barbara? >> both you and jake sullivan were very specific this afternoon that u.s. troops would not be going into ukraine to fight russian soldiers. i just want to post a loop on that. not going in to fight russian soldiers, but is the door open for u.s. troops to go into ukraine in a non-combat role to assist, if and when it comes to it and i'm not speculating, the pole and initiative, if and when it comes to it, to assist in documentation of war crimes, as you said, the pentagon would be part of the intra-agency effort. is the door now open with these new missions to u.s. troops and ukraine in a non-combat zone? >> there are no plans to put u.s. troops in ukraine at this time. there are no discussions or conversations or plans or speculations about using u.s.

troops in terms of documentation of war crimes in ukraine. it is still a hot war going on, barbara, and the president has been very clear u.s. troops will not be fighting in ukraine. there's been no change to that, and your question was speculative because you used the word "if." there is no discussion about u.s. troops being involved in the physical documentation or collection of evidence. david? >> if i could follow up on that quickly, because you definitely say boots on the ground are not going to happen, but the previous administration, when syria used chemical weapons against the citizens launched tomahawks, not boots on the ground, so to speak, but they launched tomahawks to keep them

from having a war in that sense. >> the u.s. is not going to help fight in ukraine. the president was clear about that. what we're going to do is help ukraine defend themselves. and ukrainians are defending themselves. david? >> can you go over the reinforcements that you know of that are headed for the east? i can't remember what's on the background and what's on the record, but i think it's been said that 1,000 members from the wagner group have been sent to donbas. i think it's been said that russia was preparing to send units from georgia, and then, of course, all the ones in belarus. so what can you tell us about reinforcements that have actually been sent into the east, and do you know anything about reports that battalions in

georgia have refused to go? >> so we don't have perfect visibility into the russian order of battle, how many troops they have everywhere they have them. they already have sizeable troops in donbas, they already had. they've been fighting in donbas for eight years. we know that they are trying to recruit fighters mostly from the middle east, to apply them in donbas. that's where the wagner group has been active for the last eight years, so not a surprise they would be focusing on that part of ukraine, certainly given the russians' reprioritization of that part of the country. we have also seen indications that the russian ministry of

defense is looking for other ways to reinforce their manpower, bringing troops in from other places outside of ukraine and, in fact, from outside russia. but i don't have specific information that would -- that speaks to a certain number or a certain timeline or even a location. just as, in my answer to leta, again, we don't have perfect thinking into russian plans here. it's very clear to us, though, that we do want to prioritize the donbas. logically it makes sense that if they're going to reinforce, that's probably the place they're going to reinforce the most. but david, we just aren't there yet to see anything real demonstrable when it comes to reinforcement. that said, again, what we have seen is more strikes in the donbas, more offensive maneuvers

by the russians in the donbas. again, the effort of putting private military contractors more there. they are clearly prioritizing it, and we'll just have to see as this unveils, and i think i missed another question. >> hi there, everyone. it's just a few minutes after 4:00 in the east. we've been listening together to press secretary john kir by fortunate latest assessment of where things are at with the war in ukraine. john kirby will be our guest in the next hour, but we begin today with the scenes of horror out of ukraine which, at least in europe, were very much confined to history. hundreds of civilians have been massacred in the town of bucha. it's a suburb outside of kyiv, and as russian forces retreat from areas near ukraine's capital, we got our first glimpse of what happened there. we're going to warn you and give you a second to get any kids out of the room. some of the images we're about to show you are graphic, they're

incredibly difficult to watch, but they're necessary and they're urgently important for all of us to see. bodies of human beings are seen lining the streets and yards in bucha. some of them were found dead with their hands tied behind their backs. dozens of people were also found in unmarked mass graves in bucha. one survivor told the "new york times" the russians shot everyone they saw. sky news is on the ground in bucha where russians and ukranian soldiers have begun the recovery efforts. >> reporter: you can see the absolute devastation here in bucha left by the fighting as russian forces were beaten back. the wreckage of russian vehicles is littering this street, and you can also see the damage to the houses around. right now today, there are a lot of ukrainians military here. there seems to be demining going on. there is a big attempt to start trying to clean up this town. residents as well coming out,

but there's still no power and no water here. it's going to take an awful long time for life to get any sign of normality, and there was the concern, yes, that while russian forces are pulling back, are they pulling back just to regroup and maybe attack again? residents are starting to come out after russian forces left. this is the street where a number of bodies were found just abandoned on the road. we've been talking to a few residents from that apartment block over there, and we just found them standing in the street, and i started talking to them, and it just gives you a sense of how everybody here as a horror story to tell. one woman i spoke to described how she saw russian soldiers who came to their apartment building, asking one of her neighbors to show them his documents. this man, she said he was nearly 50. he went to go and find his

documents. as he went to go and find them, she says that she saw the russian soldiers shoot him in the back of the head. she then took us around the back of the apartment block where, on the ground, the neighbors have dug three graves where they buried this man and two others who they say were shot by russian soldiers. >> president zelenskyy visited bucha today, pledging to hold the perpetrators accountable and saying that it would be very hard to negotiate with russia after what has happened. during an interview with cbs news on sunday, president zelenskyy did not mince words. >>. >> translator: this is genocide. the elimination of the whole nation and the people, we are the citizens of ukraine. we have more than 100 nationalities. this is about the destruction and ex termination of all these

nationalities. >> in just the last hour, national security adviser jake sullivan said the images coming out of bucha are, quote, evidence of war crimes and that the u.s. and europe are now preparing a new round of sanctions. for its part, the russian government has claimed that the massacre in bucha is, quote, fake and staged by the ukrainians. but the russians have not provided an iota of evidence for this allegation. as the atrocities have sparked outrage around the world and here at home, president joe biden today called for vladamir putin to stand trial. >> you may remember i got criticized for calling putin a war criminal. well, the truth of the matter is what happened in bucha. this war contains a war criminal. we have to gather information. we have to continue to provide ukraine with the weapons they need to continue the fight, and we have to get all of the detail so this can be a war trial.

this guy is brutal, and what's happening in bucha is outrageous and everybody has seen it. >> the ground in ukraine continues today. nearly two-thirds of russian forces near the capital have been pulled back. the pentagon believe it's a likely defensive in the east of the country. in the south, there is no end in sight for the calamity in mariupol. they were unable to reach the city for the fourth day in a row. the mayor says at least 130,000 people are still trapped by russian forces without basic necessities, things like food, water and medicine. joining our coverage, our good friend igor is back. igor, i have to play something

you said on the show, because when you said it, some people that were on afterwards were taken aback by the words he used, but now i don't think anyone is. let's play that first. >> i have no idea what's going on. people think it's some sort of way to try to build back the u.s. for president putin, undoubtedly, this is a war of genocide against the ukraine people, the people who perform genocide, the people who are living proof to the russian people and the people around the world. >> genocide is the word that your president used yesterday at this hour. it's being debated by senior white house officials to describe them as bar crimes. tell me what the world woke up to today and what you woke up to today in your country. >> we knew what was going on from pretty much day one,

because, like, when you're living in the country of ukraine, everyone knows someone. there is a lot of chatter and communication going on and the room is too stressed. secondly, that's not -- i openly speak about this. i explained to my wife that this is happening and we decided on staying where we are. we were lucky in the sense of the russian forces didn't get to where we are, but we were in one of the most dangerous places, so it's an upscale neighborhood and you likely would have seen all of it, looting, raping, murders. as far as i'm concerned, i'm the foreign affairs adviser to the president of ukraine whom putin holds as a nazi, so i'm pretty sure i was high up on that list. i wasn't surprised, and unfortunately, and the second point i want to make, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

in terms of images, definitely it's incredibly disturbing, but unfortunately, in terms of numbers, i think bucha is one of the smaller incidences in behavior. we're going to see more of that, and i don't even want to think about what's going on in mariupol that's level to the ground with this population and places like kherson. you have to realize how brave those people are in russia and kherson. when they come unarmed to protest against russia every single day knowing probably at night some of them are being abducted and shot in the back of the head. >> your foreign minister made some of these same points you're making. let me play that and we'll go from here.

>> you've seen the horrors that we've seen in bucha and they're just the tip of the iceberg of all the crimes that have been committed by russian army in the territory of ukraine so far. i can tell you without exaggeration but with great sorrow that the situation in mariupol is much worse compared to what we've seen in bucha and others, towns and villages in nearby kyiv. i demand from our partners on behalf of the victims of bucha and the people of ukraine to take the most severe sanctions against russia this week. this is not the request of ukraine's foreign minister. this is the plea of the victims of rape, torture and killings, their relatives and the entire

ukranian nation. >> you said at the beginning that this is the conversation you and your wife have had privately about what you might face. i think that is something that was reported to here in our american press. i think that's what you're referring to to being on the short list of being targeted. tell me how you're feeling about the decision to stay in light of the world seeing the brutality and the horrors that people like you have endured. >> well, first of all, i mean, we do have that small sense of, like, a small victory we've achieved, so at the moment, kyiv is safe and our area is safe. there is no need for me to troll at night, and there are hardly any explosions. i think the last one was yesterday and it was anti-aircraft fire. that's the positive side, but the negative side is the

emotional exhaustion. my wife cries secretly. she hides in one of the rooms and cries. i ask her why and she says, how else do you process something as horrific as this? to be honest, it will only get worse because one can deal with explosions, one can deal with physical threats, but the psychological threats are way worse. i think our country will need to do something about that, because there will be a lot of people who will have major psychological exhaustion. and while on that note, i know what's going to happen next, because i have studied russian propaganda for a while, and i think russia will divert attention, mislead the global intelligence in terms of what's happened in bucha and other places.

look out for those narrative amplifiers. to boost those messages to say what if it's all staged? >> we have people on the fringes who make those sorts of allegations about the most heinous tragedies in this country, too, but we will consider us to be warned. because you shared with us, i have to ask how your daughters are doing. >> my daughters are tired as well. masha is learning english, so she's two and a half and she's grown closer to me over the last month than she's ever been. it's difficult for sophia. she's a teenager, she is on social media, she sees the

picture. keep your children away from the screens. she's living through that, and i think we're coming to a point of, if it turns out to a war of attrition, i may be sending my family away for a break out of kyiv, because it's incredibly difficult. >> what is the sense of what president zelenskyy can do for the people trapped in mariupo for the victims? i know he was in bucha today, but tell us what the sort of the sense is how regionalized the war has become now. >> i wouldn't characterize it as regionalized. we have functioning close to nikolai. there is heavy fighting in

donbas. i get daily updates if you know what's going on there, and it's not pretty. it's not only about mariupol, and there's only so much a military consider do. >> you know, we're trying our hardest but we need the help from anything that could be done. there are still 135,000 left of them there. the worst for me is to realize once the tour is over, i think the civilian death toll of this war will shake everyone beyond belief. >> it's unthinkable before you see what's actually happening. i asked you this last time how

you were doing, and you said at the very end that you were tired. it seems that this is the russian strategy, to terrorize and exhaust the entire ukrainians population. and you're right, it's not regional. your entire country is being terrorized and assaulted and under threat. but i was only referring to the fact that you said there are fewer explosions outside of your home near kyiv. what does this -- i just want to make sure we don't inaccurately describe what the russians are doing right now. what does this redeployment or refocusing on donbas or the eastern part of your country mean for your country? >> for our country it doesn't change anything, there is just a change in the war strategy. when putin entered ukraine, i think he had his own propaganda. he generally believed the support for russia is great within ukraine, and he used that

military orchestra on the victory day parade like on three days in kyiv for everyone to disagree with that. they were on nearly every envoy that entered ukraine. those were for us. most of the country is against putin and most of the country is for freedom and liberty. now putin is approaching this war differently. he's turning it into a war of attrition. he's narrowing our focus to more military targets. he's also waiting for everyone to get exhausted. for our economy, for the west, the gas problem, when that's going to -- when that strategy works, you'll hear weak voices

saying, maybe we should just let it go. i wanted to give you a positive. it's difficult to find positives today. >> i knew they were coming. go ahead. >> one positive story for me when you showed the clip of me on february 20, i can verify that i lost weight. >> yes, you have. >> also, look, the story of ukraine that surfaced, russia has been looting every single town they conquered. there was this ukranian soldier today and he came across a bulletproof vest of a russian soldier, so he wanted to take

the good bullet vest. why let it go to waste? he pulled out the armor plate from the dead russian's weight, and it turns out he swapped his armor plate disruption for air from his bulletvest. guess what he was hit? the vest. we had a stray cat that we if he had almost daily for four years. then my assistant adopted that cat and took it home. my assistant went to hungary three days ago, and that cat now has a european passport. she doesn't, but the cat does. enjoy that life. imagine becoming a european

member and any parts you are concerned with. >> these stories do a lot more than, i think, lift our spirits, they illuminate the spirit of your whole country and all the journalists tharz. recall. >> i just have to ask you? what do you envision? what do you and your family talk about as an fernld. the first. >> i remember that was at disneyland, seeing something we

remember, so i said maybe we should go to disney or there's a window opportunity or the sense. we can only go to target. for our country, the end game is different. i think what happened in mariupol and the other places, there will be no compromises on necessities. hopefully the world will stem to us because i don't -- any time

people are here, that's when you turn away. i can prove sooner or later. i promise tudly. you keep coming back and ever look way, and you tell nemplt. >> thanks so much. i'll tell her right now. >> please do, please do. please stay safe. we think about you and your family every day. thank you for spending some time with us. when we come back, congress today is set to move another step closer to recommending two former trump aides to the justice department for prosecution. it means yet another criminal contempt referral being dropped at the doorstep of the. even president joe biden is

getting trsz and. there is a tie vote in committee. republicans will make it a longer week being than necessary, but she will be. russian fweernlt sfwlz when the white house continues for a quick break. stay with us! continues for a quick break. stay with us sometimes, i'm a h. can never have too many pillows! sometimes, i'm all business. a serious chair for a serious business woman! i'm always a mom- that is why you are smart and chose the durable fabric. perfect. i'm not a chef- and, don't mind if i do.

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mr. skovino and mr. navarro, you have the responsibility to vote. if we give contempt charges, it is relevant to the nation. >> there is no standard under law by which you can simply say i'm not coming because somebody told me not to, even if that person is the former president of the united states. >> no standard under law. that was january 6 committee chairman bennie thompson and vice chair liz cheney speaking at the house rules committee last hour before their vote that

they hold dan scovino and navarro in criminal contempt for their refusal to comply with house subpoenas. this will probably put even more pressure on merrick garland which faces growing criticism for not moving aggressively or quickly enough. quote, as recently as late last year, president biden confided to his inner circle that he believed former president trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted. that's according to two people familiar with his comments. and that biden, quote, has said privately that he wanted garland to act less like a preponderous judge. he has told people close to him that he doesn't understand how he thinks they can do so.

dan goldman, u.s. assistant attorney for the district of new york and counsel in donald trump's first impeachment trial, correspondent mike schmidt, and claire mccaskill all msnbc contributors. we miss you at the table, dan. next time we'll have you to reach a quorum. this puts 50% of americans or 60% of americans who feel this way. unfortunately he is the president. tell me your take on this new report. >> well, first of all, who knew claire was in town, i definitely would have been there. >> come on down. >> look, i think that i have also been frustrated at the pace that the doj has gone to

investigate the coup separate and apart from january 6 but the actual coup itself. we talked about this a lot, but we did learn last week from the "new york times" and the post that the investigation is widening. my concern is they're not going to do it at all. they appear to be investigating it, just slowly than we would have hoped for. one thing we need to consider is that there are 770-plus prosecutions related to january 6. that means there are 700 defendants who have their own procedure. the vast majority of attorneys' offices around the country do not charge 770 cases in a year. this is a massive, massive undertaking and to the extent

there were terrorist groups and extremists on january 6, there was an urgent public safety need to push forward on those cases. so the fact that it has taken longer than we would have hoped has a good explanation. the question now is how quickly do they move? and they do need to move quickly, because memories fade, documents get lost or destroyed, and investigations become a lot more difficult the further you get from the time of the conduct. so, yes, i think judge garland is a judge and he will be meticulous and he will be measured and careful. but at the end of the day, if, as he promises, he does his job to follow the facts in the law and to do the right thing as we hope, the fact that he took longer and was more careful will bolster the credibility of whatever comes out of that department. >> claire, to be perfectly blunt, dingleman is brilliantly

focused on the pace. to be fair, what it sounds like president biden is concerned about is whether or not the president is held accountable for subverting our democracy. my understanding is that he sees the ex-president as a threat to democracy. and i think the real anxiety that i hear is, you know, a federal judge in central california is saying donald trump likely committed felonies with john eastman, and the vice chair of the 1/6 committee, republican liz cheney reading from the statutes of the law she believes is broken, is as close as anyone is going to get to calling donald trump a criminal. >> really, there is not that much evidence that would be needed to go forward with the prosecution at this point. not much additional evidence. i mean, let's look at the facts here. i know that merrick garland is going, prosecuting the former president, cansuccessfully get a conviction?

his defense would be i didn't know. i really believed i won the election. if you look at those facts as a prosecutor, his attorney general told him he hadn't won, the guy running the cybersecurity and homeland security told him he had not won. 60 different judges had told him he hadn't won. he knew he had not won. this was a fraud. and i think a jury would be very responsive to this massive amount of evidence. so i really get it. dan goldman is a prosecutor and he did a really good job of just explaining why the doj goes slowly. they're going too slowly. why don't we have a decision by mark meadows? this isn't complicated. it is ridiculous how long this is taking. justice delayed is justice denied, and i think that's the way a lot of people are feeling in america right now. >> you got claire, you got liz cheney, judge carter and president biden who feel that way. explain the doj side. >> to claire's point, when the

committee filed what i call their version of an indictment, this was several weeks back in california in the eastman case, they took on that issue, which i always thought was going to be a legal issue. well, trump thought that he had won the election, so that is a legal impediment. but what they did in the filing is they laid out example after example, and the simple excuse that you didn't want to believe the truth is not enough. now, look, that's just the committee. the committee is not the justice department, and the committee can go into court and say whatever they think is criminal. the judge sided with them. i'm not exactly sure whether the judge sided with them on whether trump's thoughts really matter to the criminality of it, but the people that are running the committee are former federal prosecutors, and as much as they are being blown by the partisan

winds of moment, which are gray, i think these are people that at the end of the day take themselves as prosecutors seriously and probably would not have gone pen to paper on something like that if they truly didn't believe it. they are not going to -- these are people who are not going to take their reputations, they hired a bunch of former u.s. and former usaas to take this case. i don't think they would have taken something that they felt was legal muster. take that for what it's worth. >> i'll come back to you and see if you want to return to any of your previously fiery, skeptical views about the pace and the questions of whether or not. because it really isn't just the pace. there is a big sort of flashing yellow about whether or not donald trump's inner circle will ever come under scrutiny by the garland justice department. is that fair that on the outside -- i mean, what we cover

is the tension, the very obvious tension between this committee made up of largely former prosecutors, people like yourself, federal judge after federal judge pointing to the -- with the credibility federal judges have, pointing to what is obvious to them were clear signs of federal criminality by the ex-president. that contributes to the view that claire is describing that apparently president biden shares. >> well, that was what was so frustrating, is that all of this was evidence in plain sight. and you wondered why they weren't moving forward with an investigation when there was so much out there that the committee, as mike said, went through in their brief and then judge carter adopted in his order last week. but it's all been out there, and the question is why wasn't the department of justice pushing forward with it, and i had the view, shared by a few others, that we would know about it when

it happens. and we do now know about it, as we suspected, not from the doj, not from the subpoena but those who have been questioned by the doj on the investigation. this is not an investigation where you really build up from what happened at the capitol on january 6. because there may be some overlap. it's possible you might end up getting some connections from some of these leaders of these white nationalist extremist groups with white house officials. but there was so much out there that was separate and apart from that, and it was clearly evidence of some potential crime. so i hope that what we are learning will expedite things, because the department of justice does need to sit down with brad raffensperger. it does need to sit down with some of the legislators in

michigan who trump summoned to the white house. there is so much we know that's out there that it doesn't seem like they have yet touched upon but they need to do it and frankly they need these additional 131 attorneys they have requested as part of their budget requests because they're overloaded there, and they need to free up the resources to put as much effort into this investigation as they can. >> much more on what the january 6 committee will be looking at, and as it prepares for public hearings this spring. that's next. everyone stick around. s spring that's next. everyone stick around. but what if you could begin to see the signs of hope all around you? what if you could let in the lyte? discover caplyta. caplyta is a once-daily pill, proven to deliver significant relief from bipolar depression. unlike some medicines that only treat bipolar i, caplyta treats both bipolar i and bipolar ii depression. and, in clinical trials, feelings of inner restlessness

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it's a very unusual thing for us to find that suddenly everything goes dark for a 7-hour period in terms of tracking the movements and the conversations of the president. we are aware of other phone calls that took place during that time that included the president, but we have no comprehensive fine grain to portrait what went on during that period, and that's obviously of intense interest to us. >> is there a chance here that this was sort of large scale and competence for a conspiracy? >> we're taking that into account. it does seem like the gaps are suspiciously tailored to the heart of the events, but we're checking that out. >> look under every rock for

incompetence first. that was congressman jamie raskin and the select committee on that more than 7-hour gap in donald trump's phone records on the day of the deadly insurrection on january 6. it's now clearly part of their investigation. congressman raskin suggesting there, as you just heard, that it might be deliberate. it's part of what they're investigating. we're back with our panel. claire, what do you think? >> well, first of all, if they're incompetent, they wouldn't manage to just have a 7-hour blank. >> it's a strategically beneficial period of incompetence, i guess. >> someone was told -- i think they have already said publicly that things started changing around january 4 as the 6th approached, and that all the information was not getting through. but to have that blank period -- yeah, and they know some, but it definitely is something i would want to talk to a jury about. once again, if you're listening at doj, this is another piece of

evidence that jurors would find compelling. >> correct me if i'm wrong, but they only have these catwalks because the supreme court ruled that they sort of have all this to pore over. i imagine this sort of look under the hood is going to turn up a lot of things that are this -- what congressman raskin described as sort of the stew of incompetence meets lack of ethics meets disdain for the white house records act meets what he's alluding to, a question of whether or not it was deliberate. >> the problem is because they blew through so many norms and laws over the four years, there are also these smaller things that are really important that they didn't follow, like the presidential records act, like how they kept track of gifts. these kind of day-to-day basic government things that are not focused on because there are such larger questions of how the president was trying to overturn the election. and one of the reasons that --

you know this better than me, but in government you're supposed to follow those things, because if you don't there is an appearance of improprieties. why did you do that? why did you use a personal cell phone? >> it isn't a crime to create personal records in terms of the law. it is a crime to destroy those records. so i could see him asking a lawyer, is it a crime for us not to create the record in the first place and saying, well, forget it, we're not doing it. wipe that off -- we're not going to write anything down for the next seven hours. >> look, this was a president who didn't have a schedule. during the obama administration, i remember at times i was trying to get an interview with obama and they had to talk like six months out because every five minutes were planned. this is a president who came down to the oval office at 11:00 in the morning when he felt like it, and that's just a small example of the day-to-day

operations of the west wing. so now you have investigators going back looking for very specific things and calls and whether it's incompetence or anything, it's not surprising that it's not there. >> but it is under the scrutiny now of the dan goldman, thank you so much for spending some time with us. claire and mike stick around. up next, the senate will advance judge ketanji brown jackson's nomination to the u.s. supreme court in just a few hours after a tie vote in committee. very latest from capitol hill is next. committee. very latest from capitol hill is next

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so, over in the senate, the judiciary committee, as expected, has deadlocked on moving judge ketanji brown jackson's nomination to the u.s. supreme court forward. the vote was 11-11 along party lines. senate leader chuck schumer will have to move to discharge her nomination to the full senate which should happen a little later today. let's bring in garrett haake. i've been groping for information on why this is all day, and claire has explained it to me and my team has explained it to me, but go ahead and explain it to all of our viewers. >> reporter: the bottom line is democrats got a reminder of just how 50-seat majority is today when a united airlines red-eye flight carrying senator alex podilla had to turn around overnight because of an unrelated medical emergency. without him, democrats couldn't get even to a tie vote in the judiciary committee, which is the bare minimum they would need

to procedurally move judge jackson's vote to the floor. all day long, all of us on capitol hill have turned into amateur flight trackers, trying to figure out exactly which flight the senator was on, when he was going to get to dca. dick durbin joked that he would send his capitol police detail to pick him up and get him here faster if he could, but with all senators accounted for, we just had the vote, a tie as expected, no republicans crossing over to vote for judge jackson, and chuck schumer has started this process now to move her to the floor, and interestingly enough, because of this procedural step that has to be taken because of a tie, i think we're going to find out tonight, rather than on friday when the final votes will be taken, whether there's any more republican support for judge jackson, if you're mitt romney or lisa murkowski or any other republican who hasn't otherwise said how you're going to vote, you'll have to vote on this procedural motion tonight so we'll get all the hidden votes here smoked out in the next couple of hours. >> and garrett, the universe of

potential hidden votes to be smoked out are the four that voted for her last time, is that right? and so far, we only have one. give me the -- what you're looking for. >> reporter: smaller than that. she got three votes last time. one of those was lindsey graham, who's made it abundantly clear he won't be voting for her this time. the other two were susan collins, who's said she'll vote in favor, and lisa murkowski, who i think, if i had to bet, i think is more likely to vote yes than no. she and susan collins approached these judicial nominees in very similar ways. they are personally quite close. they've both voted for very high percentage of biden's judicial nominees, and they've both requested basically as much information and as many meetings as they could get from judge jackson. murkowski's in a tough re-election race back home. that might complicate things. she's the most likely other republican to cross over and vote with the democrats. >> garrett haake, moonlighting as a flight tracker today. we're very grateful for your reporting. claire mccaskill, mike schmidt, thank you so much for being on

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♪♪ our musicians wear body armor instead of tuxedo. they sing to the wounded in hospitals, even to those who can't hear them, but the music will break through anyway. we defend our freedom to live, to love, to sound on our land. we are fighting russia, which brings horrible silence with its bombs, the dead silence. fill the silence with your music. fill it today and tell our story. tell the truth about war on your social networks, on tv.

support us in any way you can, anything but silence. and then peace will come. >> hi again, everyone, it's 5:00 in new york. a stirring plea from ukraine's president last night coming not in an address to any nation's government this time but to a very different audience, an equally important one, that of last night's grammy awards. president zelenskyy's request there for help taking on even more weight following the findings this weekend of the atrocities committed by the russians against civilians, scenes so horrific president joe biden doubled down on calling vladimir putin a war criminal and saying the u.s. is seeking additional sanctions against russia. the eu also said further sanctions and support are on the way. uncovered were photos of civilians killed in the kyiv suburb of bucha. we have to warn you, give you a second to get any little ones out of the room. the images are graphic. they are disturbing. they are vitally important for us to see and not look away. they show slain bodies, believed

to be civilians, lying in the streets, some of them with their hands tied behind their backs, others in mass graves. president zelenskyy, who visited bucha today, called these the acts of genocide. the kremlin is denying the reports, accusing ukrainians of staging these images, but they have provided zero evidence to back up that claim. ukraine's prosecutor general says the bodies of 410 civilians have been removed from kyiv area towns that were recently retaken from those russian forces. about an hour ago, pentagon spokesman john kirby reiterated the u.s. support for ukraine and noted that there are still some unanswered questions about the attack in bucha. >> we don't know exactly who committed these atrocities or what level or what the chain of command was, but it clearly, you know -- we certainly do not refute that they happened. the international community has spoken on this. the president has spoken on this. we've spoken on this.

we believe the russians are committing war crimes in ukraine. they need to be documented. evidence needs to be collected. investigations need to be completed. the united states, the united states, not just the d.o.d., the united states will be participant in that process. >> it comes as a senior u.s. defense official tells nbc news that about two-thirds of the troops that were centered around kyiv have now repositioned. the u.s. believes they are being refitted, resupplied, and perhaps reinforced with additional manpower, and will then be sent right back into ukraine to continue to fight elsewhere. the u.s. thinks they may go to the donbas region. it's a thought founded in the continued bombardment, brutal bombardment of key southern cities, including mariupol. that's where we start the hour with my friend and colleague, ali velshi, live from lviv. you are doing yeoman's work so i try not to bother you, but your tweets shocked me out of sort of my weekend respite from the

horrors of the war that you cover all day every day and i just want to read a couple of them. this was the first one i saw. to those who argue there's too much coverage of the war, to the exclusion of important u.s. stories, by morning, you will see irrefutable evidence of mass civilian massacres and graves and what is looking like genocide, the prevention of which should be america's greatest priority. of course, you were right. the next day, we woke up to the horrific video and images out of bucha, and then you tweeted this. lines have been crossed and war crimes have been committed by putin that make direct military intervention something nato must now seriously consider. tell me what's going on over there and where the conversation turns. >> reporter: look, there's probably nobody at our network who understands this better than you do, that this is a very complicated conversation, right? people like us who are not involved in the military talking about military intervention is a serious matter, but when you -- lines have been crossed. we saw dead bodies.

we saw things that, as you said, russia says the ukrainians may have staged. now "the new york times" has put out a timeline with satellite photography that indicates those bodies were there prior to the russian evacuation outside of bucha, and at some point, these are noncombatants. these are civilians. they're in civilian clothing. there's nothing that could -- that they could be mistaken for being combatants or soldiers. and as long as we say, never again, and as long as we have nato and the european union and the council of europe and the g7 and the g20 and we don't do things about this, then at some point, we have to have an honest conversation with ourselves about the fact that either we mean it or we don't. now, the valid concern here from a lot of people is that, what does more look like? what does military intervention look like? are we headed to and engaging in world war iii and getting into direct combat with the russians, and will that trigger a nuclear response? and look, these are all valid questions and valid criticisms, but the conversation now has to

happen because if we witness, if we bear witness to these atrocities that we are seeing and the daily shelling and the targeting of residences and schools and hospitals, and we just say, hey, this is really bad, we condemn it in the strongest way we can, not sure we're living up to our promise of a world order which is meant to secure us and to keep citizenry safe of invasion and this kind of death and war crimes. >> and that -- in this country, the highest levels, the national security advisor brief today and fielded questions on what is and isn't genocide. the view from ukraine since last month, since february, has been that that was putin's goal, that, you know, we have this notion here, he's simply trying to restore the glory of the soviet union. the ukrainians never thought that was the strategic imperative of putin's brutal war. they thought the intention was a genocide. what's your view on that? >> reporter: yeah, and look,

that's a very tricky one, and there are legal definitions to it, but the fact is, there is a lot of stuff coming out of russia, not propaganda, these are russian officials who are calling for the destruction and the annihilation of the ukrainian people. there's been reference to the fact that these are not really -- vladimir putin has said it himself, not really a country. this is not really a culture. so, when you combine the, these aren't really people, they're less than human, their lives aren't as valuable, with taking prisoners who are noncombatants, tying their hands behind their back, shooting them in the head, targeting schools and hospitals, it's for smarter people than me to evaluate, but there is this line between war crimes, which are defined by the rome statute and genocide, which is the killing of people because of who they are, regardless of any provocation, and again, this is -- it's a hurtful and difficult and hard conversation, and we can't be throwing these terms around loosely, but there is a line that has been crossed now. it was probably crossed a long time ago, but now that we've all

laid eyes on it, it is our responsibility as journalists and as citizens and as commentators to bring this to light and to say, have the hard conversation now. what you cannot do is have the threat of nuclear arms be a deterrent to -- to stand in the way of us stopping invasions and stopping the mass killing of people. at some point, we have nuclear deterrents for a reason. we have mutually assured destruction, and the reason that america or russia would use nuclear weaponry is if there was an existential threat to them. what we're talking about in terms of military intervention into ukraine to protect ukraine and maybe the skies over ukraine is not an existential threat to russia at all. nobody's talking about going into moscow. nobody's talking about taking over russia. russia came into ukraine, and it may be the world's responsibility now to stand up to that, and by the way, we've had that responsibility in other places too. sometimes we've done it well, and sometimes we haven't lived up to it so for those who say, why are we worrying about this now given all the atrocities we've seen over the last 80

years, they're right. >> but we're here now. you're there now. you serve as our eyes and ears from the safety of our warm studios here, and i wonder, let's leave the debate about semantics for the people smarter than both of us. what is happening in ukraine, in your view, ali velshi? >> reporter: look, the issue here is they didn't want this war in the first place. they would like it to end. but nobody can trust what's happening. the tv that they get here, the propaganda that they get here is russian propaganda. they know it's not true, because they're hearing what the russians are saying is happening in this country, and it's just not what's actually happening on the ground, so as much as people want peaceful solutions, they look to istanbul last week for those negotiations, they're hoping for some sort of peaceful solution. they're not getting it right now. and they are emboldened by the fact that their small military and their much smaller than russian country has held off an invasion that all intelligence suggested would be done sometime within a week. it's now almost 40 days.

so, there's a great deal of pride, but there's a great deal of sorrow and sadness, and these pictures this weekend have brought a pall of sadness over this country that i haven't seen prior to this. >> ali, i cheered your tweet defending the need to cover it, and your coverage of it is in the league of its own. i watch you every night, my friend. thank you so much for being there and doing it and for making some time for us. >> thank you, my friend. joining our coverage, pentagon press secretary john kirby is here. so, john, i watched your briefing, and i know a lot of people try to get you to say what you think russia is doing. i'm not going to do that. i want to ask you, when we talk about more sanctions, how much more gas is in the tank? what have we held back? what else can we do? >> well, i don't want to get ahead of the president here, but i think clearly there are additional economic levers that can be pulled, not just by the united states, but by the international community, and again, i won't get ahead of decisions here.

we have already visited upon mr. putin very extreme economic consequences. his economy is in tatters. the ruble is worth almost nothing. and you know, it's going to take a while for that to affect his war machine, to be sure, but it hasn't taken that long to affect his economic strength, and he knows that. and again, it's not just about the united states. it's about what other nations are willing to do, economically. >> john, let me play for you something that the ukrainian foreign minister said about what the world, i guess, woke up to saturday morning in bucha. >> without an exaggeration, by what we've seen in bucha and vicinity, we can conclude that russia is worse than isis. in the scale and the ruthlessness of the crimes committed. >> i know from your briefing that we're still doing some of our own investigative work to

corroborate what we've seen in bucha, but if it is indeed confirmed that the russians committed these acts, would you agree with the assessment that it's worse than anything isis has carried out? >> certainly the reports of the size and scale, i think, certainly is worse than what we saw in terms of size and scale out of isis. look, we have no reason to refute the ukrainian allegations here of atrocities. we see the same evidence that you see, these devastating pictures, which are just sickening, and we have said and said it for now more than a week that we have evidence. we know that russian forces are committing war crimes. it, sadly, looks like that's exactly what happened in bucha, but to, again, on a size and scale and depravity that we haven't seen to date. so what's really important is that the international community, and that includes the united states, will continue to collect evidence, will continue to contribute to the investigative efforts and to make sure that russia's held properly accountable.

>> so, u.s. journalists have been targeted and harmed and killed. we've -- >> killed, yeah. >> we've got tactics that are worse than isis. tell me what else is on the table for us to do. either as a country or alongside our allies. >> well, aside from additional economic measures, which i think, you know, are certainly going to be explored here, from the united states military perspective, we are going to, you know, redouble our efforts, and we are, to make sure we can get security assistance, weapons, arms, ammunition, systems that the ukrainians can use to defend themselves to get them there as much as we can as fast as we can and just over the last couple of days, we helped coordinate the delivery of six other nations, six different shipments, six other nations, material getting into ukraine, and there's more coming every day, including from the united states. secretary austin had a chance today to speak to the ukrainian minister of defense, minister

reznikov. the minister thanked secretary austin for the assistance that the united states has provided, noted how much and how fast it's getting there, and also made it clear that that material is getting into the hands of his fighters and they are using it in the field every single day, so what we're going to do here is continue to help ukraine defend itself against these kinds of depravities and war crimes. >> so, john, i am not a military systems expert, and so questions like this may make you wince, but i have seen "charlie wilson's war" too many times to admit. why can't we help the ukrainians protect cities as well as they seem able to protect kyiv? why can't we give them the kinds of things that could prove to be more protective of the skies above them? mariupol has been obliterated, annihilated, turned to dust and that is where some of the most horrific and heinous atrocities

against civilians and children are taking place. why can't we give them whatever it is that makes kyiv slightly more impenetrable for the russians? >> well, kyiv hasn't been completely impenetrable, nicole. they have hit kyiv very hard from the air. in fact, we still assess that even though their forces are withdrawing, and moving away from kyiv, that kyiv could still -- and still is under the threat of long-range air strikes and the russians continue to have that capability. they're also using it against mariupol, against kharkiv, they've used it in that town in the south. what we're seeing, though, is that the russians are starting to limit their air strikes to cities more to the east because that's where they want to reprioritize so what we're doing is continuing to flow in short and looking at potential long-range air defense systems that the ukrainians are trained on, they know how to use. we're working with allies and partners who have additional systems like this that they can provide and we're willing to help get them inside ukraine.

again, stingers. we have flown in thousands of -- i'm sorry, well, multiple hundreds of stinger missiles into ukraine that they're using very, very effectively. they're short-range air defense but they know how to use them and they're doing that quite well. that's going to continue going forward, so they are actually doing a good job protecting their skies. in fact, the air space over ukraine remains contested, and largely that's because the ukrainians have been able to be so nimble and so effective in protecting that air space. >> igor nobikov is a former advisor to president zelenskyy, who's on my program frequently, and he sort of described or brought to light for our viewers the trajectory of what six weeks of living under constant threat of russian bombardment is like for them, and it's his belief that it is a war meant to terrorize and exhaust the ukrainians. what is our plan for coming in now that they are sufficiently terrorized and becoming exhausted? what is our plan to sort of amp

up and fortify them? >> well, you've heard us talk about this now over the last few days. it's about getting them security assistance as much as we can as fast as we can, including from other nations, so we're going to continue to do that, and i think you heard jake sullivan talk about this earlier today. just friday, we announced another 300 million in security assistance that we're going to now go out and procure on an expedited contracting basis to get inside ukraine, and there could be additional security assistance that we announce in coming days. we're also, again, working with other allies. for instance, coastal defense missiles that the uk has now announced that they're going to do. we welcome that decision. all of that is a result of consultations that we're having with allies and partners about trying to fill the needs that the ukrainians have right now, and when we send things over, nicole, we are prioritizing those weapons and those systems. those are the things that are going on the first shipments because we know that's what they

need the most right now. >> you field questions every day. i know you're very accessible. you're very good at your job and you've been at that podium through a lot of really painful, really ugly chapters in human history. i wonder if you could talk about what you thought this weekend when you saw the first pictures out of bucha. >> i'm -- i'm a grandfather, and you know, i just -- i had the same reaction, i think, so many other people did. it turned my stomach. it turned my stomach. >> it's horrific. a very good spokesperson and a human being, pentagon press secretary john kirby, thank you very much for spending some time with us and for fielding that question. when we come back, how the horrors of bucha are becoming a major turning point in russia's war against ukraine and how the world is responding to it. we'll continue that conversation with our guests next. plus, the political hypocrisy on display as

republicans vote against confirming supremely qualified judge ketanji brown jackson to the u.s. supreme court. one of them even saying her confirmation will be a high point for the country, but he still didn't vote for her. later in the show, startling new evidence that america's intelligence community is being infiltrated by supporters of the january 6th insurrection. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. "deadline ws after a quick break. do your eyes bother you? my eyes feel like a combo of stressed, dry and sandpaper. strypaper? luckily, there's biotrue hydration boost eye drops. biotrue uses naturally inspired ingredients. and no preservatives. try biotrue! like pulsing, electric shocks, sharp, stabbing pains, or an intense burning sensation. what is this nightmare? it's how some people describe... shingles. a painful, blistering rash that could interrupt your life for weeks. forget social events and weekend getaways. if you've had chickenpox,

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those people were just walking, and they are shoved down without any reason, bang. in the next neighborhood, it was

even worse. they would shoot without asking any questions >> 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. >> the horrors of war, stories like those that have people feeling that we've arrived in an inflection point in the west, now having seen that. that is witness accounts, accounts of what happened in bucha, that something has the potential to change the war and the world. fork in the road, if you will. joining us, retired four-star general barry mccaffrey, former member of the national security council and now an nbc military analyst and pete strzok is here, former counterintelligence agent. general mccaffrey, i have had a chance to interview john kirby,

and i have watched his career for much longer than i have had the privilege of interviewing him, and to see how close under the surface all of our horror and grief is for the atrocities being carried out by vladimir putin and russia really, i think, pushes forth ali velshi's point that it's time for us to do something more than nothing. your thoughts? >> look, admiral kirby's the best d.o.d. public affairs spokesman we have ever had, bar none, and i also need to add, unequivocally, that the biden team, secretary blinken in particular, and secretary austin, secretary of the treasury, have been utterly magnificent in pulling together nato, the global community, military support, economic sanctions. it's been unbelievable. the war is entering a new phase. and washington, which will take five years to make a simple

decision, and is now in hyperdrive, needs to ramp up the military technology. there's no question. i noticed admiral kirby said a coastal defense missile. they're still wrapped up in this offensive versus defensive weapons, which, at this point, is nonsense. the ukrainians have to go on the counterattack during this phase of the war, and so they need m-1 tanks, an air defense system that works at mid and higher range against cruise missiles, you know, admiral kirby talked about, well, ukrainians are contesting the air space. that's nonsense. they're being hammered by standoff fires, artillery cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and aircraft. so, we need to do something different, fast, dramatic. it may be a coalition of the willing in nato. maybe you can't get the 30 nato

nations to sign up, but the brits, french, germans and us can do it, and they need to start doing it now. >> and is that a conversation that's happening? because i know when you talk, general mccaffrey, people listen. >> well, you know, i've been in several administrations in washington, and our government actually works better than any other one i've encountered on the globe. however, we get wrapped around the council, you know? conference table and with lawyers debating -- the white house lawyers, doj lawyers, state lawyers, pentagon lawyers, defensive versus offensive, you know, i've seen a lot of people killed in combat, and it was not apparent whether it was a defensive kill or an offensive kill. so, they've been worried about nuclear warfare. they should be. the president's going to be held accountable. they're worried about world war iii. not much of a worry in my mind. russia has most of their ground

combat power swallowed up in ukraine. now they're bringing in mercenaries and calling up conscripts. now's the time to give the ukrainians what they need at an operational level of war, not battalion level, but 100,000 ukrainians need the tools and the mobility to attack the russians and not let them reposition the battlefield. >> pete strzok, i think something that the world has woken up to is something of an expertise of yours and that is putin's levers of power include copious amounts of propaganda that his base and beyond his base the russian public accept, hook, line, and sinker. tell me how this will be processed. i think we've already seen the russian propaganda kick in and say these were staged or crisis actors or whatever. whatever insane excuse he's making for it.

>> well, nicole, that's right. i mean, i think what became apparent to me over the weekend is that we're no longer looking at just a battlefield. we're also looking at a crime scene, and we're looking at a crime scene in the context of a massive number of murders, of rape, of theft at a massive scale, you know, videos of russian soldiers showing up in belarus at a, you know, their equivalent of a u.p.s. store and sending back stolen plunder to family in russia. and it's important in this context, and i was happy to hear president biden talk today about gathering evidence for war crime trials, and that is ultimately what is going to be necessary and needs to be done in an international context, and for two important reasons. one is to hold those people accountable and to find out how high the orders, if there were orders for this activity went, whether or not that went up to vladimir putin himself and to hold those people accountable, and the second reason is exactly to combat what you asked about, to counter this russian propaganda that they didn't do anything or that these

atrocities happened after they left. when you look at events like the former yugoslavia, when you look at rwanda, when you look at sierra leone, the historical record has come out of the investigations of the those war crimes and it's essential that it start occurring now in ukraine. i have every expectation that we are going to continue to find more horror as ukrainian forces liberate and push back russian forces and we need to begin now and it needs to be an international effort. >> what are we to read into the fact that as general mccaffrey said, putin is turning to mercenaries? is that a sign of bandwidth troubles or is it sort of the enemy's version of a coalition of the evil? >> well, i think it's -- >> first of all -- >> sorry. >> go ahead. >> pete, you first, and then you, general mccaffrey, will get the last word. >> okay. absolutely. i mean, i think part of it is

that realization and the reality on the battlefield that a number of his generals and forces that he sent in have been summarily destroyed by the ukrainian forces. the other thing i think is that there is some sort of propaganda lure, certainly when you talk about the wagner group and their role in syria and the role that has played within russia and in the sort of russian propaganda narrative about their prowess, that that does play into internal russian sympathies. i don't know that they are going to be nearly as effective as they claim to have been in syria, but i think we'll find out very soon and i think they're going to find a ukrainian adversary that is well prepared and is going to fight them to their death like they did the russians before them. >> and general mccaffrey, the same question to you, but also, i guess it brings us back to your last answer about a coalition for the willing. it seems ominous that soldiers from putin's sort of allied autocracies are going to go in

to try to bolster his maniacal campaign there. >> yeah. well, look, you know, these atrocities, by the way, at face value, without any investigation, there's been a strategic air campaign to destroy ukrainian civilians and their infrastructure. that's the definition of the war crime. doesn't matter what kind of weapon you're using, a hypersonic missile, a cruise missile, dropping a bomb. the russians, as a strategy, were targeting civilians to force political capitulation. what we're seeing in bucha and places like that is another ominous sign of tactical units coming apart. this is wanton mass murder by individuals with no attempt to conceal the crime of enormous cruelty. these russian forces, chain of command, have come apart. there will be no action taken by the russians.

this is in sync with the air campaign. but it's another terrible sign of what the ukrainians are fighting against. now to add in syrians and the wagner group -- by the way, they weren't very good in syria either. they dropped barrel bombs and poison gas on innocent civilians hiding in basements. so, russia is a brutal war machine that's failing. putin's scared. he's desperate. he's got very few good options, but he is not backing off. we need to accelerate and upgrade support of the ukrainian military. >> general barry mccaffrey, pete strzok, we'll continue to call on both of you, thank you so much for spending time with us on today's news. shifting gears from war crimes a bit to our domestic politics and the futile and often hypocritical stand republicans are taking against the eminently qualified judge

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i think she's certainly going to be confirmed. i think it will be a high point for the country to see her go on the court and take her unique perspective to the court, but i don't think she's the kind of judge that will really do the kind of work that i think needs to be done by the court. >> she comes with some

impressive qualifications, academically and professionally. she's someone who's clerked at all three levels of the federal judiciary, and if confirmed, will have served at all three levels of the federal judiciary. it's significant and valuable experience. i will vote no. >> she's a realization of an american dream. i will not be supporting her nomination. >> those are your republican senators on the judiciary committee today, all of them openly admitting that despite her qualifications, they will not be voting to move judge ketanji brown jackson's nomination to the u.s. supreme court forward. as we said, despite acknowledging her overwhelming qualifications. joining our conversation, melissa murray, former clerk for sonia sotomayor and kimberly atkins stohr, co-host of the #sisterinlaw podcast. i've done a lot of sighing

today. i'm going to stop. i'm going to read one thing, and then i want to turn this over to both of you. 64% of people interviewed before the confirmation hearings for judge ketanji brown jackson supported her, and 44% thought she was very qualified. after watching those hearings, 72% of those interviewed said they would support her. 52% said she was very qualified. and i guess my only point here, kim, is that republicans are so out of step with the public. this is someone whose qualifications just emanate from her. there's no doubt that she's going to make the court better by being there. these are members of the senate who have never before questioned when she was on the other foot a president's prerogative for picking whomever they want to sit on an open supreme court seat. what do you make of the republican posture? >> yeah, it seems, at least

among some of the republicans and the clips that we just saw, is that they recognize that in taking this stance against someone who is unquestionably qualified and who has more support among the american public than any other supreme court nominee in recent history, that they know they're on the wrong side of history, and they're trying to bedress that, sort of pillow that with nice words about the nominee, which only lays more bare how -- what a political pander this is. i was interested in what senator lindsey graham had to say, where he seemed to continue this vengeance theme, saying that, you know, essentially threatening that when republicans are in control, they would block a nominee as qualified and as eminently able to serve on the u.s. supreme court as judge ketanji brown

jackson. i think that should be a really big signal to democrats as to what lies ahead after the midterms. if the republicans retake control of the senate, it will be a very long two years for president biden who will be faced with the same sort of obstruction that president obama had toward the end of his term. so, i mean, really, this is on the wrong side of history. antonin scalia got a unanimous confirmation. ruth bader ginsburg got heavy support. how far we've fallen. >> that's a perfect segue to questions that republicans had to field over the weekend, at least from george stephanopoulos about whether they remain supportive of clarence thomas ruling on january 6th cases before the supreme court. there's an undeniable perception

problem, that his wife was in direct contact with the most senior white house officials on and around the insurrection. i wonder what you make of sort of the game of twister to defend thomas and disparage and not support ketanji brown jackson, melissa. >> i think kimberly is exactly right and what we have here is partisan pandering. there's no reason for the republicans to manufacture, and i'm using that word advisedly, to manufacture objections to judge jackson. she's a superlative nominee. there's no reason why they shouldn't support her. there's no reason she shouldn't have bipartisan support, nor is there any reason why anyone on either side of the aisle couldn't look at this and say that what has happened with regard to the thomases gives the court the appearance of impropriety. this is not to say that there has been impropriety, it's not to say that justice thomas has not been impartial, the dealings

that he has had at the court involving january 6th but it does suggest that the involvement of his wife with these high-level members of the trump administration, while the insurrection was happening, precludes the possibility of the appearance of impartiality, and it's just that. and he should be able to call that out. if we can't say that is exactly before us, whether it is a superly qualified candidate or the appearance of a lack of impartiality, then we've really lost our way. >> melissa, we spent a lot of time talking about justice sotomayor's carefully chosen use of the word "stench," the stench on the court when you have a state legislature saying out loud the quiet part out loud, i think, is the expression, that they were passing these efforts to overturn roe vs. wade because of who had been appointed and confirmed. it seems that this perception problem is in the same vein, and i wonder if you could just speak to these questions and this perception problem in the spirit of a plunging public approval based on gallup polling for the supreme court as an institution.

>> i mean, this has to be something that keeps the chief justice of the united states up at night, nicole. he is the court's most stalwart institutionalist, and this is an institution that has really been bruised and battered over the last couple of months. we saw this in september when the gallup polls came out and the court got its lowest rankings in the entire history of the gallup poll asking questions about the court. we also saw a number of his colleagues hit the huskings to disclaim the idea that they were in the words of justice barrett, partisan hacks. that didn't go so well considering she was on the dais with mitch mcconnell at the time. optics really matter and they matter here for the thomases. so, again, no one has suggested there's been impropriety, but the fact that anyone in the public might view this as a situation where the justice has not been impartial is a problem, not just for justice thomas but for the entire court. and surely he must see that, and surely everyone else can see that too.

>> and on the flip side, kim, he's about to gain a supremely qualified new justice. there's no one questioning, not even those republicans, that judge ketanji brown jackson will be confirmed. your thoughts? >> yes. and she will be a crucial voice on this court. she will be someone who brings, you know, age diversity, background diversity, geographic diversity, and someone who has not had the same sort of questions lodged at her about her ability to really judge fairly. keep in mind, all of the noise that was made during her confirmation, about her rulings when she was a trial court judge, ruling in some of the worst cases, worst criminal cases that you can imagine with the fact patterns and questioning that, her record is no different than republican appointees. she clerked for a judge -- the same judge that clerked for ted cruz, who sided with her in his

claims that she was somehow unfit. so, this is a monumental moment. i don't want to take away from that. this is a bump in the road. this tie vote today. but it will be a monumental moment for the nation, for our country, and i want americans to stop and think and appreciate this moment above all of the noise, above all the partisanship, but i agree with everything melissa said. about justice thomas. i think if the chief justice really cares about the institution of this court, he has some power here. it may not be necessarily specific, but he has power of persuasion, so i hope, at least, he's having some discussions with the people in the court right now. >> you guys can do it all. the high points, the low points. melissa murray, kimberly atkins stohr, thank you so much for spending time with us. when we come back, frank figliuzzi will be our guest. he's here to talk about a new piece he's written and about how the intelligence community in this country is being

infiltrated by supporters of the january 6th insurrection. that conversation comes after a quick break. that conversation comes after a quick break. (johnny cash) ♪ i've traveled every road in this here land! ♪ ♪ i've been everywhere, man. ♪ ♪ i've been everywhere, man. ♪ ♪ crossed the desert's bare, man. ♪

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it is not for asthma. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. don't take breztri more than prescribed. breztri may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. if you have copd, ask your doctor about breztri. you're a one-man stitchwork master. but your staffing plan needs to go up a size. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire the year and three months since january 6th took place, one of the more disturbing findings has been the sheer numbers of current and former law enforcement officials who sympathize with the insurrection at the u.s. capitol. according to npr, at least 13%

of those facing charges for their actions that day have current or former law enforcement or military affiliation. it is our friend, frank figliuzzi, writes in a groundbreaking new op-ed for msnbc.com, we're learning that the conspiracy theories and race-based hate, in fact,

dumper fire of hate and other rye lens related speech. when i'm afring here is three things. first, knock it off. the intelligence community sponsors these chat rooms. they give them a classified environment. yes, intelligence analysts need a secure place to exchange ideas, collaborate professionally on intelligence but not to exchange racism and

radicalization and even recipes. it's time for them to modify and disciplining employees who are engaged in support of violence and hate talk. if it can't happen at the employee break room, it shouldn't be happening in the employee chat room. like secretary defense austin has done, start making your social media postings part of your security review. not only hiring but continued maintenance of security clearance. it's already happening at d.o.d. but not at the intelligence community.

say it's too late. thoeds who protect us from the threat are becoming a threat now. >> i have about a thousand questions for you. let me see if i can get in couple. is there a standard? why is it a classified system that's hosting hate speech? the reason they are so effective is they a anonymous and they have this shared skill set. this seems like the toxic in a protected chat room from some of the most skilled people in the world.

>> there may be some announcement. now it creeps beyond that. it's into a disciplinary realm. i see no need to sponsor these chat rooms. it brings a new question about january 6th. whether the committee should look at whether people responsible for protecting us were cheering on insurrectionists. were coming alongside them in spirit, in chat prior to january 6th. those are the very people who may have dropped the ball. some needs to look at it. >> in separate march 26th post,

cia veteran told him that quote partisan political talk in the office is rare until trump took office and appointed form republican mike pompeo as its director. the cia veterans told him that quote, pro-trump sentiment arose in the action arm of a counter terrorism program staffed largely by military veterans. tell me more about whether these things happened at the same time or viewed inside the intelligence community as cause and effect. >> it sounds like cause and effect. we didn't taub about politics around the water cooler. it wasn't done. now we're hearing it was done. it was done in the trump

administration because people like mike pompeo were named director of the cia. that gives you license and freedom and the lowest common denominator takes over and here is what is being talked about not only around the water cooler but the intelligence community classified chat rooms. >> unbelievable. thank you so much for sort of lifting it up and out so we can hear it. thank you for spending time with us. a quick break for us. we'll be right back. us a quick break for us we'll be right back. (ceo) ♪ i want today. ♪ ♪ i want tomorrow. ♪ (warehouse worker) ♪ presents and prizes and sweets and surprises... ♪ (driver) ♪ of all shapes and sizes. ♪ (dispatch) ♪ i want it noooooow! ♪ (vo) t-mobile for business has 5g that's ready right now.

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a little preview of something happening tomorrow. president barack obama will make his return to the white house for the very first time since he left office. that's according to a biden

administration official. he and president biden will hold an event designed to celebrate and promote the affordable care act passed 12 years ago. we'll be watching. thank you for letting us in your home during these extraordinary times. we're so grateful. the beat with ari melber starts now. happy monday. happy monday. welcome to the beat. we're tracking several big stories tonight including these atrocities alleged against russian forces. the mass graves beknowning whag they call a safari. will it change anything? former trump aid faces charges for stone walling the january 6th committee. we begin with the kind of big news in america that has at times been pushed aside by other big news around the world. that may be understandable. this is the big story. it could have been in a differen n