"dancing with the stars" partner. and i'll speak to the man behind the first successful unionization effort by amazon employees. good evening. i'm mehdi hasan. ukrainian officials say they have completely secured kyiv and the surrounding region this weekend. but there will be no celebrating. tonight the apocalyptic scenes of death and destruction left behind by russian forces are sparking calls for a war crimes investigation as more and more atrocities come to light. as russian troops retreat from the street-by-street combat in that region, there are reports of deliberate, brutal murders at the hands of those occupying forces. nothing indiscriminate about them. that ukrainian officials say were repeated maybe hundreds of times across the suburbs north of kyiv. take the city of bucha, where i

must warn you the images i'm about to show you, even edited, are some of the worst we've seen so far from putin's illegal invasion of ukraine. i'm sorry, look, we cannot turn away from them. we must not turn away from what is happening in ukraine, or minimize or sanitize this barbarrism happening on the ground. hundreds of residents of the once peaceful suburb of bucha appear to have been massacred. those officials tell reuters they were checked by soldiers during the month russian forces occupied the city. horrifying images. this video shows trucks swerving to avoid the bodies of what seemed to be dead civilians. one advisor to president zelenskyy described the streets of bucha as a scene from a horror movie. the city's mayor says at least 20 people were shot in the back of the head execution style. quote, corpses of executed people still line one street in bucha.

their hands are tied behind their backs with white civilian rags. they were shot in the back of their heads so you can imagine what kind of lawlessness they perpetrated here. men, women and children, people who were no threat, all murdered, according to the mayor, simply for the crime of being ukrainian. with several hundred people reportedly already buried in mass graves. but removing the bodies of the civilians that litter the streets has been made more difficult by the report of land mines that retreating russian forces may have left behind. here is what that undignified process looks like. tying rope and cord to the bodies and dragging the dead away out of fear of getting too close to them should they hit a land mine. demining experts told "the sunday times" of london it would take months if not years to clear all the regions the russians had held around kyiv. >> this is not a special operation, this is civilians

that have been shot in the head with tied hands behind their back. this is genocide of the ukrainian population. and that's exactly what russian regime, putin's regime, russian army is doing, killing the civilians. >> and bucha is just one place of many. there's also the kyiv suburb right next door. on march 6th according to a new report out from human rights watch, russian soldiers in the village threw a smoke grenade into a basement, then shot a woman and 14-year-old child as they emerged from the basement where they had been sheltering. a man with her in the same basement when she died from her wounds two days later and heard accounts of the incident from others provided the information to human rights watch. the child did immediately, he said. during an intense battle for the city of kharkiv, a russian soldier beat and repeatedly raped at knife point a

31-year-old woman who had been sheltering in a school in a village outside kharkiv with her 5-year-old daughter, her mother, her 13-year-old sister and 24-year-old brother when the soldier discovered them. she told human rights watch that she went with the soldier after she refused to give him her 5-year-old daughter. while i was putting on my clothes, after he had raped her for just the first time, the soldier told me that he was russian and that he was 20. he said that i reminded him of a girl i went to school with. the young russian soldier wasn't done of course. he repeated his violent assault at knife point. i'm lucky to be alive, she said. maybe she's right, maybe she did manage to escape with her life, but it's hard to consider any ukrainian who has survived what she reportedly has lucky. russia denies ukraine's allegations of a civilian massacre in bucha, in kharkiv or anywhere in ukraine where they have been accused of one. they call the footage from bucha another provocation on the part of ukraine. they say it's fake, just as they called the scenes of mass

carnage in syria fake too. but the shocking scenes from bucha in particular are rightly sparking outrage. ukraine's prosecutor general is collecting evidence of possible war crimes. germany says the eu must consider a complete ban on russian gas, while the u.s. and european leaders are calling for tougher sanctions against russia. >> you can't help but see these images as a punch to the gut. we can't become numb to this. we can't normalize this. this is the reality of what's going on every single day, as long as russia's brutality against ukraine continues. >> but how exactly could russia be prosecuted for committing a crime it doesn't technically agree exists? in 2019 russia under vladimir putin became the first country on earth to withdraw from the additional protocol to the geneva convention. you know, the part of the convention, the extra part that protects specifically civilians from war crimes. a protocol that only bothered to

sign on to under gorbachev after the soviet union had withdrawn from its brutal invasion of afghanistan. we've only talked about northern ukraine. the fighting continues in the southeast where russia remains focused on capturing mariupol. here's something dreadful we have to consider. what we're discovering on the streets of liberated bucha is horrific and heart breaking but mariupol had a population ten times more than bucha's. we're getting an idea of what kind of structural damage has been so far. what will the human damage be once reporters are allowed back into that city. will anyone at the kremlin ever be held accountable for in of this? we'll talk to ali arouzi in just a moment. i spoke earlier about these allegations of russian atrocities with the executive

director of human rights watch. his group has been documenting extensively how russian forces have been fighting this war and the alleged atrocities. ken roth, thank you for joining us on the show tonight. you and your organization, human rights watch, have documented human rights abuses and accusations of war crimes around the world, everywhere from syria to yemen to myanmar to the central african republic. put ukraine and what you've documented in ukraine into context. how bad is it? >> what we're seeing is widespread indiscriminate bombardment of civilian areas. this is the kind of thing we've seen from russian forces before when they encounter military resistance. this is what they did in chechnya and syria. we're seeing it on a widespread basis in ukraine. what's particularly disturbing is over the last couple of days we've heard and actually received concrete evidence of very direct war crimes. that is to say summary

executions of prisoners and other kinds of abuse of the population that was at least briefly under russian occupation in ukraine. and so that's what the world is focusing on now. but this is in addition to the ongoing indiscriminate bombardment of certain cities that the russians are trying to take. >> and in your report today, ken, human rights watch documents the case of a 31-year-old ukrainian woman in kharkiv who says she was repeatedly raped by a russian soldier. to be clear, rape is a war crime, is it not? >> absolutely. there is no question about that. and so in this case, the woman was sheltering in a school. this soldier basically came to her at at knife point repeatedly raped her. now, that's one case. what we're seeing with the videos coming out of bucha and other cities in northern ukraine, kind of around the kyiv area, is actually summary executions. the world is focused on these videos showing a series of bodies, perhaps as many as 20 bodies in the street.

in one case, human rights watch was able to speak with an eyewitness to an execution. there have been a group of people rounded up in the local square. the russian soldiers were checking phones and interrogating people. five young men were then taken apart, stripped partially, forced to lift their shirts above their head and one of them was just executed, shot in the head right there. now, that was in bucha, which is where these videos are coming from. but this is very consistent with what human rights watch is finding elsewhere as well. there's a town a bit east of kyiv and there we were able to, again, receive direct testimony about russian soldiers going door-to-door, pulling men out. and in this case leading away six men. you know, people said they tried to stop them and the soldiers said, no, no, no, we're just going to interrogate them and then they were all six of them

summarily executed. the bodies then lay aground for nine days. >> ken, when human rights watch says, and i quote, rape, murder and other violent acts against people in the russian force's custody should be investigated as war crimes, what should do the investigating? is it the international criminal court? because russia is not a member, but ukraine is. >> precisely. that is the logical body. they have jurisdiction over any crime committed in ukraine. it is given the ability to investigate and prosecute. what's important here is not just the low level soldiers that committed the atrocities but also the chain of command. what we have now is a clear notice to the chain of command that these low-scale atrocities on the ground are taking place. they already are on notice that the indiscriminate bombardment,

the targeting of facilities is taking place. this is precisely the kind of notice that you need to demonstrate command responsibilities because it's rare that you get a direct order to commit a war crime. but that's not the only way to command responsibility for war crimes. if you show commanders were aware of abuses and didn't take steps to stop them, then they too are guilty war crimes. >> so on that note, ken, joe biden has repeatedly referred to vladimir putin as a war criminal. in your view, does the president of russia bear legal command responsibility for these alleged war crimes in ukraine? could he be held personally responsible one day in the future? >> in principle, yes. i should say that human rights watch did this chain of command responsibility analysis and found that putin was responsible for the deliberate targeting of hospitals, schools, apartment buildings, markets and the like. it's a bit too early in the ukraine conflict to prove that,

but this is exactly what human rights watch is looking at, exactly what the international criminal court will look at. if they can get direct evidence of ordering war crimes, that's one route. but the more likely route is that putin was aware of these atrocities taking place and didn't take steps to stop it. if that can be demonstrated, then he is indeed responsible for war crimes and can be brought to justice by the icc. now, putin may be sitting there in the kremlin what do i worry about, who's going to come get me, i've got nuclear weapons. there have been other presidents in this situation that thought they were untouchable. one ended up in the hague because the government changed and it wanted to show it was reformist and it was convenient to hand him to the hague. the sudanese president. the former liberian president

charles taylor ran off to what he thought was a comfortable retirement in nigeria, is now convicted in the hague. you never know where this goes. you hope putin is learning about this because this is a way of deterring future atrocities. bucha is a city of 30,000 people. it's relatively small. but mariupol has 430,000 people. >> yes. >> what we worry about is that these kinds of atrocities are being replicated in mariupol. we know there's a siege there and indiscriminate bombardment. we don't know how russian troops on the ground are behaving and this should be notice to the kremlin to rein in those russian troops so they don't repeat these atrocities in other places where they were under occupation. >> kenneth roth, thank you so much for your time tonight. appreciate it. >> thank you. let's go nbc's ali arouzi who's live for us on the ground in lviv, ukraine. ali, we're seeing all these

horrific images out of bucha. what more can you tell us? >> reporter: well, we've seen some very fierce fighting in and around kyiv in the last weeks. it finally forced the russians out of that area. the ukrainians are in control of all of those suburbs. but what the russians left behind was a scene of utter destruction and mayhem. the scenes are just horrific and brutal. crimes against humanity. we can see on the streets of bucha, it's lined with burnt-out russian tanks, corpses sprawled out in the middle of the road, many of them with their hands tied behind their backs. people riding their bicycles shot down in the middle of the street. the mayor of bucha painted a very chilling picture of what had happened there. he said up to 20 people had been shot in the back of the head execution style. some of them with their hands tied behind their backs, and

they had to dig mass graves in that city to bury their dead, to bury the people that were murdered in their own city. let's take a listen to an account of one of the residents of bucha. >> translator: he went to get some food when all of a sudden the russians started shooting. they hit him above the heel crushing the bone and he fell down. the shooter shouted, don't scream or i will shoot, and they turned away. then they shot off his left leg completely. then they shot him all over the chest. and another shot went slightly below the temple. it was a controlled shot to the head. >> reporter: just horrifying accounts. and there's been a chorus of condemnation from the international community. the head of nato said that these were some of the most gruesome crimes committed in europe in decades.

of course the last time we saw something like this was in bosnia. the international community said we must never forget. it must never happen again. but it has happened again. >> ali, thanks so much for your reporting. please do stay safe. coming up, the man who started a movement leading to amazon's first-ever union. my conversation with chris smalls, next. onversation with cs smalls, next liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for whatchya... line? need. liberty biberty— cut. liberty... are we married to mutual? only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ there's a different way to treat hiv. it's every-other-month, injectable cabenuva. for adults who are undetectable, cabenuva is the only complete hiv treatment you can get every other month. cabenuva helps keep me undetectable. it's two injections, given by a healthcare provider every other month.

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this week we saw a huge step forward for the american labor movement. workers at an amazon warehouse on staten island voted to organize the first union in the company's history. this victory comes as workers across the country are forming labor unions and taking on corporate greed. a little over a year ago not a single starbucks location was represented by a labor union.

now, 11 different stores have voted them in. thousands of workers fought for their rights and won at kellogg's and john deere following massive labor strikes. how did this get going for amazon, a corporation with one of the strongest anti-union track records? it started with one man, chris smalls, a former amazon employee who took it upon himself to form the amazon labor union. he had been fired in 2020 for protesting the company's lack of safety measures during the pandemic. while jeff bezos was in space having his neil armstrong moment, chris was on the ground taking one small step for man, and one giant leap for workers' rights. amazon executives tried to undermine smalls' unionizing efforts by calling him not smart or inarticulate and that the company should make him the face of the entire union movement. well, that worked out amazingly for amazon, didn't it?

>> stand in solidarity with the workers here and any community with an amazon facility because they affect your community. amazon doesn't become amazon without the people. we make amazon what it is. >> joining me now is the man himself, the man who pulled off this union victory at amazon, chris smalls. chris, thanks for coming on the show. first off, congratulations on your successful organizing efforts. >> thank you. >> this is a huge deal. amazon is the second largest employer in the nation. they spent millions to try to foil any plans to implement a union. what does this achievement mean not just for amazon workers in staten island but american workers across the country? >> well, this hopefully is a catalyst for a revolution for the working class, you know. i'm a worker, even though i'm still unemployed, and i was able to lead us over here in new york. you know, my story and the workers that organized this campaign, all of our stories, it

shows people that when people do come together, ordinary people come together, we can achieve anything. >> you made sure, chris, to thank jeff bezos for his help by saying that while he was in space, you were getting out signatures. founding a union is not an easy task, let alone going up against a giant like amazon. how did you manage to pull this victory off? >> once again, i was hired in 2015 entry level. i worked hard, got promoted up to a process assistant. i just think that this company didn't realize how much i was invested into them. i opened up three buildings in the tri-state, trained thousands of employees, trained upper management. i was a good employee. everybody respected me, everybody loved me. when i got terminated, what motivated me was the memo and i just play for a different team now, the people. and i always have. they galvanized behind me and,

you know, the way we organized from within the company, living these realities, knowing the concerns, listening to workers, building relationships, it was just -- it was just pure love and dedication to making sure that workers are connected to us as human beings, and that's how we were ultimately able to take down a machine that amazon is. >> you mentioned the leaked internal memo. when you see that david zapolsky, former amazon general counsel when this memo was leaked last year, when you see what he said about you in an internal memo, you must be taking special pleasure in this victory, right? >> definitely. absolutely. you know, when that leaked memo came out and knowing that jeff bezos signed off on that, that obviously motivated me to continue to advocate for workers' rights.

i didn't want to become another statistic where i get fired from the company, discredited and smeared and that's it. that's the end of me. i told them, you know, if they want to make me the face of the whole unionizing efforts, i'm going to prove them right and absolutely continue to fight and that's exactly what i did, ever since i was terminated. i woke up every day with oar organizing on my mind and traveled the country, brought people together and was able to bring it back home to new york, and new york is now the first to be unionized. >> so lengthy negotiations remain. we can expect that amazon will try to delay negotiations. amazon employees in alabama just had a revote to form a union after amazon was accused of violating election efforts. what do you see as the next steps? are you prepared for the fight ahead, the fight that goes on? >> we know they're not going to

want to come to the table. we expected that. you know, we're going to prepare ourselves on our ending. we have lawyers for expertise in that field. we're going to meet with them and add some more to our team. we're going to expand our internal network and infrastructure. and we're going to prepare for that battle. in the meantime we've got another election to win in a few weeks and so we're focusing on that. my team is here meeting up. we're focused and dedicated to whatever challenges and battles that we may have against the company. >> chris, democrats like to say they are the party of the underdog, the party of labor, the workers, and yet the vast majority of elected democrats in congress last time i checked haven't said a word about your victory. how disappointed are you in the democratic party when it comes to the issue of labor rights? >> well, you know, right now it's a lot of buzz online about who supported who. and i want to clear the air on

that. you know, they didn't support us and that's just a fact. i know who was here on the ground with me every day, i know who came out to support us at our rallies and it wasn't them. and it's not just them, it's a lot more people that are out there that obviously didn't show up for these workers here in staten island and it's a shame that they wait until we get to an election and we actually are victorious to come out and show their support, something that they could have done 11 months ago when this campaign first started. so i'm just hoping that they can redeem themselves. this is a marathon. i don't have any ill will towards any of them. i just want them to do right by their constituents. we're here in new york. it doesn't matter what district you come from, it doesn't matter what district this building is in, these are all new yorkers traveling in from all boroughs. i know 8300 of them, i know where they live, and i can tell you they absolutely represent, you know, the politicians that they elected. so they all need to step up and i'm talking to every last one of

them. they all need to step up and make sure that they are taking care of these people. >> chris smalls, a pleasure to speak with you. congratulations on your victory and thank you for your time tonight. >> absolutely. thank you, any time. coming up, all the former president's disgraced men. why are we whitewashing exmembers of the trump administration and their records? first, richard lui is here with the headlines. >> good evening to you. some of the stories we're watching, a manhunt is under way for a deadly mass shooting in downtown sacramento, california. multiple shooters opened fire early sunday, killing six people and injuring 12 others. investigators confirmed a large brawl did take place shortly before that shooting began. the senate judiciary committee will meet tomorrow to vote on judge ketanji brown jackson's nomination to the supreme court. a vote by the full senate could happen by the end of the week. and beloved actress estelle harris has died.

best known for her rolls on seinfeld and the toy story series. her family says she passed away from natural causes. estelle harris was 93. more of "the mehdi hasan show" right after this. right after ths ♪ ♪ we believe there's an innovator in all of us. ♪ 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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welcome back. it's time now for what i call the 60-second rant. this week it's a where are they now for once disgraced members of the trump administration. i just need a minute. start the clock. this week cbs news caused controversy by hiring mick mulvaney as a paid contributor, the man who in 2020 suggested media coverage of the coronavirus was part of a hoax to hurt his boss, donald trump. what is going on? what happened to never letting trump enablers getting away with what they were. h.r. mcmaster who is a paid contributor at cbs news. there's chris christie who's now a paid contributor at abc news. don't forget press secretary sean spicer who ridiculously

turned up on abc's "dancing with the stars" and disgraced trump lawyer rudy giuliani, who was invited to appear on "the masked singer." don't get be started on fox. not to mention the former guy's daughter-in-law, lara trump. dina powell, was welcomed back in open arms by goldman sachs. i don't know about you but this is wrong. our job as journalists is to hold these people to account, not to whitewash or launder their reputations. next, i'll speak with volodymyr zelenskyy's "dancing with the stars" partner. what happened to the president, how he transformed. and don't forget, "the mehdi hasan show" is available as a podcast. listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. lien for free whet your podcasts. r) save yourself?! money with farmers? (burke) that's not wrong. when you switch your home and auto policies to farmers, you could save yourself an average of

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>> translator: i can't even have a meeting when the shelling is going on, so first the cease-fire, then we can have a meeting with russian president. >> that was president zelenskyy today making it clear that no direct talks with vladimir putin can take place until russia ends its brutal bombing campaign. over the past five weeks

president zelenskyy has become a fixture on our screens. it's been an astonishing transformation for zelenskyy. prior to politics as many of you may know he had a successful career in entertainment, not long before assuming the real-life presidency, he played a fictional presidency on the comedy series "servant of the people." what you might not know is he wasn't just a comedian and actor. in 2006, he actually won ukraine's version of "dancing with the stars." he's gone from dance champion to war leader. so who better to talk to about zelenskyy's transformation than his former dance partner on that show. earlier i spoke to elena. elena, thanks for joining me on the show tonight. you are speaking to us from austria because like more than 4 million other ukrainians, you and your child have had to, sadly, flee your home and your country. how are you all doing right now? what was that like? >> well, thank god we're in a

safe place now. yes, we're in austria. i'm in a relative's place. we didn't plan to go here. first we were going to the western edge of ukraine just to wait a little bit but then after arriving there, we decided we have to get out, our children to a safe place. i also took my friend's child and we decided to go to europe. so it took us about like three days to get here and it was really hard, hard road. but still we're here and, well, the main thing is that while i'm here i'm trying to support my native country. now i'm organizing a flash mob to raise funds for women like me who now with children in other countries. >> and you, of course, spent a lot of time with president zelenskyy, just over 15 years ago, on that show.

what was he like? do you have a memory of him that you can share with us? >> well, of course i have memory. it was really a long time ago, but i can tell you that actually in that show, while we were working together, i remember that he was a great dancer and a great partner actually. he was really hard working and would practice a lot for everything to be at the highest level. so also he offered a lot of ideas for our performances, which were then implemented. and maybe the main thing is, well, he invested as much as he could in common goal, in common deal, you know. >> obviously to dance at that level and win takes a lot of hard work and discipline, a lot of grueling days of rehearsals, i'm sure. but were you surprised to see where he ended up?

because he was a comedian, he did the acting, he did the tv show, and then he runs for office and becomes president, takes more than 70% of the vote. did that surprise you, his journey, the journey he went on? >> well, actually to tell the truth not really because he also went for his goal. when we were working together on "dancing with the stars," i noticed then that with such love, he behaved towards his projects, towards his team and towards the people who he cared about. so in our culture, we tell something when a person stands for someone, and i think that now we see the same behavior and

that's why all our people are very proud of him. >> yes, indeed. and one last question, olena. you mentioned that you're working on a charity dance project to support refugees, tell us more about that. >> all my colleagues all over the world who are now refugees, we all try to do something for our people, first of all. and now with one of the channels here in austria and now one of the charge organizations of the ukrainian youth, we're organizing a big dancing performance in a square, vienna square, to raise funds for those -- for people, for just simple people. for women with children, like me. for different -- like for everything we can do, because it's the main thing because a lot of people are dying, a lot of people are suffering from this really big tragedy, you

know. like everything that we can do with our skills, we're making here for helping, for helping our nation now. >> olena, we will have to leave it there. thank you so much for your time and please do stay safe. >> thank you very much. thanks. >> that was a good reminder, not everyone's former reality tv star president has to turn out like donald j. trump. next, as a new covid wave seems more and more likely to be heading our way, how much does racism affect our willingness to accept and follow simple protocols that can save all our lives? all our lives? you know liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need? like how i customized this scarf? check out this backpack i made for marco. only pay for what you need. ♪liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.♪ (vo) verizon business unlimited is going ultra!

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remember may of 2020? it was a horrible time. covid-19's death toll was soaring, vaccines were a very much far-off prospect and a

great deal of the country was locked down. alpharetta was not like a great part of the country. there, almost two years ago, people decided it was time for, quote, unquote, for life to resume. middle-aged men waltzed back into starbucks. suburban moms rescheduled their regular pedicures. as one man explained to the post, when you start seeing where the cases are coming from and the demographics, there's no reason to worry. the demographics. a curious sent meant and one echoed not much later that same month by wisconsin supreme court justice patience rogensack. in hearing a case following a covid surge in brown county, the chief justice of the state supreme court argued it was just the meat packers getting sick in brown county, not the, quote, regular folks. regular folks, huh? i guess that didn't include those mostly latino meat packers. i regret to report that our

eloquent friends from wisconsin and georgia were onto something. because learning that black, latino and native americans are up to four times more likely to die from covid than white americans, makes white americans care less about the pandemic. makes them less willing to make sacrifices for the greater good, to accept restrictions like mask mandates. that's the conclusion for a new study who say our findings show that when covid-19 racial disparities are highlighted, it can decrease white u.s. residents willingness to engage in safety precautions themselves. thus, publicizing covid-19 racial disparties could reduce support for the very policies that aim to limit the toll of the pandemic. in short, for an alarming number of americans covid isn't a problem so long as it's not a white people problem. here's what i find so infuriating about this. yes, there is the abject vile racism, of course.

but also while covid-19 disproportionately affects people of color, yes, the majority of the victims are white people. so this strain of white supremacy, let's call it what it is is helping to kill hundreds of thousands of white people. this is white america's long history of cutting off its nose to spite its face. think back to reagan's villainization of welfare queens. the largest racial group that benefits from them is white people. or another instance of this form of backfiring racism in her recent book. she explains when civil rights leaders successfully pushed for schools to be elevated, opting to drain the pools and close them down together. no one gets a pool before black

people get a pool. it sounds absurd because it is absurd. so i'm sad to have to report that even in a once in a lifetime deadly global pandemic, it seems yet again white supremacy trumps all. coming up at the top of the hour with ayman mohyeldin, congressman tom malinowski wants the u.s. to seize russian oligarchs assets and sell them to help the ukrainian people. more on that in a moment. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for whatchya... line? need. liberty biberty— cut. liberty... are we married to mutual? only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ are you taking a statin drug to reduce cholesterol? only pay for what you need. it can also deplete your coq10 levels. i recommend considering qunol coq10 along with your statin medication. the brand i trust is qunol.

thank you for watching. we'll be right back here next sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern. you can catch me monday through thursday at 7:00 p.m. eastern on the streaming channel peacock. now it is time for me to hand it over to my friend ayman mohyeldin. good evening. you and i have both expressed frustration at merrick garland's lack of action when it comes to holding donald trump to account. no sign of any action yet against the inciter in chief. while garland has his defenders, the president might not be one of them. according to "the new york times," quote, while the president had never communicated his frustrations directly to mr. garland, he has said privately he wanted him to act less like a

ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor to take action over january 6th. >> yeah. listen, i couldn't agree with you more on that. speaking of judges, you know who might be more than a ponderous judge these days? clarence thomas on the supreme court. it is quite remarkable. i think you'd agree with me that the same voice on the supreme court who was opposed to having white house records handed over to the january 6th investigative committee is married to an anti-democratic pro coup trump supporter who is messaging with the white house chief of staff on january 6th. what makes it more difficult, going back to your point, the tempid response from some democrats like nancy pelosi who have been calling on thomas to resign or be impeached or recuse himself from cases because of the glaring conflict of interest, i mean, can you imagine if this shoe was on the

other foot and republicans controlled congress? with a liberal judge presenting such a glaring convict of interest? we would be in nonstop hearings. it highlights the different mind sets between republicans and democrats and how they approach governance and their responsibilities. >> i mean, sonja sotomeyer, if it was her husband, he would be impeached by now. it is a very dangerous time. and the idea that sternly worded letters is the way forward, nancy pelosi wrote a stern letter to clarence thomas and said, oh, the democrats want me to recuse myself, okay, i'll recuse myself. it is not going to happen. democrats, learn from the republicans. >> yeah. i was going to say. they're not even playing the same game. let alone be in the same ballpark. always a pleasure. great show as always. take care. >> good evening to you at home.

welcome to ayman. coming up, the growing evidence of russian war crimes. i will be joined by a ukrainian member of parliament who was on the ground documents these horrors. plus, the kremlin state-run media machine is amplifying the voice of american conservatives and they're actually calling for trump to be re-elected. and my take on the claims on judge ketanji brown jackson's confirmations. why republicans are getting way too much credit for very little effort. i'm ayman mohyeldin. let's get started. >> tonight in the ukrainian city of bucha, just a few weeks ago it was a thriving commuter town that was just about 20 miles away from kyiv. now it has become the site of

what ukraine's foreign minister is calling a massacre. i have to warn you, though, before we show you these images, they are very hard and distressing to look at. on saturday, ukrainian forces marched into that city, celebrating its liberation from russian control. but what they were met with was far from victory. it was horror. here you can see the lifeless bodies of what appears to be civilians strewn out across the street. they plant explosives of the bodies of people killed. tieing a rope to one of the dead and dragging them away. now, the town's mayor says nearly 300 people have been buried in mass graves like the ones shown here. we should note that nbc news has not been able to independently verify these claims. when asked about these

atrocities, president volodymyr