air, but i'm curious just some basics about this law, i mean, if a kid has two dads or two moms and the kid is in 3rd grade, is in 10th grade, would they be allowed to talk about that? >> that is still unclear to me. i have also asked activists about this myself, and it was not clear to me in the answers that they gave, to what degree is talking simply about my family and the way that i personally feel off limits in these classrooms, and i think that is a problem. the way the bill is written is so broad, and i think that is exemplary of a lot of bills about restricting the right to

vote, they're all written so broad that it becomes a terror tactic in the sense that no one knows if they are, in fact, violating the law, and so they restrict what they do because they don't know precisely where the line is and whether or not they will cross it. >> i also, i wonder if a teacher who's, you know, in a same-sex marriage is fine to talk about their same-sex marriage, but opposite sex marriage, i could talk about my husband. if i was married to a woman, would i not be able to talk about my wife, bring her to school events. there are a lot of questions, and it does raise an issue of inequality. there are civil rights groups that are suing over this. i want to ask you about the turn in the republican party, and desantis in particular, and broadly toward morality politics. >> part of it is morality, but part of it is a very specific

play. republicans realized that suburban white women were moving away from the party, and they did not have a message that they could sell to them. they found that message. that message was in school choice, parents' rights. they basically started to say to parents, particularly white suburban women, there are things that are happening in your schools that threaten your children. and they are things around who is allowed to, you know, transition and whether or not they can compete on whatever teams girls or boys, where things around whether or not your children were being made to feel bad about history that involved other white people. they weren't alive then, why should your children feel bad. that's the message they were sending.

this issue around book banning, and making sure that we don't have books that are corrective or they say pornographic in these classrooms, all of this, don't say gay, all of these things are truly aimed at one demographic. and that is suburban white women, and because they saw it worked in virginia, incredibly well, by the way, everyone is now following that playbook, and so it may look on the surface as if they are morality issues. it is not. it is cold tactical politics about wooing a demographic that you can not win without. and that is suburban white women. >> that was supposedly on what they like to call critical race theory, supposedly on that. this is on gender identity. i mean, this is another issue, taken a step farther, i guess

you could argue. i wonder if it will work. charles blow, charles, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you very having me. and the house has voted to decriminalize marijuana, and it's unclear how the senate is leaning but my next guest has lived the nightmare of current laws and explains why they are particularly unfair, especially to black and brown americans. u to black and brown arimecans wayfair's got just what you need to be outdoorsy. your way! shop the biggest selection of outdoor furniture and furnish your habitat from you habitat. get a new grill and cook over an open flame. now that's outdoorsy! go wild on garden decor. find shelter from the elements and from predators. or just be one with nature. this year spend less and go all outdoorsy at wayfair. ♪ wayfair you got just what i need ♪

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a new landmark bill decriminalizing marijuana is one step closer to becoming law as it is heading to the senate after passing on a mostly partisan vote in the house on friday. it faces an uncertain face in the senate. chuck schumer says it will come up for a vote. in addition to eliminating penalties for the manufacturer, distribution or possession of marijuana, the more act would provide for regulation and

taxation and the expungement of federal marijuana convictions dating back to 1971. keita haynes served 7 years in federal prison for a drug conviction only to later run for congress as documented in her book, "bending the arc, my journey from prison to politics," i got into this story noting my father-in-law served time in jail for selling marijuana. it was quite a bit, it was $10 million worth, a little different than obviously your situation, but it would provide for the expungement of criminal records, and i do want to talk to you about that. that to me seems like the key portion of this bill that will impact so many lives out there. what does it mean to have this on your record? >> yeah, thank you for having me, and you know, myself as well as others who have these marijuana convictions we face so

many hurdles when it comes to the reentry process. people have problems getting jobs, getting housing, and for myself, when i came out of prison with this marijuana conviction, i chose to become a lawyer and so i had to go through the character and fitness examination. i wasn't able to be sworn in with the rest of my classmates, and just all of those things, so there's a number of collateral consequences that we face just with having a marijuana conviction on our record. >> so say this bill does come into law, what will it mean for you personally? >> for me personally, it will mean exactly what you talked about, with being able to have this expunged off my record, you know, the studies show that, you know, marijuana risks account for over half of the drug arrests in the country, and there is a significant racial bias there when it comes to who is arrested and who is convicted when it comes to black and white, you know, individuals, when the usage is just the same. for myself as well as other

individuals with marijuana convictions, it will start to repair the harm that we have been experienced because of this fictitious war on drugs, and mass incarceration, which is rooted in systemic racism. >> dating back to 1971, a lot of arrests are for very small amounts. my father-in-law, it was $10 million worth, a ton, many tons, in fact, a lot of arrests, especially for black and brown people as you're pointing out are for enough for a joint. it's not much at all. >> right. and so that's important, too, is that the fact that it will eliminate the penalties, you know, for possession of marijuana. and so that right there is great, too, because like you said, sometimes they're small amounts, but even going further than that, you know, eliminating the penalties for the distribution and the manufacturing of marijuana because we have so many states right now who actually have decriminalized marijuana, and then when you look at the research that says that about 68% of americans, they actually

think that marijuana should be legal in this country. and so it should be legal, you know, regardless of the amount. and that's where we're moving, and that's where the states are moving and so the federal government also needs to move along that line too. >> how do you feel about the incentive for some lawmakers who might be getting lobbied from their states or industries in their states that, you know, you can raise taxes with this, or you can raise money through taxes with this? >> i think that that probably is an incentive for some lawmakers is the fact that it can be regulated and it can be taxed and money can be made off of it. i hope as they're talking about this in the senate, i hope that is something they are bringing up to some of the republicans who may not be quite on board with this yet. to let them know these are some of the benefits that would, you know, come from actually legalizing marijuana. >> i know you had your own political run. i'm sure you've seen gary chambers down there in louisiana running against john kennedy for u.s. senate, he was in his first

campaign ad smoking a blunt, and trying to make the point that there's nothing wrong with it and make the very points you have been making which is that the stigma needs to be taken away and also the criminalization, because it does so much affect the black and brown community. >> absolutely, and when i did run for congress, that is one of my key issues was to make sure that legislation was introduced , like the more act, so we could decriminalize marijuana because of my personal experience and what i saw as a public defender. again, as i mentioned, black and brown individuals from low income communities were being charged with marijuana offenses. keeda haynes, thank you so much for joining us, your book for everyone out there "bending the arc, my journey from prison to politics," i appreciate your time. >> she's saying thank you, the audio got cut off. william shakespeare wrote the quality of mercy is not strained but the idea of mercy,

never mind the quality seems lacking at peace negotiations with russia. we're talking to the acting u.s. ambassador to ukraine about this next. next

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