good morning. 10:00 a.m. eastern, 7:00 a.m. pacific. i'm jose diaz-balart. we begin this hour with breaking news. first lady jill biden has couple. the first couple was expected to return briefly from the white house from their vacation in south carolina for a signing event fortin flakes reduction act. the announcement comes after president biden had covid last month and finally tested negative about a week ago. the white house says the president tested negative this morning. let's get right to nbc news reporter maura barrett from south carolina and dr. kavita

patel, an msnbc medical contributor. maura, what's the latest? what do we know? >> reporter: according to the first lady's communication director, she confirmed the first lady tested positive via pcr test. she developed mild symptoms yesterday evening, monday evening despite testing negative on monday morning, during one of her covid testing cadences that the president and first lady do. when she started feeling the symptoms, she tested negative on an antigen test but then positive via pcr test. she's on vacation with the president and some family members. we know hunter and his wife have been here in south carolina. the first lady will stay here until she receives two negative covid tests. we haven't gotten updates on her symptoms this morning. we know she's been prescribed a round of paxlovid just like we saw the president had been when he initially tested positive.

the first lady is 71 years old. we'll obviously be in touch with her office as the days go on to make sure we're updated on her symptoms. you managed they were planning on going back to the white house. he is still planning on traveling and signing the inflation reduction act into law this afternoon. the white house telling us the president tested negative with an antigen test this morning. we didn't see the first lady with the president when he went out for an outing in south carolina last night. we did see them together throughout the weekend. the white house advised in accordance with cdc guidance, he'll continue to remain masked and they'll continue to test him regularly as well. >> dr. patel, let's talk a little bit about this. it's clear that they're close. they're always together, and you see them constantly together.

the president fested positive twice for covid just last month, right? he got covid, took paxlovid and go covid right after that. they've been on vacation, kind of isolated. how unusual is this? >> it's incredibly unusual if the president himself were to have a recurrence, if you will, jose. we know a couple of things about the president's case. we know he had the ba.5 variant which is the dominant one circulating. we also know that there have been very few reported around the globe of back-to-back recurrences of ba.5 outside of what you identified which is that rebound case that the president had. he's doing the right thing. what's interesting is between the president's case and the first lady's case, the cdc made sweeping changes this past week. it's interesting, the white house appropriately i think is doing a much stricter protocol than even the cdc's recommendations which changed last week. i think overall, the risk of the

president being positive for a third time is incredibly low, but certainly for the first lady, this is her first bout, probably ba.5. we'll know more in the coming days. paxlovid is absolutely the right thing to do. what was interesting here, she had the rapid negative that maura pointed out, and the first lady's press office reported. here is literally a medical textbook case of you can't rely on just this one thing alone. if you have symptoms, get a pcr and get checked out by a health professional. >> that's something i kind of want to ask you about. is it unusual for you to have symptoms, clearly having symptoms, and then get an antigen and the antigen is coming back negative? is that something that we're seeing more and more of? >> it's not necessarily something we're seeing more and more of, we've always seen it from the beginning. we're hearing more about it

because rapid antigens are more accessible. we can get them for free from covid.gov, you can go to a local library or resource center and get them. more americans have them in their homes. the test itself was never meant to be 100%. think of it like, when you're positive, it's like some of the home tests we use for home pregnancy, for example. you can still have a pregnancy and have a negative home test which is why we recommend people to get a test from a health care professional in a doctor's setting or in a pharmacy. i do think it's less frequent that you have somebody with symptoms. it's not clear how sick the first lady was. also, jose, there's operator error. the president and the first lady are surrounded by great medical professionals but we're all human. you want a backup system for these tests. it's a gentle reminder for everybody out there, don't just rely on the rapid antigen. especially if you have symptoms,

get checked out. >> thank you very much for being with us this morning. i want to turn now to the latest of the search of former president trump's mar-a-lago resort last week. we just learned the federal magistrate judge who approved the search warrant has ordered a hearing for thursday at 1:30 eastern on whether to unseal the search warrant affidavit. the former president used a late-night social media post to call for the affidavit to be released unredacted in the interest of transparency. federal prosecutors are asking a judge to keep it sealed following requests from several news organizations, including nbc news, to make it public. prosecutors want to keep it sealed to protect the investigation. earlier the former president accused the fbi of stealing three passports including one he says was expired during the search. the passports have since been returned. the fbi saying overnight that it, quote, follows search and

seizure procedures ordered by courts and then returns items that do not need to be retained for law enforcement purposes. all of this as two people familiar with the matter in a public court filing say former trump organization chief financial officer allan wiesel burg is expected to plead guilty. the charges relate to what prosecutors call an off-the-book scheme to avoid paying income taxes. the terms of the plea deal have not been disclosed. with us to talk about all of this, nbc news justice and television correspondent. susan page, washington bureau chief for "usa today." ken, we understand the judge that approved that search warrant is set to hold this hearing on thursday. what more can you tell.

>> -- why we think this search warrant affidavit should be unsealed, jose. yesterday's filing by the justice department was actually quite revelatory in terms of the scope of this investigation in arguing to keep this affidavit sealed, the justice department said this is a grand jury investigation. it's an ongoing criminal investigation and there's stuff in this affidavit that would compromise a criminal investigation. it said there were identities of multiple witnesses. multiple people have been interviewed and are providing information in this criminal investigation. jose, it answered the question, is this matter simply about the government trying to get classified documents back and that's the end of it. manifestly the justice department is saying absolutely not, this is an ongoing, very serious criminal investigation. by the way, jose, they said even if the judge decides to unseal the affidavit on thursday, the justice department will then ask to redact, to blackout significant portions of it to protect sensitive material. and the justice department is arguing they will blackout so

much of it that it will render the document incomprehensible. >> carol, how unusual is something like this? >> pretty much everything we've seen is unusual. it's unusual for the justice department to come out and unseal what they've already unsealed, to say that we'll ask the judge to unseal the actual search which is only a one or two-page document that's really conclusory. it says we're going to search this place and these are the things we intend to seal. then the inventory which says these are the things we intend to take. that's unusual in itself. that's already been done. for the justice department to agree at this point if they were to agree, which they're not, that the affidavit in support of the warrant, the probable cause finding could be unsealed even in redacted form is highly, highly unusual.

in fact, i don't think i've ever seen it done at this stage of an investigation because they're in the middle of an investigation. this document tells the magistrate judge everything that the justice department knows about this matter up to this point from multiple witnesses. it's not in any way an indictment or a complaint. and as the justice department said in its filing yesterday, this will jeopardize our investigation, and that is the one thing that courts will not do is jeopardize an ongoing criminal investigation. >> carol, it's clear that this fbi search which took in 9:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. took some things not directly related to the search warrant, thinking of these three passports. is that always done during these kinds of searches? >> it is more likely than not to happen in these very document-heavy searches. the whole issue of the passport

is a bit of a tempest in a teapot. they will often take documents that evidence the ownership or the presence or the residence of the person who owns that property. if the investigators find that they don't need this document after the fact, they will return it to the owner. now, there's no question that president trump lives at mar-a-lago, but another purpose that could have happened here, another reason they might have taken those passports is because of the location of the passports. it could have been that those passports was near a place near something like a classified document. that could be evidentiary in itself that these personal items of the president were located near one of these classified documents. so i'm not saying that's what happened, but that could be another reason why the agents

seized those passports. >> susan, donald trump gave his first interview since the search to fox news. he warned during the interview that, quote, the temperature has to be brought down in the country. if it isn't, terrible things are going to happen. he also said, quote, if there is anything we can do to help, i and my people would certainly be willing to do that. what do you make of that? >> it's a little perplexing, jose. the expressions of outrage by former president trump has been one of the main things that have inflamed his supporters. he is i think exactly right, that we are at risk of having political violence in this country. we saw that in cincinnati with the attack on the fbi office. we saw it with the release of the indictment of a man in pennsylvania who was threatening to kill fbi agents. lowering the temperature would seem to be a good thing to do. that is something that donald trump may well be able to do

himself by moderating his own rhetoric, jose. >> susan, thank you very much. ken dilanian as well and carol lam, thank you for being with us this morning. still ahead, more possible trouble for former president trump. we'll be talking about that and a whole lot more after a quick break. ♪ ♪ we believe there's an innovator in all of us. ♪ ♪ that's why we build technology that makes it possible for every business... and every person... to come to the table and do more incredible things. ♪ ♪

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17 past the hour. let's continue our conversation about the latest on the fbi search warrant of donald trump's mar-a-lago estate. new this morning, the federal magistrate judge who approved the original search warrant has ordered a hearing for thursday on whether to unseal the search warrant affidavit. joining us now, washington congressman adam smith who chairs the house armed services committee. great to see you. as a committee chair, you have access to sensitive information. what rules do you have to follow when you look at that

information? >> the biggest rule we focus on is don't talk about it after you've seen it. obviously at the top, you can't take it with you to an unsecure place. i think as remarkable as all of this is in terms of a former president having this search warrant executed against him, in terms of what the fbi and justice department are doing, there's nothing unusual about it at all. this is exactly how the justice department would have to respond to a situation like this. as has been documented, sandy berger and some others have been in a similar situation. the president took documents out of the white house that he shouldn't have taken out of the white house. the fbi had to get them back. they've spent a couple years trying to do that which led to this. the most remarkable thing is the way the republican party has reacted to this, vilifying the fbi for doing their job. that's the most alarming aspect of this to me. >> what concerns you the most

about the reports of highly classified information was found there? >> well, the biggest thing is that the president of the united states apparently has no respect whatsoever for the basic norms of protecting sensitive information. if this is the way president trump conducted his presidency, what else got out there. this is basic stuff. mostly what we have to deal with when we have classified briefings is members talking to a reporter or saying something they know is classified. former president trump certainly doesn't seem to have any respect of classification. the other thing which we won't know until -- which we'll probably never know is what was in this information. who did president trump share it with? has it jeopardized national security? in particular, it's cliche in conversations like this to talk about sources and methods. what that means is we don't want our adversary knowing who is

supplying information to us. if they know that, they can jeopardize those assets or make it more difficult for our intel services to find the information they need to protect our country. >> hearing your thoughts on folks asking for that warrant affidavit to be released in its entirety, including organizations like nbc news. what do you say about that? >> there's a historical battle here, primarily between the media and the government. the media wants access to everything. the pentagon papers case, a bunch of other cases out there, they don't really care whether it's classified or not. they want to try to get access and send it out there. that's normally the challenge, is the right to know versus protecting the security interests of the country. here, of course, it's the president who is trying to, again, undermine the justice department, undermine our intel

services and the fbi by asking them to do something he knows and his lawyers know they're not going to do. they're not going to turn over the information in the middle of an investigation that betrays your sources and betrays the what the direction of your investigation is. there's no way on earth that any investigatory body would ever turn the information over. we'll see what the judge says. they need to protect that information to protect their investigation. >> i want to turn over to the situation in afghanistan. it's been one year since the taliban took over and the u.s. withdrew. "the washington post" obtained a draft of a report put together by republicans on the house foreign affairs committee who say, among other things, that more than 800 american citizens were left behind as opposed to the 100 or 200 figure by the biden administration and 2,000 afghan troops crossed into iran

taking equipment and vehicles with them. what do you make of these conclusions? >> a couple things. first of all, the taliban takeover of afghanistan is a complete disaster, no doubt about that. what's clear is the mistake we made over the course of 20 years, not over the course of one or two or six months, but over the course of 20 years was that we believed we could reshape afghanistan fundamentally by the use of the military and u.s. resources. long after it was clear that that wasn't going to work we kept trying to do it at enormous costs, in lives certainly, in money. president biden made the decision that should have been made a lot sooner. we weren't going to be successful. now, in that, it was a terrible situation. we had a lot of people in afghanistan that we wanted to get out. no matter when this war ended or how it ended, that was going to be true. if we had stayed there, we would

have more lives lost and more problems would be in front of us right now. that's what people refuse to acknowledge. if we had stayed, we would have been at war. the taliban would have turned on us again after the brief truce that had been negotiated. the cost of trying to stay was incredibly high. i think it's perfectly appropriate to look at, well, how did we do the investigation, how did we do the pullout, where were mistakes made? there's a lot of monday morning quarterbacking that imagines, if we stayed, we wouldn't have all these problems we obviously would. i hope that's part of the analysis as well as we look at the events of a year ago. >> and also not necessarily black or white, it's either stay or go, but it's also planning and preparing for pulling out and those images that we saw of people holding on to airplanes as they were leaving the airport and falling to their death is stuff that i think should have

also been considered. i want, congressman, before i let you go, the president is expected to sign the big climate change, health care and tax bill passed by the house late last week. what does this bill mean for your constituents? >> it's an enormous accomplishment. number one, it does the basic obvious stuff to get off of fossil fuels and creating the possibility of a green energy economy. also, let's not lose track of the affordability piece of this. we focused on the rising costs that people have faced. the rising cost of health care is a huge part of it. the provisions to get drug prices under control, to cap what seniors have to pay, to subsidize people's ability to buy health care, this is really going to help americans struggling to pay their bills, but making it easier to pay for health care, which obviously frees up money. this is an enormous legislative

accomplishment. chuck schumer, the president, nancy pelosi deserve an enormous amount of credit forgetting it done. >> congressman adam smith, thank you for your time. good to see you. >> thank you. always good to see you. this morning voters head to the polls in wyoming and alaska for critical primary elections that will help reveal the direction of the republican party n. a closely watched race in wyoming, congresswoman liz cheney is trailing her trump-backed challenger. in alaska, a major test for senator lisa murkowski who faces more than a dozen challengers. joining us is nbc news capitol hill correspondent ali vitali in anchorage, alaska. vaughn hillyard in wilson, wyoming, jake sherman founder of punchbowl news and a major contributor for us. vaughn, what are you watching for? >> this is a race that caps off essentially all these other

primaries. talking about trump-backed candidates who donald trump has perceived to be opposition forces within the republican party. this is it. he's called it the most important race of 2022. it's why gop allies of donald trump have put so much attention, including the likes of kevin mccarthy who held a fund-raiser for harriet hague man who is the trump-backed challenger to liz cheney. frankly, a state like wyoming, i think this is a test. not only is liz cheney far from being a political newcomer, her dad first elected to this congressional seat 44 years ago, but also, this is a completely 4-1 talking republicans to democrats here in this state. while liz cheney is trying to galvanize the democrats and change party registration to come vote for her, ultimately what this race will tell us is how aligned republican voters here in wyoming are with the donald trump new era of the

republican party compared to what the state helped shepherd just over 20 years ago, of course, with dick cheney as vice president. this would be an underlining of a dramatic evolution for the republican party. >> jake, if as polls seem to show, cheney loses this primary election, what are her next steps? does she have anything going forward? >> that's a big question. i'm very jealous of the water behind ali and the mountains behind vaughn as i sit in this office. i would say what does it mean for the republican party going forward? there's really no room for dissent. liz cheney was seen by many to be a potential future speaker of the house in a seat seen by republicans and continues to be safe for many years, summarily booted out of congress in a quite humiliating fashion, and i think this represents also the

impact of the january 6th committee on republican voters who see it as disloyalty toward donald trump, the leader of the party. there's no room for people like cheney in the republican party, in the house republican conference. as you note, chain nay is not out pounding the pavement in the last couple days as we would expect a candidate trying to hold on to their seat would. so not only an evolution for wyoming, but for the houses republican conference as well. >> ali, another high-stakes race in alaska as senator murkowski tries to hold on to her seat. how is that looking? >> reporter: a day of several high-stakes races as alaska voters go to the polls, not just with several decisions to make, but a new way of making decisions with a rang choice voting system who will be at play to decide who finishes out

don young's term. yes that's going to be a race where the third ranked candidate in the race is eliminated. their voters are divvied up among the other two candidates based on who they listed as their second choice. that's going to be a key issue there. on the other side of this ballot, you've got the primary for the u.s. senate, lisa murkowski, in a field of a dozen other republicans, all they have to do there is make the top four. that's something that murkowski will do. on both sides of this race you've got two interesting dynamics when it comes to trump. for palin, she's trump endorsed, for murkowski she's anything but. i asked voters what that means and if trump not being from here, waters down what he does for these candidates. listen to what one voter told me. >> it's about policy. there are great things that president trump has done for the

country, and there's some not-so-great things. i think all presidents go through that. i would like to see where he's coming from in the future and kind of go on that, you know, kind of make up my mind as i go along and listen to the candidates and what they have to say. >> reporter: jose, as i've been out here, a fiercely independent state here in alaska, yeah, it's a state that went for trump by ten points in 2020, but at the same time most voters i've talked to of democratic and republican stripe say, he is not the only voice when it comes to making their decision. >> jake, both murkowski and cheney have been critical of trump. why does it seem like the outcomes of these races are going to be so different? >> that's a good question. murkowski's father was the governor of the state. they're two different states at the end of the day. cheney has taken, obviously, much more of a lead role in

basically prosecuting trump and i think that has hit home. remember, she was also bumped out of the republican leadership because of the fact that she was overly critical of trump. lisa murkowski, you'll remember, she won a write-in race. this is somebody whose strength in the political scene in alaska is unrivalled. alaskans are loyal in the sense that young served in the house, ted stephens served a long time in the senate. they're relatively loyal to their public officials. i think that might help explain some of it. >> jake sherman, ali vitali and vaughn hillyard, thank you for being with us this morning. a quick programming note. today 1:00 eastern, 10:00 pacific, chris jansing anchors live from wyoming. tonight alex wagner launches her new show "alex wagner tonight" 9:00 eastern, 6:00 pacific. she'll be joined by steve

kornacki at the big board to break down live primary results. alex, so good to see you back. up next, we'll go live to ukraine and hear exclusively from alexander vindman, why he's in kyiv and his message for president biden. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports."

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♪ ♪ 35 past the hour. new explosions rocked crimea marking the sect week in a row where russian infrastructure was damaged there. the russian ministry of defense says the military warehouse was damaged as a result of sabotage without providing any further detail. meanwhile, nbc news has exclusive interview with retired lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, a key impeachment witness against former president trump. joining us now, nbc news correspondent josh lederman in kyiv and admiral james

stavridis. >> he was born in kyiv and first returned to ukraine when he was in the u.s. army. he is back here now getting a firsthand sense from u.s. officials as well as top ukrainian officials about the status of the battle to try to repel russia. he's also here, jose, sounding the alarm about what he calls ukraine fatigue in the u.s. he said he's a victim of it himself, with everything from january 6th to all the other issues in the news in the u.s., to stay focused on this war. he said the outcome of president putin's war in ukraine is absolutely going to define the next several decades of u.s. national security. he has been fairly critical of president biden for his approach to supporting ukraine so far saying that, at every step of the way, the biden administration has been one step behind the curve. >> i would advise president biden to start to think about

this war not now, but a month from now, three month from now, six months from now and how much more dangerous that kind of war looks. take the courageous decisions now. don't wait four, five months to offer himars. don't wait until the next tragedy to offer long-range fires or aircraft. do that now because we're going to get to it. >> i asked lieutenant colonel vindman about some of the steps he wants to see the u.s. take that he has not so far. he said he absolutely thinks president biden should meet with president zelenskyy either at the white house or maybe in poland or perhaps paying a visit to ukraine. he also wants to see the u.s. designate russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. in a longer run, he says the u.s. should be sending fighter jets to ukraine and consider imposing a travel ban of russian citizens to the united states. >> admiral, i want to get your

reaction to what we just heard from lieutenant colonel vindman. >> alex is ukrainian american and he feels this deeply in ways that are perhaps not accessible to the average american. he's so utterly invested in this that his views need to be taken in that perspective. i will completely agree with him. the administration ought to look at fighter aircraft to ukraine. i think that would be a smart move. i would add anti-ship cruise missiles to the wish list. i think it's a bit unfair to say the administration has always been behind the curve. i think they've done a very good job of getting weapons in the hands of ukrainians in a relatively timely manner, and above all, working through this very narrow channel, jose, of not getting us into a nuclear war with russia.

i think the president has kept things in balance quite well. >> that balance is so difficult to really kind of be able to figure out because, for example, early on when they were asking for migs, early on when they were asking for some higher-level artillery pieces. it's pretty amazing to think that we're already -- this invasion started the 24th of february of this year. so is there, admiral, what vindman was talking about, ukraine fatigue in the u.s.? >> you know, i don't feel it so far. we'll kind of know a lot more when the world turns the lights on again in september. it's august. people are off. i don't have a neck tie on. people are taking vacations. but i personally don't feel that sense of fatigue at least thus

far. more importantly, jose, on the other side of the firing line russia is losing troops, is losing equipment, their ships are being sunk. i think that is the set of metrics to watch. i think putin will run out of capability before the west gets entirely fatigued here. that's the foot race between those two sides. >> this morning the news of another series of exclusions in the area of crimea, that area. is putin's future at -- a threat? is he solid? can he continue to outlive this? >> i think he can maintain his grip on power. but can he conquer all of ukraine, can he kill zelenskyy, can he decapitate that regime?

i think he's missed the chance to do that, back to the administration getting the weapons in hands of the ukrainians in time to stop that. you're right to raise, for example, the explosion you're showing right now. i would say even more significantly a week ago, massive explosions at a russian airfield. ten aircraft knocked out. it shows how the ukrainians are going on the offensive in the south. they're going to put pressure on crimea. that's going to be a difficult new resource problem that putin is going to have to solve. i would not want vladimir putin's hand of cards right now. >> admiral, josh, thank you for being with us this morning. appreciate your time. up next, rudy giuliani is now the target in georgia's investigation into efforts to overturn the election. what exactly does that mean? we'll break it down for you next. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports." on msnbc.

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46 past the hour. rudy giuliani, former personal attorney for former president donald trump has been told he's the target in the criminal investigation of election interference in georgia. right now giuliani is scheduled to appear before the fulton county grand jury tomorrow after being issued a subpoena last month. this news comes after senator lindsey graham yesterday lost his bid to quash a subpoena to testify before the grand jury later this month. senator graham said he will appeal the judge's decision. joining us from atlanta is nbc news correspondent blayne alexander. blayne, what does it mean for giuliani to be named a target in this investigation? >> reporter: jose, it means his status has changed. according to his attorney as recently as yesterday he was notified that he was a target. up until that point he believed he was a witness and that's how he was considered by the district attorney's office. it means there is a possibility

that there could be an indictment against him but certainly doesn't mean that's a guarantee. all of this, of course, comes amid a very busy 24 hours in this investigation and the timing of this is also notable. that's because giuliani, as you mentioned, is set to appear and testify before the special grand jury tomorrow. let's talk about why he is a key figure in all this. all of this is centering around a number of statements that giuliani made in late 2020, december of 2020 in front of georgia state legislators, it was a series of panels where he peddled a number of conspiracy theories about georgia's elections. during those hearings, he essentially ak cued a mother and daughter of a plot to throw the election in joe biden's favor. we expect he'll likely be questioned on all of that. speaking to nbc news yesterday, giuliani's attorney said, if he

does receive questions about any conversations between giuliani and former president trump, giuliani plans to invoke attorney-client privilege in those instances. of course, all of this comes, as you mentioned, as another very close trump confidant, senator lindsey graham, has been ordered to appear before the grand jury. he plans to appeal the decision but has been ordered to appear in the coming says. all of this signals a new phase of this investigation where they're going to be hearing from very close allies to the former president. >> blayne alexander, thank you so much. an update, the family of soldier guillen killed in texas in 2020 is filing a lawsuit against the u.s. government. the family is seeking $35 million in damages for personal injury including sexual harassment and rape as well as wrongful death. guillen went missing in april of 2020. her remains were found after the

soldier accused of killing her died by suicide. a military investigation later confirmed the harassment and found leaders failed to intervene. guillen's sister paid tribute to her on twitter yesterday on the two-year anniversary of her burial saying i've been fighting each day, but everything that was unjustly done to you. we miss you oh so much, sister. up next, is it cheaper to eat out at a restaurant or buy groceries and cook at home? a look at what some families are doing to cope with the cost of inflation. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports." when you really need to sleep. you reach for the really good stuff. zzzquil ultra helps you sleep better and longer when you need it most. its non-habit forming and powered by the makers of nyquil.

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. 54 past the hour. the biden administration says even lower gas prices are on the way after the national average dropped below $4.00 a gallon last week. grocery prices are still steep. it's starting to become more affordable for some people to dine out rather than shop themselves. a new national poll from npr also found inflation is causing more financial problems for people of color. with us now to discuss, nbc's sam brock in miami and alfredo romero, associate professor of economics at north carolina state university. sam, how are people coping with the high cost of food? >> reporter: jose, good morning. good to be with you. people are very good at

detecting value. when you have grocery costs that on one end have gone up 13% year over year in july and restaurant costs that have gone up 7.6%, that gap is the largest it's been in about half a century. when you talk about eating out at restaurants, everything comes all inclusive. if you go with your family to the grocery store and buy the individual ingredients, that adds up. that's when the bills start to balloon. i talked to parents, talked to moms yesterday who said if it's even close, even ball park in terms of pricing, they'd rather eat out because they don't want to worry about cleaning up afterwards. people are certainly getting creative. i spoke with the owner of sergio's in miami, he talked about the behaviors he's observing. >> we're seeing a lot of people do takeout and portioning food.

luckily for us, we have big portions. someone can cut a chicken, that costs $16 and you two people eat $8.00. >> jose, it should be noted that restaurants are taking a bigger hit on their margins for grocery stores. pricing is a little more dynamic. they can change it on a daily basis. that's why you're feeling those cost more in the short term, certainly true when you talk about meats and fruits and produce. another reason to come and eat out, i know you'll feel me on this one. cafecitos at sergios. it doesn't get better than that. >> sam, you've got to bring in the stuff that we all need that we don't have access to but you do. i appreciate that because that is great. >> fresh coffee. >> phil, telemundo has spoken to people who are actually skipping

meals because they can't afford it. this npr poll says more than half of black and latino households, more than half report the recent price increases driven by inflation have caused them serious financial problems compared to less than half of white households. why is that? >> it really has to do with the way that inflation affects different groups. inflation is going to affect everybody, but particularly will affect people with relatively lower budgets from buying energy, buying food, buying transportation. those people have a lower ability to save. >> alfredo, is there something that can be done to target -- to help those that are the most affected by this? black and brown communities? >> the cynical answer would be that those people need additional sources of income and

better paying jobs. so right now it is very important for people that can to donate to their local charitable ngos and more important to stress the ability of food pantries for people who are skipping meals because they can't afford to eat. we have to factor in school going back in session and people struggling to find supplies for their kids. >> schools are ramping back up. a lot of kids are going back to school today. alfredo, how do you see the situation of inflation in our country going forward? >> with the passing of the inflation reduction act, i think we'll see in the medium term a reduction in inflation. the way economic policies work, the time frame it does is different from you and i, talking two to five years to ten-year reduction in the prices

of -- and increasing energy efficient cars and energy. i think we're going to see inflationary pressures ease, but in the short run i think we'll see the struggle of the results of the pandemic, the russia/ukraine conflict and the pandemic in general. >> alfredo guerrero and sam brock, thank you very much. sam, have a cafecito for all of us. appreciate it. before we go, an amazing feat of solidarity in san antonio, texas, when good samaritans rescued a driver from an overturned car. take a look. >> it immediately started to smoke. look at the smoke coming out of that ca as you can see, about a

dozen people stopped, together they were able to flip the car over and they did what they could. look at that. first responders came and were able to get the driver out of the car. what an amazing story. i took solidarity and help of all kinds of people that saw what happened, stopped and came to help. that wraps up the hour for me. i'm "jose diaz-balart reports." you can reach me on twitter and instagram @jdbalart. follow the show online. alex witt picks up with more news right now. a very good morning to all of you. i'm alex witt at msnbc world headquarters in new york. a very busy tuesday with critical primary races and a big win for democrats about to be signed into law, but the headline in this morning's punchbowl newsletter says it all "we're back to the