original estimates were 50%. one year out, that's where things stand. >> interesting stuff. margaret talev, thank you for joining us this morning. it is certainly a momentous day here. the president in europe a day after his secret trip to kyiv. we will be hearing from him in poland. the speech aimed at several audiences. domestically back here at home, of course, european leaders, keeping them to rally with europe, and vladimir putin himself who, of course, is speaking right now from moscow. we will have complete coverage of all this tomorrow on "way too early" and right now on "morning joe. ." thanks for getting up "way too early" with us on this tuesday morning. let's go, "morning joe." vladimir putin's state of the union just wrapped up in moscow at nearly two hours long. the address filled with propaganda about his invasion of ukraine with putin again accusing the west of starting the war, giving no indication the fighting will end any time

soon. putin's speech comes with new reporting this morning on china's growing concerns about russia's weakened status on the world stage. meanwhile, we will hear from president joe biden later this morning as he is in poland now to meet with allies following that historic trip to ukraine. also ahead, the maga members of congress staying on brand, criticizing the president for visiting ukraine. we'll go through some of their comments. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, february 21st. with me here in new york, "way too early" host and the white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. at the table with joe in washington, pulitzer prize-winning columnist at "the washington post," eugene robinson. former white house press secretary now msnbc host jen psaki. editor for "the washington post," david ignatius. also with us, founder of the bulwark, charlie sykes. joe, incredible, staggering,

historic scenes yesterday of president biden walking the streets of kyiv. we'll get into the details that jen can appreciate about how they pulled this off to get the president inside of that country via train, on a secret flight out of andrews air force base. what a message the president sent yesterday. >> incredible. an incredible message that he sent. historic trip. david ignatius, the first time since the civil war, since lincoln rode to see how union troops are doing against the south, that a president rode into a war zone that his side was not controlling. no u.s. troops, obviously. no u.s. troops in ukraine. the security, obviously, could not be guaranteed. joe biden went and sent an absolutely stunning message to the world, but, most importantly, to the people of ukraine, "we're here.

europe stands. kyiv stands. democracy stands." >> what i thought was the key line in the speech, "we're here as long as it takes. "his presence, joe, was a reminder of what physical presence and personal courage has meant in this war. this war became a real battle in which the russians were being pushed back. because of it, the physical image of volodymyr zelenskyy, the president, who didn't flee kyiv. we offered him help, said, "how can we help you find another alternative capital?" he said, "no, i'm staying." >> what was his line, "i need weapons, not a ride." >> weapons, not a ride, i'm staying, i'm here. it was that figure, we all remember the image of him in his gray-green outfit, sitting with his pals. he stayed. the country saw it. and i had messages from ukrainian friends yesterday who said they were in tears because

they were so moved that this american president had taken the risk physically to be there with them, to make this statement. we're here, we support you for as long as it takes. i think it is one of the most important days in biden's presidency, in which his basic qualities, of commitment, cautionist part of it, but overcoming the caution to be there with people who needed him. >> extraordinary. a trip unlike, again, any president in our lifetime, any president in biden's lifetime, any president, as you wrote in the column, since abraham lincoln. the guy takes -- sneaks out of washington, goes to the border, abandoned train station, goes about ten hours through the night, gets there, and then with the russians knowing he is there, takes the ten-hour train trip back. >> exactly. >> essentially daring putin. go ahead, you know where i am. >> yeah. >> it's a scene, again, that we have not witnessed in our lifetime, of any president. >> that's the amazing thing.

you're so exposed. he is exposed on the train for ten hours, riding through ukraine. yeah, you know, come on, putin, take a shot, if you would. >> yeah. >> if you want to take a shot. i thought it was an incredibly moving day. as you said, an incredible day in the biden presidency. and incredible day for ukraine. i mean, just every report is that -- is about what it has done to the spirit of the ukrainian people. not that it was necessarily flagging, but it certainly got a boost from president biden's presence. the message he delivered was firm, and it helps unite the allies, keep the allies together, as well. >> right. >> when they see president biden taking this risky step. so it was a huge day, huge day. >> we've spoken time and again,

gene -- or jen, about how vladimir putin has underestimated ukraine. he's underestimated the west's resolve. >> overestimated his own military. >> he's underestimated joe biden time and again. >> mm-hmm. >> but that's really biden's strength. biden underestimated time and again before the 2022 election. everybody is shocked. underestimated again. you start to hear the talking in washington every two weeks, "who is going to replace him? he's too old." he does the state of the union address, and people sit up in their chairs, "my god, we've underestimated him again." mika and i had a lot of discussions when we knew he'd go to poland. she was like, think he'd go to kyiv? >> seems hard. >> i don't see how anybody can make that 20-hour trip exposed. he did it. >> yeah. i mean, we're at about a year, right, from the start of this war, which is so stark.

i was just thinking this morning, remembering back, what we were all looking at a year ago. which was, a russian military we all thought was going to immediately, quickly, in days, overpower the ukrainians. they did not. skepticism about the europeans staying together and providing support. that was wrong. even we here in the united states were skeptical. even sitting in the white house, were skeptical about what would happen. i think it is impossible, i have a plan, i worked on a lot of these trips. you plan to go to war zones. this is a step beyond, knowing the u.s. military doesn't oversee ukraine. that's the key thing. afghanistan, iraq, places where presidents have gone for decades, it is secret. you tell no one. it is so dangerous. the u.s. military controls those areas. biden has wanted to go since i was back in the white house. as you all have said, this is -- this was dangerous, and he did it because he wanted to show, we're with you, and send that message to the public, too. >> that scene of u.s. jets

flying along the polish border but not being able to follow the train into ukraine. >> yeah. >> as biden goes in with a small staff, winding on an excruciating ten-hour train trip, where the russians, yeah, could have very easily taken the train out, taken biden out. he did the trip anyway. willie, it is really something. it's been a long, hard winter for the ukrainians. and for joe biden, for the american president, any american president to arrive at this time shows such an extraordinary vote of confidence. also, of course, with the message, kyiv stands. we're going to stand next to you as long as we need to. >> and it was clear that the ukrainian people felt that. there are extraordinary videos

on social media of kids looking out the windows of their apartment buildings in kyiv after a year of living under bombardment and air-raid sirens day and night, and seeing the motorcade of the president of the united states pass by their window, kind of cheering in delight. so there is the obvious geopolitical concern, where he is making a statement and saying, yes, the west is still here. i am here. i am willing to walk the streets of kyiv with president zelenskyy, but then there is also, as you all have been saying, the emotional uplift that it brought, even if for a day or two, to the people of ukraine, to say, wow, the president of the united states cares so much that he risked a lot to come here and be here. there he is out my window right now. they will not soon forget that. we'll come back to this visit in a second. we have keir simmons standing by. we mentioned the speech by russian president vladimir putin. about 90 minutes long on the status of his invasion of ukraine, now nearly a year old. the speech given in front of russian elites, members of parliament and military commanders, some soldiers, focused largely on domestic

issues, also included a warning to western nations about their aid. putin said, in part, the long-range western systems are being delivered to ukraine. the farther we will be forced to move the threat from our borders. that's the quote from him. joining us live from moscow, chief international correspondent keir simmons. what else did we hear in the speech? sounds a lot of what we heard previously, blaming the war on the west. curious if you heard more about president biden's visit to kyiv. >> reporter: willie, you're right, i mean, it is bitterly cold here outside in moscow. we had almost two hours of bitterness inside from president putin. he notably used the term "war" in this speech, but, notably, blamed ukraine and the west and washington for the war. he said they started the war. it was unleashed. they unleashed the war.

we are using force to stop it. that kind of logic continues on and on, describing ukraine bowing to its western masters, and suggesting that this is about an existential threat to russia. he said they want to defeat russia. they are trying to turn a local conflict into a global conflict. then he ended his speech with the words, "the truth is with us," to another standing ovation. there were multiple standing ovations from what is basically, you know, the kind of russian bureau sitting in front of him. your answer, he just finished talking, in terms of the reaction certainly from his officials, his team around him, if you like, is, of course, praise, as you would expect. i think there will be some pieces of this that will be poured over in western europe

and in washington. he critically suggested that russian intelligence believes that the u.s. is considering testing -- doing some kind of a nuclear test. said if the west does that, then we will test -- we will conduct a nuclear test, too. he says he will stop cooperation on the strategic weapons agreement, then quickly said, we're not saying we're exiting that agreement. that is the last agreement between the u.s. and russia over nuclear weapons. so he justified that by saying, look, the west is helping ukraine with intelligence. why would we allow inspections and give ukraine more intelligence? it went on and on like that, willie. it really was just like we expected from president putin. no compromise. no apology. after a year of killing,

frankly, no end in sight. >> no sign of retreat at all. people were looking for any cracks in his, you know, resolve to continue this war. nothing we saw in the nearly two hours. we've been talking this morning, the united states did give russia fair warning president biden would be traveling on the train and into kyiv to avoid any conflict while he was there. that is a matter of routine. it's happened on other visits, as well, when we're trying to avoid a conflict. what are you hearing inside moscow about president biden's visit? what has been the reaction there? >> reporter: well, president putin didn't mention president biden, didn't mention president zelenskyy, didn't mention the visit today in that speech. there has been a reaction kind of ranging from mocking to outrage amongst russian officials and the russian establishment. plainly, as we have been saying yesterday, president putin a year ago would have wanted to have been in kyiv with a

different leader, just the way that president biden was there with president zelenskyy yesterday. you know, it must have hurt. kremlin claiming that, yesterday, he spent the day simply working on his speech today, his version of the state of the union. if you looked up on russian television, he would have seen president biden there in ukraine. i think another point just to mention, willie, we are waiting for china's top diplomat to arrive here in moscow. china warning that this conflict could spin out of control, while zelenskyy warning china that if it backs russia militarily, that could turn into world war iii. i think you mentioned the fact that the russians were told that president biden was going to be in ukraine. there's, i guess, a sliver of something there. clearly, you'd imagine that president putin wouldn't want to escalate things to the extent of targeting an american president.

you know, there's some small light of logic, i suppose. i think all eyes on the chinese this week, though. because china faces a very, very difficult diplomatic position. they don't want russia to crumble, and you heard president putin this morning claiming that there's an existential threat to russia. frankly, it is more likely that, actually, the threat is to his leadership. but china doesn't want to see russia crumble. it doesn't want to see president putin moved out of his leadership position. at the same time, it needs to -- china clearly needs to continue its economic connection with -- its very, very important economic connection with europe and the u.s. i think, you know, for china, that is a challenge they're trying to address by talking about coming up with some kind of a peace proposal the end of this week. of course, there's no trust. there's no trust in president xi

from washington to do something like that. the diplomatic tectonic plates are shifting. beyond the rhetoric, it is worth paying attention to, what various countries are doing, in particular, beijing, but this week and as we look ahead. >> no comment from putin on president biden's visit. some senators, members of parliament calling this -- in russia, calling this a provocation. former president medvedev saying biden went to kyiv swearing allegiance to the neo-nazi regime. that's what they call zelenskyy's regime. international correspondent keir simmons in moscow for us. thanks so much. john, this has been a long time coming. president biden watched other world leaders walk the streets of kyiv. boris johnson, most notably, among others, with president zelenskyy. wanted to go for a long time. it was no small feat to get the leader of the free world into ukraine. >> there was consideration last june when he was in europe for nato meetings.

they perhaps could attach a visit then. they opted against. there have been several moments here, this planning months now to make this happen, where the president was presented with a go or no-go, and it was always no. here, he didn't fear for his own personal safety. the message to moscow ahead of time is routine, and there is something to be said, there is at least one diplomatic channel open between washington and moscow, to make things don't escalate. it was also another message of subtext, don't mess with us. we're doing this. you're not going to try to stop us. moscow did not. i mean, the president was sort of the last major western leader to make it to kyiv. certainly, very meaningful. the timing of this deliberate. more so than the idea that it is the first anniversary of the war in a couple days, but they know this is an inflection point. the fighting is only going to grow more fierce in the spring these next couple months. biden understands this moment to both rally support at home, and polls suggested that americans,

their support for ukraine has slipped a little bit, at least the idea of sending money and weapons to ukraine, that's slipped a little bit. rally at home. try to keep the republican forces at bay. still a minority in the house, to say we shouldn't be helping kyiv, try to push them back. of course, rally european allies and send the message to putin to say, we are here for the long haul. we will continue to support kyiv because it is a battle for democracy itself. >> joe, keir makes such a great point when he says a year ago around this time, first anniversary of the war is a year from friday it'll be, that it was supposed to be vladimir putin walking the streets of kyiv after an easy victory with his tanks rolling in, a parade. instead, on the one year anniversary, it is president biden walking the streets of volodymyr zelenskyy, who is still standing a year later, and showing the resolve of the united states and the west to stay with ukraine. >> it is one of the most remarkable foreign policy stories of our time. jen was talking earlier about how the white house didn't

expect this to go more than three, four days. i don't know a single person i spoke with around that time in the lead up to the war that thought the ukrainians would last more than a week. putin was going to be in kyiv within a week. he was going to reconstitute the greater russian empire. they were going to take over kyiv, odesa, and his dreams of the past 20 years, going back to 1989, when he worked for the kgb in east germany. he was hurriedly burning documents for the kgb as the wall was going on. this was his dream, and it was supposed to be accomplished. a year later, 200,000 casualties according to british intelligence. 60,000, 70,000 russians killed in war. in economic turmoil. all he has to provide one year later, gene, is a fire hose of

falsehoods. it's just cranked up to ten. >> yeah, he's -- >> it's one lie after another lie after another lie. a sobering thought for us here, what do russians believe? >> exactly. this is what russians hear. it is human nature, i think, really, to rally around the flag. we've seen that in conflicts, you know, decade after decade. many russians have rallied around the flag and are sort of buying this patently illogical story that putin is telling, about zelenskyy somehow being a nazi and the west having started this war. clearly, it did not. but, nonetheless, people have rallied to some extent around him. we'll see how long that lasts. it doesn't last forever, but it could last for a while. >> something that's happened

over the past couple months, absolutely fascinating. you have the chinese after meeting with putin putting out a cool, terse statement. modi criticizing the war. erdogan criticizing the war. people that putin does business with, david. now, reports that the chinese, who had, a year ago, decided to go into this, what'd they call it, a total -- >> no limits. >> no limits friendship. it's had limits for a year. now, the chinese, you know, keir was saying, we don't trust president xi. of course we don't trust president xi. but we can trust president xi to do what is in president xi's best interest. this morning, "the wall street journal" talking about how xi has come to realize, russia is getting destroyed. they are crumbling as a nation. he needs russia to survive to counterbalance the united states of america. so now he is talking about putting together a peace plan. >> xi seems to have decided two

things, which is, russia cannot be allowed to lose so this war needs to end before that happens, and, second, this war cannot go nuclear. he's been very explicit in saying that. the chancellor asked him to take a stronger line on that, and he did. that's a guardrail on this conflict. i was struck looking at putin this morning. in the classic manner, i hate to say it, of a russian leader, just lying in the face of reality. he's backed into a corner. he is asserting that the west started this war. we all watched it, right? >> yeah. >> we watched him prepare for it. the whole world said, don't do it, and they did it anyway. >> we listened to them lie time and time again, "we're not going in." >> you remember in the old days, the soviets would have a way, if they didn't -- if some leader got removed, they'd erase his

face from the group picture. he wouldn't be there anymore. >> right. >> this is a little like that. it is erasing the inconvenient fact that vladimir putin's war has failed, that his vision for the future of ukraine was completely false. he's now stuck in this situation where, i suppose, his only hope is that the chinese will rescue him somehow. >> he doesn't -- >> what does china do, though? i mean, if russia can't lose -- >> if china decides that he is about to fail, and rather than if they think they're unable to get a settlement that will work in his favor, they could supply him with weapons. >> the problem with that is, jen, the reason they haven't suppied him with weapons the past year is we have warned him. again, we've said it here on the show before. if china's economy was growing at 7%, 8%, 9%, they would have already done it and told us to go to hell. xi has so many problems right now. >> including russia and putin, frankly. >> of his own making. the last thing he can do is get

into this sort of trade war with the west that putin is dealing with. >> but he is stuck a little bit. because he clearly, i would guess, hoped that a year ago, that this would end quickly. remember, he was kind of straddling this spot of not being engaged. really not taking sides, right? now, it's this question of -- i mean, one of the themes of putin's speech where he lied consistently was that it's us versus them. the audience of the speech was the russian people. how much he is losing them, let's not overstate that, but he needs to convince them with 200,000 russian troops died. this is a war worth fighting. some of the themes in that speech were, we're not fighting ukraine. we're fighting that big u.s. military and all those western interests. it's us against them. so it's like china, what side are you going to be on? that's what is awkward for xi. >> willie, you look at xi's reaction to this, and it becomes

more evident every day that just as putin fears a free, westward-leaning ukraine, xi fears a disruption inside of putin's russia. he doesn't know what comes next. does russia become less autocratic? does it become more democratic? does it lean more to the west than putin's russia? of course it would. again, for xi, he's got to do everything he can to hold up that partner. i think short of really getting in, supplying the troops, because he has to know that doesn't end well for china either. but as we talk about this, it is so clear that this is a battle between a western democracy and russian and chinese autocracy. while you have the majority of republicans in the senate

supporting the president and western democracy, you had some buffoons yesterday on capitol hill say some absolutely remarkable things that i have no doubt r.t. will be playing for the next few weeks. russian television will be playing it for the next couple weeks. they hate the american president so much that they're willing to provide aid and comfort to the russian cause. it really -- you know, one of kevin mccarthy's closest associates talked about a civil war. talked about secession. others openly, openly just contemptuous of ukraine and the efforts there. they were saying, doesn't matter to us. a guy who wants to be president of the united states actually going on television yesterday saying, russia doesn't pose any threat to its neighbors. >> yeah, we're going to walk

through all of that. because some of it is pretty stunning. there may be some small group of those people that you just named that don't understand why it is important that the president of the united states made that visit to kyiv. most of them do, which makes it worse. their dishonesty was on display. we'll walk through that. we'll have more on how this trip by president biden inside ukraine, into the streets of kyiv, came to be, when principle deputy national security adviser jon finer joins our conversation. plus, the must-read opinion pages, including, "biden just destroyed putin's last hope." and why 2024 presidential candidate nikki haley says she has not attacked former president trump, even though he has criticized her campaign several times already. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

(psst psst) ahhhh... with flonase, allergies don't have to be scary. spray flonase sensimist daily for non-drowsy, long lasting relief in a scent-free, gentle mist. (psst psst) flonase. all good.

why are 93% of sleep number sleepers very satisfied with their bed? maybe it's because you can adjust your comfort and firmness on either side. your sleep number setting. to help relieve pressure points and keep you both comfortable all night. and now, save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. ends monday.

oh booking.com, ♪ i'm going to somewhere, anywhere. ♪ ♪ a beach house, a treehouse, ♪ ♪ honestly i don't care ♪ find the perfect vacation rental for you booking.com, booking. yeah. for adults with generalized myasthenia gravis who are positive for acetylcholine receptor antibodies, it may feel like the world is moving without you. but the picture is changing, with vyvgart. in a clinical trial,

participants achieved improved daily abilities with vyvgart added to their current treatment. and vyvgart helped clinical trial participants achieve reduced muscle weakness. vyvgart may increase the risk of infection. in a clinical study, the most common infections were urinary tract and respiratory tract infections. tell your doctor if you have a history of infections or if you have symptoms of an infection. vyvgart can cause allergic reactions. the most common side effects include respiratory tract infection, headache, and urinary tract infection. picture your life in motion with vyvgart. a treatment designed using a fragment of an antibody. ask your neurologist if vyvgart could be right for you. shingles. the rash can feel like an intense burning sensation and last for weeks. it can make your workday feel impossible. the virus that causes shingles is likely already inside of you. 50 years or older? ask your doctor about shingles.

yesterday morning after president biden left kyiv, desantis was downplaying the threat russia plays to its neighbors and the rest of the world. this was on fox news. >> it is important to point out. you know, the fear of kind of russia going into nato countries and all that and steamrolling, you know, that is not even come close to happening. i think they've shown themselves to be a third-rate military power. i think they've suffered tremendous, tremendous losses. i got to think that the people in russia are probably disapproving of what's going on. i don't think they can speak up about it for obvious reasons. i think russia has been really, really wounded here, and i don't think that they are the same threat to our country, even though they are hostile. i don't think they're on the same level as a china. >> more on that in a moment.

the president's visit also drew criticism from a number of far-right house republicans. andy biggs of as, for example, wrote the president should be in east palestine, ohio, where the train derailed earlier this month, exposing the small town to hazardous chemicals. marjorie taylor greene of georgia claimed it is a proxy war between the u.s. and china, and it should end immediately. and greg murphy of north carolina blamed president biden for the war in ukraine. writing, it's a war zone he created. there were also a few republican senators who accused the president of neglecting the people of ohio and the crisis at the southern border. that's notably different from the continued support for ukrainian aid from senate republican leadership. >> russia has to lose in ukraine. and we can't put a time limit on it. but the one thing we can do to address the problem that was raised by our friend here from ukraine, speed up the decision

making. get the weapons there quicker. as far as i'm concerned, and i think i can speak pretty thoroughly for most of the members of my party in congress, we're in this to win. because losing is not an option. >> joe, there were, obviously, we pointed out some of those republicans. the leadership, mitch mcconnell, pledging his ongoing, continued support for the effort in ukraine. he just wants it to move a little faster. going back to the guy who it looks more and more like is going to run for president, florida governor ron desantis, i guess trying to stake out some point of difference with president biden. kind of losing his way while doing so. >> it was really -- it was as bad as the debate with charlie crist when charlie asked him if he was going to run for president. he sort of -- it was a brick-- >> eating mayonnaise out of the toaster. >> if the interview went longer and they asked him a follow-up

question, he would have said, "i love lamp." we didn't get there, thank god, but it was -- it was difficult to view that. charlie sykes, this is supposed to be, like, the great hope for the republican party. the great hope. i guess the governor doesn't understand that he's saying, well, russia is not as dangerous as they were a year ago. because of everything joe biden has done over the past year. he makes this statement, which makes no sense. he says, "i love lamp," and then he starts talking about how russia has been degraded, been degraded as a military. they're not as powerful as they once were, as they were a year ago. he might as well send a bouquet of flowers to joe biden. >> yeah, this is rob desantis' debut on the national stage, and it didn't go well. his comments, i thought, were as pathetic as they were

predictable. look, he can't allow himself to get outflanked by the america first isolationists, but he went through the playbook. blamed biden, downplayed the russia threat, denied the stakes that we've been talking about, the fact that this is a -- this is the existential challenge between the west and russia. as mitch mcconnell says, we cannot lose. look, you know, he's not at this point one of, you know, the house useful idiots for vladimir putin. but, look, the republican reaction is awfully revealing here. first of all, you know, there are no anti-war pacifists here. there are some who are genuine isolationists, america first isolationists. there are some who are actually actively pro vladimir putin. but, primarily, they are anti-zelenskyy and anti-biden. so what you're basically saying is, whatever joe biden does, they are going to oppose.

which comes a day after what should have been a moment of bipartisan unity. i mean, it was an extraordinary scene. the president of the united states in this war zone. i am old enough to remember when leaders of both parties would have, you know, felt that as a moment of pride. instead, what do we get? we get some sort of, you know, petty, ankle biting from congress and from ron desantis. >> again, those tweets coming while an american president was on the ground in a war zone, where there were no u.s. troops to protect him. it was really quite remarkable. david ignatius, though, let's keep this in perspective. we played a clip of mitch mcconnell. mitch mcconnell has said time and time again, russia must lose. ukraine must win. most republicans, other than

those that go sit on bales of hay and, you know, aim at balloons with their ar-15s, most senate republicans actually are very sober, very serious, and stood shoulder to shoulder with democrats in the senate and the president of the united states. >> that's the real story today. >> yes. >> biden went to kyiv. he went to kyiv with a basically united states congress behind him. there were a few outliers, but there are not many. he went with the united atlantic alliance, with a europe that had been predicted to be ready to fracture, that was pretty solidly behind u.s. leadership and behind ukraine. in the end, war is about will. we're seeing the clash of two strong wills here. i'll say zelenskyy, but zelenskyy backed by biden, against putin. in this test of wills, i think, yesterday, the west got

stronger. for biden's trip, it showed a more united america, a more united europe than putin ever imagined. that's the real story. these other marjorie taylor greene, you know, whatever. doesn't matter. >> again, charlie sykes, talking about secession, which, of course, we've looked at all the numbers. by the way, not a back bencher. somebody who is responsible for kevin mccarthy's rise. somebody who kevin mccarthy said he would stand next to until the bitter end. said that red states needed to secede from america. of course, this is so laughable because blue states, as we all know, are the donor states, are the states where taxpayers take it on the chin, to take care of districts like marjorie taylor greene's. to take care of districts across

texas where ted cruz talks about, you know, secession. not all of texas. there's a lot of texas that actually contributes very well. but look at the dark blue states. alabama, mississippi, louisiana, south carolina, kentucky, west virginia. you're talking about the states that -- alaska -- the biggest supporters of donald trump and donald trumpism. you know, of course, what can you say? what can you say? we always hear about this, you know, secession. i've got to ask, what is it that so deeply offends them, like three trans athletes in utah want to swim? is that real? our military is stronger than it has ever been. our opponents on the run. russia on the run.

china in decline, at least for now. iran facing protests day in and day out. again, it's fascinating that they are so desperate to raise money from small donors, they're actually willing to say, "we need to have a civil war." >> well, it is deeply unserious, as you'd expect from marjorie taylor greene who, by the way, sits on the homeland security committee. >> oh, my god. unbelievable. >> we've seen the transition from sedition to secession in a very short period of time. look, a year ago, joe, i actually called this shot. i said, look, the next big maga play is going to be national divorce. they're going to talk about it. not because they're going to do it, but because they have to keep ratcheting up the outrage. look, this is still the far right, but one of the things we

have learned is the way that the crazy ideas from the far right become mainstream because there are no longer guardrails. it'll be interesting to see if kevin mccarthy has anything to say about all this. there's not going to be a national divorce, but this kind of rhetoric is dangerous. also, you know, while i think that, you know, we have the leadership of both parties showing unity, don't neglect the fact that people like marjorie taylor greene and ron desantis are appealing to the id of the party, the id of the right, which is anti-ukraine, which is willing to tolerate this sort of notion that our real enemy is not vladimir putin. our real enemy is other americans. >> right. >> we need to pit red states versus blue states. so, unfortunately, there is an audience for this. it'll be interesting to see whether and how much pushback there is to this kind of crazy

rhetoric. >> willie, we've talked about it before, but they don't hate russia. they hate americans. >> yeah. >> they don't attack vladimir putin. they attack the united states military. senior senators say they wish american troops were more like russian troops. you have them saying that helicopters are coming from afghanistan that we used in the afghanistan war. u.s. military helicopters coming to hunt down americans here at home. that the fbi is going to kick down the doors of americans who voted for donald trump and drag them off to jail. that the irs, a senior republican senator, maybe the most senior republican senator, saying irs agents were going to go to his home state, kick in the doors with ar-15s and shoot and kill middle-class iowans. i could keep going down the list. it's one after another after

another. it's all about hating america. why would they do this? it's baffling to me. i can't imagine it. this is the sort of thing that conservatives used to get angry about when the radical left would do it and would say, "america, love it or leave it." not so sure why they hate america so much, but i do know this, it raises them a lot of money. >> yup. >> so at the end of the day, just like jim and tammie faye baker taking my grandmom's social security checks in the 1980s, they take $25 here, $25 there by preaching hate, by preaching conspiracy theories, by talking about how they are being hunted down by their own government. nra has done it masterfully and cynically the past 30 years, talking about jack-booted thugs. why would they do it? you look and see how much the

craziest members of the house raise. the small dollar donors that -- from across the country that give them money. it's all a grift. they're literally willing to burn the american flag with their rhetoric to raise $25 across the nation. it's really just sick. >> that -- you just answered the question of why would marjorie taylor greene call for a civil war, a secession. why would she scream "liar" at biden in the state of the union? everything in our system tells her to do so. she is in a district where she's never going to lose. she'll raise a ton of money if she yells "liar" at the president of the united states. of course she's going to do that. you take it all with a grain of salt. it is in the echo chamber, and it works for her. as charlie says, it has moved all the way up in recent years to the white house. >> willie, again, the bigger point is, and we bring this up again, it's exhausting, but this

causes -- and mitch mcconnell knows this -- this causes republicans to keep losing elections. i thought being an atlanta braves fan in the 1970s was, you know, the most painful thing to be. "sports illustrated" had a picture of the atlanta fulton county stadium, and the headline was, "loserville, usa," right? loserville, usa. it's the republican party now. lose in 2017. lose in 2018. lose in 2019. lose in 2020. lose in 2021. lose in 2022. they keep this up, they're going to lose in 2024, willie. they just -- charlie, what's wrong with our old party? why don't they get this? do they not care that they're going to keep losing until they start nominating adults?

>> okay, no, they don't. look what just happened in michigan. this is one of the -- >> oh, god. >> they had an election for chairman of the republican party. they elected an election denier, a woman who had been shellacked for secretary of state. she lost by 14 points, by more than 600,000 votes. yet, she refuses to concede. that was one of her selling points to be elected the new chairman of the republican party. she beat a guy who lost for attorney general by nine points and, yet, he conceded the election, which was a sign that, well, he is weak and he doesn't fight. look what's happening in some of these key swing states. the republican party has not only not learned the lessons, they are doubling down on election denying and crazy. look what republicans did to themselves in pennsylvania. now look what they are doing in

michigan. these are the key states in 2024 going forward. in answer to your question, joe, there is no evidence whatsoever that this is a republican party that looked in the mirror and said, boy, we need to change things. in fact, they looked in the mirror and said, yeah, we kind of like this. let's go give us some more kari lake. give us some more marjorie taylor greene. >> talk about leaning into it, when she declared victory and said, "i'm honored to take this position," the new chair of the republican party in michigan, she was congratulated by donald trump, who just came out and said it. she is a powerful and fearless election denier. that was what he called her. apparently, that's a badge of honor now. >> oh. >> charlie sykes, thank you, as always. up next, we'll speak to jon finer about the extensive planning to went into biden's covert trip into ukraine yesterday. new details when "morning joe" comes right back.

people remember ads with a catchy song. so to help you remember that liberty mutual customizes your home insurance, here's a little number you'll never forget. ♪ customize and save. ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

choosing a treatment for your chronic migraine - only pay for what you need. 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more - can be overwhelming. so, ask your doctor about botox®. botox® prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they even start. it's the #1 prescribed branded chronic migraine treatment. so far, more than 5 million botox® treatments have been given to over eight hundred and fifty thousand

chronic migraine patients. effects of botox® may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. don't receive botox® if there's a skin infection. tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. in a survey, 92% of current users said they wish they'd talked to their doctor and started botox® sooner. so, ask your doctor if botox® is right for you. learn how abbvie could help you save on botox®. the eagle has landed. that's one small step for man... hey, what's up? -one giant... uh... houston... we have a situation. how did you get here? you're characters in our video game! video game? yeah, it's what we can do with the xfinity 10g network. basically, the greatest achievement

since the moon landing. i think they're talking about us. i know. you can play from anywhere. -yeah, i'm in the basement. i'm at the dentist. check this out. it's super smooth even when everyone's online. whoa, can i try that? you're in the game! what the heck is that? those are the bad guys. -are they friendly? nope! ok, here's the plan. on the ship there's some wire cutters, some tubing and rubber bands. now with our know-how and some elbow grease and a little bit of luck, i — you're probably going to want to start running. the next generation 10g network, only from xfinity. one giant leap for mankind.

putin thought ukraine was weak and the west was divided. as you know, mr. president, i said to you in the beginning, he's counting on us not sticking together. he was counting on the inability to keep nato united. he was counting on us not to be able to bring in others on the side of ukraine. he thought he could outlast us. i don't think he's thinking that right now. god knows what he is thinking, but i don't think he is thinking that. >> president biden promising american solidarity with ukraine in its war against russia. now, we're learning details about that historic visit to

kyiv and how it was kept under close guard for months at the white house. joining us now, national security adviser jon finer. thanks for being here this morning. boy, we've started in the last 24 hours or so to get some of these details about how this came to be, what you all were working on for weeks and months, as it turns out. flight on a plane that was not the usual air force one, quietly leaing andrews air force base. a ten-tour train ride, motorcade without sirens. to the extent you can, tell us how this came together. >> thanks. as you and my former colleague, jen psaki, know well, there is an incredible amount of work that goes into any presidential trip. this had a higher degree of difficulty, in part because it had to be kept secret. it was done by a smaller group of people, also, you don't have to usually worry about the physical security of the boss, the president. in this case, traveling into an active war zone where the u.s.

does not control the ground or the sky, where he was going to be going in on a long journey over land each way, there were elements of this unprecedented. required more meticulous planning than these trips normally undergo. we were relieved and gratified by how well things went on the ground. we knew it'd send a strong message once the president arrived, and that took care of itself. we were pleased there were no hiccups, when you're traveling in a place that's an active war zone. >> we know that president biden had wanted to make this trip for a while. what made it okay now opposed to -- >> we did a long, extensive security assessment. the intelligence was involved, the secret service, the pentagon. the end of the day, the trip was planned, the president was briefed on the details over weeks, and on the friday before he actually departed, he sat with his cabinet, some members in the oval office, some members by phone. he got everybody's advice and decided, ultimately, to go ahead

with the trip. >> jon, congratulations on organizing this. we're left with the basic question that president zelenskyy and president biden both put, which is, when will this war end? president zelenskyy said 2023 is the year of victory. president biden said, as long as it takes, we're with you. give us your assessment, the white house's assessment of what is going to happen this year in the battle. is there a ukrainian offensive coming? >> predictions is a fool's errand, so i'm not going to project too much. what i can say is we are doing what we have been throughout the conflict. president biden announced another half billion dollars in security assistance while he was in kyiv. that wasn't the main news of the trip, but it is important to continue to demonstrate that we are going to provide assistance going forward. the ukrainians have said they fully intend to go on offense in this conflict during the spring and summer. we are getting them the resources we think they need to be able to do that effectively. i'm not going to put a time

limit on either our support or on the conflict. this is a very hard and difficult war. there will be more difficult days ahead. yesterday, we think, was a very good day. there will be other days that are not so good. we are going to be with the ukrainians throughout. i don't usually quote someone like senator mcconnell in these situations, but i heard a quote that was played on this broadcast a minute ago from him that said, we're not going to put a time limit on how much we will continue to support ukraine. i think that's exactly our mindset, as well. >> as you and i both know, the next day you wake up after a big trip, and there's still big questions about what's next and what are you giving us? the big question is, what about these f-16s that the ukrainians want, that people have been talking about? what kind of -- why is that not something the united states wants to give at this point or provide, and what are the other types of military support that tony blinken, the secretary of state and others, will be discussing in the weeks ahead? >> we are discussing and will continue to discuss everything

we think the ukrainians may actually need on the battlefield in the immediate term. our approach has been the same throughout. at each phase, we've tried to provide them what we think they need to be successful in that phase of the conflict. frankly, it has been successful. that was stingers and anti-tank weapons in the first phase. when it looked like the russians may move on kyiv, the capital, the ukrainians succeeded in repelling that with huge -- in huge part thanks to the weapons we provided them. it's more of an artillery war. we've provided hundreds of thousands of rounds for that phase of the conflict. now, it is armored vehicles, tanks, armored personnel c carriers, infantry fighting carriers to go on the offensive we know they intend to conduct in the spring and summer. we'll assess and provide them what they need in the next phase. >> jonathan lemire. >> jon, want to get you to respond to what we just heard from russia's president, vladimir putin, a short time ago. he delivered a speech to a number of the elites in moscow. more of the same, doubling down

on his claims as to why russia is involved in this fight. in particular, i want to get you, he made some news here, saying russia is going to be suspending its participation in the new start nuclear weapons treaty. tell us what the administration's response is to that from putin. >> so, look, russia has not actually been in strict compliance with new start for quite some time. we think their announcement, what sounded like a suspension opposed to a full withdrawal, is frankly unfortunate and irresponsible. really, the latest in a series of steps that shows russia is not taking its international obligations seriously, not taking internationally law seriously. this administration actually extended new start, one of the very first things we did upon taing office after it had been negotiated for some time but hadn't been completed by our predecessors. we will be assessing not just what the russians say on this topic but what they do. for now, that's where we are. >> any reaction to news china is

going to be putting out their own peace plan in a few days, is that positive? >> it depends on what the plan actually says. we'll look to hear details. it is one thing to say you are for peace, another thing to describe exactly how you'll get from here to there in a conflict where neither side appears ready to get to the negotiating table. what i will say about the chinese, if they are interested in bringing about an end to the war, they should talk not just to the russians but to the ukrainians. if they are going to develop a plan, it should be done in consultation with kyiv, not just with moscow. they seem to want to have it both ways. they are providing a lot of support, increasing is up port we're concerned about to the russian government, while saying they're for the end of the war. interesting to hear how they plan to get there. >> what are the consequences if china ramps up military support to russia? >> we won't flag what we'll do in that situation. we've said providing additional military support to russia in this moment would not be constructive or conducive to bring about the end of the

conflict they say they want. for now, we're going to watch this and see what they actually do. >> thanks so much. principal deputy national security adviser jon finer. quite a day yesterday. thank you so much for being with us this morning. >> thank you. >> greatly appreciate it. let's bring in the editor of "the new yorker" and pulitzer prize-winning author, russia expert, david remnick. your reaction to what happened yesterday and the stream of lies, i think we can say that, just looking at the objective reality out there, the stream of lies that vladimir putin spewed this morning. >> i think it is probably more important to see the reaction in moscow than it is in, you know, some marginal republicans. the reaction in moscow today was a very weak speech by vladimir putin, in which he made no constructive progress in inspiring his own country, which i think is really, in many ways, what we don't see. at the same time, he has no

answer for his military critics in russia. the head of the wagner group, which we americans now know is a kind of mercenary group that empties prisons and tries to supplement the army effort, the head, former convict himself, so close to putin, yesterday gave an interview saying, "we are sinking, sinking" -- meaning the russian war effort -- "and we have terrible problems with ammunition and many other aspects of this war effort." you are starting to see enormous frustration even among putin's very, very strong supporters. at the same time, the idea that the american president would show up by surprise on the streets of kyiv, you know, shoulder to shoulder with the president of ukraine is embarrassing in russia.

i think it was a depleting day in moscow. the speech that he gave seemed quite lame. >> right. so lame, willie, that he sort of phoned it in a year later. he's still talking about imaginary biolabs, still talking about jews being neo-nazis. again, he really -- it was a weak response filled with rise because he simply doesn't have any good news that has any semblance of reality. >> it did feel like a cut and paste job from a year ago. many of the same themes, none have held up well over the last year. david, in your latest piece in "the new yorker," it's entitled "a year of putin's wartime lies." david writes this. putin's failure extends well beyond the battlefield. he's isolated russia from much of the world, undermining its reputation, economy and prospects. hundreds of thousands of

russians, often the brightest in academia and the arts, have left the country. with putin's most compelling opponent, navalny, in a prison camp, an independent media outlets shuttereds, it may seem that putin has secured the bovine indifference. but there is differ affection, protests, individual acts of defiance reported on telegram and other social media. one of the top selling books in russia has been george orwell's dystopian novel "1984." you understand russia so well. you worked there for so long and wrote the book on the place. is there real dissent inside russia, and how does it manifest itself if it is so suppressed and we don't get to see it, through state media here in the rest of the world? >> well, i think if you are waiting for a giant street movement to occur, to rise up on the swampy square or red square, something like that, and storm the kremlin, no, that is not going to happen.

that is putin's greatest fear, of course, as we saw a decade ago, but that is not going to happen. but look at the way he's undermined the health of a nation. imagine if joe biden or any other american president had a policy that led to all of our people in high tech and higher education and culture suddenly get on airplanes and leave to go live in mexico and canada and so on. that'd undermine the health and the prosperity of the country. our sanctions have not completely undermined the russian economy by any means. the russians are large enough and nimble enough to make adjustments. but the economy has contracted by 2%. that is painful. it won't get any easier over time. so the dissent is, some of it is abroad, and some of it shows up in modern ways like social media. when i pointed out the top sales

of "1984," i don't think people are buying that for their health or a sudden interest in orwell independent of events. it is happening because people want to understand themselves and the country they live in better. in one town, somebody was passing out free copies of "1984." they spent thousands of dollars to buy them. needless to say, the person was arrested. but there are signs of resilience and spirit all over russia. it's just not going to be an uprising from below that, any time soon, topples vladimir putin. that's a dilution. >> let's bring in host of "andrea mitchell reports," andrea mitchell. following up on what david was saying, staggering military losses over the past year. the economy contracting. >> mm-hmm. >> the best and the brightest leaving. you have the head of the wagner

group yesterday saying, quote, everything is sinking. even military leaders are having to deal with reporters who are pro-putin, pro-russia, talking about how badly the war is going. now, vladimir putin has to put up with the image of joe biden walking around the streets of kyiv. >> you know, i can't tell you how emotionally and symbolically important that was to ukrainians. i was just with the ukrainians in munich at the security conference over the weekend. a year ago, everyone up and including zelenskyy were doubting the american intelligence which had been declassified. david ignatius, in particular, who is expert on this, knows how extraordinary the decision was, to warn the world of what was happening. it's played out exactly as america warned, except that we completely overestimated russia's capabilities and underestimated the resiliency,

revolve and military skill of the ukrainians. so it's been an extraordinary year. but the fact that this president was able to walk down the street of ukraine, he didn't put his foot over. we all speculated, he is going to poland, and he'll cross the border and there will be a border meeting. but he went to the heart, the capital city. >> i was going to say, we always -- not just us in the media, but even people in his own party, they always underestimate joe biden. >> oh, yeah. >> i will say, the one thing that newt gingrich has said over the years that i actually agree with, was after the 2022 election, said, "hey, republicans, we are underestimating him just like democrats underestimated ronald reagan." it always blew up in our face politically. again, they underestimated this guy. >> standing with zelenskyy, there was a very important factor, i believe, to this. they were able to meet face-to-face, practically one-on-one, if not one-on-one,

because there was some very important things they needed to say to each other. they needed to know each other's bottom lines. you can't do that on the telephone. >> right. >> even with visual, you know, phones and all. there has to be a conversation about crimea. that is a big concern. the jets, they're not going right away, and that's a disappointment to a lot of american military experts, as well, but the feeling is in the administration that they are not compatible, that they won't be there in time for the offensive already under way. >> you talked about crimea. could we back up for one second? >> yeah. >> talk about that tension, about -- you ask any u.s. foreign policy person, you ask anybody in the administration, they'll say, of course, this is ukraine's war to fight. we're not going to tell them where to go and where not to go. explain how, actually, there is a red line in crimea right now. >> there is. because if zelenskyy pushes too hard into crimea to gain the leverage that he needs, because

vladimir putin is never going to negotiate, look at the speech today, but if that is what zelenskyy really needs to do to get past this current, very tough ground offensive that's already under way, which does resemble, as richard engel has been saying, world war i, and if they get to the point where they can really push, not just regain everything that was taken from them so horrendously back a year ago, but go back to 2014 and take more of that, you know, not just the land but get more of crimea, part of crimea, and try to force putin to the table. >> right. >> but there is a real concern in the administration, in the military, at not triggering some terrible escalation. if not nuclear, something less traceable, a chemical. >> willie, yesterday, certainly the highlight during this war of

joe biden's presidency on the international level. if you ask what, perhaps, another highlight was, it had to be that speech in warsaw. i believe it was last march. an extraordinary speech that really laid out the parameters of america's involvement. he is going to be doing that yet again today. tell us about it. >> yeah, we're looking at live pictures right now. the arrival ceremony for president biden, who will give a speech later today. president duda hailing the significance of this visit by president biden, not just because of the visit to kyiv but the significance of his being inside the borders of poland, who had been so strong and a good ally to the united states in this effort to bolster ukraine against russia. let's go to warsaw. that's where we find nbc news foreign correspondent josh lederman. josh, what should we expect today as we await the president to arrive in just the next few minutes here? >> reporter: yeah, willie, we actually just watched that motorcade roll through the

streets of warsaw just behind me. you could see some of the remaining police vehicles as they were making their way to the palace. this whole trip of president biden's so steeped in symbolism, from his visit yesterday to kyiv, again here today, when president biden will return to the same place where he gave a speech last year, back in march, as this war was starting. there were real concerns about whether the west was going to be able to get it together, to really come together and support ukraine in a way that would allow it to survive a massive onslaught from the russian military. today, almost a year later, white house officials say president biden will build on that case, arguing that the west has been successful in propping up ukraine, in coming together and demonstrating that they are not going to allow dictators and autocrats like putin or anyone else to simply roll into their neighbor's territory and think they can get away with threatening the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other

countries. president biden will try to make the argument that it is more important now than ever that the west does not let up in that support. they do not allow the fatigue that president putin has been counting on to set in. that if the west now takes their eye off the ball because of the growing costs of sanctions, the economic challenges and, frankly, concerns at home that countries have about their own issues to get in the way of supporting ukraine with even more lethal weaponry, more support, ultimately, the western democracies will have to pay the price themselves and may find themselves fighting president putin, russia or like-minded countries themselves, instead of having ukraine do it. of course, the other element here that is so important is the fact that president putin himself also giving a major speech today, as he has been over the past few hours, creating this split-screen

moment. president putin announced he is temporarily suspending russia's participation in the new start treaty, the last remaining arms agreement between the u.s. and russia. a sign of clearly how much the relationship between the u.s. and russia has deteriorated. really setting the table for what we can expect as the war moves into the second year, willie. >> josh lederman in warsaw, poland, where we expect to see the president of the united states at any moment here. josh, thanks so much. jonathan lemire, some people watching will remember the speech from biden 11 months ago, late march, when he was in warsaw. he ad-libbed the line, "for god sakes, this man cannot remain in power," talking about putin. the administration saying he wasn't talking about the removal of the man, but what do you expect today? >> there will be a condemnation of vladimir putin. jake sullivan briefing reporters

saying president biden did not watch putin's speech and is not going to respond directly to anything that putin said today. certainly will, again, reaffirm the need for washington but also the alliance to stand together with kyiv, to set out in a quote, sullivan here, an affirmative statement of values, what the world we're both trying to build and defend should look like. and pledge, as we heard from him yet in kyiv, that he will stand with volodymyr zelenskyy. >> while you're talking here, president biden has arrived now. it is 1:15 in the afternoon in warsaw. a drizzly day there. greeting president duda of poland. >> yes, meeting with president duda, who has become a firm ally here. poland has done so much for this cause, taking in ukrainian refugees, supported the war effort. the two men will have meetings for a couple hours before we hear from president biden later this afternoon for his speech. david remnick, as we look to

that speech, still a few hours from now, what do you hope to hear from president biden? what do you think he needs to say? in particular, to a set of specific audiences. yes, the ukrainian people to be sure, the european leaders back home in washington, and then putin himself. >> let's talk about washington first. i mean, i think americans have reason to be disenchanted and worse about the united states' foreign policy record over the last couple of generations. vietnam and the middle east, the litany of disasters that we know have taken place for all the reasons we've discussed so deeply and for so long. here, almost to some people's disbelief, we have an american president who set out policy with real clarity, with real hon honesty, with cooperation with allies in europe and beyond, who has reestablished the greater west and played a huge role in

that, and is defending american values and values that stretch around the world in a way that is not bombastic and in a way that is very mindful of not setting off a wider conflict in europe. that is a diplomatic political foreign policy trick of the highest order. we should remember, what can a president really do? with the president with a stroke of a pen lower inflation very easily? not really. we're deluded if we think so. it is more complex than that. but the american president has the power of foreign policy, if not absolutely, in great measure. i think we are seeing a policy that is both strong and measured. mindful of the stakes. so i think when we look ahead to politics in this country, both the visuas and the actual

policy distinction of joe biden is being established here on the streets of kyiv and warsaw, as well as in washington. you know, we can only hope that it continues to go well. we shouldn't get smug about this or overconfident. there's a great deal ahead, and there are going to be, as jon finer said earlier, some very, very bad days, as well. we cannot predict the day-to-day behavior of russia. ♪♪ >> president biden and president duda in warsaw. now listening to "the national anthem." ♪♪

♪♪ ♪♪ >> david ignatius, i was struck in a recent trip to poland, i was driven around and given a tour of warsaw. i noted at the end of that tour that history hangs so heavily. not only over that city but over that country. of course, the horrors of the

nazi invasion in '39, the horrors of soviet occupation from '45 to '89. they're defined by it, shaped by it. yet, here they are, just on a beachhead of freedom. no longer in west germany. now in an old warsaw pact country. this is a country, and i actually reminded my guests, mark brzezinski, the ambassador, my brother was kind enough to have a gathering of guests and thought leaders there. i said, i saw your monuments to those who died in the warsaw ghetto. i saw the s.s. prison where resistance fighters were killed. i said, i understand why history hangs so heavily over you. i'm curious, where is your monument to solidarity?

where is your monument to the polish pope? i want to see those monuments. because, you know, poland has played a remarkable role, first in the drawback of the soviet union, starting with solidarity in 1979/1980, but now here. they are literally on the front lines of the fight between democracy and authoritarianism. >> joe, as we watch these pictures of president biden in warsaw, we're reminded of how deeply, as you say, the pols identify with the struggle going on in ukraine. when i was in poland last year, i found you see ukrainian flags flying down every street. there's this intense feeling ha ukrainians are fighting our fight. there is a passionate polish suspicion, i want to say, almost hatred of russia. the ukrainians are bravely

fighting that fight. watching these pictures, you see another thing, which is, president biden is the head of a western alliance that's moved east. the center of gravity for nato is now warsaw, poland. it's not berlin. it's certainly not france. it's moved east. that's what this trip will be about, is president biden talking to president duda in poland, but then talking to the so-called front line states. the bucharest 9, i think they call themselves, which is these nato nations in the east. i think we need to begin to rethink nato. nato is now an alliance with this different shift of gravity, also shifting north. >> going north. >> to sweden and finland, the new members. >> it is vladimir diplomaticall you look how the center of gravity has shifted to poland. gene robinson, what's

fascinating, we're looking at president duda. it wasn't so long ago that duda and the law and justice party in poland was far closer to orban in hungary than they were to the united states of america. what a difference a year has made. >> completely changed. they're now madisonian democrats. >> hear, hear. >> my question, and you know poland better than i do, how does poland cope with this added responsibility, this added cost? they've bore an incredible burden in taking in ukrainian refugees, housing and taking care of them. they now have a military burden that they didn't have before. how are the pols coping with that? >> my polish friends say, in a sense, this is our moment to step up. i have one friend who has housed

three ukrainian families in succession. the idea that they wouldn't open their house to each new wave of refugees is unacceptable. this is so important. poland does seem to have softened this dreadful right-wing rhetoric that characterized president duda's party. they see this is their moment. they need to be more down the center line of the western alliance. my sense is, gene, that the pols understand, this is our moment. we have to, you know, get our house in order, be a good ally for this president and this alliance. >> andrea, you were just at the munich security conference, which is the backdrop of all of this. all the europeans, the pivotal partners we've been talking about, were just meeting. we're watching this and thinking, it's great. everybody is unified. but what are the biggest issues over the next several months that are tricky, that biden has to keep this alliance together over? >> that's such a good question. first of all, i think on the point of poland, you've got a

really new and not terribly effective chancellor in germany in olaf scholz. poland has been the driving force behind the tanks, pushing germany and the others. poland has been the tip of the spear literally and figuratively in moving some of the nato leaders on some of these weapon s systems. >> poland moves germany. germany moves america. it all started in warsaw, didn't it? >> exactly. you have a very strange comment by macron on his way back to paris from munich, where he said, we have to be very careful because there are worse leaders in russia than vladimir putin. i was talking to anne applebaum on the way back. it was like saying, well, better than stalin. how do you make comparisons? >> the wrong thing to say to anne applebaum. >> he said it to french

correspondents on the plane going home. it was in the sunday paper. we're all reading that on the plane going back. so that's extraordinary. there are -- there is reluctance and a push toward the negotiating table. particularly now, the secretary of state has just been in turkey. you still have pushback. they still -- and nato for the first time suggesting letting finland in before sweden. sweden is saying, we need a security umbrella if you go that way. 28 members wanting in. you had erdogan and orban, the two holding back. those are still problems. finland and sweden are so well coordinated, such wonderful militaries in terms of nato and the exercises, as you all know, they should be in now. it was expected it'd be quickly done. >> willie. >> we'll hear the speech from mr. biden about four hours from now. he's gone inside the palace with

president duda. they'll hold a bilateral meeting, then the speech from biden comes a few hours if now. david remnick, i'd never ask you to get inside vladimir putin's head, but what must he be thinking as he watches what he didn't expect to happen the last 12 months? part of what you write about in your piece, this unification of the west, you know, the united states not alone in really hanging in, despite, you know, there are some voices who say, we need to stop, you know, flooding taxpayer money into ukraine. but by and large, americans still have flags outside their homes for ukraine in tiny towns across this country. does that affect vladimir putin's thinking? is there any way out of this war for him at this point? >> depends on how much information is reaching vladimir putin. we have seen more and more in the last few years an increasing, you know, isolation in putin and putin's circle. he doesn't let that much in the

way he might have 15 years ago. that's the first thing. the other thing is vladimir putin is probably praying to the east. you know, the moment of concern that i've gotten, and i'm sure all you have in recent days, is the information or warning from the u.s. government that china may or may not be sending lethal aid to russia. if that is the case, that's unclear whether the u.s. is kind of laying down the law, is sending a message to beijing or something is happening that we don't yet know about, but that would be a real great concern. of course, putin would love dearly to have the absolute support of china, much less india. so far, he doesn't seem to have been receiving what he wants. that's a question that, to me, is enormous. maybe david ignatius or others at the table know more about

that. >> the new piece is "a year of putin's wartime lies." in the"the new yorker" right no. david remnick, thank you. the president's trip to kyiv is the ultimate humiliation for vladimir putin and for donald trump. "the daily beast's" david rothkov joins us to explain that. we'll look at where the fighting stands when clint watts joins us from the big board on the state of this russian invasion. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. car insurance. so you only pay for what you need! whoo! we gotta go again. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

i look back with great satisfaction only pay for what you need. on my 32 years of active duty. i understand the veteran mentality. these are people who have served, they'e been in leadership positions, they're willing to put their life on the line if necessary and they come to us and they say, "i need some financial help at this point in time." they're not looking for a hand out, they're looking for a little hand up. my team at newday usa is going to do everything we possibly can to make sure that veteran gets that loan. shingles. some describe it as pulsing electric shocks or sharp, stabbing pains. ♪♪ this painful, blistering rash can disrupt your life for weeks.

a pain so intense, you could miss out on family time. 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. another day in new york. top of the billing at 30 rock sh it's been three weeks since a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in a small town in ohio. frustration from the community

there grows, understandably. >> reporter: 18 days since the derailment of a train carrying hazardous materials in east palestine, ohio. the cause of the derailment still under investigation, with a preliminary report expected this week. the ntsb chair telling nbc news investigators are looking at a mechanical problem with an axle as the possible cause of the crash. >> every accident we investigate is 100% preventable. >> reporter: the 5,000 residents in the small town left anxiously awaiting answers. >> we don't think they're taking care of all the pollution they should be, especially the soil and water. >> reporter: norfolk southern has given $3.4 million in financial assistance to affected families. the ceo liaison, vowing the company will be there as long as needed. transportation secretary pete buttigieg is calling for immediate action from norfolk southern and the entire freight

railroad industry, arguing that current rail safety regulations are too lax. demanding additional protection for employees and the strengthening of infrastructure, among other considerations. >> we can't treat these disasters as inevitable or as the cost of doing business. >> reporter: the head of the epa returns today, and, so far, ongoing testing of the air and water by the agency has shown no threat to the community, according to daily reports, even though residents report health issues. >> eye infections in both eyes, respiratory issues. >> reporter: shelby lives feet from the derailment site. she fears the long-term impacts of the accident. >> i don't want to live in the fear of wondering. are we going to get sick, are we not? >> reporter: this morning, the first church of christ becomes a health clinic. the senior administrator has seen the struggle of the community firsthand. >> they're afraid to drink the

water, bathing their babies. yeah, it's a real concern. >> george solis reporting from east palestine, ohio. there's pressure on the president of the united states to visit ohio. on pete buttigieg. we know the epa is there. they've been there since the beginning testing the water and air. they say it is okay. you can understand as a resident the hesitation to go back. will there be officials going to the derailment site? >> there's been a growing scrutiny on both the state and federal response. governor dewine of ohio has come under pressure here. some of this, the crash is in pennsylvania, some of the spillover effects -- crash is in ohio. spillover effects are in pennsylvania, as well. secretary buttigieg just this morning announced he will be going in the coming days. he didn't set a day for that yet, but he will be there shortly. there is an expectation the president or vice president will need to make a trip there, as

well. for president biden, you'd probably think it'd be next week after the end of his time in europe. we should note that donald trump, who is at this moment former president, of course, republican front runner, he said he is going tomorrow to the scene. it is unclear what that will accomplish, but he is going, as well. certainly, this is a story line that's not going anywhere. there's been real hesitation from residents to go back. as we've been talking about, there are thousands of fish found dead in the creeks. people have reported their animals, pets who were outside have died. there's a growing concern about illness here, not just in the short term but also in the lng term. we remember what it was like here in new york in the years after ground zero, those toxic fumes kicked off for so long, people developed illnesses months and years later. a similar program will need to study that here in ohio. >> we had governor dewine on the show last week, and he said if it were my family, i'd tell them, yes, you can go home. if you live in east palestine. he is confident. the epa is there testing the water and the air.

if you live in the backyard and there is a still smoldering train wreck of cars filled with chemicals, not sure you're feeling as confident as the officials here. >> no. it is absolutely ridiculous for anybody to say that the air and the water is okay. that's what they said after 9/11. they're not going to know for a very long time. to try to move people back to any area adjacent to this horrific train wreck is just beyond me. again, i did some legal work, some environmental legal work, and oil spills and toxics dumped into water supplies impacted areas for generations. >> the gift that keeps giving. >> yeah. >> it really is. >> again, i've just got to say, i don't understand why there haven't been more officials there, more cabinet agency officials there. i don't understand, also, why they're saying it's safe to drink the water. it's safe to breathe the air.

they don't know that yet. there are dead new york firefighters who believed the bush administration when they said that smoldering pile, it's fine. >> talk to the gang that, you know, got the burn pits legislation. >> i wrote about this -- east palestine last week, and i was late to the story. >> yeah. >> so that tells you how late officials have been. you know, go there. there are also regultory issues. there are issues involving the railroads. this was a 151-car train, which is more and more the norm now. of course, you know, newton's second law of motion or whatever. but more mass equals a more violent derailment when this sort of thing happens.

less crew, fewer crew involved with longer trains. i mean, it's -- what could go wrong? so those are issues that need to be looked at in addition to the environmental issues. >> why in the world would the state and the federal government be dragging their feet on this? >> i don't know. joe, i haven't there been in ten months, it is hard to know on the outside. there are sometimes limitations on who can travel there. maybe fema says it's not helpful, mr. president, for you to come right now because of resources and things. i don't know the answer to that. >> cabinet officials? >> cabinet officials, less resources, still some resources of people on the ground. that may be a reason. but still, with the challenges here, it's, one, they should be there, of course, but this is like where the country gets divided by the haves and the have nots, right? you don't have the resources? a lot of these families don't have the resources to rent a house in another place hours away.

they're told, "drink the water," though i wouldn't tell that to my family. a lot don't have the choice. there are challenges here that are far beyond this moment and who travels there. it's how are people impacted who may not have the resources to make those choices? >> it just seems, david, very tone deaf. it actually reminds me of the bp oil spill, when barack obama went home over, i don't know, memorial day weekend or something like that, while every cable network had that oil pumping into the gulf coast. there's just no time like the present to move, to act. i'm not sure why -- >> overreact. >> right. >> too early -- >> get on the ground. >> -- to say too much. you think that lesson would be clear. you have to be careful, as jen says, this is the heartland of america.

this is where people worry that -- >> they're forgotten. they're invisible. >> washington pays more attention to poland, ukraine, the rest of the world than they do to us. >> it is flint, michigan. it is mississippi with its water. >> that's what they have to be smart about. >> yeah. >> be speaking to all the country, even as they are doing terrific things overseas that we've rightly commended. >> right. >> they need to get this right. >> yeah. when is pete buttigieg going? >> that is soon. should have been there already. getting back to your point about the pile in new york city. epa said it was fine. we now know the tragedy of, you know, jon stewart helped lead the group, but they went to so many funerals of fellow firefighters and police who worked on the pile for years, not realizing what they were breathing in, all the cancers.

i went to the hearings, saw those testimonies, and it was heartbreaking. >> right. >> because they believed. people told you it was safe. >> federal government told you it was safe. >> the train is not under this regulation for hazardous materials. if there is on one car, more than one car, i'm not sure of the amounts. i'd have to check that. doesn't make any sense. >> it's a quantitative limit, right? >> a little poison in there. >> some poison, you know, that's okay. >> it's ridiculous. coming up, we'll have a look at some of the tributes to former president jimmy carter as he receives hospice care in his home in georgia. "morning joe" coming right back. you love closing a deal.

but hate managing your business from afar. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire

did you know you can get discounts on your meds even if you don't have a medicare prescription drug plan? it's true. all you have to do is go to singlecare.com type in your prescription, and then present the coupon to your pharmacist. it's that simple. not to mention, it's free. singlecare is accepted by major pharmacies across the country and it works for everyone, whether you have insurance or not. next time you need a prescription filled, go to singlecare to make sure you get the best price. visit singlecare.com and start saving today. realtor.com (in a whisper) can we even afford this house? maybe jacob can finally get a job. the house whisperer! this house says use realtor.com to see homes in your budget. you're staying in school, jacob! realtor.com. to each their home. business can happen anytime, anywhere. so help yours thrive and stay connected with the realtor.com. comcast business complete connectivity solution. it's the largest, fastest, reliable network. advanced gig speed wifi. and cyberthreat protection. starting at just $49.99 a month. plus, you can save up to 60% a year

when you add comcast business mobile. or, ask how to get up to a $750 prepaid card. complete connectivity. one solution, for wherever business takes you. comcast business. powering possibilities. that's a beautiful live picture of the white house at 7:47 this morning. the nation's longest living president, jimmy carter, is

receiving tributes from across the country and around the world. the 98-year-old entered hospice care at home in georgia over the weekend with his family at his side. nbc news senior white house correspondent kelly o'donnell has more from the former president's hometown of plains, georgia. >> reporter: a time of reflection for many in plains, georgia. jimmy carter's presidency shaping much of this town's identity. his name and likeness everywhere. >> just been the focal point of our life. >> reporter: a journey with rosalynn, shared since their childhoods, and during 76 years of marriage. as former presidents send good thoughts, so do many admirers. >> he's kind of given us a little bit of time to reflect on him while he is still alive. >> reporter: that is perhaps the unexpected result of president carter making public his decision to move to hospice care at his plains home. at 98, he's offered a signal

about being at peace with death, as he discussed openly in 2015. >> now, i feel, you know, the hands of god in my person, and i'll be prepared for when it comes. >> reporter: others are coming to plains to honor him in whatever time remains. >> what he did for the poor, for the disadvantaged, and all over the world, to try to make a difference. >> reporter: andrew and sam mcmullen made a last-minute detour on their road trip to see the carter hometown. >> we're here because it's an honor to be in the presence of a president. >> reporter: the mcmullens feel a connection to one of carter's most enduring acts of service, habitat for humanity. >> he came to my small appalachian hometown of huntington, pennsylvania, and built a house. he was one of the first to drive the nails. >> reporter: his dedication to great causes was rooted here in plains and resonates around the world. >> you know, joe, you hear that

report from kelly, and you hear all those people who had real world impact from jimmy carter. you're reminded of so much of the legacy that he will leave. it's for what he did after the presidency, when he left the white house in 1981. whether it was habitat for humanity, peace in the mideast, he was a model for a post-presidency. >> he really was. and, andrea, we talk so much about jimmy carter's post-presidency but the further we get from his presidency at least to me the more he looks like a truman-type figure, what truman did in '47. you see what he did in 1979. china opening. in january of 1979. you have the camp david accords in '79. which eliminated ground wars in

the middle east since 1979. iranian revolution which of course ushered in a terrible time. also the russians going into afghanistan which was the beginning of the end of the soviet union and solidarity the next year but it is unbelievable. even with china and camp david, carter's foreign policy accomplishments you can stack them up. >> if not for the hostage taking there might have been a very different review why i don't know that he would have won against ronald reagan but i think that the review and inflation which had to -- which he had to force down domestically. the foreign policy was extraordinary. the china policy is being tested in the most severe way but look

how long that lasted. netanyahu's new policies the biggest threat to the camp david accords. but it was -- covering that i was a backup young correspondent covering him going to plains for christmas and thanksgiving and the pool reporter on sunday school lessons with the president but i remembered the night of the inaugural and the iranians waited until 12:01 to release the hostages. when the press corps came back from chicago. will be released and had the hopes. it was just the fits and the starts but that night after being at the parade and covering the inaugural i was sent to andrews air force base because jimmy carter was leaving at midnight to go to ramstein and

the reagan presidency asked him to do this. he wanted to escort the hostages home. they had been released just after his watch. a personal tragedy for him but a big parade when they came back to washington and he was leaving and i was covering the departure for germany to escort the diplomats home. >> when he went over and had that meeting it was at times a tough, difficult meet jg a lot of weeping. i tell you what. you look back at it. mika and i saw recent lay hbo special on the hostage crisis. the humanity that jimmy carter showed, understanding that doing everything he could to save the hostages' lives could very well

cost him his presidency and did it any way and the hostages would not have been alive but for jimmy carter because too many other politicians and presidents sitting there would not have the humanity to just wait it out which was of course horrifying for him and painful but he did it. >> watching the scenes these days from georgia are inspiring because you remember the qualities of this decent man. but also, haunting because there's a reputation that jimmy carter carried after the president is i that he had been a weak president and i think he is beginning to get over that. he was tough at the outset. stood up to the soviets in afghanistan. from my own reporting i know he began the program to work with soviet nationalities in georgia,

armenia, kazakhstan. >> afghanistan also in 1981 he had a plan. kept the soviet union out of poland. made them understand the costs would be too high for invading poland. >> he is this paradox. the sweetest and best parts of our character but a feeling that the country had at the time is he strong enough to be our president? i hope people will remember him as just this remarkable and in many ways tough minded person. >> gene? >> what an incredible life he had. he was in the nuclear navy. a pioneer in the nuclear navy. there was an accident in canada.

one of the few people qualified to fix it. jimmy carter sent in to fix -- inside this reactor. >> unbelievable. >> thank you so much for being here. >> thank you. >> great to see you and seeing you on "andrea mitchell reports" at noon eastern on this is. president biden makes a speech in poland. "morning joe" will be right back. plates. plates. plates. when you add price drop protection, expedia pays you back if your flight becomes cheaper. so when you go searching for all the best plates, you'll always know, you found a good deal.

nicorette knows quitting smoking is freaking hard. you get advice like... try hypnosis... or, quit cold turkey. are you kidding me? instead, start small with nicorette, which will lead to something big.

president biden moments ago greeting the polish president in warsaw. they're meeting behind closed doors and expect to hear from them shortly. in a few hours president biden will deliver a speech marking

one year of war in ukraine after vladimir putin's state of the nation address this morning when he continued to push lies about the invasion and announcing he is suspending a nuclear arms treaty with the united states. welcome back to "morning joe." 8:00 in the morning on the east coast. jonathan, gene, jen, david all still with joe and me and joining the table in washington, david rothkop. we'll get to the article about the trip to kyiv but first going to warsaw with josh letterman. what are we seeing so far today? >> reporter: willie, it is duelling visions from president biden and president putin of russia in this split screen day in eastern europe as president putin gives the major speech the equivalent of state of the union

in the russia falsely blaming the west for starting this war doubling down on russia's efforts in ukraine and insisted that russia will still be able to achieve the object i haves in ukraine. president biden expected to use the speech shortly later this afternoon here in warsaw to try to make the case that not only has the west succeeded in building an alliance that has preserved ukraine despite a year of intense warfare but the alliance is poised to stick with ukraine until the end and talking about the importance of west taking on this fight now that autocrats do not think that they can invade the neighbors and threaten the global security architecture. as president biden is meeting with president duda of poland as we speak we hear from president putin with this alarming

announcement that russia is suspending the participation in the s.t.a.r.t. treaty. which moscow had already been not living up to the commitments in that agreement according to u.s. officials in the covid-19 pandemic and then citing the war in ukraine as an excuse to justify denying the inspections to allow under the treaty but putin saying the tensions and what he says is the u.s. not living up to commitments russia will put that agreement on hold. further raising tensions in the region and increasing the fears of an escalation as the nato secretary-general said he regrets the move. we just heard from secretary of state blinken traveling in greece responding to that decision from russia. take a listen. >> the announcement by russia to

suspending participation in the s.t.a.r.t. is deeply unfortunate and irresponsible. we'll be watching carefully to see what russia actually does and make sure that we are posturing appropriately for the security of our country and that of our allies. >> reporter: a few minutes ago we saw president biden standing shoulder to shoulder with president duda listening to the u.s. national anthem and the polish national anthem and then the president will prepare for the major speech in warsaw at the royal gardens where he gave a speech almost a year ago setting the table for the unity with ukraine he said was critical to be able to make sure that country was able to survive.

today white house officials say that president biden will argue the west succeeded so far and needs to let -- to continue that intense pressure and support for ukraine to ensure that those basic principles and western values are able to be upheld despite the fact that the war is continuing into the second year with no signs to let up and president putin vowing to continue that war inside ukraine today. >> warsaw, poland, a day for history. thank you. an extraordinary couple of days going back to the visit of president biden walking the streets of kyiv. president zelenskyy still in power. then the contrast of speeches where president putin made the case. and then president biden making

the case for freedom and western democracy. >> as david tweeted earlier this morning he didn't seem to believe his own words. this struck me. putin's speech has a welcome to the "titanic" vibe to it. >> yeah. i think what we are seeing today is a real striking contrast between one president dealing from strength and another president dealing from weakness. joe biden comes in. goes to a dangerous place. he is on a roll. every decision with regard to this war has worked. putin stands up. all he can do is lie and threaten and bluster. >> in the safety sycophants instead of a war zone. seems bigger than a football field. you talked about biden yesterday

that it reminded you of jfk and reagan and berlin. that is how we'll look back on this moment, isn't it? >> absolutely. these are presidents who won't to the edge of europe and said we are here, strong, standing with allies whether it was kennedy saying ich bin ein berliner. you will listen again to joe biden saying kyiv stands. democracy stands. in the exact same way because this was a sign of an alliance that many thought was on the ropes. right? that is back and stronger than ever. >> your op-ed in "the daily beast" talked about the ultimate humiliation for vladimir putin and said donald trump. i will say while i don't really want to talk about him in this

moment, it is hard not to remember. we have jonathan lemire who asked the question in 2018 at helsinki whether he trusted u.s. intel officials or ex-kgb agent and chose the ex-kgb agent. hard not to contrast that and what the president said is putin is a strategic genius. >> trump brought it up this week and doubled down again saying he was asked this and stands by what he said. it is hard not to think about trump going to helsinki and groveling in front of putin. >> i want to ask. from sitting in the white house there were things handled so differently than in 2014. to me the things that stuck out were releasing the classified

information so that putin was caught in the lies and spending time calling allies. for months in advance of the invasion. are there other things that led to this point? >> it's very different. we don't talk about this a lot but the obama administration response to putin going in to ukraine was not as strong as it should have been and as fast. did not send the message that joe biden sent. they did not send the effort to pull together the alliance together. there were big debates within the administration. do we send blankets? >> beyond the lethal versus nonlethal. >> now there were some benefits. right? what the obama administration did said focus on training the ukrainians and now eight years

later the training has proven to be a huge boon and a big advantage they have. >> david ignacius, david brings up such an important point. when i talk about the superiority of the united states military and how we are stronger than ever before, we could look at the weapons and the weapons have sustained them. i think one of the remarkable stories behind the bravery and resilience of the ukrainian troops is what a disaster 2014 was and a huge difference u.s. military training of ukrainian troops starting in 2014 has made now. we have ncos. send them out. say, got a problem there. you have been trained. you know what to do. don't call back to headquarters.

take care of it. it's a bottom up approach and it is everything that's right with the ukrainians and everything that's wrong i was ability to say with the soviets. >> after 2014 we began helping ukraine build the military that's succeeding and noncommissioned officers was a big part of it. ukraine had a russian style army. using tactics and armor. underresourced middle commanders. that began to change. the cent orepiece is the training of ukrainian special forces around the country and doing the extraordinary things. same time we began to use technology and to integrate the ability to see the battle space with extraordinary fidelity and

updated constantly but ai. understand what a target looks like. feed it into the system. use it for intelligence analysis. if you wonder why the rurps are always on the back foot, not making progress, we have applied technologies for modern warfare that have never been seen. >> that's changed since 2014. >> evolved. 2014 began it. general milley was a key person. army chief of staff to get this rolling. i went to ukraine to look at this. i don't think russia can win this war against the technology that it's facing. i don't think it's possible. >> gene, our military's battle hardened. tragedies between 2001 and 2022. >> true. >> got out of afghanistan.

but we also learned how to fight urban warfare better than anybody on the planet. the chinese don't have a single general gone into battle. >> there's a difference. you are seeing that on the battlefield. the question is, david, you don't have a crystal ball but where does this go? the rule of holes. in a hole you stop digging. putin is in a hole but keeps digging. how do you see this evolving? >> if you talk to the administration they say neither sibd is ready to negotiate. that plays to the hand of putin i think. he is playing for a tie. if he can keep the land he's got then he can say that that's a victory. what the ukrainians need to do

is take something back. show the momentum shifting. if they make a breakthrough and starting to look like the russian defenses are crumbling, looking to putin like a deeper hole then you can have a negotiation. until then you don't. >> jonathan, many people at the white house, at the pentagon are saying wait until the spring and the summer. they expect a ukrainian offensive and to have an impact on possibly getting the russians to the peace talks. >> yeah. there's no question. there's a growing belief the russian offensive has begun and not as significant as many in kyiv and washington feared. there's a surge of men, many convicts from the wagner group

and just as the saying goes in the meet grinder. it doesn't seem that they have -- there's no suggestion of a mobilization of armor or artillery and at this point putin resisted another major conscription. if he doesn't there seems to be real limits to what russia can pull off. david, about this spring offensive that the ukrainians think they can launch. the men are fatigued. suffered losses. really well trained and a growing sense to regain territory. ukraine, kyiv wants crimea. we heard from secretary of state blinken suggesting that's a red

line for putin. how do you think that this is going to be delicately handled? >> i think delicately handled. i think that washington doesn't want to see this but to ukraine, crimea is an essential part of the country and want to get closer to it. if they can take it back i think they want to take it back. i would remind everybody every time vladimir putin says it's a red line it's not a red line. he's threatened and blustered but ukrainians have pushed forward through that. and i think every time he says he will do something big, look at the offensive. the only people we mobilized is who left russia. the brain drain from russia. he isn't able to raise the

troops he wanted to raise so i take the red lines with a grain of salt. the ukrainians are doing this for something visceral, personal, deeply patriotic. i think they have a better chance than we thought possible. >> you talk about the red lines. they have also -- not only erased by the facts of the past year but also by xi. by modi and erdogan. other leaders who have put limits on putin. but david ignacius, seems like we keep hearing about russian offensive. now the russians are going to do this. this time -- it's seemed to me from the very beginning they're throwing good money after bad. they're just throwing more

troops -- there is nothing on the horizon. tell me if i'm wrong. nothing that suggests there's going to be a change of dynamics on that battlefield. they're always going up against troops better trained, better weapons. they replace the warsaw pact weapons with nato weapons. with western technology. the dynamic doesn't change. how does the dynamic change? the dynamic doesn't change and not for ten months. >> so the russians decided after their reversals in the battle for kyiv where they were trying to do maneuver warfare, move quickly. have internal troops. that blew up in their faces. then decided to fight world war i. trench warfare.

this endless battle for bakhmut is the center piece of russia's strategy. it illustrates the lack of creativity. three commanders trying to shake up the russian army. putin putting in a new commander. search for the savior commander. >> ahead of the wagner group now the head is saying we are sinking. >> dumping all over putin's most senior aides. this is an operation that's coming apart. today's speech by putin is that the only remedy is to lie to the russian people. on the ground from what we know they are making no significant progress. >> jen brought up a really good

point about the way this administration has used intelligence at the beginning of this war. there is a fight on the battlefield. there are initiatives but off the battlefield and the administration and nato has kept russia on the back foot. every time they thought nato couldn't make ukraine stronger they did. they won't get tanks. they did. they won't get longer range artillery. they did. >> can we add to the list? they won't get jets. they will get jets. >> exactly. >> to your point. >> while fighting on the front what joe biden is leading with nato is an offensive on the back and staying on offense. >> making it difficult for putin to say, the west and the united states is using -- they will use nuclear weapons because the united states and nato said in advance russia said we will use nuclear weapons and we won't.

calling the bluff before putin makes the bluff. i would add to what david said. putin has a huge morale problem in russia. the military and the weakness, the morale problem means he can't get more troops and made the speech to rally the people in the country. that's a hard thing to overcome. you can conscript people but you have to keep the russian people behind you and that's a problem for him. >> why hasn't he tried harder to establish an air superiority? so they can do combined arms operation. >> it would be dangerous for russian planes to fly deep enough to do that. >> could have tried that at the beginning. didn't do much. now he couldn't.

>> when this war story is written, the words electronic warfare will be chapter 1. the things that we have done with signals from what little i know are an amazing story. there is a reason that the russians can't see the battlefield. >> not just cell phone to their mothers. >> that's part of it. >> beyond that. the satellite imagery, back in 2014, we didn't have the same what happens, of course, but then people like all three of you at this table were trying to say the russians are doing this and no evidence that the government could provide to show it and putin saying we are not doing that. that's not happening and that's

massively changed. >> so many americans frustrated by vladimir putin's use of disinformation that it was a remarkable turn of the tables on putin a year ago when suddenly putin would say something and that blinken would say that's not true. they will invade. you had whether it was blinken, sullivan, whether it was the president, they outplayed putin time and time again in the information wars. it made a huge difference. secretary of state blinken had to break the news to zelenskyy, he was about to be invaded. >> yeah. the united states at the beginning of the war seen through it and passed it along

to the ukrainians. this is the bilateral meetings. 2:23 in the afternoon in warsaw. president duda is speaking now through a translator across the table from president biden. jake sullivan is to the president's right. to the left ambassador mark brzezinski. >> i don't have my own polish translator but this is as you might imagine, this is going to be a preview for the president today. there's a need for nato to remain resilient and firm against russia. the president aids said this is a thank you to president duda of poland for the work that they have done taking in refugees and

being at the vanguard of this newly eastern moving nato alliance. this is protocol for any time a president visits a foreign country and the highlight is the speech later. this is a sign of respect and talk about the issues and militarily between the two countries. then the president will have time to put finishing touches on the speech. >> there is an english translation. president duda is outlining what his country has done to support ukraine. >> translator: it proves that poland is safe and secure. it is a country to safely come. this distance is not to be that much. some people might think this is a dangerous place but poland is safe and secure. thanks to the presence of nato

troops. and also thanks to our efforts to reinforce poland security, defense capabilities. we are implementing that and happy, mr. president, that your presence is a visible sign of this presence. recently we were talking, speaking to allies in europe. i did it during my meertings in london and the munich security conference. i was saying that -- >> president duda talking right now with an interpreter. we'll be getting to president biden when he begins his remarks. david, it is interesting. he was talking about how poland is a safe place. i was struck when i visited recently by how -- i was going to say grateful.

we'll say appreciative that the u.s. troops were there. something the ambassador there told me about as soon as our troops went in. of course from legendary divisions. we will have the 10th mountain division going in. but ambassador said it's a walk down the streets. the poles came up and hugging them. a country again where history hangs so heavily over it with the horrors of the 20th century and now president duda says poland is safe. not only safe. the center of gravity for european politics from west germany, berlin now to warsaw. extraordinary. >> yeah.

the poles are grateful for our troops but we need to be grateful for the poles because poland has become the new germany. poland is leading nato in this. poland, the baltics, the other states on the frontier with russia are the ones that have shown the great commitment. >> here's president biden speaking. >> i think i told you the story when i was a young senator. i wrote a report. i had a very senior staff member on the foreign relations committee who was -- that was a committee, the next youngest person on that committee was 32 years older than me. i came from european and wrote a report saying that poland would be free within a matter of a year. my chief of staff then said please don't write that because you will look foolish. i got a phone call from john

paul asking whether i would meet with him. as a practicing catholic i joked that he was more conservative than my views were. we finished the conversation all about poland. never once mentioned anything about catholicism. we are walking from one end if you have been to the papal library, as wide and long as this room. with a simple desk at one end. he said would you like a photograph? i said, sure. i would like one. walking from the desk to the other end having a photograph. he said, senator, remember today i spoke to you as a pole. not as your pope. but as a proud pole. i recognize the power.

that happens to be a true story but i was here last year and visited the base where polish and american troops were side by side. the truth the united states needs poland and the nato because there's no way in which our ability to operate in the world we need to have security in europe. i would argue maybe the most consequential alliance in history. not just modern history but history. i made it clear that comments of the united states and allies is part of the commitment is real and that a year later i would argue nato is stronger than it's ever been.

as i told president zelenskyy when we spoke in kyiv yesterday, i can say that the support firefighter ukraine is unwavering. as i told russian counter part a while ago now i said you are seeking finlandization of nato. i said if we keep our head and focused i think we are in a better position than ever been. i want to thank you, mr. president, how poland is supporting ukraine. it's been extraordinary. truly extraordinary. last year watching people come across the border and the feeling of the children, the looks on their faces, the mothers that left behind

husbands and fathers, incredible the way you welcomed them. 1.7 million ukrainians you have welcomed. we affirmed our ironclad commitment to nato's collective security, including guaranteeing that the command headquarters for our forces in europe are going to be in poland. period. also launching a new strategic partnership with plans to build nuclear power plants and bolster poland's energy generation. for polish and american people is extremely strong and deep. i was kidding with the president. i was as a young man born in a coal town of scranton, pennsylvania, northeastern pennsylvania. in an irish catholic

neighborhood. then when coal died we moved to delaware. which was a working class town and everybody in town was either polish or italian. i grew up feeling self conscious. my end didn't end in ski. the connection between, i was telling the president, the pride, the overwhelming pride that polish americans feel about poland. we were talking about it. it is extreme. >> yeah. >> you would be -- if you haven't seen it you should come and see it. and so, there's a lot of challenges that we have to face but i'm confident to do it together and develop the partnership further. it's a delight to be back.

i'm anxious to get the discussion going but the president and i solved all the problems in the other room. all kidding aside, this is a critical, critical, critical relationship for the quite and we thank you for all the cooperation and help. >> president biden, do you have a reaction -- >> thank you! >> thank you. >> so -- >> so president biden finishes his remarks and talking about, david, the importance of poland. his connection to poland and talking about free in a year and an adviser asked him not to go down that path but jerry ford did it in the debate. >> describing being right on poland from the beginning talking about this relationship

with the polish pope john paul ii. it was a very personal and warm embrace of a country that's strategically crucial for the united states and this president. that's a scene like what we saw yesterday that's just a marker as you think about the united states and the world. president biden has become the leader of the western alliance in a powerful way. you see it in the images. the people respond to him. i would ask david. you study this. what does he do now with the power and credibility accumulated? where does he take this alliance? there's wobble in it. >> i would say one other thing that strikes me. telling a story of something that happened in the '70s. joe biden has been doing this

for 50 years. we said george h.w. bush had the experience. so he is using all of that right now. i think he realizes and the way that the administration is approaching this is you have to take it a day, a week at a time. you have to see how the offensives go. provide the support for ukraine and a recognition the day after this war ends whenever that is russia will remain a threat. china is a threat. it is interesting how much china is part of this war. keeping them out. supplying lethal weapons that came up this week. part of a bigger struggle. democracy versus -- they're

strategic about that. this balance of tactical smarts versus strategic vision is something we haven't seen in u.s. foreign policy in a long time. >> i remember, gene, leading up to the first gulf war. time and time again. bush got the better of them and how remarkable experience actually does matter. >> does matter. >> joe biden is able to cobble together piece by piece in the year leading up to the war. get the coalition back together when he was running against a president to finish nato. >> that's right. >> so yeah. the 50 years have made all the

difference. now as david said a leader of the western alliance. the defender of western democracy. >> he knows and understands all that history because he was there. he was there all along. he had that conversation with pope john paul about poland. it's remarkable that he is the man for this moment in a lot of ways. >> diplomacy. i was there ten months ago and when this war started and didn't happen in accident. diplomacy is like politics but on the international stage and spent hours with these leaders. he has more experience than the leaders of these countries right now and he would talk to macron. before and after every conversation with putin and goes back to the old school political

roots because that's what it is. coalition building on the international stage. it is the same as domestically. >> david, thank you so much. >> a pleasure. still ahead on "morning joe" vladimir putin blame it is west for provoking the war in ukraine. we have kooer similar "morning joe"s with the latest from moscow. president biden surprise visit to kyiv draws criticism from maga republicans. i guess they just love losing elections. you're watching "morning joe."

you know, there's a thousand billionaires in america, it■s up from about 600 at the beginning of my term. but no billionaire should be paying a lower tax rate you know, there's billionaires but no billionaire everything's changing so quickly. before the xfinity 10g network, we didn't have internet that let us play all at once. every device? in every room? why are you up here? when i was your age, we couldn't stream a movie when the power went out. you're only a year older than me. you have no idea how good you've got it. huh? what a time to be alive. introducing the next generation 10g network. only from xfinity. the future starts now.

. coming up, the autocrat next door. we were talking about russia but our next guest said democracy is understood assault closer the home. explaining what's happening in mexico, that's straight ahead on "morning joe." here's to getting financially ready for anything!

and here's to being single and ready to mingle. who's ready to cha-cha?!

(voya mnemonic.) there are some things that go better...together. burger and fries...soup and salad. thank you! like your workplace benefits and retirement savings. with voya, considering all your financial choices together... can help you make smarter decisions. for a more confident financial future. hey, a tandem bicycle. can't do that by yourself. (voya mnemonic.) voya. well planned. well invested. well protected.

yesterday morning right after president biden left kyiv florida governor desantis was on

television down playing the threat russia's military poses to europe and the world. here's what desantis said in an interview on fox news. >> i think it's important to point out the fear of kind of russia going into nato countries and steamrolling is not close to happening. i think they have shown themselves to be a third rate military power. suffered tremendous, tremendous losses. i got to think that the people in russia are probably disapproving what's going on. i don't think they can speak up about it so i think russia is really, really wounded here and i don't think they are the same threat to our country even though they're hostile on the same level as a china. >> the president's visit to kyiv drew criticism from far right house republicans and andy biggs said the president should be in east palestine, ohio, exposing

the small town to hazard chemicals. marjorie taylor greene said it's a proxy war between the united states and china and should end immediately and another blamed president biden for the war in ukraine saying it is a war zone he created and republican senators accusing the president of neglecting the people in ohio. that's different than supporting ukrainian aid from senate republican leadership. >> russia has to lose in ukraine. and we can't put a time limit on it but the one thing we can do to address the problem that was raised by our friend here from ukraine is speed up the decision making. get the weapons there quicker. as far as i'm concerned and i think i can speak thoroughly for the members of my party in

congress in this to win. >> the leadership, mitch mcconnell, pledging his ongoing continued support for the effort in ukraine but to move faster but to the guy he just wants it to move faster. going back to florida governor ron desantis, i guess trying to stake out some point of difference with president biden, but kind of losing his way while doing so. >> it was as bad as the debate with charlie crist. it was a brit tamblin moment. if that interview had gone any longer and they asked him a follow-up question, he would have obviously come back and said, i love lamp. we didn't get there, thank god, but it was difficult to view that. charlie sykes, this is supposed

to be, like, the great hope for the republican party, the great hope. i guess the governor doesn't understand that he's saying, well, russia is not as dangerous as they were a year ago because of everything joe biden has done over the past year. he makes this statement which makes no sense. he says i love lamp, then he starts talking about how russia has been degraded, been degraded as a military, they're not as powerful as they once were. he might as well send a bouquet of flowers to joe biden. >> yeah. this is ron desantis's debut on the national stage, and it didn't go well. his comments, i thought, were as pathetic as they were predictable. he can't allow himself to get outflanked by the america first isolationists.

but he went through the playbook, blame biden, deny the stakes, the fact that this is an existential challenge between the west and russia that mitch mcconnell says we cannot lose. he's not at this point one of the house useful idiots for vladimir putin. look, the republican reaction is awfully revealing here. first of all, there are no doves, there are no anti-war pacifists here. there are some who are genuine america-first isolationists. there are some who are actually actively pro vladimir putin. but primarily they are anti-zelenskyy and anti-biden. they're saying whatever joe biden does, they are going to oppose, which comes a day after what should have been a moment of bipartisan unity. it was an extraordinary scene,

the president of the united states in this war zone. i am old enough to remember when leaders of both parties would have felt that as a moment of pride. instead, we get some sort of petty ankle biting from congress and from ron desantis. >> again, those tweets coming while an american president was on the ground in a war zone and there were no u.s. troops to protect him. dave ignatius, let's keep this in perspective. we played a clip of mitch mcconnell. mitch mcconnell has said time and time again russia must lose, ukraine must win. and most republicans other than those that go sit on bales of hay and aim at balloons with their ar-15s, most senate

republicans have actually been very sober and very serious and stood shoulder to shoulder with democrats in the senate and the president of the united states . >> that's the real story today. biden went to kyiv. he went to kyiv with basically a united united states congress behind him. there are a few outliers but not many. in the end, war is about will. and we're seeing the clash of two strong wills here of zelenskyy backed by biden against putin. in this test of wills, i think yesterday the west got stronger for biden's trip. it showed a more united america, a more united europe than putin ever imagined.

that's the real story. marjorie taylor greene, whatever. marjorie taylor greene, whatever whoa. okay. easy does it. we switched to liberty mutual and saved $652. they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need.

with the money we saved, we thought we'd try electric unicycles. whoa! careful, babe! saving was definitely easier. hey babe, i think i got it! it's actually... whooooa! ok, show-off! help! oh! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ why are 93% of sleep number sleepers very satisfied with their bed? omaybe it's because you can adjust your comfort and firmness on either side. your sleep number setting. to help relieve pressure points and keep you both comfortable all night. and now, save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. ends monday.

if your business kept on employees through the pandemic, getrefunds.com can see if it may qualify for a payroll tax refund of up to $26,000 per employee, even if it received ppp, and all it takes is eight minutes to get started. then we'll work with you to fill out your forms and submit the application; that easy. and if your business doesn't get paid, we don't get paid. getrefunds.com has helped businesses like yours claim over $2 billion but it's only available for a limited time. go to getrefunds.com, powered by innovation refunds. struggling with the highs and lows of bipolar 1? ask about vraylar. because you are greater than your bipolar 1, and you can help take control of your symptoms

- with vraylar. some medicines only treat the lows or highs. vraylar treats depressive, acute manic, and mixed episodes of bipolar 1 in adults. proven, full-spectrum relief for all bipolar 1 symptoms. and in vraylar clinical studies, most saw no substantial impact on weight. elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. call your doctor about unusual changes in behavior or suicidal thoughts. antidepressants can increase these in children and young adults. report fever, stiff muscles or confusion which may mean a life-threatening reaction, or uncontrollable muscle movements which may be permanent. high blood sugar, which can lead to coma or death, weight gain and high cholesterol may occur. movement dysfunction and restlessness are common side effects. sleepiness and stomach issues are also common. side effects may not appear for several weeks. ask about vraylar and learn how abbvie could help you save. millions have made the switch from the big three and learn how abbvie to the best kept secret in wireless: xfinity mobile. that means millions are saving hundreds a year with the fastest mobile service.

and now, get the best price for two lines of unlimited. just $30 per line. there are millions of happy campers out there. and this is the perfect time to join them... right now, switch to xfinity mobile and save up to $800 on the new samsung galaxy s23 series. to learn more, visit your local xfinity store today. business can happen anytime, anywhere. so help yours thrive and stay connected with the comcast business complete connectivity solution. it's the largest, fastest, reliable network. advanced gig speed wifi. and cyberthreat protection. starting at just $49.99 a month. plus, you can save up to 60% a year when you add comcast business mobile. or, ask how to get up to a $750 prepaid card. complete connectivity. one solution, for wherever business takes you. comcast business. powering possibilities.

live picture of los angeles as we creep toward the top of the hour. almost 9:00 here in the east as we begin the fourth hour of "morning joe" on tuesday, february 21st. jonathan lemire and jen psaki still with us. vladimir putin wrapped up his state of the nation speech in moscow, the nearly two-hour-long address filled with propaganda, accusing the west of starting the war and giving no indication the fighting will end any time soon. meanwhile, joe biden is in poland meeting with allies following his historic trip to ukraine. josh lederman is live in warsaw, poland. josh, fill us in. >> reporter: it was not that many years ago that president duda of poland was viewed with a lot of skepticism in the west due to some of his less democratic views and comments.

but today there was a real sign of unity and tight alliance between the united states and poland as president biden met with president duda at the presidential palace, duda praising biden for his bravery and courage in paying that visit to kyiv secretly yesterday. duda saying it has shown the world that ukraine is not forgotten. and president biden talking up not only the importance of the u.s. continuing to stand shoulder to shoulder with poland, but also with nato and describing the importance of that alliance. >> the truth of the matter is, the united states needs poland and nato as much as nato needs the united states. for our ability to operate anywhere else in the world and our responsibilities extend beyond europe, we have to have security in europe. it's that basic, that simple, that consequential. it's the single most

consequential alliance, i would argue maybe the most consequential alliance in history. a year later, i would argue nato is stronger than it's ever been. >> reporter: as president biden gets ready to deliver that major speech here in warsaw just a few blocks from where i'm standing, it is hard to overstate just how popular president biden is here in poland. a recent pugh poll found the approval rating here in poland of president biden's handling of global affairs stands at 82%. it's hard to find any world leader with an approval rating that is that high. that's about 40% higher than americans' own view of president

biden. it goes to show how critical poles view their relationship with the united states. this is an extremely pro american country that views their alliance with the u.s. as a building block for their security. the u.s. talking about increasing further the number of troops it will have here in poland as they try to make clear that the u.s. is standing not only with ukraine in a narrow fashion, but with all of these countries that are really right on russia's doorstep that they fear could be next, countries like the baltics, poland and these other nations president biden will meet with tomorrow from the bucharest nine, all part of president biden's efforts to use this visit to make sure the u.s. commitment here is going to be unending and

certainly is going to get even stronger as they move into the second year of the war. >> president biden in poland today as he stands literally on this occasion shoulder to shoulder with president duda, a historic couple of days abroad with this president's speech still to come this afternoon. meanwhile, russian president vice president delivered his state of the nation address just a short time ago. keir simmons has the latest from moscow. >> reporter: plunging temperatures and a police lockdown for president putin's appearance this morning, bitter cold outside, bitter rhetoric inside, president putin calling the ukraine conflict a war, but blaming kyiv, the west and washington. >> translator: i would like to repeat, they started the war and we used the force in order to stop it. >> reporter: the russian

leader's equivalent of the state of the union 24 hours after president biden's historic visit to kyiv, president putin accusing nato and america of threatening russia's existence. >> they want turn a local conflict into a global conflict. >> reporter: it is the russian path whose leadership is on the line. president putin goes nowhere without tight security. overnight my phone's signal has stopped working and this is as close as i'm allowed to get. this morning, china warning the war may spin out of control, its top diplomat expected in moscow. putin's advisor on china relations. has president putin deliberately cultivated this relationship with president xi? >> i think so. it not only helps russia. it also helps putin to feel much

stronger. >> reporter: today putin called for a moment of silence for those slain in his so-called special military operation, but there was no apology, no compromise. after a year of killing with no end in sight. >> keir simmons reporting from from moscow. contributing writer at "the atlantic" elliot cohen writes, quote, symbols matter, a kennedy or a reagan at the berlin wall, a churchill with a cigar and a bowler, a green-clad zelenskyy growling, i need ammunition, not a ride. while the president clearly intended to bolster the confidence of ukraine and the commitment of ambivalent europeans and neo isolationist

americans. russia has cycled through a series of theories with victory in ukraine. it's been reduced to one hope, that vladimir putin's will is stronger than joe biden's. the russians received word of the trip and presumably the threat stated or implied they would get a violent and overwhelming response if they attempted to interfere with it. good morning. the significance of seeing the president of the united states walk through the streets of kyiv with president zelenskyy yet is what? >> first, the logistical feat it takes for the white house, the military, the secret service to get the u.s. president to a war zone where there is no u.s. military presence is very

significant. but the fact they had it a right before the year anniversary and you have president biden hugging president zelenskyy, saying the u.s. support will endure and will be here, what he's saying is we're not going anywhere, we're going to be here until you defeat russia. couple that with the additional half a billion dollars of military aid, very symbolic, very impressive. >> a small group of people at the white house knew this visit was happening. the president wanted to make this trip as he watched other world leaders walk through the streets of kyiv with president zelenskyy. there was a plane, not the usual air force one that took him, a long train ride into kyiv, a motorcade with no lights or sirens to get him in quietly.

>> just a remarkable journey for joe biden. you read a recounting of it in the "new york times," "washington post," "wall street journal," it reads like a movie script, all of the diversions, all of the things he had to do to get to kyiv and shake the hand of president zelenskyy and show the people of ukraine his support for them. tom nichols, it's probably hard for us to put into words just what that meant not only to president zelenskyy, but more importantly, to the people of that war-torn country. >> and to the world. this was a president of the united states doing something that the secret service didn't want him to do, that people didn't expect him to do, took us

all by surprise and walked through an actual war zone. aside from the logistics, the idea that an american president would take that personal risk is really something. i think that's partly why you're seeing the outrage that you're seeing from putin, who doesn't go anywhere without being in a cocoon of guards and armored trains and cars, and also here in the united states for biden's opponents. this was the joe biden that's not supposed to exist, this very active and vital guy taking on a punishing schedule. i've done some overseas trips with politicians. i got tired just thinking about the schedule. so biden, i think, really surprised a lot of people on both sides of the atlantic. i think he's right that nato has never been stronger.

it's a remarkable turnaround for an alliance that just ten years ago was thinking about what its role in the world was supposed to be. >> we need to underline this fact, tom. you and i both former members of the republican party, before i criticize members of the republican party, mitch mcconnell and most republicans of the united states' senate have been traditional, they've stood shoulder to shoulder with joe biden in our defense of freedom. but you look at, for instance, ron desantis, who actually went on fox news yesterday and said that putin doesn't really pose a risk to his neighbors. it's absolutely painful. >> it's eye watering. >> it's absolutely painful,

especially a guy that wants to take control of a party that ronald reagan once led and said, mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. what a way to devolve for a party. >> ron desantis and the republicans don't want this next election, or really anything, to be about foreign policy. it's their achilles heel. the base they have to deal with is activity hostile to any discussion of foreign policy. partly it is that anti-zelenskyy and anti-biden reflex, but the republicans have abandoned the kind of muscular internationalism that reagan brought to the cold war and adopted a kind of sour, know-nothingism about foreign policy. these are the primary voters.

this is why you're seeing the house members somewhat more difficult than the senate members, because that's the core of the gop base. those are the primary voters they have to get past. those voters don't want to hear anything about foreign policy or nato or zelenskyy, because they watch a lot of tv and don't know anything else. >> you're worked so much on sanctions policy in the past. we have spent a lot of time recently talking about whether this could all fall apart. remember, in the beginning it was like, oh, countries won't come together on this, they won't do the same level of sanctions. what's your assessment? >> sanctions, as a rule, they take time to work. that's the case with anything. when we think about iran, for example, when we got to those negotiations, it took years of those sanctions working,

undermining oil proceeds, bringing iran to its knees at the negotiating table. russian sanctions have only been in place for a year. they are very different now, they are very forceful. the treasury secretary will talk about the latest effective sanctions. i've seen he will be saying that due to sanctions, the u.s. and from the west, russia has lost 9,000 pieces of military equipment, 50% of their tanks are down. sanctions are one piece of a foreign policy strategy. they're not the silver bullet in achieving a national security objective. they work when coupled with diplomatic efforts, military efforts, whatever it might be. in this case and given biden's

announcement in ukraine, i would expect all of that to ramp up even further this year. >> we should pause and recognize it will be on friday the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the russian invasion. you have president biden walking the streets freely of kyiv with president zelenskyy when it was president putin who assumed it would be him about a year ago this time rolling his tanks in and having a victory parade in kyiv. >> it's an excellent point. it's been one military setback after another for moscow. yes, they do still control 15 to 20% of the country. there will be months, if not years of fighting ahead. already putin's mission has failed in terms of wanting to capture kyiv. with western funding and supplies still heading to ukraine, there's no sense putin will get anywhere near the capital again. we should praise this remarkable

journey biden took yesterday, including taking only two members of the press corps. president biden's ability with his aviators onto walk through in broad daylight in kyiv shows how much putin has failed, because there was no real threat there. yes, there was an air raid siren going off in the distance, but that was later determined to be a false alarm from somewhere else. that just underscores just how badly putin is failing. >> the administration did reach out to russia ahead of time a short time before he was there to say the president is going to be there, don't try anything funny. let's head over to the big board here in our studio. clint watts is there with a look at the weapons that both sides are using a year into the war.

>> yesterday we talked about everything that's what happened over the last year. just want to bring everybody up to speed on what's happening right now. today on the ground in ukraine, you're going to see several different fronts being pushed. all along this axis, it was taken back in the ukrainian counter offensive. another area right here we see intense battles and bakhmut over the last month. in all of these locations the russians are trying to move forward, but they're doing it more with manpower than tanks. this is mine fields now, trench lines, defensive positions. when we think of last year the invasion that moved very quickly, that's not going to happen here. when we look to the south, we're

starting to see a very different situation unfold. this is world war i, world war ii era. you would see trench lines like this. they've dug these positions in. as you look down, you're seeing them build dragon teeth trench lines and fallback positions here, here and here. this is something that suggests the russians are not moving any time soon. what they're trying to do is defend all the way down to crimea while they try and push in the east. in terms of weapons, we can talk about all of the advances, but if there's one thing i find remarkable over the last year, it's this is the first drone-on-drone war.

you will see both the ukrainians and the russians using the drones. you're seeing the use of very small reconnaissance drones to target artillery. the ukrainians have been brilliant at this and have really stopped the movement of troops in and out of russia. last year the u.s. committed the switchblade drone to attack soldiers in trench lines. imagine this 100 years ago we're talking about trench lines in world war ii. looks relatively the same today in ukraine with one exception, the drone war. the drone war is wildly different, new technology with old tactics. the russians also bringing into

the battlefield their own kamikaze drones. they've been working with the iranians, providing a drone which has been attacking critical infrastructure in the winter. all the nato partners, allies, president biden there in poland today helping with weapons for the ukrainians. >> clint, thank you so much. we appreciate it. joe, of course, the next frontier that president zelenskyy has been asking for is f-16 fighter jets. >> not yet, but again we weren't crossing the line with tanks until we did. i suspect jets will be next.

jen, we've talked about it over the course to have show this morning, but for our viewers on the west coast, let's talk about joe biden constantly being underestimated not just from republicans, not just from opinion writers, but as you know, even from members of his own party. here you have, once again, president biden defying expectations, doing something that very few people thought he was going to do, and in so doing, electrifying the ukrainian people and people across the world. >> i mean, he benefits in some ways from being underestimated. he has been throughout his entire career. this is an area, national security he's been working on for 50 years. he was the chairman of the foreign relations committee. he's known these leaders, some of them for decades. some of them look to him as the elder statesman in experience.

he's been preparing to be a leader on the world stage for his entire career. not that he would have predicted another russian invasion of ukraine. from having worked there as recently as ten months ago, he would say to people, i got this, i know it's worth having these conversations. before macron speaks to putin, i want to talk to him. i'm going to spend time with the new german leader, because that's an important relationship. we need to bring them to the table to agree on sanctions. this decision on f-16s, that's not just about the united states. it's about coordinating on providing military assistance from a range of countries. president biden, secretary blinken, secretary austin, they have been keeping the world moving together to support ukraine. >> talk about the massive difference between the last president who would insult the chancellor of germany, who would

insult the prime minister of great britain, who would insult the president of france. talk about the difference it makes between that example and an example of a guy who's always on the phone who understands the importance of personal relationships. >> i was with the president on his first trip as president when he went to the g-20. you could almost feel the collective sigh of relief in the room. here's guy many of them had known as vice president. he was very much in the lead at many moments on foreign policy issues. they felt comfortable with him. many of them trusted him. they knew there was shared values again with what the united states stood up for. the united states is a country that's long stood up for democracy versus autocracy. for a while there it was questionable. >> as we look at all these images coming out of poland,

even with our own alliance, even within nato, there began to be a split with hungary and poland. now you have poland really at the center of the alliance. >> yes. the b-9. we used to laugh about the -9. it's a pivotal part of this alliance, eastern europe, poland. these are countries that benefit from nato unity, that are the ones that call bigger countries in nato and say we need to be unified on this. that's something that president biden and his team have been ahead of the curve in seeing that would be a place to spend energy, resources, time and diplomatic effort. >> when you look at some of the balkan leaders, even estonia saying we don't fear russia. >> moldova, they're like we hope you come. people were quoted saying that. >> it's been a remarkable year.

this thursday night i'm going to be hosting a prime time special that marks one year since the invasion of ukraine, featuring sitdowns with secretary of state antony blinken, defense secretary lloyd austin, joint chief mark milley and national security advisor jake sullivan. still ahead this morning, it appears wall street will start off the week deep in the red. andrew ross sorkin joins us to explain. plus david from's latest piece for the atlantic. s latest piece for the atlantic hi, i'm john and i'm from dallas, texas. my wife's name is joy. we've been married 45 years. i'm taking a two-year business course.

i've been studying a lot. i've been producing and directing for over 50 years. it's a very detailed thing and the pressure's all on me. i noticed i really wasn't quite as sharp as i was. my boss told me about prevagen and i started taking it. i feel sharper. my memory's a lot better. it just works. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription.

for businesses of all sizes, it just works. there are a lot of choices when it comes to your internet and technology needs. when you choose comcast business internet, you choose the largest, fastest reliable network. you choose advanced security for total peace of mind. and you choose a next generation 10g network that's always improving, getting faster; more reliable; and more intelligent to keep you ready for today and tomorrow. the choice is clear: make your business future ready with the network from the most innovative company. comcast business.

that's a beautiful live picture of the golden gate bridge in san francisco. it's 6:29 in the morning. it is time for business before the bell. let's bring in andrew ross sorkin. andrew is looking at home depot and walmart this morning. >> we got red numbers on the board. it's interesting, there was spectacular earnings and sales during the holiday season. the conundrum is really the guidance, the outlook for what these companies are telling the public they think is about to happen and what they think is not good on a relative basis to where they were in terms of the growth. costs are going up. wages, by the way, going up, home depot announing they're going to spend a billion dollars in terms of additional pay for their workers. there is a question mark on where the stock market is around this, which is to say do you try to lower expectations even more

so that you can beat them on the other side. there's always this strange game on wall street going on. i don't want to say it's all terrible news, but on a relative basis, this has been the question, what's the rest of this year going to look like. i think they don't know, therefore, we don't know. >> it can be so head spinning to follow business news. on one hand, unemployment at historic lows, inflation ticks down. then you get news like this. >> the good news, i think we all still have ptsd from 2008 as if the economy is going to fall off a cliff. that's not even on the horizon. the question is whether there's going to be a malaise. that's possible. i don't know how bad that is going to feel on a day to day

basis. it may be that what we felt in terms of inflation has actually felt worse. >> let's talk about the fed and what it could be doing next. there has been signals. there were hopes a few months back maybe they would slow the rate of interest hikes. that seems to be dissipating. >> you have a situation where we had a moment where bad news felt like good news, because people said, oh okay, things are not going so well, therefore, the fed is going to lighten up. oh, things are going really well, they're going to have to jam down the brake on everybody. i think this is going to be a wait-and-see moment, but bad news could be bad news. >> it often is. >> for a long time we've been thinking bad news is good news. i think bad news is bad news, but bad news may be this sort of malaise.

>> let's talk about something that might make more sense to people. this united airlines policy. you book a ticket with your family and your little kids are sitting in row 37 and you're in 14. >> i was in 16. i had one son in 35, another guy in 18. it's crazy. you're having to go to person to person, do you mind if we switch. >> that's what they tell you at the desk, handle it on board. >> united is going to make it easier to keep everybody together without paying extra. there's also been this issue even in coach, the coach has multiple premiums. there's premium coach. some of that's going to get opened up without paying additional fees so the kids can join you and sit next to you. that's united. we've got to see what happens.

delta and american all say they're trying to do similar things. part of this is because the department of transportation has been all over the airlines. >> i prefer to have my kids separate. >> there are people that maybe make that booking intentionally, kids in the back. >> on airlines, though, we heard from the president not too long ago about pushing back on junk fees. where is that going? >> i think it's going to be very hard. some of the embedded fees may get more exposed in terms of disclo disclosed, but i don't think the fee structure is going to fundamentally change or come down. >> dozens of british companies taking part in a trial testing out four-day workweeks. >> i'm all for this. >> shorter weeks now here to stay. june and december of last year

employees at 61 companies in the u.k. worked about 34 hours a week earning the same salary. 56 of those companies say they're keeping the four-day workweek. >> have we talked to nbc universal about this? >> i don't know how we pull this off. >> would you take a monday through thursday situation? >> sunday to wednesday? >> where are you on this? >> maybe we could do three days. i foryears worked with my days off sunday and monday. >> this is not hybrid work. this is you're not working. they're finding, shockingly, you take those four days and tell people you've got to get what was done in five days done in four days and people are doing it. >> are those four days longer?

>> yes, that seems to be the case. >> i think a lot of people would take that. i think we're onto something here. >> you know some people here? >> i have no power here. go higher up the food chain. next, the headline that gives some credence to an urban legend. the latest from brooklyn where a public park. alligator was pulla public park. choosing a treatment for your chronic migraine - 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more - can be overwhelming. so, ask your doctor about botox®. botox® prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they even start. it's the #1 prescribed branded chronic migraine treatment. so far, more than 5 million botox® treatments have been given to over eight hundred and fifty thousand chronic migraine patients. effects of botox® may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms.

alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. don't receive botox® if there's a skin infection. tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. in a survey, 92% of current users said they wish they'd talked to their doctor and started botox® sooner. so, ask your doctor if botox® is right for you. learn how abbvie could help you save on botox®. we're here today to set the record straight about dupuytren's contracture. surgery is not your only treatment option. people may think their contracture has to be severe to be treated, but it doesn't.

visit findahandspecialist.com today to get started. oh booking.com, ♪ i'm going to somewhere, anywhere. ♪ ♪ a beach house, a treehouse, ♪ ♪ honestly i don't care ♪ find the perfect vacation rental for you booking.com, booking. yeah.

♪♪ welcome back to "morning joe." the headline in today's new york post reads "workers stunned as alligator is hauled from brooklyn's prospect park lake." stephanie gosk has details. >> reporter: legend has it alligators roam the sewers of new york city. turns out they're swimming in prospect park, at least one was on sunday.

>> park enforcement sergeant responded to the scene. she was the one who snared it in the water. she thought it wasn't alive. it quickly opened its eyes. >> reporter: was she alarmed? >> yeah. it was 4'11", a big animal. didn't quite know what it was going to do, how it would react. >> reporter: the alligator was not in good condition, emaciated and moving slowly, likely because of the cold temperatures. will this poor little guy survive? >> i hope so. it's in the good hands of the wildlife conservation society. >> reporter: park officials don't know how the alligator got there. it's illegal to own an alligator in new york state. enforcing the laws can be difficult. in arizona last month, police found a tiger cub inside a phoenix home after getting a tip that someone wanted to sell it. they also found a baby alligator

in a fish tank. the neighbors were understandably relieved. >> they shouldn't have animals like that. >> reporter: in florida burmese pythons are a big problem. released into the wild by owners who shouldn't have them, they are an invasive species and they are thriving. this one found last summer weighed 215 pounds as was 18 feet long. what's your message to people? >> yeah, don't do it. >> reporter: despite the legends, alligators definitely don't belong in new york city. >> joe, we see these stories in new york from time to time. it's always some guy in the bronx who had like a puma in his apartment, something like that. i suspect and i don't have any hard evidence yet, talking to some sources in the wildlife conservation community, this escaped from lemire's place in brooklyn. >> listen, i'm keeping my eyes

on the new york post headlines for the next couple days. they say there's a reason why the post is "morning joe's" pape of record. you can tell stephanie gosk not a florida native, because i've never heard a florida native talk about alligators as poor little guys. let me tell you something. when i was younger and i played a little bit of golf, you would walk past ponds very quickly in florida. one golf course i played on, they got an alligator out of the lake, had like 20 dog tags inside of it. we always get a story once a year about the guy that owns a python and then ends up like police find him dead. dude, what are you doing? >> or as willie said, a puma. i feel like a dog or a cat is

enough. these are animals that can kill you. it's not a joke. >> and animals that do kill you. i don't understand it. i didn't know new york had a law against it. it is absolutely crazy. by the way, that last bit she's talking about regarding exotic snakes released into the everglades, that has become a massive environmental crisis, because they are wiping out one species after another. >> they multiply so quickly and they have a hunt every year, but it doesn't begin to touch the problem in the everglades. >> i'll just note that my kid's little league field is right by that lake. don't chase any foul balls. coming up, why 2024 presidential candidate nikki

haley says she has not attacked former president trump even though he's criticized her campaign several times already. plus, congressman george santos appears to admit he thought he'd get away with the lies. he'd get away with the lies ♪ today my friend you did it, you did it, you did it... ♪ good news! a new clinical study showed that centrum silver supports cognitive health in older adults. it's one more step towards taking charge of your health. so every day, you can say... ♪ youuu did it! ♪ with centrum silver.

first psoriasis, then psoriatic arthritis. even walking was tough. i had to do something. i started cosentyx®. cosentyx can help you move, look, and feel better... by treating the multiple symptoms of psoriatic arthritis. don't use if you're allergic to cosentyx. before starting...get checked for tuberculosis. an increased risk of infections some serious... and the lowered ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor about an infection or symptoms... or if you've had a vaccine or plan to. tell your doctor if your crohn's disease symptoms... develop or worsen. serious allergic reactions may occur.

watch me. ask your rheumatologist about cosentyx. to run for congress of the united states and to just tell blatant lies about even your academic record, i'm just struck not necessarily that a politician would lie, but that you would think no one would find out. >> well, i'll humor you this. i ran in 2020 for the same exact seat for congress and i got away with it then. >> well, that's honest. >> stupid. >> so you thought they're not going to find out? >> no, i didn't think so. >> pierce saying, well, that's

honest. just admitting you lied in 2020 and this time around. republican congressman george santos making an admission to piers morgan, joe. just came out and said it. >>it. david from is here from "the atlantic". would you like to talk about george? >> if the play had flopped, he would have been in the clear. now the investors want their money. >> exactly. it's a problem. willie, nikki haley said quite a week, actually couple of weeks. and now she's constantly -- seems like she's constantly trying to figure out whether to attack donald trump, not attack donald trump, support him, not support him, and it continues, very confusing following her logic. >> yeah, it appears over the first week she thought she was going to get away with the trump questions, the line about kicking sideways or backwards or

frontwards or something, but not a direct confrontation with former president trump. this is what she said yesterday in an interview with fox news. >> right now it is just you and the former president donald trump. if no one else got in, and you're on the debate stage, and the question is what makes you a better president than the former president, what's your answer? >> so, i know you've heard this, but i don't kick sideways, i kick forward. >> that's why i'm pushing. you're not going to kick sideways but we have seen donald trump on the debate stage and he will kick sideways and he will come after you. and you're going to have to stand up to that. >> and when i'm kicked, i'll kick back. >> what will your argument against him be? >> well, let's wait and see if he's got a criticism first. he hasn't done anything. he hasn't said anything. so i know everybody wants to talk about trump, but, martha, truly we had a couple thousand people in south carolina, we had packed rooms in new hampshire, not one person asked me about donald trump.

>> there's forward and backward kicking, no sideways kicking from nikki haley there. we point out the former president already has insulted haley's campaign at a number of social media posts and statements. joe? >> here we go again. it never stops. >> here we go again. >> she flip-flops on trump. time and again. and she's -- it looks like -- i don't know. looks like she and the rest of the republican party are just going to, again, let trump sort of wander wherever he wants to wander in this campaign. >> she has a lane, she could be the candidate who will forth rightly stand up for alliances, for partners, for democracy. trump's against them. governor desantis waffles and weasels and doesn't want to take a stand. wouldn't even congratulate his own state's national guard unit, which had been the unit in ukraine on the eve of the russian invasion that had been training the ukrainians. he didn't greet them, didn't honor them when they returned.

>> isn't that amazing? then yesterday saying vladimir putin doesn't pose a threat to his neighbors. >> and because he's -- he does not want to align with the trump/pro-putin conference but doesn't have the courage to stand up. haley could be the person and we have democratic challenges not only in europe, but here in this continent as well. >> and you write about that in "atlantic". talk about the democratic challenges to the south of us. >> americans have a bad habit of neglecting mexico until it explodes. i hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it is ticking toward an explosion. you have a situation in mexico which one four star general insurgency, you have the president of the state who is one by one for his own reasons dismantling the democratic institutions to make sure the next president will not have the

legitimacy to stand up to the insurgency and protect it -- the people of mexico. >> so there is no question it is a ticking time bomb. it may be one of the biggest challenges the president has that is unpredictable over the next year and a half. what legislatively if there was the will here could democrats and republicans, let's go back to old school and we used to work together and things, actually do to make a difference here? >> send a message to the mexican president, hands off the mexican electoral commission. mexico has a very admired and independent electoral authority. it only has been 25 years the multiparty democracy. and there is a big demonstration coming to mexico this coming weekend. stand up for them and say hands off that commission, let the next elections be fair. the current president of mexico, lopez obrador is popular. have fair competition, honest balloting and not what he's

getting ready for, the bad old days where local stooges deliver the result the president wanted. >> david, it is jonathan lemire. speak more broadly about the challenges -- with the southern hemisphere right now, an area in which the united states has been accused of neglecting, in recent administrations, there has been a lot of anger even towards the biden administration in recent months about simply not doing their -- and that goes beyond the crisis at the southern border. >> obrador got along great with donald trump. the deal was if mexico would help suppress migration and it would keep out chinese car parts, donald trump would look away as the president of mexico dismantled democratic institutions. biden has spoken up a little bit more about democracy, just enough to irritate the president of mexico who denounced biden and is conspicuously rude to him but not enough. we need to get away from the transactional approach.

without mexican democracy, the mexican government won't have the authority to do what america needs to be done. mexico is the paradox of an extremely strong president within a very weak state, doesn't control its own territory. and the only way to have a strong state is to have a more law-bound president. >> the new piece is online this morning for "the atlantic". thank you for being with us. greatly appreciate it. that does it for us this morning. lindsey reiser picks up the coverage right after a quick break. picks up the coverage right after a quick break. realtor.com (in a whisper) even if you like a house, lowball the first offer. the house whisperer! this house says use the realtor.com app to see three different estimates. also, don't take advice from people who don't know what they're talking about. realtor.com to each their home.

big pharma has been unfairly charging people hundreds of dollars, making record profits. not anymore. we capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors on medicare.

whoa. okay. easy does it. we switched to liberty mutual and saved $652. they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. with the money we saved, we thought we'd try electric unicycles. whoa! careful, babe! saving was definitely easier. hey babe, i think i got it! it's actually... whooooa! ok, show-off! help! oh! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ everything's changing so quickly. only pay for what you need. before the xfinity 10g network, we didn't have internet that let us play all at once. every device? in every room? why are you up here? when i was your age, we couldn't stream a movie when the power went out.

you're only a year older than me. you have no idea how good you've got it. huh? what a time to be alive. introducing the next generation 10g network. only from xfinity. the future starts now. when i was his age, we had to be inside to watch live sports. but with xfinity, we get the fastest mobile service and can stream down the street or around the block! hey, can you be less sister, more car? all right, let's get this over with. switch to xfinity mobile and save big on the new samsung galaxy s23 series. i should get paid more for this. you get paid when you win. from xfinity. home of the 10g network.

good tuesday morning. i'm lindsey reiser at msnbc headquarters in new york. right now a tense screen on the world stage. next hour, president biden is set to speak in poland after his surprise visit to ukraine's capital yesterday. while russian president vladimir putin steps into the spotlight for his state of the nation address. earlier we got a hint of what the president could say during a bilateral meeting with poland's president. >> a year later, i would argue nato's stronger than it's