a shot of a predawn los angeles. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it is 6:00 a.m. out there on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. here in the east. i'm jonathan lemire alongside the bbc's katty kay. we're happy to report that msnbc contributor mike barnicle is joining us for the hour. we're in for joe, mika, and willie. catty, a lot of headlines to get to in this hour. >> the biggest one got mike off the ice rink earlier. >> landed a couple triple axels

and came upstairs and -- >> i'm sort of disappointed he's changed out of his outfit, but there we go. >> and took the gold medal off. >> right. let's get to the headlines, mike, beyond yours. the latest from buffalo where the national guard is going door to door checking on residents who lost power during the deadly blizzard. we'll have the latest as officials face scrutiny over that. and southwest airlines cancels more flights as it struggles to recover from the winter storm. the unions are speaking out about how the disaster could have been avoided. and a federal judge cites evidence from the january 6th committee saying donald trump may have urged his supporters to do more than just protest on the day of the capitol attack. we'll have the new reporting on that straight ahead. we start with buffalo, new york, finally reopening its road this morning nearly a week after the deadly blizzard dumped multiple feet of snow across the region. but there are now new questions about the response to the storm

by city officials as the death toll keeps climbing. nbc news correspondent alex kirsch -- jesse kirsch has the latest. >> reporter: some relief for residents of buffalo, the national guard going door to door for wellness checks and the city's travel ban finally expiring, all this among concerns food and medication could be running low. >> to be able to lift the travel ban safely now will allow people to do those important things. >> reporter: the announcement coming late wednesday after erie county's executive called the city's response embarrassing. >> the mayor is not going to be happy to hear about it but storm after storm after storm, our city unfortunately is the last one to be opened and that shouldn't be the case. >> i'll say that my full focus today, as it has been during the duration of the storm, has been to serve the needs of the residents and the city of buffalo and get back our city -- back open. >> reporter: leaders were

pressed on whether the travel ban should have been lifted earlier as the death toll rises to nearly 40. >> the grim news is we know we'll find bodyings as the snow starts to melt. >> reporter: 17 people killed were found outside. tracy says a stranger discovered her 52-year-old mother, monique alexander, lying dead in the snow on christmas eve. >> we put her under an auning so that she wouldn't be buried under snow. you can tell when we spoke on video chat how sorry he was. he was crying. we were crying together. >> reporter: amid the heartbreaks are stories of hope from the city of good neighbors. one woman says she and her boyfriend rescued a man from the cold before turning to social media for help getting him to a hospital. then there's this barbershop owner who says his business became a refuge for many escaping the brutal storm. some would leave taking their chances in the blizzard. >> i had an opportunity to help people. i genuinely would do it again. i just did it so people could be warm.

>> nbc's jesse kirsch with that report. southwest airlines has already canceled more than 2,300 flights just today, about 58% of its daily schedule, this after more than 2,500 flights were canceled yesterday and 11,000 over the past week. many passengers are not received refunds for canceled flights even after being told to do so. flight attendants say the meltdown was avoidable and they'd been warning the airline for years to upgrade its outdated systems. the pilots union released a statement saying, "for more than a decade leadership shortcomings and adapting, innovating and safe guarding our operations have led to repeated system disruptions, countless disappointed passengers, and millions in lost profits." the transportation union blasted the company for paying shareholderings huge dividends instead of investing in their

passengers and workers. the airlines apologized again yesterday and pledged to do everything to make it right. joining us now, the president of local 556 which represents southwest airlines, flight attendant lynn montgomery. thanks for joining us. what went wrong according to you? >> well, it's just another epic failure of all operational failures. you know, this has happened before, in january 2014, february 2015, december 2015, july 2016, october 2021, april 2022, and now december 2022. so the company has had a lot of notice that we have had issues with implement weather and also technology. flight attendants have named these events. we call them snowmageddon. we've had tednato. this needs to be resolved, and

this better be the operational failure to end all operational failures. >> tell us about the technological shortcomings. there have been reports that pilots as well as flight attendants from your union couldn't get through for hours upon hours upon hours to figure out where their next assignment was going to be and how they'd get there. talk to us about the breakdown that southwest experienced in terms of staffing. >> well, this isn't a staffing breakdown at all. the flight attendants and staff were all ready to work, and we had plenty of people available. what happened was when the company had to make massive cancellations and maybe even didn't make enough cancellations going into the cities where there's inclement weather, once that happened, they made enough scheduling changes, and there's an old methodology that flight attendants and pilots actually have to speak to a crew scheduler, meaning they have a manual process involved, which meant they couldn't get in touch with all the flight attendants

they needed to when they needed to get in contact with them. >> mike barnicle. >> lyn, let's stipulate this was an historic storm. let's stipulate that everyone knows once a hub goes down like denver or chicago or atlanta, that the entire system backs up from coast to coast. but with that in mind and given what has happened since the storm ceded, jetblue, delta, american, you name it, they're up and flying. so what makes southwest different? >> so, the systems that we use are different and it's an older methodology. we also fly a hybrid of point-to-point, and then we have megastations, which means that instead of having hub and spoke returning back to certain city where people have to connect

from, southwest can offer routings where people don't even have to touch some of these big central cities that you have to make connections through. it can offer some better services through some of the smaller cities across america. and that's one of the things that's made southwest airlines very successful. however, it does make it hard to recover because you may not have the capability to put airplanes and crew back into locations that don't have the bad weather or don't have the disruptions. >> this is a story that's certainly not disappearing from the headlines. passengers still stranded, luggage lost. we'll be talking more about it. we appreciate it. the president of local 536, which represents southwest airlines flight attendants. lyn, thanks for being with us this morning. some of the morning's opinion pages tackle the southwest story. let's start with "the washington post." its editorial board says southwest put investors ahead of its customers and employees. writing in part -- "what's

particularly egregious is the fact that southwest had the money to upgrade systems but chose to hand it to the shareholders instead. the airline recently announced it would pay a dividend again that amounts to $428 million a year. southwest also has received more than $7 billion from the u.s. federal government to shore up its operations during the pandemic. it paid a quarterly dividend for years before the coronavirus struck, signalling to wall street that the airline had cash to spare. in other words, given a choice, southwest put its investors ahead of its customers and crew. its logo is in the shape of a heart and its stock symbol is luv. all of that, as well as southwest's bottom line, has now been put at risk by its leadership's short-sighted decisions to ignore needed investments while tending to investors." the editorial board of the "wall street journal" is warning against federal involvement. it writes in part, "the

scheduling meltdown at southwest airlines is one for the business record books, and the carrier will pay a price for months or years in damaged reputation. the only worse result for seething passengers would be to put transportation secretary pete buttigieg in charge. democrats care less about stranded passengers. washington receded from the airline management in the 1970s and in the ensuing competition opened air travel to the masses. politicians love to kick an industry when it's down, but passengers can take their market revenge on southwest without political help that will make air travel worse and more expensive." we have some dueling viewpoints there. let's bring in the co-anchor of cnbc's "squawk box," andrew ross sorkin, to weigh in. andrew, talk to us about what you're hearing about southwest. what's next in terms of oversight or, as that piece put

it, passenger revenge? >> we keep talking about southwest as if this is a southwest specific problem, and it is in this instance, but i think there's a larger issue which is to say you look at the deregulation, which the "wall street journal" mentioned in that editorial you were read lg from, over the last, you know, 30, 40-plus years, not only was the industry deregulated, there was remarkable consolidation that took place. and that has created almost this oligopoly. in some cases, monopoly kind of power that has led to incentives or in this case disincentives for companies like southwest, which used to compete on price and brand, but so much of that competition has withered away because there hasn't been that type of competition in years. so many of the slotting systems at airports across the country are controlled by airlines so that there isn't that type of competition, which would force a southwest or others to invest in these time of things. you know, you look at what's

happening in europe, they have created a bill of rights where, you know, if you're a consumer and your flight is delayed or gets canceled, they pay a hefty penalty. but at the same time, there's competition in that marketplace that has forced those airlines to actually try to help those customers in a way that they haven't in the united states. so, we can blame the airlines themselves, and they deserve a lot of that blame, but we also have to i think look at the larger system, and as we start talking about bill of rights and other things, you have to also take into consideration the competition perspective. otherwise what we're going to do is raise prices across the board, because these costs are not going to just be born by shareholders. they'll be born by customers. >> mike barnicle, weigh in. >> andrew, i'm hesitant to do this, but i'm goinlgoing to personalize this. >> please. >> i fly a lot out of laguardia,

logan, boston, to washington national, airports across the country. somehow it seems that 10 to 15 years ago flying commercial was much more pleasant of an experience than it is today. >> yes. yes. >> am i right or wrong? >> i think that you're right in terms of the experience. now, part of the experience i think we've all lived through is a post 9/11, and now we're going back, you know -- going back even more time in part because of the security measures that have taken place that made just getting through the whole process that much harder. but i think there's also the issue of how many people are on those planes and what happens on those planes. i don't disagree with you, but i would argue over the last 15 years that's a function of the lack of competition to actually make that experience great. i remember the first time -- make it personal for me -- walking -- remember, jetblue first started, that was one of the most remarkable experiences. people would say can you believe what they're doing here? yeah. but guess what? now jetblue has been merged and

everybody else is merged and that kind of competition doesn't exist in the same way. >> okay. cnbc's andrew ross sorkin, thank you for that. for the first time a federal judge has cited the house january 6th committee's final report since it was made public last week, indicating that then president donald trump's remarks on january 6th of 2021, telling a crowd to, quote, fight like hell before the capitol attack, may suggest trump was asking them to break the law. in a court order in the case against january 6th defendant alexander shepherd, u.s. district judge john bates ruled shepherd could not raise the so-called public authority defense after trial after his lawyer argued trump had authorized his client's actions at the capitol that day. judge bates, a bush appointee, rejected the defense, saying trump did not tell the crowd entering the capitol or impeding the certification of the electoral volt was lawful. in a footnote, the judge said

his ruling was not out of step with the january 6th committee's final report, which conclude that trump acted, quote, corruptly, because he knew stopping the certification was unlawful. joining us now, nbc news justice reporter ryan riley. ryan, unpack this for us because it's a little complicated for people to follow, certainly for me to follow anyway. >> yeah. so essentially the public authority defense has come up in history before, but essentially what it means is that someone in the authority to do so was telling you that something was illegal. take an example of this. if you were told you can't protest here but you can protest in that park across the street and then, you know, you were arrested for that after you were instructed to do that, it's essentially an entrapment defense, telling you something was legal when it wasn't. it came up before with a break-in to a psychiatrist's office in regard to the pentagon papers historically. it's been raised many times where essentially the argument is someone with authority in the executive branch perhaps

instructed you could do something and you relied on that. essentially the ruling says donald trump never explicitly said that to defendants, never said that storming the capitol is now legal, we won't prosecute. if he said something like that, it would be a different case. but he wasn't that over the top with his language. but, you know, the judge also doesn't sort of let i think trump off the hook with responsibility for what he did say and sort of indicates that, you know, there's a suggestion in trump's speech despite his language that he wants them to do more than just go over and, you know, hold up a sign outside the barriers that had been set up around the capitol because that certainly i think what a lot of people have read into that, right. fight like hell doesn't sound like go there and hold your signs outside the barriers and if we don't stop the steal, quote, unquote, we'll pack up and go home.

that doesn't seem what donald trump seems to be suggesting in his speech. but he wasn't explicit about -- in rarlds to this case, wasn't explicit about saying this is now legal, you can do this, you can shalter windows, you can break into the capitol and chase lawmakers off the floor of the senate and the house. >> ryan, talk a little about the template or precedent this might set. there are still a lot of january 6th trials to come. and also talk to us about the significance that we talked about this morning about how the january 6th committee report has been cited now in legal proceedings. >> the one trial i'm watching, they're doing jury selection, and there were a number of these transcripts that have come out that are related to that. i think it's definitely going to have an impact in terms of the transcripts as well as the report in general. i think the judge just wanted to sort of make sure that -- remember he's a bush appointed

judge -- wanted to make sure he wasn't saying this wasn't true, he wasn't knocking down what the committee had said, and, you know, the committee's report essentially said that donald trump had this intent. now, that's a much different -- it's much different for congress to say that in a report than it is for prosecutors to go forward. we should, you know, definitely note it's still a very challenging case that would be really unprecedented were the justice department to go forward with some sort of charges against donald trump in connection with january 6th. it's just not an easy layup. there's no really obvious criminal statute that applies to this conduct, especially with the first amendment considerations. you have to take into consideration if you were talking about say if you wanted to charge him with incitement, one of those really difficult areas where a lot of these cases in terms of incitement have run into some legal challenges during the appeals process just because there are such first amendment barriers and a lot of what donald trump said during that speech is, you know, pretty

thoroughly protected by the first amendment. but, you know, i think it shows that the january 6th committee's report is having an impact on this process. it's certainly something that the justice department is going to be, you know, sort of bringing into the prosecution as well as judges. they're certainly reading through this themselves and recognize the broader scope of what's happening with the january 6th committee and their final report here. the thing i'm kind of wondering about is we were promise alleged lot of transcripts, and we only have a few more days left before they do it. i think they've released a little bit over 100 transcripts. but really we have a lot more transcripts to come, some of which could have really big implications on some of these ongoing cases and ongoing trials as we have about 900 right now, but, you know, the total could be 3,000, especially looking at resources that are being brought in as a result of the omnibus bill. >> republicans of course about

to take control of the house. the clock is ticking. nbc news justice reporter ryan reilly, thanks for joining us this morning. coming up on "morning joe," new reporting from "the atlantic" magazine on the so-called anti-maga majority. we'll dig into that. and the latest on the investigation into the man accused of talking paul pelosi as the suspect enters a not guilty plea. is this case going to trial? shingles. some describe it as an intense burning sensation or an unbearable itch. this painful, blistering rash can disrupt your life for weeks. it could make your workday feel impossible. the virus that causes shingles is likely already inside of you. if you're 50 years or older, ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingles.

i screwed up. mhm. i got us t-mobile home internet. now cell phone users have priority over us. and your marriage survived that? you can almost feel the drag when people walk by with their phones. oh i can't hear you... you're froze-- ladies, please! you put it on airplane mode when you pass our house. i was trying to work. we're workin' it too. yeah! work it girl! woo! i want to hear you say it out loud. well, i could switch us to xfinity. those smiles. that's why i do what i do. that and the paycheck. well, we fell in love through gaming.

but now the internet lags and it throws the whole thing off. when did you first discover this lag? i signed us up for t-mobile home internet. ugh! but, we found other interests. i guess we have. [both] finch! let's go! oh yeah! it's not the same. what could you do to solve the problem? we could get xfinity? that's actually super adult of you to suggest. i can't wait to squad up. i love it when you talk nerdy to me. guy, guys, guys, we're still in session. and i don't know what the heck you're talking about.

welcome back. the man who allegedly attacked house speaker nancy pelosi's husband has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and other state felony charges. the suspect, david depape, is accused of planning to kidnap the speaker, who was in washington at the time of the attack, when he broke into the couple's san francisco home on october the 28th. instead, police say the 42-year-old defendant severely beat her husband, paul pelosi, with a hammer.

the state case returns to court in late february. the second of two men convict offend playing a key role in the plot to kidnap michigan governor gretchen whitmer was sentenced to 19 1/2 years in prison yesterday. barry croft was the last defendant to be sentenced in the plot. prosecutors said he planned to use guns and explosives to kidnap the governor with the judge calling him the, quote, ideas guy. croft's co-defendant, adam fox, was sentenced on tuesday to 16 years for his role. prosecutors called the men co-leaders of the plot to abduct and possibly assassinate the governor. a recent piece in "the atlantic" argues that america has a, quote, anti-maga majority. author david graham writes the midterm elections results revealed that although a sizable minority of americans will never defect from trump, an even larger group seems equally determined to stop trumpism.

our next guest agrees and believes the data shows america is an anti-maga majority country when it knows that maga is on the ballot. assistant to the president for strategic researcher at the afl-cio, mike podwoezer and the co-founder and ceo of all in together, lauren leader. mike, let's start with you. talk to us about this theory that you agree with that though trump, he's got his die-hard supporters, that enough of the country has moved in moments to defeat what he stands for. we know the losing streak republicans have been on. joe recounts it nearly every show and how they failed in recent elections. is that what's giving you hope here? >> well, sure. and thank you for being on. so i think we obviously saw something extraordinary and unprecedented in american history after trump won in 2016, which is many, many more people

decided it was important to vote, some for trump, even more against him. that produced the midterm and joe biden's victory in 2020. the midterms this time were actually two different midterms going on at the same time. and that's something that has not really been seen clearly. in the states, where a maga candidate was in a competitive race at the top of the ticket, unbelievably, democrats did better this midterm than they did in the blue wave 2018. in the other 35 states, democrats did just as badly as everybody thought they would do in a normal midterm. the challenge is if voters noma ga is on the ballot. >> mike barnicle. >> lauren, everyone seems to be aware the phrase maga instantly

transforms itself into a picture of donald trump. and the republican party seems to have been deeply infected by the trump virus to the point where any articulation of what it stands for or stands against, levels cruelty to people, and people understand that, more and more people understand that. but it seems to me that what people don't really grasp about maga republicans, any republicans at all, even some democrats is that the root of all this lies in the simple word "loss." and by that i mean there are millions of americans who feel that over the past 10 or 15 years they have lost out on things that accrue to the vast majority of people around them. they lost their homes, many of them, in 2008. they lost their incomes, their 401(k)s. many of them come from families who lost a son or a daughter in either iraq or afghanistan. and thus they feel separate from the rest of the country.

do you think the democrats and the country as a whole respects that sense of loss enough? >> that is such an amazing question, and i love the way you phrased it. look, i think we've seen this sort of drifting. we know that the majority of americans really are, as nancy pelosi said, center-left voters. they want reasonable, functional politics. they generally rejected the extremes on both sides. and this has been, by the way, especially true of independent women and swing voters. and we've seen that really over the last now three cycles, that they will, you know, really move away from the extremes. but on the other hand, we're also realizing that democrats are winning majorities when it comes to popular vote count, but there's also huge talk of the country they seem not to be able to break through, and that is the working-class voters, noncollege-educated voters. that's going to be a problem for democrats long term.

they cannot win a mandate by being just the party of major -- you know, five major cities. we've seen some candidates make progress there in reaching out to rural and working-class voters on the democratic side, but for the most part it's not been the frame. i think you're right, that democrats really have to start focusing on some of the issues of pain. obviously, that's what biden has tried to do. he's tried to be the empathy president. no one knows loss better than joe biden. but there's clearly a connection missing there with the working class that is going to have to be addressed. >> michael, one of your viewpoints that "the new york times" wrote about in recent week, democrats have done a good job of taking advantage of the public's disdain for extreme right-wing candidates, a lot of those propped up by donald trump in the most midterm, the kari lakes of the world. but my question to you is what happens after republicans witz up a little bit and they run more sort of middle of the road

moderate candidates going forward? that risks alienating donald trump, i suppose. what challenge is that for democrats? >> i think given the voter who is elected the republicans you're talking about, primary voters, almost asking whether they can make pigs fly, right? what they are for, taking away our freedom, choice, other important things isn't going to change if they change the face of the party. and as long as voters understand that, they'll still vote against maga. as much as we think that people are just reacting to the person donald trump, i think for the more than half of the country that has come to depend on the freedoms that we've won over the last 20, 30 years, they're not going to sit by and let them get taken away, whether it's by trump or other republicans.

>> assistant to the president for strategic research for the afl-cio, mike podhorzer, thank you so much for joining us this morning. lauren, we want to give you a chance -- you know new york politics -- to weigh in on the saga of george santos. le every day a new lie or two or a dozen is revealed. what's your take about what that says for the republican party and you think could happen to santos in the future? is he going to get a seat in congress? >> i mean, this is just, like, the most complicated onion that every day seems to peel another layer that makes you want to cry. it's just every tweet he's ever put out seems to be full of lies. the latest one i saw this morning, he lied about when his mother died. he claimed she was killed in 9/11. of course she died in 2016. it's endless. i think there's a bunch of really complicated factors here. clearly there's the republican side of it, which is does

potential speaker kevin mccarthy allow this guy to be seated when he was smart enough to said he won't support mccarthy for speaker so he's clearly playing the game to get support from republican leadership. but there are other complicating factors in terms of what this says about new york politics. for those close to new york politics, we're all in this sort of stunning realization of just how broken the new york political system is on the democratic side too that allowed him to win. there's a really good piece by steve israel this morning in "the atlantic" that, you know, basically calls out the new york press missed the story that, in fact, oppo had tried to flag his issues to them. the bigger issue is there was really no infrastructure in the democratic races being run on long island or anywhere else, which led to this really terrible loss of seats for democrats, and the seat that's supposed to be blue. i mean, michigan turns out to be more blue than new york right now after the midterm elections. so there's a lot of soul searching that needs to be done. obviously on the republican

side, how do you accept a guy whose entire story is completely fabricated? he's a liability for republicans. this is way beyond whether he's an acceptable candidate. it's a whole new world. but there's a lot of questions to be asked in new york democratic politics too, and there needs to be some serious soul searching about how this guy won and how democrats lost so many seats on long island and especially this one in a reasonably what has been a moderate district to a guy who's a complete fiction. >> and of course the person who used to hold that seat, steve israel, we had him on the show earlier today voicing his view on what happened, and we should note kevin mccarthy still silent on all of this. co-founder and ceo of all in together, lauren leader, thank you so much for joining us this morning. coming up on "morning joe," big-name companies like facebook and google went all in on virtual reality. they spent billions. but is it paying off? we'll have that new reporting

straight ahead on "morning joe."

san francisco, a little bit of early morning fog it would appear. san francisco of course the center of the nation's tech industry. for years now, we've been hearing about the metaverse, the almost mythical three-dimensional and immersive ecosystem that's supposed to be next big thing in the evolution of the internet. but is it? hmm. steve patterson tries to answer that. >> reporter: the animated future of the metaverse is taking a while to render. >> here you can find your community. >> reporter: in 2021, virtual reality was the hot new space in tech, and v.r. headsets were nearly impossible to find. this year a slowdown, fewer people trying to find their way to the metaverse, a virtual reality space where users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users. a developmental priority for

big-name tech giants like google and apple with meta and mark zuckerberg in particular going all in. >> at meta, we're focused on building the fundamental technology that will help bring the metaverse to life. >> reporter: since the company changed its name from facebook to meta in late 2021, it has since spent more than $27 billion on metaverse development, but that commitment aside, skeptics remain as evidence by meta's slumping share price. to experience the metaverse, you need one of those v.r. headsets which can cost anywhere from $200 to well over $1,000. and after a record-breaking 2021, where v.r. headset revenue in the u.s. more than doubled, as of this year, sales of the headsets in the u.s. declined 2%. analysts say that although headset sales are down it's most likely a temporary lag, particularly since apple is expected to release its first attempt at an ar/vr headset in 2023.

>> i'm not sure it's ak troot say there is waning interest in the metaverse. consumers may be waiting for next iteration to come out, and that's what we're seeing in our sales data. >> let's go! >> the metaverse, it's the digital equivalent of physical existence without physical limitation. >> reporter: jeremy and sheika have a metaverse podcast. they say although the metaverse ecosystem is still in its infancy, it's here to stay. >> i absolutely love everything that we have experienced with the metaverse as far as the community aspect of it. >> the metaverse term is going to fade to the back and it's really just the next computing platform. >> nbc's steve patterson with that report. now we bring in metaverse expert mike barnicle. mike, i know you spend most of your time in virtual reality. what is this? and what does it say about us that so many people want to escape there? >> well, jonathan, you've come

to exactly the wrong guy to talk about this. first of all, i'm still permanently annoyed by the number of people who bump into me on sidewalks of these great american cities that we walk around in, boston, new york, washington, d.c., with a phone in one hand and their starbucks lattes in the other hand pay nothing attention, no heed whatsoever so ongoing pedestrians who they walk right into. the idea that they're going to enhance their phony experience instead of the iphone, they'll be wearing these google masks or whatever they call them, vr masks, i don't know, and they are going to be populating city sidewalks elsewhere, i am not up for that. i'm too old for that. i'm not up for it. please, just be normal. >> we're hearing your dial-up modem go off in the background. >> yeah. aol. >> today's rant not brought to you by starbucks.

we appreciate their patronage. mike barnicle thanks for that. coming up, ten months into the russian invasion of ukraine there are still little to no signs of peace on the horizon. we'll have the latest on the new attacks overnight as ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskiy makes another push to join the european union.

welcome back to "morning joe." turning now to the latest in ukraine, a massive russian missile attack, the largest wave in weeks, targeted power stations and other critical infrastructure. ukrainian officials say preliminary reports indicate that russia fired 69 missiles at energy facilities and that ukraine forces shot down 54 of them. the associated press reports that russia also dispatched explosive drones overnight to selected regions in the war-torn country. as the conflict in ukraine rages on, nbc news chief foreign

correspondent richard engle takes a look back at the start of the invasion, the escalation, and where things stand as we near one year of fighting. we should issue this warning, some of the footage you're about to see is graphic. >> reporter: in the twilight hours of february 24th, president vladimir putin took to russian state television to announce a special military operation that aimed to demilitarize and de-nazi-fy ukraine. minutes later, explosions rocked ukraine's capital, kyiv. missiles rained down across the country, and russia's massive military moved across the border. [ siren ] putin's special operation was clearly war. although putin had long denied his intentions to invade his neighbor, he openly claimed ukraine was part of russia and demonized ukraine's leaders. putin had already illegally

annexed ukrainian territory, the crimean peninsula, in 2014, with little international backlash. this time, condemnation came quickly. >> putin's choice to make a totally unjustifiable war on ukraine will have left russia weaker and the rest of the world stronger. >> reporter: wide-ranging sanctions were rolled out, but they did little to deter. russia's military ten times the size of ukraine's, moved swiftly to surround kyiv. but almost immediately cracks in the mighty russian army began to appear. their offensive staufled. the ukrainians organized and fought back. civilians banded civilians banded together. many took up arms to defend their country. it seemed vladimir putin hadn't accounted for this, the will of the ukrainian people led by an

unlikely hero, president volodymyr zelenskyy, the nation rallied behind the comedian turned politician, now wartime leader. facing resistance and failing to capture kyiv, russia focused its attacks on eastern ukraine. moscow called it a change of strategy for the ukrainians it was a major victory, but any celebrations were short lived. as russian forces wut drew from around kyiv, evidence of atrocities and war crimes on a massive scale emerged. the pat herb would continue in other liberated areas. ukrainian officials documented 50,000 alleged russian war crimes. russia can has repeatedly denied its soldiers are responsible. >> why do you think this is happening, that there are now thousands of allegations of war crimes?

>> something was broken with mentality with them. >> reporter: in the east and in the south, russia's bloody campaign continued. with putin's forces firing missiles and art till i ri to hammer towns and cities often indiscriminately. u.s. officials estimate tens of thousands of ukrainian civilians have been killed, and 100,000 russian troops killed or wounded. ukraiians have soldiered on backed by international support, including $20 billion in weapons and hill tear assistance from the united states.miliary assis united states. liberating ukraine and then the southern city of kherson, occupied by moscow for eight months as the ukrainian military moved in, soldiers were given a hero's welcome. president zelenskyy called the

liberation of kherson the beginning of the end of this war. >> how are you feeling today, mr. president? >> very well. >> how is this moment for you? >> the moment is very important. that is the biggest city occupy ed since february. that's the biggest city. now it's free. so ukraine came. >> as the conflict nears one year, there's no ind in sight. ukrainians fear the world is losing interest in the war as putin imemployees a new tactic, mass targeting the infrastructure just as temperatures plummet he couldn't take ukraine as completely or quickly as he hoped. now it seems he's trying to starve and freeze the country into submission. richard engel, nbc news. >> we'll be back in one minute with more "morning joe." nute with more "morning joe." so to help you remember that liberty mutual customizes your home insurance,

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las vegas and that city's raiders, their season is all but over. the same is so for their quarterback derek carr. carr, who has been the team starter since 2014 has been benched over what coach said yesterday were offense performance issues. the raid rs just 6-9 on the season have lost 2 of the last 3 with carr barely completing half his passes>> spencer: reports that carr and the raiders agreed he would step away from the team for the remainder of the regular season so he's not a distraction. carr was the loan active player not practicing with the team as, quote, not injury related. his future in doubt. we'll turn to major league baseball and get this. the boston red sox did something. they added a two-time award

winner to the rotation. to pitch for the team, the 36-year-old righty boasted the second best strikeout to walk owe in baseball last season. we needed an arm, but they were a long time ago. he's not going to fix all that ails the red sox. >> no, but we're not done yet. there are a lot of assisted living facilities in the greater boston area. the red sox scouts are combing through them to find other 42-year-old pitchers to help out. >> our new third base, dh-type, also 38 years old. red sox continue to act like a small-market team without a plan. and on that very pessimistic note, thank you for your help today. and that does it for us this morning. alex withwill pick up the coverage after a quick final break. the coverage after a quick final break.

♪♪ giorgio, look. the peanut butter box is here. ralph, that's the chewy pharmacy box with our flea and tick meds. it's not peanut butter. i know, i know. but every time the box comes, we get the peanut butter. yes, because mom takes the meds out of the box and puts them in the peanut butter. sounds like we're getting peanut butter. yes, but that is the chewy pharmacy box. ♪ the peanut butter box is here. ♪ ♪ the peanut butter box is here ♪ alright, i'm out. pet prescriptions delivered to your door. chewy. good morning to all of you. it's 10:00 is a.m. eastern, i'm alex wit. this morning roads are finally reopening in buffalo