russia readies its next offensive as its flagship missile cruiser sinks. they warn of desperation including the potential deployment of so-called tactical weapon. one of putin's fiercest critics, dubbed russia's most wanted man joins me ahead. and officials keep a leery high the increase in covid infections. all of that is coming up. welcome to "meet the press

daily." i'm chuck todd in washington. national security visions are trying to answer a key question, how has russia responded to key setbacks in ukraine, how desperate is putin for a symbolic victory. nbc news has obtained this surveillance video. an figure says three missiles strikes were carried out in the region today and civilians in and around kyiv remain in danger. moments ago, by the way, the pentagon has confirmed it was ukrainian missiles that struck the russian flagship of its black fleet ship and the ship has since sunk. president zelenskyy is warning his capital may very well be the target. he said "they can return to the

center of ukraine." russian forces are preparing for a major offensive in the eastern part of the country as they continue their brutal assault on mariupol. officials say russian has begun using long range bombers for the first time to attack that besieged city. think of all the accusations of war crimes and genocide and we have not truly seen everything that's happened in mariupol. u.s. aid groups say people in the city are being starved today death. moscow has sent a formal message to the united states saying to is it stop arming mariupol. vladimir putin may be particularly dangerous right now given his military struggles in this war.

>> given the desperation of president putin and the russian leadership and the setbacks they've faced so far militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low yield nuclear weapons. >> and realize bill burns is i believe the most senior american official to meet face to face with putin in the last six months. he went over there in the end of 2021 essentially letting putin know we knew everything he was preparing to do. he's got a little extra insight than most in this policy route. joining me is matt bradley, courtney kube and jim townsend is also joining us. let me start with matt, though. here we were, matt, thinking that, all right, russia was going to try to concentrate its forces but whether it's a putin reaction to what happened in the

black sea, whether it's frustration overall, whether it's fear that its own public is starting to get an idea that the russian military is not performing very well, it seems like kyiv is back in the crosshairs. >> reporter: it looks like kyiv is back on the menu. it seems as though the they hit a factory. and that was a really big deal here for ukrainians, not just because it was a strategic victory sinking that huge ship but because it was a technological victory. the neptune system was a soviet model that was greatly improved and produced here in ukraine. unlike a lot of ukrainian

weapons used now on the front line, this is ukrainian technology and it was used to crush this massive ship in the black sea, one that had been terrorizing ukraine for the last several months. chuck. >> matt, i'm curious, it's a holiday weekend for a lot of religious folks, whether jewish for passover, christianity and easter. are you seeing kyiv -- are you seeing any religious celebrations being attempted right now in kyiv? >> reporter: i'm standing in front of the central synagogue in kyiv and pass over just a couple of minutes ago. we weren't allowed to stick around because of course having cameras inside goes against the

idea of not using electricity during these high holy days. so we instead are out here. we spoke with a lot of jews inside and at a cemetery earlier today where one who was killed by the russians was being buried. there's a lot of irony here. the stated goal of putin's adventures was to denazify ukraine. the irony goes past that. we know that president vladimir zelenskyy, he's the president of the country, he's part jewish. and some of the russian bombard mens hit the memorial, the site of one of the worst massacres by the nazis in this country. and of course ukraine still has a really important and dynamic jewish community and jewish life here. it is one of the largest jewish populations in europe and historically it's been the source -- it's incubated so many

important spiritual and intellectual movements within the global jewish community like zionism or hasadism. it is quite air grant of putin to say he is denaziifying ukraine. >> matt bradley in kyiv for us, thanks very much. let me go to courtney kube at the pentagon. over the last couple of days, i think i was speaking to you, we have the ability to confirm via satellite footage at some point. so, courtney, is that what's likely happened here as we were able to comb through our satellite footage and indeed see this ship was hit with two missiles? >> defense officials aren't saying exactly how they know but they are now confident according to a u.s. assessment there were two ukrainian neptune ruise

missiles that struck the ship. this ship is largely used for air defenses. why didn't its own air defense systems defend it against these incoming missiles? so senior defense official is saying they don't know yet but there a couple of working theories. one is they may have been a maintenance period going on. another is they simply may have been shut off at the time and it possible that these. they teens were coming in at an angle that the russian air ship defense systems did not work. the ukrainians had been saying they fired the neptune missiles at the ship. they wouldn't confirm it but today they are saying the neptune missiles did strike. additional questions we may not get answers to is what was the

casualty, the toll of the russian sailors on the ship. we know there were in the neighborhood of 400 to 500 sailors on the ship. there are indications some life boats came in but we don't have a good sense of how many russian service members may have been impacted by this before the ship sank. >> what are your sources in the pentagon telling you what they think russia is trying to do now in the offensive? >> reporter: there is still a refitting, the russian forces involved in these major axis over the last 50 days are so are getting reset, refitting weapons, getting ready for the next sort of phase of this offensive. but the big question is when will that begin? will they wait until all of these russian forces that have moved out of the country and are getting ready for this next phase, will they wait until

they're all ready or will they start trickling forces in slowly over the course of days and weeks. there's a big deadline people are looking to and that's may 9th. that's a symbolic day, a victory day. there's a lot of indication that the putin wants some sort of progress before may 9th. if they want that, they need to start moving right away. that is a very tight timeline. we're all waiting to see what happens in the next couple of days, if we see any kind of ground movement back into the country. >> courtney, it's interesting. what you noted on the russian ship and that it was possible they were in the midst of maintenance and they didn't see it coming, is this a particularly vulnerable time for russian troops? is this a window that perhaps the ukrainians -- i heard zelenskyy use the phrase there's a small window here. is this a particularly vulnerable time for the russian

troops? >> it could be. most of them are inside russia. we haven't seen them take too many strikes inside russia. now that they'll have artillery, they'll have even more capability to do that if they decide to do that. >> courtney, thank you. let me bring in jim townsend. he was in the obama administration, assistant secretary of -- for european policy, secretary of defense for european and nato policy. so let me ask specifically about what bill burns said. it raised my antenna because bill burns probably has had more time to think and study putin than anybody else in the administration right now. he's had plenty of face to faces with him. so when bill burns says he's worried about the use of a tactical nuke, i take it pretty seriously. what would we be watching for if russia is indeed thinking about this? >> i think the first indications would come from intelligence.

there's certain moves that any military that has nuclear weapons would do in terms of pulling that nuclear weapon out of storage, whether dropped from a plane or military movement, there are telltale signs. you can bet right now bill burn has the satellites and other ways in which we collect intelligence looking down hard on those sites to see if we can see some movement. to date we haven't. this nuclear saber has been rattled before. they've been watching and haven't seen anything but obviously bill thinks time is coming close, the frustration level is going up and this might be a time when putin gives the order. that's what they're going to watch for. >> how should we read russia

officially sending us a warning about arming zelenskyy? >> i think we take that very seriously. a lot of us have been waiting for that letter to show you. we knew that arming his opponents in ukraine is something he's not going to stand for for too long, particularly as the flow of equipment going in has increased, the sophistication as well as the ability of ukraine to use it. i think back to vietnam, they were going through laos, cambodia and and that upset us to and we went in and stopped that resupply. this kind of thing for moscow. they want to stop it, too. the problem is he might target the ukrainian side of the movement of supplies, trucks that are leaving poland and

going into deeper into ukraine. the problem is if he starts targeting in poland, he's attacking bases or transport in poland, that's attacking a nato ally, that's an article 5 and that's going to bring us right in. >> jim, it seems like both russia and the united states were all tiptoeing, not wanting to technically violate whether it's nonnato territory, versus nato territory. seems like he's sending this warning but you said you expect him to attack supply lines within ukraine. putin does not want to draw the united states in to this military conflict. correct? >> right. he doesn't want to draw us in but he might feel that the west is afraid to be drawn in. in other words, perhaps he's thinking that he could get away from a pinprick strike in poland.

if he wanted to send one missile over the border, he might do something small thinking that nato would say this was something small, we don't have to invoke article 5 here, we can do something else. he might think he can get away with something small but very symbolic and also something that might frighten the european allies where they might say oh my god, this is getting out of hand, we're seeing spillover into europe, we can't have this happen. he might hope, putin, might hope that this is what will happen. so we have to be very concerned about that letter because there's some hidden benefits to putin in there, if he feels he can do something and get away with it. >> we have to assume this letter is his pretext, right? he's basically going to say, hey, i warned you. it could be cyber, could be an attack on the west. can you imagine nato not responding? especially now we're on the verge of perhaps including sweden and finland into nato, i

would imagine we're not flexing the alliance's muscles very well if they allowed a pinprick strike against poland, correct in. >> that's exactly right nap will be theity bait at natobut, on the other hand, you talk about proportionality. should invoking article 5, is that proportionate if it's just one missile or a salvo that might go into a military target within poland that is doing transshipment? there are going to be allies who are going to make the case that this is not something we want to get involved in. thing about hungary, perhaps turkey, perhaps greece. they might come in and say this is not worth a potential war with russia, to go to war because of these few strikes. that's the worry about nato is around that table, there's a lot of other views that have to be aired out and decisions are made

by con census. >> so. >> you're describing a situation where you think putin could drive a wedge into nato still. >> putin has been from and he's been doing everything he can to stoke division. and i think he misjudged the alliance when he started the invasion. he felt the alliance wouldn't stick together. so i think in this case he might harbor a hope that if he can do something to embarrass the alliance, that that would be something that would be added value to him. so the alliance has to be unified and strong. the secretary general will have to exercise his leadership and president biden, too. this is a testing for the alliance. let's hope he doesn't decide to do those pinprick strikes. >> jim townsend, former

secretary of defense from the obama administration whose focus was nato in europe. up next, more of what's in store on this new face of the conflict. we'll be joined by one of putin's biggest critics. you're watching "meet the press daily." did have

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. we've seen some rhetorical posturing on the part of the kremlin about moving to higher nuclear alert levels. so far we haven't seen a lot of practical evidence of the kind of deployments or, you know, military dispositions that would reinforce that concern. but we watch for that very intently. it's one of our most important responsibilities at cia. >> welcome back. that was a little bit more there from the cia chief, bill burns, warning yesterday that russia could still pose a nuclear

threat to the united states and the rest of the world because of putin's own mind set. joining me is a putin critic. he was a supporter of the magninski act. it's good to see you. >> good to be here. >> look, it is your safety seems to me to be more at risk today than it has been in a while. you noted vladimir putin at least scared symbolically about what the west thought of him. now that he doesn't care what the west thinks, how are you feeling about your personal safety? >> you're right. i've been in my own private war with vladimir putin for the last 12 years.

after the magninski act was passed, he came after me, death threats, kidnapping, et cetera. taking me out in an obvious way would have probably jeopardized him. but now he's got both feet until criminal world, this has all expope engsly raised the risk. >> you may as how -- what do you make of the sanctions protocol? how effective is it and can it be more effective. >> sanctions are like medicine. it depend when you apply the medicine to the disease. we could have applied a tiny fraction of this before the invasion. it might have changed putin's calculus. had he assumed completely

accurately and beforehand that we did nothing, because we did nothing for 20 years. >> it was a correct gamble on his part. >> exactly correct. he had so much evidence that we were going to do nothing, he said they're going to do nothing again. if we had just done something, some little thing, i was, before the invasion, so he could see that we've done it, putin doesn't know how to peacekeeper so he's not going to back down. so what are sanctions for now? >> sanctions are simply and only of depleting him of the financial resources to pay for this one. >> that is what it should be all about, making it. >> absolutely correct. we've hanged m and by

sanctioning the oligarchs, we're sanctioning the money he could use for this one. but we've dealt with his assets but he's still got the cash flow coming in. every day, a balance dollars a day from the sale of oil and gas. he spend a billion dollars a day with his oil machine killing ukrainians and mostly europeans give him a billion dollars a day for oil and gas. that's got to stop. >> it looks like the eu is trying to ratchet that up a little bit better citizens in germany don't like to pay high gas prices either. you don't want to create political instalk either in the nato a line. >> there's one easy fix to this whole thing, which nobody seems to be talking about. we're talking about high oil and

gas prices and there's one huge player, which is saudi arabia. why doesn't saudi arabia turn on the taps and pump extra oil -- >> they're in cahoots in russia. do you think they should be held to account for helping russia strangle the world right now essentially? >> j.t.: they are. biden game a free pass and they should turn on the taps right now. we had leverage over this and we should be maximizing that in the. >> putin can take them out with flick of his eye lash. >> they're all scared of him in. >> terrified. they act look the you put them

in with putin and they become subordinate little animals. >> somebody said, well, there may be a whole bunch of oligarchs that want to talk. are they weak enough that they became intelligence assets? >> no. i wouldn't trust anything they had to say. if they're talking, they're doing so at the direction of vladimir putin to give my was. >> how do you get an indication of satly what's happening with russia? youtube still operates. they've got this tell vags massachusetts, we should do anything we did during the tof wet, whatever possible we way should get information it. the one this evening that will

cause the russians it talk vladimir putin out is that. >> u.s. policy says they want to make sure that he loses this wore he's trying toing if out to you who. do you have an idea what that looks like? >> there's only one thing i know about vladimir putin is that he always escalates. he's not going is that there is going to be a faf much worse than nn we've seen so far. >> there as a blackhealth officials in ohio said you never look back. do you if putin clats we're not going to regret not doing something sir we should have a

no-fly zone zone there. what about what what and from my perspective, if we show putin's -- snoo you're from this side. you're not alone in this. some people say he only understands one type of conversation and that's force. >> j.t.: i know so many experts on russia who are saying other things but you took to gary casparov, talk to electiony any al knee, talk to and all those people that you talked about live under the threat of death. please stay safe. thanks for coming on the show. coming up, reup inned questions about the future of the democratic party leadership as the end of an era appears to be approaching. you're watching "meet the press

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now she's a lot more active she's able to join us on our adventures. and we're all able to do things as a family. ♪♪ get started at longlivedogs.com welcome back. california democratic senator dianne feinstein is responding to new questions about her mental fitness when a colorado member of congress told her her memory was rapidly deteriorated.

feinstein initially declined to be interviewed and yesterday she broke her science saying "i meet regularly with leaders, i'm not isolated, i see people. my attendance is good, i'm rather puzzled from all this. she said she does not plan to step down until her term ends in 2025. joining me is a democratic strategist and president of the center for american progress action fund and rick tyler and ali vitale. the united states senate regularly has folks that are up there in age. it's been something when i got here, it was strom thurmond we'd have these conversations about. the conversation that everybody has on capitol hill and then there's a published report like this. how surprising is this published report? >> i think that's the moment that the private conversations

on capitol hill merge with the public reports. you seen feinstein in the statement saying i see people, i have attendance. someone said to me today she's not not doing the job, she's coming in, and voting thumbs up when they need her to vote a thumbs up. some people who would defender are making this a question of gender saying even though we've seen this with senator before but when it's men, we seem to have a little bit more of an allowance for it. what people are saying with feinstein is are we just asking this of her because she's a woman of a certain age, that's part of the conversation, whether we're being unfair on the gender piece. >> here's what i lament here.

here legacy is unbelievable. when you think back to the harvey milk assassination. you don't want to see her leaving the stage become the dominant part of her legacy. >> that's the part that's pretty disappointing about this story. these are people in the story who say they're very concerned for her, they have all this respect for her. why not have a conversation with her. >> or go to her or people around her first. >> there's ways to do this with more integrity. it's hard not to respect her. she's got such an unbelievable career as mayor and how she stepped into that role. i find it really unbecoming that people say they like her and respect her but feel the need to say some pretty nasty things and demeaning. the way she was being portrayed, not going to the press. >> the one incumbent senator

running in their late 80s is chuck grassley. it's been interesting, his polling is not good. this really matters to voters. grassley's numbers are surprisingly soft and it appears to be the aging. >> i hate these stories like we all do. it's unbecoming, it's undignified. it lacks integrity. with senator feinstein it's a power play. in my opinion, they're all too old, they all served too long and they do too much. it would be nice if we had a lot of old senators who did very little because most of what they're getting done has not been good for the country. >> if is a fair point. this brings up, you know, we don't want to chase folks out. at the same time, you know, i do understand why there's some cynicism. the democratic party right now, its entire leadership structure, chuck schuman, all three leaders

in the house, 70 or 80. the president of the united states, come on. harris is the youngest basically of the elected leadership and nobody else. she's the only one under 70. >> yeah, but we also cover the 2020 campaign where age was not not a factor during that and there were plenty of people trying to come in with the pressure perspective and they said no thank you, we'll take joe biden. >> i think the age of donald trump sort of negated that issue. >> i think this goes a little bit to the functionality. no one is going to put a finger to speaker pelosi and how focused she is and how competent she is. she will go down as one of the greatest speakers in that role. i think there's less to do there and there's a really impressive crop. joe biden ended up defeating a lot of people who were in their 40s and 50s. i don't know that there's that much of a concern in that point.

it might just be a moment in time for the party. >> it's a tricky thing. if you start again, if you start questioning dianne feinstein, the president of the united states is going to start getting this stuff and that's something the party doesn't want to have to deal with those questions here. i want to shift gears and get to what greg abbott is up to, rick. is there a line -- you worked for texas republicans. i understand the politics he's playing here. the overreach risk, the using publicity to drop folks off literally right outside the store, is there some risk here he's playing too much to the 2024 political primary and not enough for the state of texas? >> in what regard? >> just sort of pushing this so far and looking like it just nothing -- using people for political prop. what he's doing here, you don't think that's a publicity stunt going too far? >> well, it's not new.

history is replete with people who pulled political stunts. >> you think this is a 2024 play, not really a 2022 play? >> it both. it's both. he's the governor of the largest state. he clearly wants more. otherwise why do publicity stunts? >> have you seen this play at all? >> they've been on recess. they're gone for this week and the next. with something like this, immigration has always been a galvanizing issue. it's the thing that trump would turn back to when things were going badly in washington. i don't know that anyone else can outtrump trump on immigration. i don't know that greg abbott is going to seem more trumpy on the borpder and build the wall than donald trump is. for all of the conservatives playing this shadow primary, whether it kristy noam in south dakota, greg abbott on

immigration, all of them are going to run into the same thing, which is you can't outtrump trump. if he doesn't run, it's an open field for that mantle but if he does, i don't think they're going to get to the outside of him. >> is there a safe space for a democrat on a battleground state on immigration right now? >> i think there is. nothing has really changed. people have thought for decades our immigration system is broken. democrats have been saying that and have tried for decades without any support from republicans, you have to go back to 2013 when they were able to pass a bipartisan bill in the senate, that now all of the republicans, because the party has pivoted to a very different party now. none of them are going to touch this issue. i think democrats have common sense solutions that involve securing the border, mushing more resources and finding a pat to citizenship. >> 2013 drove a wedge inside the

republican party. i'd ard there's no divide. that seems to be pretty upsetting to some progressives as you see more and more democrats going, whoa, we need to reinstate that. >> it's unfortunate we got entrapped by the policy trump put in place a couple of years ago. i don't think this is a place where democrats have to be on their back heels. >> at this point they're acting like it, right? >> i think the solutions we have been offering for a decade around actually fixing our immigration system and doing it in a fair and humane way are still overwhelmingly popular. and the people that are animated, they're never voting for maggie hassan and -- >> but independents look like republicans on the immigration issue. independence look like republicans on immigration. >> and i think democrats have to continue to be strong. obviously, you know, i think the

way that republicans try and drive a wedge here is creating an open borders policy, which is obviously sparsical. >> donald trump, they wreak the havoc that he wants. he became the center of tension attention in ohio. as long as you can stay out of his cross hairs, is that the best place to be? >> just be close enough yet far enough away. that's what they're all trying to do. he's not out to save the republican party. he doesn't care about putting the republican party in the majority. >> he doesn't care who the best nominee is in ohio, right? >> in fact, he will not a republican to beat joe biden --

>> if it not donald trump. >> of course, because that would mean that was a greater man or woman than he because he lost. all he wants is to be the center of attention. that's his sole purpose. i think there's been 60 races now on the nccc's target list and he's going to endorse of single one of they. it not about winning. it's about donald trump being in the center of attention and are you loyal to me or not loyal to me? >> he's endorsing the outsiders in the political game. >> but they have to be loyal. >> of course. but the only difference is the political gravity rules apply to them and don't apply to him. >> in pennsylvania, he leaned to the celebrity. he sort of leaned to the celebrity. >> again, it comes back to trump

is a little bit of a side show of what's really happening to this party. the party and the base has moved dramatically in the last decade. it a different republican party. all of them are trying to remake themselves around this maga brand. >> we didn't even get to all of the shifts on writing an abortion policy. i'm very curious to see what happens when voters notice these policies. new cases of covid spike over the holiday weekend. will new restrictions be put in place? restrictions be put in place?

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welcome back. it is easter weekend and the first night of passover, which means millions of americans are traveling to celebrate with friends and family. this packed travel day comes just as the cdc announced earlier this week it will extend the transportation mask mandate

for 15 more days after the original expiration date of this monday, telling americans it's continuing to monitor omicron variants across the country. cases are trending upward the cdc reports a 30% increase in new cases from last week to this week and some areas are seeing even worse outbreaks. here in washington, d.c. cases are up 86% in the past two weeks and new york the cases up 72% in the last two weeks. guess what hasn't risen. hospitalizations. that may be the metric that matters the most. up next, michael oesterholm joins us next with his perspective on what this means. perspective on what this means lunchables! built to be eaten.

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welcome back. as covid cases grow ahead of the holiday weekend. joining me now is somebody who has been advising the biden administration and advises a lot of organizations, i believe the nfl, and so it's good to see you. >> thank you. >> let me start with this. what metrics are you looking at to decide whether or not we should put in restrictions or not? >> unfortunately the only reliable metric we have right now is hospitalizations, and as

you talked about it, chuck, it's a lagging indicator and it's often several weeks after the fact when transmission occurs. we have seen a turndown in the number of people being tested and access to testing, and more and more people testing and no results, and i don't have a lot of faith in the numbers coming out right now, the number of cases. we are seeing it in a number of countries around the world. >> i am with you, i think all the washington, d.c. positives is because there's a cultural of testing in the federal government we don't have any other places. the waste water, is that a more reliable metric since we don't have a testing system that is accurate? >> well, it is surely one method. i look at it like a triangular forest fire with three towers in

the olden days. the waste water data are helpful, but the message we have to get across here is why are we trying to count cases so what know what to do? if we can't count cases, then we will be behind the eight ball on this issue and that's what is happening right now. >> it seems at the end of the day, and maybe i am channeling my inner libertarianism here. we know what to do. do you think given the public's exhaustion that's the best the federal government can do these days, look, we told you what will work and we will let you know if there's a spike in your community or not? >> i would say one step further, it may not only be your libertarian view, but it could

be the only advice we have. the virus just has not moved on. the best we can do is just what you said. >> how do you keep yourself safe? how do you live your life? >> first of all, i accept the fact that i very well may eventually contract covid, but as you just discussed, i have my four doses of vaccine, and like the gridiron dinner, which in many ways signals success, and there were a number of people there who got infected and are older and would be at a high risk of hospitalization and death and to my knowledge we have not seen a serious case of that, and the vaccine may not prevent cases but it has a impact on the hospitalizations and deaths. the curveball in all of this, what is the next variant mean?

we have two new variants, and for now vaccination, vaccination, and as you said, use adequate respiratory protection, and that's the best we can do. >> the fact that there were not hospitalizations, does that tell you that really that maybe our safeguards are as good as we have, that you might contract a cold. that is something you are going to have to live with. >> well, in that case, definitely. let me just be really clear. you know, there's three really prominent words that have become first and center in my category, i don't know. and we have to understand that, and that's a problem.

>> his advice is something that a lot of american organizations turn to to figure out how to manage the pandemic. thank you. >> thank you. that does it for this hour, and we will be back on monday with "meet the press daily," and i hope you enjoy this easter holiday with your family. msnbc's coverage continues with katy tur and will be interviewing the state department's spokesperson right after this break. r this break ♪ oh, oh, oh ♪ ozempic® is proven to lower a1c. most people who took ozempic® reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. and you may lose weight. adults lost on average up to 12 pounds. in adults also with known heart disease, ozempic® lowers the risk of major cardiovascular events such as heart attack, stroke, or death. ozempic® helped me get back in my type 2 diabetes zone. ozempic® isn't for people with type 1 diabetes.

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