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i'm katy tur filling n. a big day of evacuations in some of the most troubled regions in the country. new satellite images show russian forces retreating from in and around kyiv and the attention is shifting to the south and east, where ukrainian officials expect fighting to escalate. ukrainian officials say they were able to transport 3,700 people from the heavily contested luhansk region and the red cross spent the day frantically trying to get tens of thousands of others out of mariupol. analysts expect russian forces to try to capture the entirety of donetsk and luhansk and expect russia to try to make mariupol and to do it in the coming days. nbc news confirmed that ukraine's helicopters were in an attack in a fuel storage city in the russian city of belgrade. ukraine will neither confirm nor deny involvement in the attack.

and china is resisting pressure if the european union to use its resistance in moscow to end the war. president xi jinping repeated objections, and told eu officials china is doing its part to encourage peace talks in its own way. our nbc news team is reporting from around the world. nbc's ali arouzi is in lviv, gary grumbach is in delaware. ali, talk to me about these evacuations today. >> reporter: hi, katy. there's been a lot of evacuations today. we're hearing up to 4,000 people have been evacuated from some of the really bad hot spots in the east of the country, which is a good sign, but also the situation in mariupol remains terrible. i mean, a few thousand people have been evacuated, but it's still a trickle, given how bad the situation is in mariupol. it's a cascading disaster.

the red cross couldn't get in yesterday. a few thousands people managed to leave in private cars, risking the journey by themselves to get through russian check points, but as you know, the russians didn't allow that much needed humanitarian aid to get into mariupol or that convoy of buses to get in to get a hot of people out of there. even though the people in that city are besieged, they don't have water, electricity, gas, they weren't letting essential supplies in or some of those up to 170,000 people trapped there to get out in large numbers, and the red cross says that tens of thousands of lives are at risk there, and on another point here near the kyiv, the ukrainians are saying that they have taken control of about 30 towns and settlements around kyiv after weeks of heavy fighting there. they say that they are in control of much of the suburbs around kyiv, and that's really important for them because as

long as they control those suburbs, it's very difficult for the russians to take the capital, and that has been the goal of the ukrainians to protect the capital, even though vladimir putin said he wasn't interested in taking kyiv. it's a very different story on the ground, given how much armor he threw at the place, and he wasn't able to take it. but there have also been reports that further down south, in an occupied city where many of the workers of the nuclear power plant work, they have come out to protest the russian occupation there. they were singing the national anthem, and russian troops came out and there and used stun grenades, flash bangs to disburse the crowd violently from reports we're hearing. we can't confirm the reports but they're also saying they arrested many people there, and of course chernihiv, another place the russians said they were going to back off from, and there has been some minor troop withdrawal, and wherever the russians have withdrawn their troops, they planted a lot of

mines, according to zelenskyy. chernihiv still remains under heavy bombardment. it's a city under siege, looking much like mariupol. we had a chance to talk to the mayor of chernihiv yesterday, let's take a listen to what he had to say. >> translator: the russian army looking to enter the city from three sides. they encircled us. we have been in their way. that's why they're so angry, we don't give up and show our resistance. we are ready for everything, humanitarian crisis, bombing, until ukraine either loses or there is a peace agreement. >> reporter: and he also told us that the main bridge into chernihiv had been blown out by the russians, they blocked all the roads, they're not letting any humanitarian aid into the city, which is running low on supplies. he said the only way they're getting any aid in there is by private boats being guarded by the ukrainian army, and they kind of snake through the river with a very very small amount of

goods for the besieged residents of that town. he told me there's a hundred thousand people left this the town, and none of them want to leave, whether they're fighting forces or just regular citizens, they just want to back up the people that are in that town. he says they're staying in there until the very end. >> ali arouzi in lviv, thank you very much. >> and now to the hungary where the prime minister is facing questions about his relationship with vladimir putin ahead of a major election tomorrow. nbc's raf sanchez is in budapest, viktor orban had been an ally of vladimir putin. he has since tried to distance himself a little bit. talk to me about what is at stake in this election. >> reporter: the hungarian government and opposition are using the war to frame this as a high stakes selection. orban is saying he's the man that will keep hungary from being dragged into the fighting in ukraine, and the opposition are saying this election is a choice between russia and the

west. now, the opposition are hammering orban over the close relationship to vladimir putin, and he probably does have the closest ties to the russian president of any leader of a nato country. orban was actually in moscow just a couple of weeks before the election. we met earlier with peter, the head of the hungarian opposition, hoping to replace viktor orban as the prime minister of hungary. i asked him, how is the war next door impacting the election here. take a listen to what he had to say. >> the war is raging in ukraine next door, how big an issue is the war and the election here in hungary? >> it has become one of the biggest issues, most important issues. for orban who has been waging war for five years against homosexuals, against migrants, all of a sudden he represents

peace and falsely and lyingly accuses us of sending untrained kids to die in the war in ukraine. this has become one of the important issues in this country. >> reporter: now, orban says the opposition is so rabidly pro ukraine, pro nato, pro western, that they will lead this country into a war in ukraine. that is something the opposition very strongly denies. but we actually spoke to a voter here in budapest. he was a young guy. he is no fan of viktor orban, he hasn't voted for him in the past three elections. this time he is going to vote for the prime minister, he believes the argument, there's a real danger hungary could get dragged into the war. one of the policy positions orban has staked out, he is refusing to allow the direct transfer of nato weapons over his border into ukraine. he said that would be a provocative act that could lead this country into the conflict.

>> raf sanchez in hungary, thank you very much. and in the search for a diplomatic solution, russian and ukrainian officials today are saying they are not giving up on peace talks. they met in turkey this week, and resumed talks yesterday. yesterday, via video. let us bring in christina kavine at the u.s. embassy in ukraine. thank you very much for being with us. i want to talk about these peace talks, what is the american insight into where they stand right now, and how close the two sides are. >> well, katy, the united states is not directly engaged in the peace talks but of course we're very supportive of president zelenskyy and his undertaking to have peace talks and bring this to a peaceful resolution. in the meantime what we're trying to do is give ukraine the absolute strongest position it can have in the talks. we're doing that several ways.

first of all, we continue to provide assistance, both military assistance, and also humanitarian assistance. we're also working to make sure that the nato allies are unified this their support of ukraine, and in their opposition, to what russia is doing. and finally, we continue to put economic sanctions on russia that is crippling its economy and putting more pressure on president putin to reach a settlement on his unprovoked attack on ukraine. >> i do want to talk about the u.s.'s decision to send soviet-made tanks to ukraine. this is the first time we've done so, and it's important because they know how to use those tanks. what was behind this decision? >> the ukrainians need weapons and equipment, that will help them in the fight they fight now. they face encirclement of many

cities, and the ukrainians have asked to help defend those cities, and defend against the attackers of those cities. the united states made the determination that it was something that we could provide ukraine, and something that they needed and we are providing it to them now. >> so the intelligence suggests that the russian troops are not doing as well as we anticipated it. there's a morale issue, a supply issue. i wonder on our side of things, a supply issue for us, how long can we sustain the aid that we are giving to ukraine? >> so far the aid we're giving to ukraine has been easily sustained by us and incredibly important to ukraine in their fight. we will continue to provide assistance to ukraine that helps them on multiple fronts. obviously first is equipment, to help fight the war. also, though, humanitarian equipment as russia has caused a huge humanitarian crisis, not

only in ukraine, but in the neighbors countries. so we're helping with that through usa i.d. and other programs, and we'll continue to do that, to help ukraine fight this war, which is not just protecting ukraine, but protecting europe against russian aggression. >> i want to go back to the sustainability, though, because we have some reporting from dan delouis here at nbc news, there are questions about how long we can deliver the number of munitions and arms that we are delivering to ukraine, if this is a drawn out conflict, and all signs at the moment at least point to it being a long, drawn out conflict. we have delivered 4,600 javelins so far, anti-tank missiles. that would account for more than half the javelins the defense department bought in the past ten years. >> well, obviously we would never put our own security at risk in terms of what we give ukraine. we always do a careful analysis before sharing weapons with any

country. but we're not only sharing our own weapons, of course, we're working with our allies and partners encouraging them to provide what they can, and many of our allies and partners have done so, including some that have never given weapons to second countries or third countries before. >> i have been speaking with some officials in ukraine, ukrainian officials, i was talking to the deputy mayor of mariupol the other day, and he was telling me that the -- and we'd heard this in other places as well, the russians were separating families, separating children from their families as well. has the united states seen any evidence of that? >> we're watching very carefully, because we have seen reports that russians are not just separating children from families, but also sending both adults and children to russia. so we are watching very closely, and we'll work with our international partners to make sure that anything that russia

does along these baselines is documented and ultimately that a price is paid by russia for doing it. >> when you say a price is paid, what does that mean? >> well, there are international bodies, including the international criminal court that can take cases against war crimes and other crimes of this nature. we're working with the organizations that do these sorts of investigations. we're sporting them, and we will support their efforts to make sure that justice is served. >> i know you're not going to get ahead of the president in terms of a red line. do you have a sense that a red line does exist for the united states government? as you said, i'm not going to get ahead of the president. i'll leave that to the president to determine. >> no specifics, i was wondering if one existed at all. acting ambassador,

kristina kvive, thank you so much for joining us. >> nice to talk to you. thank you, katy. former fbi counter intelligence agent peter strouk gives me his take on the white house phone records next. s me he house phone records next ♪ that's why we build technology that makes it possible for every business... and every person... to come to the table and do more incredible things.

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now to washington and white house officials delivering a direct message to the former president as the administration deals with the war in ukraine after donald trump asked vladimir putin for information on hunter biden during an interview making debunked claims about payments from the widow of moscow's former mayor to the president's son. here are part of those comments. >> why did the mayor of moscow's wife give the bidens, both of them, 3 1/2 million dollars. that's a lot of money. she gave him 3 1/2 million dollars. so now i would think putin would

know the answer to that. i think he should release it. i think we should know that answer. >> at the white house, communications director kate benningfield said this about donald trump's request. >> so what i would say about that is what kind of american, let alone an ex-president thinks that this is the right time to enter into a scheme with vladimir putin and brag about his connections to vladimir putin. there is only one, and it's donald trump. >> joining me now is peter strzok, former deputy assistant director at the fbi counter intelligence division. he led the fbi investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election. he's also the author of "compromised counter intelligence and the threat of donald j. trump," i took a bite of lentils during the break, and they're getting stuck in my throat. i apologize. let me ask you about where we stand right now right now with russia from a u.s. intelligence perspective, from a counter intelligence perspective, what

is the country preparing for? >> i think from a counter intelligence perspective, you have to look at what russia has done is a failure across the board. their military operation in ukraine is in shambles, they're retreating, taking tremendous losses as they have done that. in europe they're facing a reunited nato alliance, something that had been under significant stress during the trump administration, has seen the united states and our european allies come together, and then i think certainly in terms of the sway that seems to have taken root in a lot of places within the u.s. political discourse, looking at putin, and russia's potentially friendly figures has been demonstrated to be false. it has demonstrated that putin is a tyrant, that he is willing to engage in war crimes, that he is bombing and killing civilians, women and children, and doing things that absolutely have destroyed any sort of a notion that folks in the united states might see him as a favorable or friendly figure.

>> you know, donald trump and i assume he runs again, he's already been saying it, but he would probably run on this idea that if he were still in office that vladimir putin would have never gone into ukraine, what's your sense on the timing? >> i think that's nonsense, i think that had trump been in office, we would have seen what we saw throughout the four years of his presidency, and that is somebody who, from the very beginning, from, you know, the republican plank at the convention in 2016, lethal aid to ukraine was removed in part because of paul manafort's efforts and certainly he had deep connections to pro russian forces in ukraine, and time and time again, russia didn't need to use force or threaten the use of force because it was very apparent that trump was willing to do everything in his power to try and, you know, allow that to happen without conflict, so i don't buy that had he been reelected or in power that putin

would not achieve what he wanted in ukraine. he would have walked in with little resistance because there would not have been pushback from the united states and donald trump. >> i wonder if you're vladimir putin and you're looking at the american landscape right now, and, you know, we're a couple of years away from another presidential election, one that is very much up in the air, are you taking that into consideration if you are vladimir putin, especially when you look at the way that nato has been unified over the past few months in the face of his invasion in ukraine. our intelligence suggests that he has been surprise bid that, and there are a lot of people here who frankly have been surprised by how unified nato is once again. are you looking at the next election if you're vladimir putin, when you're making decisions about what's currently happening inside ukraine? >> i think what the united states will or won't do is absolutely a consideration that is taken into account in vladimir putin's decision making. i think the big question that is out there right now, and i haven't seen any strong answers

from people in the intelligence community or u.s. or european leadership. what is vladimir putin being told? it's, you know, he has any number of people from his intelligence services under house arrests it's apparent there is friction between putin and his intelligence community as well as his ministry of defense, and so the question is at the end of the day, what is the information that putin is getting, and the problem is, if he's relying on russian state television, who are playing tucker carlson, and trump's statements on seemingly an endless loop, is putin getting accurate information about what the united states believes and what the united states is willing to do. and that question implies a certain amount of instability in the way putin may be making his strategic decisions. >> let's talk about the 7-hour gap in the white house call logs on january 6th. there's now talk about a burner phone because we know from other testimony and from other public

statements at the time that donald trump was making calls during that time period. how are you interpreting this news? >> well, i think there's no other way to look at this as something other than an extraordinarily suspicious set of facts. i mean, january 6th was the most consequential day of trump's presidency, and we are increasingly finding out information not only the 7-hour gap but the january 6th committee released information that they had interviewed an individual. there's an actual national archives employees who is assigned to the white house to collect the information about of what goes on on a daily basis, and beginning a day before january 6th, january 5th, their access to information was restricted in a way that had never been done before. it appears to be coming out is a very coordinated effort to cut the information that is being recorded and available to the public about what is going on during this insurrection on the

6th. now, i do think that january 6th committee can get to the bottom of the gap. i certainly believe the fbi and doj can get to the bottom of the gap. any phone conversation takes place between at least two people. even if you don't have the data from the white house, we know that these calls he made to kevin mccarthy. we know calls he made to mike pence that those folks have phones too, and if those phone numbers can be identified, those records can be obtained, and you can assemble that data from the other side of all of these communications and figure out just what all of this missing data is. >> you can find out if he was calling from an aide's phone, and if in the past when donald trump had called me during the campaign, it was often from an aide's phone, a blocked number. it could be a burner phone as well. peter strzok, thank you so much for being with us, appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> and there are two new numbers you need to hear about with respect to the economy. you may be feeling the effects

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♪ i've been everywhere. ♪ here are the other top stories we're monitoring this hour. the house has passed landmark legislation that would legalize marijuana nationwide, it would also expunge the convictions of people charged with marijuana-related offenses, and impose a tax on the sale of cannabis products. the bill now heads to the senate where it would need 60 votes to pass. a federal judge denied ghislaine maxwell's request for a trial after her six trafficking conviction. that request came after a juror came forward to say they had been a victim of sexual abuse in the past but had not disclosed it before the trial. maxwell faced 65 years in prison and is set to be sentenced in june. actor will smith has resigned from the academy motion arts and sciences, nearly a week

after he slapped chris rock at that awards ceremony. smith will be eligible to receive oscar awards but will no longer be able to vote on nominees. >> new today, the president and first lady are holding an event that's been delayed two years, the commissioning of the navy's newest submarine. nbc's gary grumbach is traveling with the president. what did we hear from president biden today? >> hey there, katy, the bidens have made 37 trips to delaware since joe biden took the presidency, and none like this. this all started back in 2012 when an angry delaware reticent a letter to the editor of the local paper here saying he was upset there hasn't been a uss dee delaware in more than a hundred years as senators tom carper and chris coons read that letter. they agreed, and sent the letter to the secretary of the navy at that time, and the secretary of the navy said, yes, absolutely, you're right, we should have a

uss delaware in this century, and it only took a few months for them to get that submarines and to name it the uss delaware, they named it the sponsor of the submarine doctor, jill biden, in charge of going to the big events, like commissioning and making remarks. it could run for 30 years without having to get refueled. this also has more than 130 crew members that are associated with it. here's what the bidens had to say at the commission. >> i believe it's our sacred obligation as a nation to prepare and equip those troops that we send into harm's way, and to care for them and their families. >> sailors, as you venture to new waters, know that the families who remain ashore will not be forgotten by your president or by me. we are working every day to honor the sacrifices that all of

you make. >> reporter: and of course those sacrifices are known all too well by the bidens, of course their son beau biden served in the iraq war, but here in wilmington, pretty much everything is named after the bidens, right, you have the joseph r. biden welcome center, the joseph r. biden amtrak station. it's one more connection to the state of delaware for the bidens. >> i love that this started with an angry letter to the editor, so much better than an angry tweet. an angry letter to the editor, getting things done. gary grumbach, thank you so much. new numbers show the u.s. economy may be on the up swing. last month, the u.s. added 431,000 jobs. wages are up and the unemployment rate dropped from 3 3.8 to 3.6%. joining me is mark zandy from moody's analytics, close to the low before the pandemic. does that mean that we are in the clear of the pandemic of the economy. >> no, katy, it's not, doesn't

mean the pandemic is still on, and obviously creating havoc in different parts of the world. i don't think we're free and clear. it feels good, 3.6% unemployment. three years ago was 14.7. we lost 22 million jobs in march and april of 2020, and we got almost all of those jobs back. it's a pretty significant achievement to get back this far this fast, but still more to go. you know, the pandemic is not over, it's still creating problems, and as we know, inflation is now the number one problem that we have to drap l -- grapple with. >> in terms of comparison, how do the jobs compare to the jobs of the pandemic, the jobs that people ended up losing? >> we're getting jobs across the board, so high paying, low paying, low wage jobs as well. so leisure, hospitality, recreational activities, professional services, financial services, manufacturing,

construction, you know, you don't create as many jobs as we're creating right now, over half a million per month without creating jobs across, you know, all industries and across all pay scales. we're getting all kinds of jobs. >> what about gas prices, we're releasing oil from the strategic reserve. there's pressure on opec plus countries to release more oil. they might bend to it at some point. are we going to get gas prices down in the next few months or is this going to be long and drawn out? >> well, you know, it does depend on how things play out in russia, and what the rest of the world does in terms of the sanctions on russia, so, you know, hard to know. i do think the release from the strategic petroleum reserve, a million barrels a day is a good move. i don't know that that will bring prices down significantly but what i think it will do is limit any future increase in price. and that, you know, obviously is a good thing. we do need to see more oil in other parts of the world,

including in the united states w a big energy producer and our producers need to ramp it up. hopefully we get more oil from the saudis, from the united arab emirates, and the possibility of the iran deal because that would be a game changer. the iranians produce oil that could make a big difference in markets. we need to see more oil. the release from the spr, the strategic petroleum reserve is a very positive step. >> russia's negotiator on the iran deal. that complicates things a bit. let's talk about wages, they are up 5.6% last month. again, inflation, 7.9%. when do you expect to see that even out. i know the fed is raising rates to try and get ahold of this. are people going to start going to the market and feel their raise instead of feeling like they have taken a pay cut? >> it's going to take a little bit of time to get wage growth above the rate of inflation. you know, in part because of the russian invasion, the higher oil

and gasoline prices. that feeds into other prices. food prices a big part of food cost is the cost of transporting the food from the farm to store shelves. we've got a few months of high inflation. but i think by this time next year, inflation will have moderated sufficiently. and i'm hopeful as we move into the latter part of 2023, it will be very clear that workers are doing well, much better, that their wage gains are out pacing inflation in a very consistent way. there's still going to be a lot of financial pain in the near term, i'm afraid. >> we're seeing positive indicators for the economy. there's less unemployment, there is higher wages, why are we also hearing about a looming recession? why am i hearing the words inverted yield curve all of a

sudden? >> look, the economy is coming in full employment. inflation is very high, way too high. inflation expectations, what people think inflation will be in the future is way too high, and of course the federal reserve is trying to keep unemployment low and keep inflation down is working to raise interest rates very very aggressively, we're seeing interest rates jump: in this kind of an environment where recession risks become high, and often occur, so that's why recession risks are high. the yield curve is an indicator that comes out of financial markets that has in the past been very prescient with regard to predicting future recessions and right now, that indicator is not flashing red yet, but it's certainly flashing yellow, and it just highlights how tricky things are going to be for the fed. they've got to navigate in a

way, and that's hard to say, and really hard to do. >> do not envy jerome powell's position. mark, thank you so much for being with us. >> sure thing, katy. >> and it's the first attack on russian soil in the war. what if ukraine actually did it as russia alleges, coming up next. it asus rsia alleges, coming up next

i do not discuss any of my orders as commander in chief. the leader of this state. and there are things which i only share with the military armed forces of ukraine. >> that was ukraine's president volodymyr zelenskyy refusing to say whether ukraine was involved in the strike on a russian oil depot. but nbc news has confirmed that ukrainian helicopters were used in the attack in belgrade yesterday. russian officials say two workers were injured in the fire that broke out at the storage

facility after the strikes. joining me now is margarita kaviev, the associate director of analysis at the center for security and emerging technology at georgetown university, her expertise is in urban warfare, armed conflict and resolution, international security and russian ai and military innovation. rita, i love your bonafides. i like it, i think it's impressive. i hesitate to ask you a question. i feel like you could tell me what the appropriate question is here. what are you looking at? >> well, i mean, based on the story that you just showed, it's an interesting development, right because on the one hand, putin has been play claiming that ukrainian air capabilities have been disabled. on the other hand, we are witnessing here something that increasingly indicates that they have not.

so signaling to his people that the war or the military operation that he has been referring to is going as planned, when clearly things are not. also to demonstrate -- no, go ahead. >> the body bags going back to russia. i know the russians haven't been totally forthcoming about how many russian soldiers have been lost. they have made the number a bit higher than in the past, but according to the estimates that we have and the ukrainians are making, there's thousands more the russians are admitting to. at what point will they be forced into a corner on this. will they be? >> to an extent they are, right, because in the last couple of weeks, we have been hearing about a strategy shift, a decision to focus the war more on the east, on that donbas area that's been under russian control and russian influence since 2014. so that is being signalled or sold as something that they

allegedly intended to do from the beginning, but clearly in reality it is a response to ukrainian gains and significant, significant russian losses. what happens from now on remains to be seen. i think the war now entering into more of an attrition stage where we're going to be seeing minimal gains, but still significant humanitarian costs. >> why, and this is kind of been -- i've been curious about this for a while, the russians are fully able to launch missiles from russian territory into ukraine. why have they not done more to attack the capital itself? why haven't they bombarded kyiv? >> that's a good question. i think they were not prepared for this operation at all. and the strategy that they had from the beginning when they thought that they were just going to march into the capital

and face no resistance on the way really indicates that they fundamentally miscalculated what they were walking into. they have in theory the capability to attack and bombard and destroy kyiv but it is not necessarily something that is going to pay off for them. if anything, that type of an attack, that type of destruction is going to probably signal worse things back to the russian people than more of a limited campaign focused on areas that they consider to be more closely aligned to them from the beginning. meaning the south. i think a lot of the destruction from now on is going to be concentrated in that area. and a lot of the urban battles that real significant urban destruction is going to be happening there. >> would you assess that president zelenskyy is still a target for the russians? >> i think that's going to be

ongoing. i've never really thought that was necessarily the main priority. but it's possible. i think right now they're just at a point where they're consolidated what they can and focusing on those more limited goals and signaling something for significant. >> i'm sorry, why are they acting so atrociously to civilians, how does that meet their ends? >> they were not prepared for anything else. they're not trained differently. and generally speaking, the russian way of war is one that focuses on depopulating cities and then declaring victory over the rubble that is left. they're never prioritized civilian protection, they've never prioritized abiding by international humanitarian law. >> the delay is killing me, i'm sorry, i don't mean to keep stepping on you, my apologies. you talk about a war of

attrition, how long do you expect this to last? >> it's hard to know. urban warfare lasts a very long time. it can last months and months, it's also a question of capability, they have obviously struggled with logistics, it remains to be seen how long they can sustain that type of fighting, but i recently heard there might be a push to make some sort of a accomplishment or a declaration by may in time for the victory parade, the world war ii victory parade for that, you know, value signaling, given the goal, but it's hard to know at this stage. it might drag on for much longer. >> thank you so much. next time let's do this in person so we don't have to deal with the zoom logistics, appreciate your time. >> absolutely. thank you. and coming up next, it is a historic event that could ignite a movement across the country. also around the world. and there was a little bubbly to punctuate the moment.

>> in american history. >> now to a landmark win for organized labor, amazon workers on staten island in new york voting to unionize becoming the first in the company to do so. employees celebrated yesterday, popping champagne. one organizer, christian smalls, even thanking amazon's billionaire founder. >> let's go. you know liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need? oh, like how i customized this scarf? wow, first time? check out this backpack i made for marco. oh yeah? well, check out this tux. oh, nice. that'll go perfect with these. dude... those are so fire. [whines]

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now again to a landmark win for organized labor. amazon workers on staten island in new york voting to unionize, becoming the first warehouse in the company to do so. employees celebrated yesterday, popping champagne. one organizer, christian smalls,

even, as i said a moment ago, thanking amazon's billionaire founder. >> we want to thank jeff bezos for going to space because when he was up there, we was down here signing, getting paid. >> joining me now, christian smalls, former amazon employee, who helped lead this union effort. so interesting, while jeff bezos was up in space, you say, erp getting signatures. tell me about the effort in staten island and why you succeeded when so many have been unable to. >> we started 11 months ago. we're all workers of amazon, former, current. i worked for the company for almost five years. i was hired back in 2015, fired two years ago after i led a walkout, and you know, i think while we were successful, it's because once again, we know the ins and outs of the company. we know the grievances. we lived the reality of the warehouse situations, and i just

think the way we came together as amazon workers, you know, just regular, ordinary people, just trying to do the right thing, and i think the work is resonating with that more so than any anti-union propaganda that they try to spill on the workers. >> i know that you disagree with this, but amazon did say they fired you because of covid violations. i guess in that walkout. i want to ask about the conditions, more importantly, inside the amazon facility. what is it like working there? >> well, i used to tell my new hires, if you have a gym membership, you might want to cancel it. these buildings are the size of 14 nfl football fields. you're walking around 30 miles a day, sometimes 60 miles a day, and you know, 10 hours, 12 hours of calisthenics, you only get a 30-minute lunch. your time on task starts,

really, when you stop scanning the items, so they're tracking your every second, and it's definitely a physical job. i tell people, you got to eat healthy. you got to go to bed at night, because you're going to rinse and repeat, and you know, over time, this job will absolutely break you down, especially working in the warehouse. so, you know, i just, once again, i told my new hires, cancel that gym membership, because you're at the gym every single day. >> and i think it's telling in the commercials you see on television for employment at amazon, there's one commercial where a woman says, yes, it is hard work, which acknowledges, i think, the stories that we have been hearing, that it is a lot of physical labor, as you've just said. in forming the union, what would the goal be for making the conditions a little bit easier? >> well, that's the number one priority of this union is the working conditions, worker safety. we want workers to get home to their families safe. we don't want another pandemic where workers are afraid to go

to work and going to work during covid and bringing it home to their families without the building being properly shut down and cleaned. job security. higher wages. making everybody a shareholder again. they stopped that program in 2018. better medical leave options, more paid time off, not being able to call mandatory extra time whenever the company feels like it. these are just a few short thins. there's a long commute for some of these workers from -- depending on where they live in new york. we want to create a shuttle service for these workers to get to work. these are all the things that the union can provide and we're hoping to do so. >> amazon would argue that they offer great benefits. they would argue that they have at least a $15 an hour wage, which is above minimum wage in a lot of places. they say that they're disappointed with the outcome of this election, and they believe having a direct relationship with the company is best for our

employees. why do you disagree with that from them? >> well, direct relationship with the company will get you ultimately terminated. there is no relationship there. they have a system that's implemented that hires and fires people all the time. their firing rate is at 150% so for every 10 people they're hiring, they're firing 15 of them. i dealt with that firsthand, even when i campaigned, we signed up 2,000 or 3,000 people, we filed the petition in october that we had to withdraw the first time because amazon fired a thousand people in six months. so, there's no relationship. there's no relationship. there's no human aspect to it. having a union, there's union representation, there's direct relationship with the union stewards that will obviously enforce a contract. so, that's the relationship that we're building with these workers, and they feel that it's better than what the amazon is

offering right now. >> i read one stat that said the turnover rate is so high, there might come a point in the reasonable future where amazon could employ nearly, at one point, nearly every single person in this country. thank you so much for joining us. i appreciate it, christian. and congratulations on the win. >> thank you. thank you for having me. >> christian smalls. and a member of the january 6th committee calls jared kushner's testimony this week really valuable. and as the highest ranking trump administration official to talk to the committee, what impact could that testimony actually have? at impact could that testimony actually have

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