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ukraine stands and democracy stands. a vital message delivered by president joe biden today. made more significant when he delivered the words from kyiv itself. he walks side-by-side with president zelenskyy and the ukrainian capital. it's a moment filled with symbolism with an american president ineffectively a war zone with daily bombardment from russia's forces. two presidents who visit war zones like iraq or afghanistan. president biden delivered a message not just to president zelenskyy and the ukrainian people but to western allies as well as the russians. the message is that america the financial a military backer of ukraine is in it for the long

haul. >> for you and all ukrainians, your mind the world every single day with the meaning of the word courage is. all sectors of your economy and all walks of life and it is astounding. astounding. it is priceless and worth fighting for for as long as it takes and that is how long we will be with you mr. president, for as long as it takes. >> reporter: has long as it takes is a message delivered on ukrainian soil when the largest war since the second world war shows no sign of ending. russia abandon early goals of capturing kyiv and all of ukraine . days grinding on and

the death toll is believed to be in the hundreds of thousands with millions of ukrainians displaced. the visit today lasted a few hours and the president is currently in poland as we come on the air. the trip was months in the making and was the end result of secret planning from a small circle of secret officials. the decision to go was made by president biden himself on friday. now president biden is in poland where he will meet with leaders of our nato allies. he will underscore the west's unity in support of ukraine and it is important with today's extraordinary visit. for his part, president zelinski described it this way. an important signal and historic moment for his country. the landmark on the war of ukraine and the landmark visit to kyiv begins today. he

hosted countless hours from the region for months at the start of the war at the front lines to the powerful live shots at the train stations covering the refugee crisis at the border. and we have the former advisor to president zelenskyy who is in a better weather situation also in kyiv . was this a surprise to see the american president in kyiv ? >> it was a very big surprise but we knew here in kyiv because the preparations in place that we started to learn about last night were preparations that have not happened at any point during this war. the things we had to do in the movements that were restricted. we knew there was

an expectation that the prime minister of italy would be here but the preparation for this did not match that and matched only the arrival of the u.s. president and that happens. thank you for having me here because you were home to our reporting when this war broke out. you know, ukraine has been running this war on a quarter tank of gas the whole time. they've never had enough ammunition or weaponry and not enough to go on. then nato countries have added new tanks from germany. the contributions of those things will take months to get here and train on. there are visits by world leaders and it allows the ukrainians who have been fighting for almost a year now to say we will go until the end . we will go until this is done and we are victorious. this helps them carry through a cold winter and through nights like this where there are many

without a home or power. they are fighting and it has not changed since i was last here. >> such an apt description to how they are fighting with a quarter tank of gas and i would add cheerfully and courageously. we pulled some of your reporting from the country and i think it's a good moment to ask both of you how much has changed? in terms of the human condition, it is likely more challenging, but let me roll this for you. >> reporter: i look at these people with the bags they are carrying and children around us carrying their toys. alexandra clings to hope that she and her husband will be reunited. >> when they open the border to all. two women and children in man. my hope is that my husband will

come to us. >> reporter: you've been going to the train stations to help people and give them food? >> yeah. >> reporter: does that make you feel better at least? >> yeah, it makes me feel better. >> reporter: you are not alone for sure. >> can i hug you? >> reporter: i'm sorry and thank you for talking to us. i hope you get to go home really soon. >> i am praying for our country and i hope -- yeah. >> i cried when you did the reporting and i cry watching it back. i want to hear what you think. you brought attention as a network more than anybody else to the violence and the story and you have kept it there

. what do you think almost one year to the day from the beginning of the war when an american president is visiting kyiv ? >> i think the resolve of the ukrainian people was deeply underestimated by vladimir putin . when you look at ukrainian history, one should not underestimate their abilities. they went through harder times than anyone in eastern and central europe at the hands of stalin. the woman on the balcony who i hugged in poland, she went back and i met up with her the other day. i met her family and her parents and her sisters and we spent several hours together. as i left, my producer said to her, god be with you. her response was, may your skies be peaceful. inc. about that. may your skies be peaceful. we are standing in a city where an

air raid siren could go off and they go off several times per day. it could go off again and people will have to seek shelter. we have been living with that and including where richard is in the east, you will hear explosions and power go out in the city while you talk to him. for the first time in a long time there are power outages because the russian missiles hit infrastructure. this is hard and it is winter. in every single case they are saying to me, we are going back or we have come back. >> you have been our eyes and ears in telling us what this has been like for you and your country. you have shared what it is like for your young children and your family. you are in kyiv and do not plan on going anywhere. did you think you would be here on the one- year anniversary of the war? >> i did. i was one of the few

people in the world -- me and other ukrainians, let's put it this way. we knew we would not give up and be here in a year's time. we knew it would be difficult and we would survive it. the world did not believe us. if you had asked anyone a year ago who is more likely to visit kyiv soon, would be biden or putin? it was president biden standing here today and that is a testament to the ukrainian people and a testimony to the man you are shaking hands with today. >> on the point about fighting this war so courageously and competently, i think it was ambassador bill taylor that said ukraine's military is one of the best in the world because they have literally

been at war for a decade. talk about fighting the war with the tank a quarter full. >> we had to make do with what we had. from the first days of the war, i can work in a story. my friend was in a traffic jam on the 24th of february, 2022. he was stuck in a traffic jam today as president biden was visiting. he said it is probably the most pleasant traffic jam of the year. in terms of fighting, we have resolved to defend our country. everything was utilized. only yesterday i spoke with one of the operators on the front lines who has now over 500 confirmed kills. think about it this way. first of all, how much the ukrainian ingenuity plays a part in this but also how the

world is changing. that was not available to the best of snipers 50 years ago. now we have students and people who have founded startups and go to university being on the front line and deciding matters of life and death and winning against what used to be the second best army in the world, at least people thought so. >> do you think it will end and when? >> to be honest, that is another important point about president biden's visit to kyiv this week. this is the most decisive week of this war . originally it was going to be all about russia. president putin had set up the theatrics and would be speaking to the council tomorrow and the un security council meeting and then the anniversary we were expecting missile strikes and systems closing and this week was going to be about russia.

yet president biden reacted proactively rather than reactively. he came before putin could launch his theatrics. we are here for the long run and ukraine will not lose. now, any war ends with negotiations, but we have to be in the best position possible to enter those negotiations. to us, it is the 1991 recognized stakeholders. >> reporter: you have anything to share about biden. he's out of the country now and there are less operational concerns. how we got there and how it stayed secret and how he got out. is there more security now? is there a goading for potential retaliation from russia? >> first of all, the person to tell us about how they kept it secret would be you. it's amazing it has been in the

works for months and nobody actually knew about it. we had heard rumors from people around here who are in the know. ukrainians who said they thought it would be happening but everything seems like speculation if you don't know. kyiv is a busy and active city . it is quiet tonight because this area of town had been cleared out earlier. now it is snowing and people are clearing out and going home . this is exactly where president biden was with president zelenskyy on this crisp and cold day. he came on a 10 hour train ride. we know that joe biden likes the train. the security concerns around this are something. we know there were nato and u.s. jets circling the polish and ukrainian border because there is a danger of aircraft and we know that the white house had informed russia hours earlier. i would like to know

the story. are you informing them that if they hit the train they will start a bigger conflict than they thought they were? we don't know the details. that is determination and i think to take the attention and the spotlight off of russia and putin and the attacks expected later in the week is dramatic. however, it's a big poke in the eye. the more provocations than were expected and they are preparing for it as is the country. >> what does the person on the street say about russia at this point? when they failed so publicly -- what they are doing is terrorizing the civilian population because they have not achieved military aims on the battlefield. that does not mean

they are not carrying out a brutal combat operation in the east. the whole country is under this threat. there were parts of the country that were perceived as safe and now anywhere could be a strike. what is the psychological toll of that? >> it is difficult but at the same time basically if you assess the success ratio of the psychological operations, russia continues to launch in ukraine. they are becoming less and less effective and so people are not afraid anymore. this is also why president biden's visit is important. people think russia is a joke at the moment. we understand the gravity of the situation and we understand it is life- and-death and the missiles are real. at the same time, we go about our daily lives because this is the thing that he wants to take away and we will not give it to him.

>> i know you talk to all sorts of people in your reporting and in your trips. you mentioned seeing some. are you carrying the same resolve? is this universal? >> yes, it is amazing. i would think after a year of war and winter and power outages that the resolve would weaken. not a single person has told me the war should end before russia leaves ukraine. when people ask why i am back, i say it's the one year anniversary of the war, some ukrainians tip their head and say not really, it's the ninth anniversary of the russian invasion of crimea. get out of crimea too. most people i talked to do not think there is anything to negotiate away with russia. russia has to leave and that is the beginning of any conversation about what the future looks like. there is no resolve. this is a reign of

terror taking out civilian infrastructure like powerplant so people freeze during winter. guess what, it didn't work. i am kind of amazed that i found no weakening in the resolve of ukrainians i heard last year. when i was talking to the resolve of the women on train platforms. they resolved to come back in the resolve seems stronger today. >> that's what we heard from you in these regular appearances . i think a lot of credit goes to the ukrainian people. it would appear from my distance that a lot of the credit also goes to your president, president zelenskyy, do you see it that way? >> i do see it that way. we are lucky in the sense that the way any political system works is they are amongst themselves but we have a resolution in ukraine

. it was an electoral resolution when president zelenskyy was elected. there was a strong crowd of ukrainians who wanted him to lead the country and that's what we have. he is a representation of the ukrainian spirit and pretty much any ukrainian you speak to on the streets of kyiv or anywhere else . >> you are my most favorite person to talk to in that region of the country. igor, you are my most favorite person to talk to you about just about anything. music or war. a deep thanks and we will continue to call on you this week. and allie will be back at 8:00 p.m. to anchor an entire hour from ukraine with a week of news and headlines from there. we will talk to him back here again tomorrow. we will put the questions in case someone needs the answer.

we will talk about how they were able to pull off the visit and whether this commitment to democracy is important to joe biden and important to our democracy. plus how the world has been able to see so much this past year relying on the storytelling and bravery of journalists on the ground and on the front lines in ukraine to share the story of the horrors of what is happening at the hands of the russians. and war correspondent will be our guest later in the program. president biden's moment will be in focus and how this historic trip may shape his next presidential run. that and more after a quick break. don't go anywhere. anywhere.

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where learning more details now but is safe to do so about president biden's historic and secret trip to ukraine. kept under wraps until today given the sensitivity. on a call with reporters this morning there were the details of the secretive nature of how it came together. and biden gave the final go ahead on friday. only a handful of people in the white house including the pentagon and the secret service community were involved. the president was fully briefed on each stage of

the plan along with potential contingencies and made the final go or no go decision after a huddle in the oval office with key members of the cabinet. there was also a conversation with the kremlin to let them know ahead of time and to tell them about the president's trip to ukraine. moscow was notified ahead of time of the visit for quote deconfliction purposes with sullivan adding he would not get into how the kremlin responded to the visit. joining me now is someone who knows the answers to all of this. john kirby who is responsible for communications at the white house. a fixture for the public and the world with the news outlets covering every day from behind the podium as press secretary. you've been available to us through horrific moments of the war. i wonder about your personal thoughts as we come to this one

year anniversary of the war? >> it is sad and a sad anniversary. as allie was saying, it's not one year, it is multiple years. 2014 is when putin moved on crimea. here we are a full year into it and ukrainians are still being shelled and forced to flee their homes. they see their family and loved ones torn apart and killed and wounded. it's a sick war that mr. putin wages on the ukrainian people in the ukrainian country. that said, it is important and historic that present biden was able to get to kyiv on the eve of the anniversary. to make it clear not just to president zelenskyy and the american people but to those around the world that the united states

will stay at it and support ukraine for as long as it takes . >> and i imagine that message was also intended for vladimir putin. >> without question. mr. putin should've been listening to the message and take away that all the things he thought he would achieve here, he has failed. he did not take ukraine and he did not do away with the zelensky administration or democracy in ukraine. his military has been embarrassed time and time and time again on the battlefield by a ukrainian army that though smaller is much more effect to. >> now we have to turn to sort of staff logistics. i worked during the time of war and our country. the secrecy is the same. i worked with president bush when he flew into a rack and the u.s. military was there. tell me about the planning for

this trip. >> there will be more details in the not-too-distant future. for now, we are careful about what we are saying. you hit on the main topic of operational and physical security of the military chief. the military could not protect his movements to their degree when you have boots on the ground in a country. everything had to be planned carefully and well in advance with multiple discussions that rose up to president biden's level about what the security measures had to be. you cannot get rid of the risk totally, of course, but mitigating the risks to an acceptable level. president biden was briefed on that final bit of planning on friday afternoon and he decided that the risks were mitigated to the

point he was comfortable moving ahead and so he executed. >> what was the call and how did that go? >> i won't go any further than mr. sullivan. we don't want to divulge too much about diplomatic conversations. it was a relatively perfunctory call with the russians to make sure they knew what was happening and that we did at the right time. we did and then advance at the right time to make sure they knew this was happening and how we were going to execute this and on what potential timeline. again buying down and mitigating the risk as much as we could. >> can we deduce as an american public that the united states has enough of an open line or enough of a channel with russia

they were aware the american president was there and nothing happened? >> we had the lines of communication we needed to communicate the essential basics of this plan to the russians. as mr. sullivan said by way of deconflichtion , yes. >> were there any moments that the plan almost fell apart or seemed too risky? i know there are drivers making trips that the people deem unsafe. >> there are things to plan for with things of this magnitude and certainly with this level of risk. the agencies with the pentagon and secret service looked at this with the things that may go on that impacted the

decision-making process. again, the final discussion with the president was friday afternoon and he gave the go ahead to move forward. obviously as we got from friday to today, we watch to see if there are potential contingencies that may derail this trip. nothing was observed and we went ahead and moved forward. >> can you give us a sense as we talk about contingencies for a trip, i wonder if there are contingencies for this war as we passed the one-year mark. you hear about ukrainians up and down from the president to the former advisers not giving one inch. what does that mean for the prospect of peace? >> right now, there is no peace talks to speak about or anticipate any time soon. mr. putin has made clear with all of his bluster that he is

not going to do that and he is flying missiles and drones into power stations and knocking out the heat in ukraine to brutalize the ukrainian people. there are also vicious operations going on with ex-con that convicts that he is employing. it is difficult where we sit now in the cold to look at the cusp of negotiations. president zelenskyy said even as early as today that now is not the time to do that. the president has said many times that we will not do arm- twisting to force mr. zelensky to have conversations before he is ready. you cannot blame him. at places now and what he will be facing in weeks and months to come as russia will likely conduct renewed offensive operations when the weather gets better. >> them president today talked

about crimes against humanity. i remember when the horrors were first made public and you had the unenviable position of speaking from the podium to speak to outlets like ours about that. i wonder what the conversation is about what price russia pays with the crimes against humanity ? >> that was a significant declaration by vice president harris on behalf of the united states. to say these are crimes against humanity. that indicates that what we see out of the kremlin is systematic and deliberate. what we are seeing is a systematic effort to brutalize innocent ukrainian people. what we hope with this declaration is it might help galvanize the rest of the world to make

similar declarations and also to support ukraine, as we are with these atrocities and the war crimes and to contribute to the analysis that must happen inside international tribunals to hold russia accountable for what they are doing inside ukraine. we will stay at that work because we think it is important. >> you are someone with some of the most insights into the most sensitive issues in our country . you are also one of the most accessible and available people and generous with your time. thank you for spending time with us today. >> you bet, thanks. anytime. >> as we mark the one-year point of the war, we are reflecting on the extraordinary reporting in the images and how we got to know the ukrainian people from the accounts of war. of course there is a price. we

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i'm an older student. i'm getting my doctorate in clinical psychology. i do a lot of hiking and kayaking. i needed something to help me gain clarity. so i was in the pharmacy and i saw a display of prevagen and i asked the pharmacist about it. i started taking prevagen and i noticed that i had more cognitive clarity. memory is better. it's been about two years now and it's working for me. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription. >> translator: i just one piece . people are dying and i'm so sorry for everyone, she says. most people live in the basement. >> reporter: a baby, hi. how are you?

>> reporter: this tank like most ukrainian tanks is about 50 years old and spare parts are a problem. ammunition is a problem because ukraine is not making ammunition for these old tanks anymore. they are using stockpiles they already have. i am richard, nice to meet you. he seems terrified in the bombings trigger his seizures. he gets upset moving and they've moved twice to avoid russian shelling. she wants to leave but not yet. maybe another day or two. i'm not sure that such a great idea. the only reason we know any of those stories is because of our colleague, richard engel with his on the ground reporting in the war zone in ukraine. over the course of this last year we have focused on and relied on completely and entirely extraordinary reporting

that richard another journalist from outlets around the world have brought to us. one of the earliest and most unforgettable pieces of journalism was storytelling of children and mothers waving goodbye to fathers and husbands through a window on a train. 8 million people have sought refuge elsewhere. some mothers and children with their pets as they walked toward poland to wait in line to cross the border . last summer this photo from central kyiv with tanks and missile fragments. one sign read , world help us. this is journalism. this is journalism minutes most powerful form. permitting the world to witness russia's senseless war on ukraine and on democracy and on humanity.

there are images of makeshift bomb shelters for families who chose to stay in their own country. above ground the bombed out buildings and the bodies and the funerals and the destroyed artillery of the casualties of the war. it is impossible and necessary work that has also taken the lives of 15 reporters in the last year. turning us to a now best- selling author and reporter who is a veteran war correspondent and author. he has covered afghanistan in the global war on terror. his new piece is an open letter to the people of ukraine on why they will triumph. it has just been posted and we will read through some of it. with your thoughts and everything we know, we know from people like you and what you have spent your life and career doing. >> thank you. it's nice to talk

to you. at its best journalism as they noble career and people risk their lives and it helps all of us to live with more dignity and better knowledge. i should say the figure of the 15 journalists who were killed, we must understand that any time foreign journalists are killed in the war zone, there is an equal number of local journalists who have been killed . especially in the first days and weeks when they don't know much of what they are doing until they get accustomed to the war. i want to acknowledge the number of 15, as horrible as it is, it is probably twice that. >> i think a lot of these organizations credit in pay tribute to their locals who drive them around and keep people safe in the country. can you help us understand what it is that makes a journalist want to be this kind of journalist? >> i think everyone has their

own motivations. i can speak for myself and people i know. my first war was in sarajevo in 1993 and 1994. there was a certain amount of notoriety for being a thrill seeker or adrenaline junkie. i think there is some truth to that. i think we are meeting junkies because wars are meaningful and the stakes are high. history is made in front of you and you are playing the role of reporting what is happening on the ground to the rest of the world so that hopefully the rest of the world can make wise and hopefully informed decisions . when i had my first taste of this kind of reporting, and i have to say the photographs remind me and norman sleigh of sarajevo 30 years ago. what compelled me then was the fact i was playing a tiny but very significant role in history.

that was just as much of a thrill as any danger seeking might have been. i think that was also an element. >> i had worra my nightstand for years and years. the search for meaning does not leave when you leave the war zone. can you help us understand how the stories these journalists are telling us today stay with them forever? >> well, all humans are deeply impacted by trauma. in print and also a sense of meaning and importance. so, i am no longer reporting on ors but i carried me the things that have inspired me and horrified me and traumatized me. they are part of me, now. i have to say is painful as some of it was and still is, trauma takes a long time to get

rid of, if ever. but, all of those things -- i have to say they have made me a more honorable person. a better person and more honest and i think that is probably true for a lot of journalists. >> i want to ask if your -- what you have seen at this intersection with the best of humanity and the people who go in like yourself and tell the stories and the people who fight for democracy colliding with the worst of humanity has given you more or less faith in humanity? >> you know, i am a very optimistic person. sort of a shameless optimist. >> i love that. >> what i see in a war zone is a military hierarchy basically coercing powerless people. in this case, 18-year-old russian

soldiers to do terrible things. then, what you also see are completely ordinary citizens who do not have to be but are choosing and volunteering to fight a war to protect themselves and their families and other people. freedom is one of the only things that people will readily risk their lives and die for. that and the safety of their families, basically. that is the true throughout history. when you look at situations where people are fighting for their dignity or to be freed from oppression, what you find is they seem to have decided it is better to die than to be under the subject j subjugation of a great power. it can be very, very costly for an empire. for the russia in this situation.

>> that is the subject of your letter that i want to read from. i'm going to ask you to stick around through a quick break and we will be back with more on the other side. don't go anywhere. nywhere. ♪ ♪ to all the chevy silverado owners out there. the adventurers and the doers. to everyone that works hard and plays hard. whether it's your first silverado or your tenth. thank you for making chevy silverado the #1 best-selling retail full-size pickup.

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lomita feed is 101 years old. when covid hit, we had some challenges. i heard about the payroll tax refund that allowed us to keep the people that have been here taking care of us. learn more at getrefunds.com. we were blown away. (chuckles) legacy is really, really big at howard university so it's really a special moment to know that i had a family member who over a hundred years prior have walk these grounds. about russian president vladimir putin's failures, many failures. and what it says is the message it sends to dictators around the world. you write in. "because of your success against russian forces china may hesitate to attack taiwan. north korea may think twice

before declaring war on south korea. and russia may abandon claims to the baltic countries. smaller countries like ukraine canun stand up to the powerful dictatorships and fight them to a standstill, particularly when they have access to advanced weapons and tactics." it's such an important bit of credit due to the ukrainians on this front. >> absolutely. i mean, they're heroic, and they're heroic because many people are when they're defending their dignity and their families and their society. i made a study of underdog groups in my book "freedom," i made a study of underdog groups that successfully defeated greater powers. and actually history is littered withly examples. i mean, 9 ukrainians may well join that list. and it's a very long list. the montenegrans were outnumbered by the ottoman empire and threw them out of their country over andhe over

again. the taliban of course after 20 years of war the u.s., we weren't beaten but we just finally gave up. we just thought this isn't worth it. it's very interesting that all the authoritarian regimes post world war ii europe including in the eastern bloc, virtually all of them have changed to democracies. i mean, russia and belarus are thend exceptions. but all of the fascists of europe were either killed or died and the regimes were changed to democratic ones very, very quickly after their deaths. so understand that democracies are extremely stable forms of government and autocracies are not and they tend to fail, which gives me enormous hope. >>s what do you think -- i mea i- look at the -- i'm going to try to pick up on your optimism theme because i need it but what do you think when you see that for all of our rancor a majority of americans support ukraine's fight for their own democracy? i think evenr bigger numbers tn recognize the threats to our

own. what does that mean, do you think? >> well, i mean, i think the idea -- i mean, freedom, the word freedom can be quitem, c misused in our country and probably every urcountry. but i think at our core as americans we o think that if you're living under the oppressionr of another power you've been stripped of your human dignity, stripped of access to justice, access to self-definition. humans are the only species where an. smaller individual or smaller group can defeat a larger one. we are absolutely uniquela in tt regard. and i think americans, particularly because of the way we started and virtually every american knows this, we overthrew the british empire to obtain our freedom, as did the irish in the early 1900s. so i think when we see the ukrainians we see some version of the united states in its best form,n in its highest ideals. >> and they'll say that too. i y'mean, i think president

zelenskyy has invoked our history in his very skilled and adept efforts to keep us engaged. sebastian junger, it's a privilege to get to talk to you. i'll have to pull you into the studio next time you're in new york. thank you very much. >> my pleasure. thank you. >> we'll be right back. easure thank you. >> we'll be right back love you. have a good day, behave yourself. like she goes to work at three in the afternoon and sometimes gets off at midnight. she works a lot, a whole lot. we don't get to eat in the early morning. we just wait till we get to the school.

so, yeah. right now here in america, millions of kids like victoria and andre live with hunger, and the need to help them has never been greater. when you join your friends, neighbors and me to support no kid hungry, you'll help hungry kids get the food they need. if we want to take care of our children, then we have to feed them. your gift of just $0.63 a day, only $19 a month at helpnokidhungry.org right now will help provide healthy meals and hope. we want our children to grow and thrive and to just not have to worry and face themselves with the struggles that we endure. nobody wants that for their children. like if these programs didn't exist me and aj, we wouldn't probably get lunch at all. please call or go online right now with your gift of just $19 a month. and when you use your credit card, you'll receive this limited edition t-shirt to show you're

part of the team that's helping feed kids and change lives. if you're coming in hungry, there's no way you can listen to me teach, do this activity, work with this group. so starting their day with breakfast and ending their day with this big, beautiful snack is pretty incredible. whether kids are learning at school or at home, your support will ensure they get the healthy meals they need to thrive. because when you help feed kids, you feed their hopes, their dreams, and futures. kids need you now more than ever. so please call this number right now to join me in helping hungry kids or go online to helpnokidhungry.org and help feed hungry kids today. yet another strong earthquake has rattled southern turkey and parts of syria. the very same areas that were devastated by a powerful quake just two weeks ago.

monday's 6.3 magnitude earthquake left at least three people dead and more than 200 injured. it was felt in cities hundreds of miles away, and local officials say that some structures near the epicenter of the earthquake have collapsed. fear of aftershocks has left many afraid to return to their homes or enter buildings. concerns are rising that this latest quake will hinder rescue efforts in the area. more than 46,000 people were killed and a million people left homeless when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit on february 6th. another quick break for us. when we come back, how being a wartime leader from the white house changes things for president joe biden ahead of a possible 2024 run. much more news straight ahead. don't go anywhere. don't go anywhere.

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for all the disagreement we have in our congress on some issues, there is significant agreement on the support for ukraine because this is so much larger than just ukraine. it's about freedom and democracy in europe, it's about freedom and democracy writ large. hi again, everybody. it's 5:00 in the east. today on this presidents' day, these united states of america awoke to the sight of our president standing firm in support of democracy, honoring our country's values abroad. having just completed a secret trip to ukraine's capital city of kyiv, president joe biden met with ukraine's president zelenskyy this morning, telegraphing a clear message of solidarity and strength and marking the very first time in

modern history that a u.s. president has entered a war zone where there is no active american military presence. in the face of uneven approval ratings back at home, president biden putting on a powerful display of force in kyiv to reiterate the united states' unwavering commitment to helping ukraine fend off brutal russian aggression in this war that turns one year old later this week. this morning the two presidents walked through kyiv undeterred by the sound of air sirens which the "new york times" described this way. this is a quote. a dramatic moment that underscored the investment the united states has made in ukraine's independence. the two leaders made a moving visit to the wall of remembrance which displays portraits of the thousands of ukrainians soldiers who have died since russia's annexation of crimea in 2014. president biden also announced an additional 500 million aid package for ukraine. it includes military equipment like anti-tank javelin missiles.

today's visit was the leader of the free world sending very strong signals to both our allies and our adversaries. that was the purpose of the trip. but it also sends messages back at home as well as president joe biden gears up to run for a second term, a decision that is taken as a given within his inner circle according to the latest reporting in the "new york times." he is reportedly conscious of how to present himself in light of concerns about his age and a public seemingly hesitant to so far rally fully and enthusiastically behind a second term despite his numerous accomplishments. "the new york times" reports on how his strategy going into '24 is not all that different from the campaign that led him to victory in 2020. "the goal according to interviews with white house officials, outside advisers key allies and party strategists is to frame the race as a contest, not a referendum on president biden. on one side in this narrative will be a mature, seasoned leader with a raft of

legislation on his record aimed at winning back working-class democrats. on the other will be an ideologically driven, conspiracy-minded opposition consumed by its own internal power struggles and tethered to a leader facing multiple investigations for trying to overturn a democratic election." president joe biden displaying strength and competence in defending democracy in kyiv today. that's where we begin the hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. nbc news white house correspondent our good friend mike memorandum memoli is back. he accompanied then vice president biden to iraq in 2016, knows what it's like to travel with him. also john heilemann joins us live from warsaw, poland. he's the host and executive producer of showtime's "the circus." he's also executive editor of "the recount." and we have missed you, friend. i'm so glad you're back. >> it's great to be back, nicolle. especially from here, from poland, you know.

i can't somehow manage to connect with you in new york city but i get to poland and here i am. >> see, one of us has to be in poland. also joining us former senator claire mccaskill. she was a member of the senate armed services committee. john and claire, msnbc contributors. mike memoli, let me start with you and any reporting you have about how this trip came to be. >> reporter: well, nicolle, by his own admission president biden traveled more than 2 million miles on amtrak, of course most of that his journey to and from washington, d.c. from his home in wilmington, so central to the joe biden story. but there is proobl no more consequential moment on a train than today when president biden made that treacherous risky ten-hour trip inside and out of kyiv for reasons that are very much coming into clarity at this moment. as i was talking to white house officials today, i really came to understand two of the driving decisions making moments here. the first is this impression really the biden white house has

prided itself on understanding when symbolic gestures are important and when they are to be, you know, cast aside, that they shouldn't be maifd for just the sake of a symbolic gesture. and the conversations around this trip today really took root two months ago when president zelenskyy made that surprise trip here to washington. the white house officials who were involved in planning that trip were really pleasantly surprised about just how powerful that trip, the meeting here at the white house, the speech to the joint session in congress played out. so that was really when they redoubled conversations about something president biden has wanted to do really for most of the past year, which is find a way to get into ukraine to show that sort of symbolic gesture of appearing with president zelenskyy. the other thing that was really important and part of what today was about is momentum. this is a white house that also is a huge believer in the power of momentum. and one of the reasons they wanted to capitalize on zelenskyy's visit to d.c. is

because as white house officials so often tell me we should not take for granted the ability of president biden to keep this fragile alliance of western powers united in this cause, especially those european countries where their populations are paying such a steep price in terms of the price of oil. they're much more intricately linked, their economies, with russia, and they have faced political pressures at home. and so this was also an effort to try to keep that momentum going around the anniversary, at a very symbolic moment. and this is a symbolic gesture certainly that's going to have potency here at home. but in listening to the president today you know there was another audience for that. at one point he talked about the fact that president putin thought that the western alliance could be broken, that so quickly he would be able to take kyiv and take that country and instead he said i don't know what vladimir putin is thinking now, but obviously the president with his own appearance today making a very personal directive to president putin about the

resolve not just of the west but of him himself. >> yeah. i mean, claire, this is a point made by igor novikov in the last hour, former adviser to president zelenskyy, that this was supposed to be a week about putin, what he had and had not accomplished, and what blewett'll onslaught he planned for the one-year anniversary to try to bomb back some of his pride that's been lost on the battlefield. and what igor pointed out was that president joe biden deprived putin of a week of headlines. this is now the week that -- and he may continue to be brutal. it's not to say he's deterred. but the story at least today is about the american president walking through kyiv with president zelenskyy. >> yeah, anybody who once dismissed this trip as a photo op doesn't understand that it was a telegram to vladimir putin. and it was cced to all of our allies that are standing strong at moments that may get a little wobbly but biden is keeping

everyone together to oppose putin's grab of a sovereign nation under a banner of democracies don't need to exist, i can come in and with just sheer political might and war crimes take over a country. what's startling to me -- first of all, i think it was a really good move by joe biden to do this. but it was startling to me as somebody who served on the armed services committee in the senate for 12 years, this would have been a moment of unity in the days of when lindsey graham was following john mccain around instead of donald trump around. this would have been an incredible moment of unity on the armed services committee. but yet you have these voices in the united states, these highly political voiced that are trying to somehow diminish what america is doing here. by the way, without risking our soldiers' lives and our airmen's

lives and our marines and so forth. i am startled that there are so many in the republican party that are coming out against what joe biden is doing today. that is a new republican party that many of us don't recognize. >> claire, i want to follow up with you because i was around in that era. i mean, the trips with -- i think hillary clinton was on senate armed services. joe lieberman might have been on that committee. lindsey graham and john mccain. the stuff of legend and vodka. and i didn't pay a ton of attention to what republicans were saying, but the attacks on president biden are predicated on believing the votes are too stupid to think that president biden can't go somewhere else next week, like maybe ohio. do you think they'll work? >> i don't know. i think that there is a calcified group in the republican party that are talking to each other, and i think we'll get to in later in the hour, that aren't paying much attention to the reflection in the mirror.

they're just looking at each other and thinking that they're right. this is one moment where it's really important, forget about an election, it's really important to our country that people continue to understand why it's important that we stand with ukraine, that this is bigger than a political election. and i'm disappointed at those elected officials who are falling into political habits rather than standing up for what i think is one of the most important things the united states has done short of committing our own military on the ground in many, many decades. >> john heilemann, i want first your thoughts on president biden's surprise visit to kyiv. and second, you are staged, prestaged where he's going to be speaking tomorrow. so just take us from today through what you're expecting tomorrow. >> well, you know, nicolle, look, like everyone i flew over

last night here and so woke up this morning in london on my way to warsaw and was surprised as everyone. there had been a lot of rumors about the possibility that biden would do a trip to the border on wednesday and that maybe zelenskyy would come across and meet with him there. that was kind of the talk in poland among a lot of people for some days leading up to this. and so the one thing that no one expected was this. and the first thing i saw when i woke up this morning -- or when i got off the plane this morning was the pictures. and claire is right. it's a telegram. and in this modern age you can see cc telegrams, as claire suggested. but a telegram to putin but it's also unavoidably, it's a series of television images that go back -- that go around the world but also go back home. and i could -- my first thought was someone like -- this is obviously about diplomacy. it's about the fate of ukraine. about democracy. about a lot of things. but you know, someone like mike deaver from the reagan

administration who was the master image maker, the guy who put ronald reagan at normandy, for wherever he is in the great beyond, was tipping his hat to stuff of image makers and the dream of politics, right? and i started hearing from people, not people in politics but friends of mine around the country, one of whom lives in a purple state, not particularly political, someone who's kind of not really a fierce partisan, who wrote a single sentence to me that summed up the political power of a moment like that. not -- real political power. this sentence. "this is what an american president should be doing." >> wow. >> and i think for a lot of americans who are not liberal, not conservative, not hardcore partisans either way, they have this conception of american leadership abroad. and these images conveyed and distilled everyone's kind of

idealized conception of what america is in the world. and for biden to be able to not just do this thing but look the way he did, especially when so many people say he's too old, he's too weak, he's too frail, he's past it. the swagger of this trip. not just the execution and the secrecy but the swagger of it on display on the streets of kyiv is an enormous boon to him politically. does it mean he will be re-elected? of course not. but in this moment it's a very powerful thing. and i think the speech he's going to give tomorrow, you may recall the last time he was here in poland he gave a widely remarked on speech, a very tough speech, a speech that was galvanizing. there were thousands of people that watched it live. people talked about it on shows like yours. and on our network. and it was one of the strongest foreign policy speeches he's given. i anticipate he's going to give another one of those tomorrow. and it's going to go back home on wednesday with another in a series of what mike memoli talks about, good gets better and bad

gets worse. and right now joe biden with the midterms at his back, with the strong state of the union at his back, with some decent economic numbers at his back, is again -- there are other problems, we could talk about those, that he has to address in his recollection campaign, but he's going to xum back on the back of this trip i think seeing what he did today and what i think he has in store for tomorrow, he's going to come back with another thing to build on as he heads toward a forthright foursquare re-election effort. >> that's spot on. mike memoli, i'm going to ask you to pick up on some of what john heilemann's talking about. let me read this from "the atlantic." "symbols matter pape kennedy or reagan at the berlin wall, a churchill with a cigar and a bowler for that matter, a green-clad zelenskyy growling i need ammunition, not a ride. simply by taking the hazardous trip to kyiv biden made a strategic move of cardinal importance." we i think as an industry are

very hard on one branch of government to the exclusion sometimes unfortunately of the other two because a lot of mischief happens there as well. but when things go well i just wanted to take a moment and ask you who would have been involved in this, how involved the president would have been and what else do you know about whether or not they knew how powerful these images would feel and be to people like the person who e-mailed john heilemann a single sentence. >> yeah. well, nicolle, you talked about the role of age in the 2024 campaign, something the biden team is very acutely aware of. but they would point out that with age comes experience. and think about the arc of joe biden's career. he was serving as a senator on the foreign relations committee during the 1980s during a time when a u.s. president was very much putting the cold war and the battle against communism front and center with a very symbolic gesture and a symbolic stand. mr. gorbachev, take down this

wall. that's a moment that president biden certainly is aware of and remembers the history of from his experience in washington. and that's why they look at this moment today as a symbolic moment that is more than just symbolism. and you also have to think about this, which is what a very senior white house official said to me some months ahe go, which is the cold war, maybe not maybe since the cuban missile crisis, has been a part of so much of u.s. foreign policy over the course of the late 20th century but we've never quite seen a direct confrontation, as indirect as it may be, between the u.s. and russia in the way that president biden is currently face to face with vladimir putin at the moment. and in the view of this official this is a fight that president biden is winning very clearly. so this is very much part of the thinking behind the likes of a ron klain before he left, jake sullivan who spoke with reporters today about just how much of a security risk -- think about this, nicolle. you've been in and out of a war

zone with a u.s. president. you mentioned i traveled to iraq with vice president biden in 2016. i've never felt more like a character in the show "homeland" than i did when i was trying to rendezvous with the white house team on the ground in germany to get picked up there to fly into iraq with vice president biden. but what separates those kinds of visits which were never routine but became sort of familiar to administrations during the course of the wars in afghanistan and iraq is completely different today. there are no u.s. military assets on the ground in ukraine like there would have been in baghdad when the vice president went. i traveled into western ukraine last year with the first lady, which was also an important symbolic visit, on mother's day. and we took note of those as we traveled from slovakia, crossed the border into ukraine, that there were u.s. military assets in the air tracking her motorcade up until the point that we crossed the border into

ukraine. think about what the u.s. officials know putting air assets into ukrainian airspace would be a line that the president has been reluctant to cross. even as we see now the president touching down in warsaw. the first be live pictures we'll be seeing of him in the last 24 hours. that that was something that was a risk as the white house said that president biden was willing to make in the case because he just knows how important this would be. >> claire, i want to ask you to pick up on mike's reporting as well as heilemann's point, that the president has some wind at his back. i'm not sure that it was all preplanned, but it has certainly all been well executed. his back and forth with the nuttiest of the nutty republicans at the state of the union. pulling off this trip and these images of defenders of democracy from two very different generations, walking shoulder to shoulder in kyiv. what do you make of this moment in the biden presidency?

>> well, it's very important because in the back of everyone's mind there's always a contrast, there's always a comparison. and this kind of dovetails with what you talked about earlier, that when the president runs for re-election it is not a referendum on him, it is a choice. and if you compare and contrast donald trump, donald trump was afraid to go to afghanistan. and afghanistan -- >> donald trump is afraid to stay upstairs during the black lives matter protests. >> exactly. i mean, very little courage. and having flown into war zones a number of times, both iraq and afghanistan, as a member of the senate, was there moments that it was weird? yes. but there was always a sense that we are surrounded by the united states military. you are enveloped by the united states military. when that air force one flew over the border into ukraine, everybody knows it was just that

airplane from the united states in that airspace. and that took courage. and that courage is a very important component of a re-elect for joe biden because strength matters. and one of the things that donald trump has always done is projected false strength. he's been a bully. he's made stuff up. he's lied. what you're seeing today was the president of the united states showing valid, real authentic courage to show the rest of the world that the united states is not going anywhere in this battle against war criminals who want to take over a sovereign nation. >> john heilemann, mike memoli did my job for me but let me just remind my viewers what we're looking at. this is air force one. it is carrying president joe biden. it is landing in warsaw, poland, where you are right now. and this will be the first time we will see him since his train trip in and out of kyiv today. someone made the comment to me

that of course joe biden's best, bravest moment as president took place on a train. there's also this elephant in the room for me that zelenskyy is so tied to biden's presidency, whether he likes it or not, by the incidents that resulted in donald trump's first impeachment. trump was so obsessed with the bidens that he asked zelenskyy to smear them and dirty them up for him or he'd withhold military aid for a country now at war. >> right. i mean, there's no more acute contrast in some ways, nicolle, than the way that trump treated zelenskyy, like a puppet, like someone who -- like a fellow mobster, as if he kind of just hey, can you do me a favor here. you know, we'll give you the aid if you can do me a favor, help me beat my opponent. this is so transactional and so self-serving and so base and so

mean, right? just kind of this -- not the stuff of fighting for the high noble ideals of democracy and freedom and anti-fascism. you know, it's like there's this seedy, appalling scene for which donald trump was ultimately impeached for the first time versus what we have seen from the very beginning with zelenskyy and biden and saw most vividly on display today. is it partly a marriage of convenience? i mean, zelenskyy is a man trying to save his country. he is looking for allies everywhere. he is -- i'm sure wakes up almost every day thinking he's lucky that he has found one who has been as steadfast as joe biden. but you know, who knows what that relationship would be like and some of the circumstances? who knows? all that we know is at this moment in the moment when zelenskyy made himself a hero and a paragon of bravery and

resilience and all the things we've seen on his part, at the moment when he met the moment of putin crossing into ukraine, biden similarly met the moment at a time when people -- mike alluded to this earlier. people said nato is weak, nato is pacifists in europe, the business interests there won't want to get on board, nato is not what it used to be, it's a shell of itself, and a year later everyone in europe says -- at a high level says nato is strong as it's been since world war ii, we've added countries to nato over the course of the last year and the alliance has held together. again, i'm not speaking about the future. but there is no single person more responsible for holding together and strengthening the nato alliance than joe biden. and he in his way, all of which while not provoking a nuclear war, not provoking a chemical car, not dragging american troops into the war, has been instrumental, second to zelenskyy but instrumental to allowing ukraine to still be -- have a fighting chance and maybe

better than that of ultimately winning this war. and so the two of them simultaneously in parallel met the moments and now have come together and are going to be twinled, i think, in the history of this era in what is going to be a defining battle the two of them are the two central players on the side of good. it's kind of an extraordinary thing. and it's -- and again, compare it to donald trump. it just makes you shake your head. >> you tied all the connective tissue for us. they've been knitted up since the first impeachment, the extortion event. let me tell our viewers what we're watching. this is air force one. president joe biden has just landed in warsaw back from that surprise visit to kyiv by train. mike memoli, we imagine he's going to go r.o.n., right? reside overnight and be ready for that big speech tomorrow.

is that what we'll see when we see him come out? >> you can see from the display on the screen what hour it is in poland. nicolle, the president left washington at 4:15 a.m. sunday morning. it was actually interesting, all the choreography leading up to it. we know how rarely president biden has been spending his weekends here in washington. we knew he was -- at least we thought he was scheduled to leave from washington on sunday -- excuse me, tonight in fact. nicolle, there are white house staff arriving here tonight to drive out to andrews to still take the larger air force one to meet the president in poland tonight. but the president had an unusually busy social schedule on saturday night here in washington. he went to mass on the campus of georgetown university. him and the first lady had a date night at an excellent italian restaurant here in washington. they also went to the smithsonian. and there as we see the president getting off, the simple journey, the ticktock, the hours that have been involved with getting him to this point, it's a run that he

has been looking forward to, i can attest to, probably for some time because this really truly has been a whirlwind 24 or 48 hours for the president. >> let's see if we can listen in to anything that he says as he arrives there. can we hear, control room? not much there over the wind. claire mccaskill -- >> i can -- >> go ahead, mike memoli. >> i was going to say i can assure you that some of the members of the white house press pool who have since collected there who weren't on that trip into ukraine are probably shouting their best right now. so we should keep an eye in case he comes over to see if he'll engage with the press at this moment. but obviously, the big moment that the president is now looking forward to is this major speech he'll be giving tomorrow. >> so i was involved in some of the -- go ahead, john. >> i was going to say i think the major thing that joe biden's looking forward to right now is hitting the sack. i think his schedule, nicolle,

was for tomorrow, originally the schedule was basically he was going to be done by about 7:00 at night. joe biden is not a late-night guy. this has been -- for anybody this would have been a very trying schedule, and he's obviously done it under the most trying circumstances possible. my guess right now is the speech, very important but secondary to trying to get a few hours' sleep before he has to give that speech. >> i think that's right, claire, but i would just say politicians like joe biden are usually totally pumped by a visit like that and an interaction like that and pulling off a logistical feet like that. he wouldn't have been involved necessarily in the logistics but he would have been aware of them. >> absolutely. and there is no way that he didn't feel the importance of the moment. this is a man who has spent his life in front of cameras and in political moments. he got that this was a big deal

in his presidency. i might note for our msnbc viewers that one of the people in that scrum appears to be ambassador brzezinski, who is mika's brother, who is the ambassador right now to poland in the biden administration. and i know that everyone that everyone that found out he was in ukraine is very glad to see him safely on polish soil as he is going to have another very important presidential moment tomorrow that i think will in fact eclipse a lot of putin's thunder during this week-long recognition of the one-year anniversary of his immoral invasion into the country of ukraine. >> john heilemann, we're watching as he talks to among others ambassador brzezinski. doesn't look like he's in a hurry. but i'm sure you're right that once he gets in that car he'll be heading straight to bed. >> yeah. i mean, look, there's -- there's

obviously been i'm sure on the part as claire said, everybody is glad to see joe biden now in poland, let's put it that way. and there's a lot of warmth between the ambassadorial staff here and joe biden. he's become very close to mark brzezinski over time. mark brzezinski of course -- i was thinking about this today because of jimmy carter. mark's dad, zbigniew brzezinski, was instrumental in getting jimmy carter to arm -- to have americans arm the mujahadin in afghanistan when the soviets invaded afghanistan. so now we see all these years later a clear echo of that in how the u.s. has been among many but the leading force in helping to arm the ukrainians. and mark is here i know acutely aware of his dad's legacy and i'm sure thinking about it in the context of president carter, who as we know went into hospice and obviously all of our --

everybody be in the world is thinking about president carter. but that's one of the things that's been on my mind all day today, the kind of parallels between those two situations. >> that's a beautiful -- a beautiful echo of an incredible history inside our msnbc family. obviously this is mika brzezinski's brother and she's had him on the program. mike, you want to weigh in on some of these echoes for president biden too? >> yeah, it occurred to me as we were watching those pictures that biden probably wants to have a conversation with brzezinski. and as you mentioned, i've often heard from white house officials how in their view president biden is a real gameday player and he'll likely be riding the momentum here and making some calls still before he gets to the hotel. >> i believe it. mike memoli, john heilemann, two better humans to have this conversation with do not exist. thank you so much for starting us off this hour. we had that plane land, you know, just forever you. just for us. claire sticks around a little

bit longer. when we come back, today's images of president joe biden in kyiv may well go down as the iconic images of his presidency. but on this day, presidents' day, as john heilemann just mentioned, we're also thinking of that other great president in our country's history, jimmy carter. his long life of service stands apart from all others. historian and documentary filmmaker ken burns will be our guest after the break. and later in the hour, just when you thought it was safe to exhale, republicans in michigan have turned to an election denier to lead their party. why the big lie just won't go away. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. continues aft. don't go anywhere.

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on this presidents' day holiday afternoon, images of two presidents and two legacies as one continues to build his, as we've been discussing. we're also reflecting on that of another because you might have heard that over the weekend president jimmy carter's foundation announced that after a series of hospital stays president carter would be spending his remaining time at home with his family in hospice care. and while it is of course heartbreaking to know the 98-year-old is now starting to say his good-byes with the trademark grace and dignity and transparency, no doubt this moment also offers an opportunity to honor more than just his accomplishments but also who he is, a good and honest and decent and giving man. when he left office following a relatively unpopular presidency for some, he could have stepped back from serving the public, but our nation is surely better

off because he chose not to. in the 42 years that followed his presidency, a period ten times longer than his one and only term, president jimmy carter devoted his life to giving back. from working with habitat for humanity, to advocating for democracy, human rights, social justice and peaceful resolutions to international conflicts, for which he was honored with a nobel peace prize in 2002. joining us now, we are so thrilled, award-winning documentarian ken burns. his new book "our america: a photographic history" is out right now. it's always such a treat to get to talk to you. there's so much going on. you can start wherever you want. >> so much. >> president carter or kyiv or wherever your thoughts are right now. >> well, i'm happy to just be witnessing a pretty extraordinary day and moment in american history with you and listening to your last extraordinary panel. you know, i'm very moved by president carter. i think, you know, we somehow think that the apoth yoesis of

our lives in politics is to become president, and he reminded us it was too become more human. and those 42 years have been devoted to reminding us all, regardless of our political persuasion, of what it might be like to adhere to what lincoln called the better angels of our nature. there's no one, not even john quincy adams, who of course served his country again by going out of the presidency and then back into the house of representatives, i served his cs well in his post-presidency as jimmy carter has. and it's a sad moment, and yet it's still beautiful. he still has, doing it on his own terms, with his faith intact, with his beautiful wife of 75 years there, his family surrounded him, and you can't think -- i mean, i was thinking this morning and last night when i heard about it of fdr, who retired. i don't think fdr thought he was going to die at warm springs, not too far from plains, and end an era.

and that connects with today's stuff. all the meetings, the surreptitious meetings that fdr had with churchill in the north atlantic, the christmas that churchill spent at the white house, in casablanca, tehran with joseph stalin. and where did they finally meet? in yalta, in crimea. >> incredible. >> the connections are really amazing. there's something really courageous. claire said it earlier as well. courageous about what joe biden did today. you know, this is not the acela to wilmington. this is a big deal. and the sort of strength and fortitude and the quietness of his projection of strength is what's so incredibly amazing to me. you know, after richmond fell in the civil war lincoln made i think one of the last trips, perhaps the last trip out of washington, d.c. to sort of survey the ruins. the confederates had burned a great deal of richmond as they

left. and he walked through the ruins of the city and freed blacks, formerly enslaved people, would come around him and touch his cloak and call him father abraham, the person who had delivered them and we're constantly aware in the way in which our present moment is a portal back through the whole history of us, which is super complicated. i've stopped saying the u.s. i'm saying us because of the dimensions of humanity and the dimensions of intimacy that a day like today affords us in one very personal moment with the carter family obviously requiring and heeding us to be at a distance and the kind of excitement that this surreptitious visit, a ten-hour train ride and sirens going off. all of that speaks. and also there's one other image that's in the book that i was thinking about too, which is lincoln in his gettysburg address basically said -- he

gave us the 2.0 of our existence. you know, the declaration quasi-the 1.0 but the guy who said all men are created equal owned hundreds of human beings. so lincoln, four score and seven years later, is saying look, we really do mean it. he's going to double down. all men are created equal. and that's why we're engaged in this struggle. and then you go ahead, exactly 100 years later, to '63 and there's a shot of abraham lincoln's statue in the most beautiful memorial on earth. i try to get there every time i visit d.c. and the camera's up over his shoulder and what's taking place out the door and spread out over the mall is the august 28th speech of martin luther king, "i have a dream." in which he's sort of coming to in essence, as he said, collect that promissory note. and so there's a sense today of just the vitality of this moment and the vitality of our

connection not just to this moment but to the human beings, the very frail and flawed and, you know, dissonant human beings that are us and our past. and as we debate, you know, sanitizing this history we realize that exceptionalism demands the most rigorous kind of self-criticism and self-sacrifice and all of that is on display in the two men who bookend our conversation today, willing to be self-disciplined in the service of something bigger than themselves and not, and not as john heilemann just said, it's not acquisitive. right? it's not transactional. it's transformative. and we have the great blessing of being at this moment a witness to transformational history. >> i mean, you are such a master to weave together all these pulses in our history. and i was thinking the same

thing you ended on, that to deprive us of our history, the brutal and the glorious, is such a crime against understanding who we are and being able to lift up and celebrate any american moment. and i wonder if you think we're still capable of sort of owning it and loving it all or if you think that this moment will only be really savored and relished by one of the two really fractured parties. >> we're stuck in this binary rut. and we have been at other times and whatever. and if joe biden tomorrow cured cancer he'd be criticized for putting all these doctors out of work. you know, that's just the way politics goes. and politics is just that binary thing. and i think what the life of jimmy carter tells us is there's something transformational. and i think in also the fortitude and kind of rectitude and patience of joe biden, you know, the kind of slow and steady. if you look back now, in the

last 100 years of legislative achievements you have fdr's towering new deal, you have the great society of lyndon johnson, and then you have joe biden. he's number three. in those kinds of transformational things. and you can argue about it. i hope that we learn, and i think in some ways the midterms, the way we're also understanding deep down that some things endure a little bit more. you know, the dynasty people went in their boats and rescued black and brown people in hurricanes in texas. i live in a small town. that happens all the time. and i think sometimes we kind of forget. and you know, scranton joe, he knows this in his bones. this is the all politics is local. and he understands about those connections and i think he in a way is that tortoise that wins the race when all the flash and

just the horribleness of that binary way of looking at things finally decides to take a nap and he just shuffles on past. >> i agree with that. i haven't been able to articulate it as artfully as you just have. but i always felt like someone who endured that much loss, for whom a wife and a child are lost and then an adult son he revered to cancer, in an election there's no way the outcome win or lose is going to be the worst thing in your life. and i wonder if you see him sort of centering. i mean, he's had a pretty incredible 2023 with the state of the union, even our hardened right-wing folks in the media had to sort of hand it to him. and then this trip today that was seemingly pulled off without a snag. do you see something different in him? >> yeah. i do. and i think it's a positive feedback loop. you know, we're used to the negative ones. but there's a positive one that's going on here.

each succeeding event kind of reinforces what he's been doing all along. he's not changing anything. right? it's just that some stuff went around. you he know, it's the middle innings. they've gotten a few runs. they're not as far behind, you know. you're catching up. he oh, now you're tied. oh, now you're ahead. there's an interesting kind of patience that he has. and i think the sports analogy is really important too. it's in our sports that we remind ourselves at the earliest age when kids are supposedly too vulnerable to hear about the bad stuff in our past, that we do like severe criticism, we are rigorously self-critical about how we are and that's -- if you are exceptional you have to be critical. and i think the other big thing is that in the binary system one and one just always equals two. but the thing we want, nicolle, in our lives, in our relationships, in our love and i would suggest in our republic is for one and one to equal three,

for there to be some kind of reconciling factor in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. and my work is an attempt to try to figure out if the sum of the parts is here and the whole is up here, you know, what is that other thing, what's happening there. and it's in the gestures that take place today in kyiv. it's in the gestures of that ten-hour train ride. it's in the gestures of saying you know what, i'm going to go home and be with my family and die with dignity. these are the opportunities we have to perhaps short-circuit or step aside from the good, the bad be, the red state, the blue state, the young and old, the rich or poor, the gay, the straight, all the divisions that we completely superimpose on the complexity that is life and is love. and i've got a political sign outside my house here in new hampshire, which is a big political state, and it says "love multiplies." that's my sign.

you know. it's the only way the universe works -- >> you're amazing. >> you just watch days like today and you just go wow, it's great. and one sends our love, and it is multiplying, amongst most americans, to jimmy carter and his family for his service and his life. and his example. and we send our best wishes to our president for the courage. and i think it's really important. your panelists used the word courage over and over again. you know, claire did. it's courage to do that. and that's what brought, you know, franklin roosevelt yalta and to tehran and to casablanca in the north atlantic to make difficult political choices, to side with something against fascism. and that's the way you get through it. and john put it pretty well. remember when this war started a year ago, nato was nothing. right? it was fizzling. well, it ain't. it's robust and it's strong and there's democratic disagreement

but the difference has been joe biden and his exertion of american power and the power of nato in this circumstance to sort of provide a bulwark against the inevitable entropy of authoritarianism and the brutality of this, you know, completely illegal invasion. >> what a gift to get to talk to you on a day like today. your book is called "our america" -- >> happy to spend it with you. >> we'll have to have you back. we have to dig in on this question of our history because nobody tells it or lifts it up and shows it to us quite like you do. "our america: a photographic history" by ken burns. thank you, ken burns, for spending time with you. it's a true privilege. >> it's my privilege. thank you, nicolle. >> major questions are being asked right now after speaker of the house kevin mccarthy handed over 40,000 hours of january 6th be surveillance video to fox

news host tucker carlson. that really happened. we'll tell you about it next.

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the insurrection tapes to tucker carlson. tucker carlson is the man who helped stoke the trump election denialism. axios writes this, quote, carlson tv producers were on capitol hill last week to begin digging through the trove which includes multiple camera angles from over capitol grounds. excerpts will begin airing in the coming weeks. the move is raising all kinds of journalistic ethical questions and national homeland security questions. january 6th select committee member jamie raskin quote, mccarthy giving 40,000 hours of january 6th tape to a pro-putin journalist is an astounding ethical collapse. why isn't it available to all media and the public? smell the maga propaganda coming. let's bring in the editor-at-large of the bullwork and msnbc contributor charlie sikes. what do you think? >> at first when i heard this i

thought it was a parody. >> me, too. >> i don't think that kevin mccarthy has any kind of a bottom, this seems to be too much on the nose. the reality is we're seeing that the tail once again wag the dog. we understand who actually is controlling the republican party these days, but at this point the more substantive question is if tucker carlson has access to this then the rest of the public needs to, as well. there's no justification for kevin mccarthy to give this kind of a public record to one media outlet that has a long track record of deceptive reporting and not to everyone else. if it's going to be made public, make it public to the washington post, abc, cbs, every other outlet out there so that they can comb through and so that we may have some transparency into what tucker chooses to air and what he chooses to sit on because anyone who thinks that he is an honest broker here,

that he will give us a complete and unvarnished look at what happened i think is beyond naive. at this point there are legitimate concerns why this should not have been released and once it has been released, then release all of it to everyone. >> claire, we learneded on friday from the dominion lawsuit that tucker carlson is most dangerous not because he necessarily agrees with the insurrectionists, but because he's terrified of them and will do anything to keep them turning on his show every night. what are your concerns? >>. >> i need to take a deep breath here because i'm furious. i am raging mad about this. this is a guy who just in the last week was exposed for saying that they need to fire a journalist at fox because she was fact checking. to pull back the curtain on the most crass, money-centric operation that was embracing

lies and charlatans and people that were trying to dismantle free and fair elections in this country and give him exclusive access? i mean, this is outrageous. people -- i don't care what side you're on. this should make you very, very uncomfortable about kevin mccarthy's judgment and secondly, i think this is very important to point out, nicole. the united states capitol has a number of cameras and the locations those cameras are not all disclosed because it helps protect the members of congress. if that guy knows where every camera is and the angles they can capture it makes it easier for them to try to come in and do people harm. so this is going to require a total revamping of security cameras in the entire capitol complex in order to maintain some kind of sense of security as to what those cameras are

capturing so they cannot be evaded by people who would want to harm people including kevin mccarthy. so there's a lot of reasons to be upset about this, but this should not happen in america. >> i only have 20 seconds, charlie sykes, but i just have to get on the record, doesn't tucker carlson hate kevin mckarthy? >> tucker carlson loves tucker carlson. he will give his audience what they want and this is why he needs to be fact checked by every other media and outlet out there. we know what he's capable of doing. we know how he's capable of editing it. so i think there should be an all-out push to get these tapes in the hands of actually honest brokers and reporters. >> charlie sykes and claire mccaskill, this conversation is to be continueded. thank you both for having it with us. another quick break. we'll be right back. th us. another quick break. we'll be right back.

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