the news. i just felt that, you know, it would have been nice to be there a bit longer, but it was jesse's decision, and i respect that decision because jesse is an extraordinary writer, and i think it was a bold decision, and i think ultimately it probably worked. it's a bit -- i knew it was going to happen, but i thought, oh, can i not live until episode six. and they went we've got to do that, and when he explained it's a day thing, it made total sense. total sense. >> yeah. all right. well, listen, we thank you so much for being with us to talk about mending the line. it looks like an extraordinary film, an important film. we appreciate your time. all right, brian cox, of course, and we'll all be watching that as well as, of course, the succession

conclusion. it's going to be remarkable. have a great memorial day weekend. that does it for us this morning. yasmin vossoughian picks up the coverage right now. ♪♪ hey, everybody, it's 10:00 a.m. in the east, i'm yasmin vossoughian in for ana cabrera this morning. urgency in washington with less than a week to avoid a catastrophic default. there's optimism that a deal is close, but can they get it done and before too much damage is done? >> we have a lot of hangups. >> do you think it's possible to get a deal by this weekend. >> look, we're not going to stop negotiating. this is a priority. plus, we've got more questions about donald trump and classified documents at mar-a-lago. new exclusive reporting from "the washington post," sources saying that two employees moved the boxes the day before a visit

by fbi agents. what could that mean for the special counsel's investigation? growing outrage in mississippi, an attorney for an 11-year-old says the child was shot after he called 911. his family now demanding to see the body camera video in this case. we begin with the clock winding down to avoid a catastrophic default with less than a week to get a deal done. joining us now is allie raffa, standing by on capitol hill is nbc's sahil kapur. what we're hearing this morning is they're pretty close. walk us through it. >> yeah, yasmin. sources that we know are familiar with these talks are saying there is optimism. there has been progress. this deal is coming together, but whether that can translate into some sort of deal coming to fruition today still remains unclear because we know there are still some sticking points in this process, things like

more work requirements for federal relief programs, that's something that republicans have said is a red line for them, that they need included in this deal, potentially cuts to portions of irs funding that were included in the inflation reduction act could be on the table, and also being debated could potentially be how long this debt ceiling is extended for, is raised for. and the caveat that we keep mentioning here s even if a deal is reached today, that's technically the easiest part of this process. there are still so many things left that could gum up this process before that earliest default estimate of june 1st. we know that this deal would have to be written up. then members of course would have to review it. speaker mccarthy has vowed they'd have a full 72 hours to be able to do that before voting would begin in the house. members of congress have not been present in these conversations, in these negotiations, and they've been very vocal some on the far left, some on the far right, of their

criticism of what they think and what they hear is being negotiated in these conversations. their reaction upon reading this language when it is developed is going to be critical to getting this across the finish line in now less than a week. >> sahil, talk to us. we're six days out as allie just mentioned. we're looking at a memorial day weekend, right? business closed for monday. what is the expectation when it comes to deal making for folks on capitol hill over the weekend? >> mccarthy said he's staying through the weekend. his chief negotiator congressman garrett graves was around last night and spoke to us after a meeting. in terms of substance, they are simply not there yet. our understanding is that the two sides are moving closer on the issue of spending cap, which is the crux of this negotiation. but a source familiar with the negotiation tells me they're still stranded on the issue of work requirements with both sides dug in on whether they want to toughen up those work

requirements for federal aid programs. mccarthy had a little bit to say about this. again, affirming that they're not quite there yet. let's have a listen to what he said. >> look, there is no agreement, all right? we know where our differences lie. we worked throughout the day. we'll continue to work to try to solve the problem, but there is no agreement. >> reporter: biden and mccarthy agreeing to a deal is simply step one. they have to get a very unique coalition to get this across the finish line. mccarthy wants a large majority of his house republican conference. he's got hard-liners who have been breathing down his neck who have -- might possibly come after his job if the terms of the deal are not to his liking and they're getting queasy about the state of negotiations, trying to move the goal post by adding security measures like border security. and president biden is also facing pressure, he has to get this -- he has to get a significant number of house democratic votes. he has to get this through the democratic controlled senate. progressives are warning him not to take their votes for granted if they don't like the deal.

and some progressives say a bad deal could create a backlash to his 2024 election hopes. all of this in six days to get this through the house with that 72-hour rule speaker mccarthy is talking about and to get it through the senate which could take anywhere between four and seven days a short amount of time and a long way to go. >> i'm appreciative of you kind of bringing up all this fallout. we're going to be speaking with robin far sad in just a moment about the economic fallout, what that could look like for us at home. there's also the political fallout, right? democrat max frost actually had some advice for the president in talking about accountability here and how he should address that. let's listen to what he had to say and then we'll talk. >> i do think the president should use his bully pulpit to really call out these republicans and tell the nation what's going on in the oval office or in the rose garden, prime time address and really telling the american people what

the gop has decided to do. >> we heard sahil talk about the possible '24 implications for president biden with the negotiations going up until the very end. does max frost have a point? >> reporter: he is reflecting the views of many house democrats, yasmin, who do want the president to be more aggressive using his bully pulpit to frame up the negotiations. the white house's view is they're trying to cut a deal here and turning up the volume and attacking his negotiators is probably not going to be helpful to that. there's a frustration among democrats that the president has discredited the 14th amendment option. he's saying this has to be done -- initially started by saying republicans have to do it cleanly but also saying he's not going to try to use his executive authority, which kind of leaves him stranded, which house republicans are using as leverage against him. there's that and the 2024 election concern. this is a tenuous relationship that the president always had with progressives, and the idea if the base is somehow demoralized by this, that is not good for his prospects, yasmin.

>> should the president make a prime time address about what's happening politically when it comes to these negotiations and what he sees as the shortfalls of the republican party? >> look, i think that to the extent that the president comments, he really is treading a line here where he's trying to both conduct negotiations but also keep his coalition together. one prime example of that is around the issue of work requirements. i think the reason this is a huge sticking point for democrats is because there already are work requirements, and so negotiating them is about punishing poor people who are already punished enough in this economy, and when you look at it the savings of $6 million, $600,000 a year over ten years is ridiculous to be a negotiating point, and so i think that to the extent that the president can allay concerns about whether he's giving away too much in these negotiations would be important to convey to

the american people. and sort of what the lines are. i think republicans in some ways are being, you know, really ridiculous in terms of what they're asking. the irs reforms, you're going to punish poor people on one hand, and then you're going to take away the money from the irs for getting at high end taxpayers getting away with not paying their taxes, and so i think folks are seeing the hypocrisy in that, and it's important for the president to convey what's at stake in these negotiations. >> so congresswoman, let me ask you to go one step further, if you're talking about conveying to the american people this, what about also keeping the progressive arm of the democratic party behind you as president of the united states? how important is that and what does he need to do to make sure that happens? >> well, i think both looking toward 2024 but also in the current environment, you know, the president along with progressives fought really hard

to get some of this legislation through, and so you don't want to give it away in a debt ceiling deal when you fought so hard to get the legislation in the first place, and so look, as much as mccarthy has to worry about his, you know, his conference, i think democrats have to worry and the president has to worry about maintaining what has been the unanimous support among democrats, among legislators for his agenda and for his presidency. and again, i think you don't to want say to, you know, to the base of your party, sorry, but we're going to sell you down the river because we want to cut a deal. i think it's a very fine line to maintain. >> former congresswoman donna edwards, we thank you, allie raffa, sahil kapur, thank you guys as well. all right, so as i mentioned a little bit earlier, right, what is going to happen if we, in fact, do hit this debt ceiling? we are joined by robin farzad,

host of national public radio's "full disclosure" with hopefully all the answers to it that. let's keep words like catastrophic out of it if we can. the hope is we don't want this to happen, right? this could be really bad for america if, in fact, it does -- if you're looking at the markets, robin, and we've been watching this obviously throughout the negotiations over the last couple of weeks, the markets don't really seem to have budged throughout these negotiations. is that a sign they feel as if something's going to get done in washington? >> i also think that it's a cry wolf function from what you saw in 2011, the united states had its credit rating downgraded, once thought unthinkable. markets experienced volatility that year, but yet our indebtedness has gone up significantly in the 12 years since. we survived. there have been several different warnings of a debt ceiling standoff or a fiscal cliff or whatever it is, and you just sense this collective ywn from the markets. as this brinksmanship gets

closer to june 1st or june 8th, whatever you think the true cliff cutoff is, that's when you're going to secret markets and stock markets freak out. >> worst-case scenario, who feels it, robin, and how? >> worst-case scenario, i don't want to say catastrophe, but you'd have like a credit sharknado, right? banks would stop extending loans, no mortgages, anybody who was applying to try to get a home, car loans, if you are trying to get a tesla or whatever it is, everything just freezes. at that point everything is hard wired and embedded back to the united states interest rate, the borrowing, the credit worthiness of the u.s. bond. the triple a markets, mortgage markets, all of them are going to suffer and obviously the stock market would, and that's kind of an unthinkable thing. it's why they let leeman go and then came back and bailed out the system. >> big sigh, let's hope it doesn't happen, thank you. enjoy your memorial day weekend, we appreciate it. >> you too, thank you.

we are back in just 60 seconds, everybody, the longest january 6th sentence yet given to the founder of the oath keepers, the message the judge delivered in court. plus, new reporting from "the washington post," sources saying that two of the former president's employees moved boxes before fbi agents visited mar-a-lago. what it means for the probe into classified documents. this weekend marks the unofficial start of summer with more than 40 million people traveling. i'm going to speak with transportation secretary pete buttigieg about whether the roads, rails and airlines are ready. and later on, a real life whale of a tale that may give "jaws" a run for its money. we'll be right back. its money we'll be right back. truly righ. (woman #3) with verizon's new myplan, i get exactly what i want. and only pay for what i need. (man #2) now i'm in charge...

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founder of the oath keepers to 18 years in prison. the sentence is the longest to date in connection with the january 6th attack on the capitol. i want to bring in nbc justice correspondent, ken dilanian. now only did the judge hand down this really long sentence, he had some pretty pointed words for stewart rhodes. >> that's right, yasmin. the judge imposed the stiffest sentence yet in a january 6th case, in part because he said rhodes poses a continuing threat to the country. attorney general merrick garland said afterward that the sentences imposed on rhodes and his top deputy reflect the grave threat their actions pose to our democratic institutions and he vowed that the justice department will continue holding accountable those criminally responsible for the attack. >> it's the longest sentence imposed on any january 6th defendant so far. oath keepers founder stewart rhodes given 18 years in prison in connection with the attack on the nation's capital. rhodes, a former army para trooper with a yale law degree

was sentenced after being convicted of seditious conspiracy using violence to prevent the government from carrying out its lawful duties. rhodes was not physically present at capitol during the january 6th attack. but prosecutors say rhodes plotted after the election to use violence to keep president trump in power, speaking in november 2020. >> we have men already stationed outside d.c. as a nuclear option in case they attempt to remove the president illegally, we will step? and stop it. >> but the judge said he conspired with others to help make it happen, and to take up arms and foment revolution. clad in an orange prison jumpsuit, rhodes showed no remorse telling the judge he considers himself a political prisoner. but the judge dismissed that claim saying you, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country, to the republic, and the very fabric of our democracy. >> i've got good men on the ground already.

we've been -- recon there last week. >> reporter: the justice department has arrested more than a thousand people in connection with the riot. the capitol assault also left more than 140 members of law enforcement injured. one of them former capitol police sergeant, ackley know gone nell says justice has been served. >> 18 years for stewart rhodes, that's a long sentence by any stretch. >> rightly deserved. it was not a political discourse. it was not peaceful. it was chaos. >> reporter: rhodes' lawyers vowing to appeal, accusing the justice department of weaponizing rhodes' words against him. >> he never went into the capitol. he never assaulted anyone. he never destroyed any property. we think that ultimately this is going to be about free speech. >> and yasmin, the judge also applied a terrorism enhancement to rhodes' sentence. that's the first time that's happened in a january 6th case. that means the judge found his crimes were calculated to influence the conduct of the government by intimidation or

coercion. and proud boys leader enrique tarrio scheduled to be sentenced august 30th, yasmin. >> we thank you. i want to bring in now if i can former u.s. attorney and msnbc legal analyst, barbara mcquade to talk more about this. as always, it's great to talk to you. let's pick up when ken just left off, right? the message the judge here is sending, 18 years and this terrorism enhancement as well, what is your take on it? >> the sentence is so important, yasmin, and, in fact, if anything, i think it's a little low. 18 years is certainly a substantial amount of time. he was facing up to 25, but the crime here is not as his lawyer says committing acts of violence. it is plotting to overthrow the government of the united states. i mean, think about what that crime is. it is such a serious crime of disloyalty, such a danger to our government. seditious conspiracy is a crime to use force to oppose the authority of the united states, but the context here is what makes it so dangerous.

it was to oppose the authority of the united states in the lawful transfer of presidential power, and so the goal of sentencing is not only to punish this person, but to send a message to osteo of deterrence in hopes that it will discourage people from engaging in similar conduct in the future. >> barbara, if you would, stay with us. we do have this exclusive "washington post" reporting about this investigation into classified documents found at mar-a-lago, crete citing people familiar with the matter, two trump employees moved boxes of papers the day before, the timing here is crucial, the day before fbi agents made a visit to retrieve documents as part of a subpoena. people familiar with this matter also tell "the post" that investigators have viewed that timing as suspicious and potentially obstruction of justice. if we could talk about this as well, i think you and i have had many conversations about this ongoing investigation, and one of the issues, the roadblocks we run into is how to prove intent and whether or not the former president of the united states

knew it was wrong to have these documents on his person, right, at his home after leaving the white house. does this prove that? >> well, i think one of the reasons this is so significant, yasmin, is it really shows that the government is focusing on obstruction of justice, not simply the retention of classified or government documents. this really takes it out of the realm of what we have seen with joe biden and mike pence, which appear to be the inadvertent retention of government documents. if donald trump was engaged in obstruction of justice, doing something to conceal these documents or interfere with the government's investigation, that alone is a crime, and then it doesn't even matter whether he knew that he was not permitted to retain government documents or whether he somehow through his mind thought he had declassified them. none of that is relevant if what he did was obstruct justice. >> i want to read a little more of this reporting. the aides carried out a dress rehearsal for moving sensitive papers and that prosecutors have gathered evidence indicating that trump at times kept

classified documents in his office where they were visible and sometimes showed them to others. that is according to people familiar with the matter as well. how close do you think, barbara, looking at this reporting they are to wrapping this probe and deciding on charges? >> well, you never know because as a prosecutor, i never like to predict when my case will be done because so often what happens is you talk to who you think is the last witness, and they tell you something brand new you didn't know before and you've go to talk to five more witnesses. it sounds like it's coming soon. the letter that trump's lawyers sent to the justice department indicates that they fear an indictment is coming soon, but this new reporting that he showed it to other people is another aggravating factor that goes well beyond retaining government documents. showing it to someone unauthorized to receive it is incredibly dangerous. it's another aggravating factor that would tend toward criminal charges. >> barbara mcquade, as always, we thank you. coming up next, everybody.

an 11-year-old shot after calling 911 for help. the mounting calls for the officer responsible to be fired. plus, aaa expecting tens of millions to travel over the upcoming long weekend. can our planes, our trains, our highways handle this first big test of the season? i'm going to speak with transportation secretary pete buttigieg coming up next. we will be right back. l be righ. s made up work, way back when. ♪ ♪ it's our turn now we'll make it up again. ♪ ♪ we'll build freelance teams with more agility. ♪ ♪ the old way of working is deader than me. ♪ ♪ we'll scale up, and we'll scale down ♪ ♪ before you're six feet underground. ♪ ♪ yes, this is how, this is how we work now. ♪

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all right, this morning everybody, growing outrage in mississippi. an attorney for an 11-year-old boy says he was shot in the chest by a police officer who had been called to the child's home for a domestic disturbance. his family wants the body camera video released and the officer fired. nbc news correspondent erin mclaughlin is following the story for us and joining us now. erin, what do we know about what happened here and the investigation? >> reporter: hey there, yasmin. well, there are many questions

than answers at this point in this case. the mother of the child says her son was following the officer's directions immediately before he was shot, and the family's attorney, as you point out, is calling on police to release that video so they can determine exactly what happened. take a listen. >> no justice, no peace. >> reporter: outside city hall in indianola, mississippi, growing frustration and increasing demands to fire a police officer accused of shooting an 11-year-old boy in the chest after the child called authorities for help. >> told me to get him justice, those were his words. >> aderrien murry is home recovering this morning after investigators say he was seriously wounded after police responded o'to a domestic disturbance call. >> he asked me in the hospital why they shot him. >> she asked aderrien to call

police when an altercation escalated early saturday. an officer holding a gun ordered everyone inside to leave the home including aderrien who was shot while coming out of his bedroom. >> he heard the officer and obeyed the command and was immediately shot by that same officer who just told him to come out. it makes no sense. >> reporter: according to cnn, indianola police have confirmed the officer involved in the shooting is greg capers. nbc news has not independently confirmed that, although the city's alderman has told us officer capers has been placed on paid administrative leave after a unanimous vote by the city council. nbc news has not been able to reach officer capers for comment. the mississippi department of public safety tells nbc news the state bureau of investigation is currently assessing this critical incident and gathering evidence adding there will be no further comment until the probe is over. now as aderrien murry heals from his wounds, which according to the family's attorney includes a collapsed lung, lacerated liver

and fractured ribs, there are growing questions about how this nearly fatal altercation with police almost ended a young boy's life. >> an 11-year-old black boy in the city of indianola came within an inch of losing his life. he had done nothing wrong and everything right. >> reporter: the family's lawyer says he plans to file a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city, the police chief, and officer greg capers next week. yasmin. switching gears here, everybody, to the first big test of what is expected to be an extremely busy start for summer travel. an estimated 42.3 million people are going to travel oaf the memorial day weekend. travel on buses on train up 20%, air travel up over 5%, even after last summer's chaos, that's putting it lightly. nbc news correspondent george

solis is live for us from philadelphia international airport with more on this. aaa showing a 40% increase in air fare to this year's top destinations, but even with that, it seems like it's not stopping travelers. >> reporter: no, absolutely not, don't let the thinning crowds behind you be misleading. right now we're sort of in that lull period from the early morning rush transitioning into afternoon rush at phl. an estimated 2.5 million expected to go through security check points today. as you mentioned, this is a real test for the airlines right now. as you mentioned, last summer around this time last year, the airlines had that meltdown, right, where the staffing shortages and the crews simply weren't there, all the airlines saying they do have that rectified right now where i'm standing. i'm close enough to be handing out tsa tickets and checks. fortunately the crews here say they will not need that assistance this year. again, right now we know the faa has been announcing 169 new

highway altitude routes so that's supposed to help improve travel throughout the air. the factor in all of this as it is most memorial day weekends, the weather, obviously that's something they cannot control. severe storms moving through the south could have an impact for those getting ready to go in and out of that hub. the other part of this, the roadways, an estimated 37 million driving. gas much cheaper this year, 3.57 per gallon as opposed to 4.60 last year. something to keep an eye on, namely the airlines. >> george solis, we appreciate you, thank you. for more on this, i want to bring in transportation secretary pete buttigieg to talk more about this. thank you for joining us. it's going to be a very busy travel weekend. you look at what happened last summer, obviously a lot of folks worried about what could be in our future. are we ready? >> well, it's only friday, but so far so good.

yesterday we saw a record, the most air passengers, according to the preliminary data that we've seen at any time before the pandemic, and cancellations were less than 1%. so, you know, all the pressure we put on airlines last year, i want to give them some credit. they have stepped up. they have improved hiring. they've got more realistic schedules. we're a long way from saying we're out of the woods or fully comfortable but we've seen a lot of real progress. the other thing that's paid off is all the work we did last year to improve passenger rights means that this year, if you do get stuck, if you do have a problem, you are much more likely to be able to expect that your hotel or meal or rebooking or whatever you need is going to be covered. so look, this is a big stress test of the system. we're seeing huge, huge demand. but so far this holiday weekend appears to be headed in a good direction. we do see some weather coming in. we're keeping a close eye on that. no one can control the weather. what we're really looking for is whether the system now has enough cushion to handle any

kind of weather that comes in and get back on its feet quickly. >> i'm glad you brought up some of the changes, secretary. i was looking at the dashboard and what different airlines have to offer. i want to stick with this conversation we're tracking about airlines. that was the most kind of problematic last summer. when you're looking at the compensation that passengers can get when it comes to cancellations, it seems like a lot of airlines are on board with that. when it comes to delays beyond three hours, it seems as if they are more resistant to providing compensation there, and there are stories of folks sitting on that tarmac for seven, eight, nine hours, and unless you had some sort of status on that airline, you not nothing for it. what's being done to change that? >> that's right. i'm glad you mentioned the dashboard. that's at flightrights.gov. you can see airline by airline who's going to cover your meal, who's going to give you extra compensation, who's going to rebook you no matter what. that transparency is how we got

the airlines to make more enforceable commitments for what they were going to do. we've gone from none of the top airlines to all of them. what we don't see is compensation for your time. there are a lot of countries where if you get a cancellation or delay and it's something the airline could have prevented, you are entitled to compensation in terms of cash or at least a voucher. very few airlines offer that today. it's why president biden and i a few weeks ago announced a process to launch a rule that would require that. i'd like to see more airlines step up in the meantime. either way, we're going to move forward on this rule making. we think it's important not only that you can get a refund, but if you're waiting hours and hours and it's because of something the airline did wrong that they show some regard for your time as well. >> -- the airline being with the administration, secretary? >> look, on this rule, i tell you they hate it. they don't like the idea of having to pay passengers for

those major delays and cancellations. i think they're going to push back pretty hard. on the other hand, i will say that we've been collaborating on the operational side. what we've seen is that there are a lot of areas where we can work together to make things go more smoothly. your reporter mentioned those 169 new routes. these are basically, like highways through the sky that aircraft patrol puts the aircraft on. that means less time in the air andless congestion and fuel savings. we've worked in the new york market to allow airlines flexibility so they can use larger aircraft on the same routes. more seats with less congestion. the florida air space, we're trying to help airlines, believe it or not, we have so many commercial space launches taking place now that it's affecting the ability of aircraft to get where they go because you've got to close down a big box of air space during a launch window. we're working to push those launch windows out of the busiest time when you need passenger aircraft to take advantage of those routes.

we're going to collaborate where we can. we're also going to enforce where we should, and that kind of push push is the relationship we have. i want to give them credit where credit is due. it does appear so far that we're seeing some real improvements compared to what we saw a year ago. >> so we of course have been watching six day now until june 1st, secretary, while i have you i want to talk to you about the debt talks happening in washington, if they are able to not reach a deal, worst-case scenario, what happens to your department, the transportation department? >> look, that worst-case scenario is terrible for every part of the american economy and every part of american life. travel is no exception. remember the roller coaster we've been on with the american travel system. two years ago airports, the big issue was whether they could stay open at all, whether the airlines were going to go out of business. we got through that, president biden led an economic recovery that is part of the reason why right now demand for air travel is off the charts and the big

issue we're facing is the system being able to keep up instead of worrying about the system falling apart. default would put us probably immediately into a recession, and you know, across every transportation sector, of course that has deeply negative consequences, one of many, many reasons why a default cannot be allowed to happen and, you know, can't speak to the details of the negotiations going on right now, but that's obviously the end goal here is to make sure default's off the table. and then we can negotiate on the push and pull of normal budget decisions. >> do you think quickly here, secretary, the president should get out front of the political push and pull, especially as we're looking towards the next election making a prime time address in what he sees as the shortfalls of republicans in this negotiating process? >> well, you know, i'm not going to get into campaigning while i'm here on the official side, but what i will say is i think the president's message has been very consistent about trying to keep politics at arms length and just do the things that are

going to make our economy and country stronger. a lot of the best examples for that are in the realm of transportation and infrastructure where the president worked across the aisle, got a lot of republicans working with democrats to get that big infrastructure law through, and we're going around the country making announcements. yesterday i was in cedar rapids, iowa, where we're improving the airport there and in dubuque where we're funding a plan to help them get rid of a railroad crossing that blocks a loft lot of traffic in their town. even those republican congressional members who voted against the package, they're all for the projects coming out of it. i think that's evidence that that kind of focus, that kind of center of gravity on just getting stuff done is what most americans expect, even as the politics come and go. >> secretary buttigieg, thank you for taking the time, sir. we appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. coming up next, everybody don versus ron, what the desantis team is telling supporters about how they think he can beat trump. plus, the war in ukraine, we

are in kyiv after a new wave of russian attacks overnight. and then later on, something ominous is happening in the waters off of portugal and spain, why sailors may need a bigger boat. we'll be right back. 'll be righ. tourists that turn into scientists. tourists taking photos that are analyzed by ai. so researchers can help life underwater flourish. ♪ so it's decided, we'll park even deeper into parking spaces so people think they're open. surprise. [ laughs ] [ horn honks, muffled talking ] -can't hear you, jerry. -sorry. uh, yeah, can we get a system where when someone's bike is in the shop, then we could borrow someone else's? -no! -no! or you can get a quote with america's number-one motorcycle insurer and maybe save some money while you're at it. all in favor of that. [ horn honking ] there's a lot of buttons and knobs in here.

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welcome back. after a rocky rollout, ron desantis is turning his focus to beating donald trump, desantis spoke at an event in orlando this morning.

his first public event since announcing his candidacy. our nbc news team reports that at a summit with donors in miami yesterday, the florida governor mapped out their strategy to beat the gop front runner including positioning desantis as the values candidate. the latest polling puts trump ahead of desantis by sizable margins. i want to bring in nbc news correspondent dasha burns and former republican congressman from florida, carlos curbelo. dasha, let me start with you, how does desantis think he can beat trump sf. >> well, look, he's going to be laying out the case as he did yesterday to donors here in miami that he is the best alternative to the former president and that voters are, in fact, looking for that. one big piece of evidence that they are going to be touting for that point is massive number that the campaign just put out. they're saying that they raised $8.2 million in the 24 hours since desantis launched his

campaign. now, that is significant. that is higher than when president biden announced in that same period in 2019 kicking off his 2020 campaign and higher than the number that trump brought, and it took him some six weeks to get to about $9.5 million per "the new york times" so they're going to be using that number to show that, look, people are, in fact, interested and ready to invest in somebody other than donald trump. and desantis is now starting to sort of sharpen his attack on the former president a little bit more than we've seen him do in the past. take a listen to just some of what he said. >> i think a lot of people realize that biden is a failure, but i think they're looking for a vehicle they'll be comfortable getting behind, and i think i could coalesce a pretty good number of people to be able to do that. i do believe that there's a limit to the number of voters that would consider the former

president at this point. >> reporter: the challenge ahead for this campaign is to create sort of a permission structure for voters to move away from the former president, and that is a tough task. but he'll be starting to make that case as a candidate officially now as he goes to those critical early swing states next week, iowa, new hampshire, and south carolina, yasmin. >> carlos, okay, so the desantis camp, they've admitted the twitter situation, whatever you want to call it, the rollout, was, in fact, a flop, right? but i want to bring up those poll numbers if we can because there's a pretty big distance between the former president and desantis as of now, and to be fair he just entered the race, 56, 25, 53, 26, those are pretty big spreads there. what does he need to do in your estimation to catch up? >> well, yasmin, that's why the gloves are off because of those poll numbers, and i think the desantis campaign finally realized that if they want to defeat donald trump in this republican primary, they can't

run a copycat campaign. desantis is going to have to distinguish himself, tell voters why he's different and better than donald trump. donald trump is basically the incumbent in the republican primary and challengers need to make compelling cases for change. that's why you see desantis focusing so much on his pandemic record. he thinks that he can draw a very clear distinction between him and donald trump, his campaign actually put out a video i think yesterday highlighting how president trump went along with the idea of shutting down the country and took the advice of medical experts like dr. fauci. the desantis campaign thinks that's a strength for them in the republican primary making the case that desantis was different, that he opened up the state, that he didn't allow other people to make these decisions for him. >> what do you make of this idea of desantis running kind of as the values candidate, carlos? i think back to the moment in

which we were talking about the trump hush money case and desantis was asked specifically about this and stormy daniels, and he said, without mentioning names essentially and i'm paraphrasing here, i don't really know anything about having to pay off porn stars, right? whether or not that was an indicator of where we were headed with this thing, but do you think it will hold up? >> yeah, typically this would be an advantage for a candidate like ron desantis because donald trump is surrounded by so many scandals and controversy, and he has all these legal issues, and of course a lot of christian evangelicals might object to some of his personal conduct, but we've seen people try this before, yasmin, and unfortunately for other republicans, it seems -- at least up to now -- that republican primary voters, even christian evangelicals are willing to forgive donald trump or to look past his personal transgressions.

so this is kind of like a ted cruz 2016 strategy, and we know that there are people who work for former senator cruz running the desantis campaign or at least involved. it kind of makes sense why they would be taking this approach, it is an approach that hasn't worked in the past. >> former congressman carlos curbelo, dasha burns, thank you as well. coming up next, another massive attack across ukraine overnight, including on a medical facility. we are in the region coming up next. and a case of covid deja vu for china, are they in for another wave? we'll be right back. another wave we'll be right back. you can make it even smarter. now ports can know where every piece of cargo is. and where it's going. (dock worker) right on time. (vo) robots can predict breakdowns and order their own replacement parts. (foreman) nice work. (vo) and retailers can get ahead of the fashion trend of the day with a new line tomorrow. with a verizon private 5g network, you can get more agility and security. giving you more control of your business.

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molly hunter is joining us from kyiv. molly, good to talk to you. what can you tell us about the latest wave of attacks? >> reporter: yeah, this happened overnight. the whole country, multiple different regions under massive aerial attacks. the details about that dnipro attack, we have seen video of the hospital, the wreckage, firefighters, first responders picking through the wreckage, trying to find survivors. 23 injured, 21 people we understand are still in the hospital. these are critical, serious injuries, it appears, including two children. and two people were killed. president zelenskyy responded almost immediately, saying russian terrorists once again confirmed their status of fighters of everything humane and honest. he tweeted out calling it a crime against humanity. they say this was a civil hospital, a three-story hospital, used to treat civilians, not a military hospital, not a military target. the regional governor called it a mass attack. the numbers we have got -- this

is becoming a very regular occurrence, the morning after we have big numbers from the ukrainian air force about thes the number they shot down. when a drone or a missile is shot down over a city, that means debris comes down. in kyiv, in the capital, we understand houses were damaged as that debris came down, a big worry. even though the air defenses are working, still doesn't mean this capital city and cities across this country are fully safe from damage. >> molly hunter for us, thank you. so china, bracing for a new surge of covid infections that could hit a peak of 65 million cases a week by june. the wave is being fueled by the latest omicron variant xbb. this is coming six months after china all but dismantled its pandemic infrastructure and stopped severe lockdowns. coming up next, a mystery at sea. why is a pod of orcas attacking and even sinking boats?

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the future starts now. welcome back. a growing mystery at sea. a group of orcas appear to be attacking and then even sinking boats off the coast of portugal and spain. nbc news chief international correspondent keir simmons is following this wild story. >> reporter: this is one of those funny, not funny stories.

not funny if you are in one of these boats because a group of killer whales, people will know, is called a pod, but maybe they should be renamed a gang or army or a troop because for some reason, they appear to be targeting boats. a british couple setting sail off the coast of morocco, when a group of killer whales started battering their boat. the orcas continuing the barrage for at least an hour. they managed to keep the 46-foot sailing yacht afloat, but just days later, another vessel was not so lucky. three killer whales struck the rutter and side of the stale sailboat, causing it to this sink as the spanish coast guard rushed to the rescue. many more have been seriously damaged in the last three years. according to researchers, there were about 15 orca interactions

when this began in 2020. incredibly, that number has now ballooned into the hundreds by 2023. and all of them happening here along the iberian peninsula. >> it doesn't fit with anything we have ever seen anywhere else in the world. >> reporter: scientists are stumped. >> so, three theories. one is the whales are super stressed, they're acting out because the oceans are too noisy. >> reporter: theory two, the jaws thing. some experts believe the sea creatures may be out for revenge. organizing the attacks after a whale in the pod, possibly a female, called white gladys, was hit by a boat. experts say orcas are very social, and do often learn behavior from one another. but andrew with the university of british columbia believes a less aggressive option is most likely. play time. >> killer whales will rush up

behind a boat and sometimes put their is now straight into the propeller wash and feel -- it is like a jacuzzi. >> reporter: no injuries have been reported. and killer whales have not been known to harm humans. but if the whales think they're having fun, for terrified sailors, the joke's gone too far. now, thankfully this kind of fashion, this whale trend doesn't appear to have spread. until the scientists figure out exactly what is going on, say it with me, we're going to need a bigger boat. >> keir simmons, thank you for that. that does it for me, everybody. you can watch "ana cabrera reports" week days at 10:00 a.m. on msnbc. you can catch me on weekends saturday and sunday 2:00 p.m. eastern here as well. jose diaz-balart is next. and good morning. it is 11:00 a.m. eastern, 8:00 a.m. pacific. i'm jose diaz-balart. we're less than a week ay