traffic problems as many of us have, be patient if you can, and good luck out there, and have a wonderful july 4th and think about what our nation was built upon all those years ago, which is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and access for all. yasmin vossoughian is in for chris jansing reports starting right now. ♪♪ >> hey, everybody, good afternoon to you. i'm yasmin vossoughian in for chris jansing here at msnbc headquarters in new york city. we're going to begin with that breaking news out of the supreme court. two major decisions with potentially massive implications. justices in a 6-3 decision striking down president biden's student debt forgiveness plan, a major blow to the white house and deflating a campaign promise that fired up troves of young people. so who will people blame here when they have to start paying

back their debt? president biden tweeting moments ago this, unthinkable. this fight isn't over. i'll have more to announce when i address the nation this afternoon. and on the final day of pride, the court backed a web designer opposed to same-sex marriage saying the business owner has a free speech right under the constitution's first amendment to refuse to endorse messages she disagrees with. lorie smith the graphic designer just celebrated her win in our last hour. >> this is a victory not just for me but for all of us. whether you share my beliefs or completely disagree with them, free speech is for everyone. >> but justice sotomayor in her dissent calls this ruling profoundly wrong and that today is a sad day in the lives of lgbt people. we're going to break down the massive legal and the political implications as well, by the way, for the court, congress, and the 2024 race for the presidency. we want to begin with the

specifics of those two historic supreme court decisions. in the student loan case, chief justice john roberts saying the biden administration had sought to rewrite the statute authorizing the program, quote, from the ground up. on the other side, justice elena kagan accusing the majority of exceeding the court's proper limited role in our nation's jurisprudence in her dissent . ruling in favor of a web designer who refuses to create same-sex wedding websites. justice neil gorsuch writing this, tolerance, not coercion is our nation's answer. in a blistering dissent, justice sotomayor calls the decision a grave error and goes on to say this, time and again, businesses and other commercial entities have claimed constitutional rights to discriminate, and time and again this court has courageously stood up to those claims until today. today the court shrinks.

joining us now, nbc's julian ainsley outside the supreme court, lisa rubin joining us as well, mike memoli, thank you for joining us. appreciate you guys, julia let me just start with you, specifically on the student loan decision first, walk us through it and what you're hearing so far. >> reporter: well, it was a very loud striking down of the biden plan to eliminate up to $20,000 worth of student loan debt for over 43 million americans, and what they could have done is a softer approach where they could have even, first of all, said these people don't have standing or that the biden administration simply went about this the wrong way. instead, they're saying that the heroes act, which is the congressional act that the biden administration leaned on in its statute to have authority to put out this claim in the first place, supreme court justice, chief justice roberts said that that act was only to modify student loans, not outright cancel it. he was very firm in that

decision. he also went so far later on in that opinion to criticize the dissent, some of that strong dissent you just mentioned from sotomayor, also coming from justice kagan saying that that kind of dissent is starting to erode the public trust, that they're having misperceptions about this court, those perceptions, of course, are that this court has become too politicized, and we're hearing from people behind me here, some upset, some celebrating this decision, but many saying it is becoming too politicized. >> lisa, give me your takeaway, your gut as you're kind of reading through this majority opinion first on student loan debt forgiveness, and then i want to get into more of the details, especially what we read in that dissent. what'd you make of it at first? >> yasmin, i'm thinking about this not only in terms of student loan forgiveness, but in terms of broader principles, and what you see here is six justices really trying to curtail the power of the

president and executive agencies to make regulations. now, narrowly this is about whether or not the secretary of education took too much liberty with heroes act, but more broadly, this is about a conservative movement that wants to curtail what they call the administrative state or the regulatory state. they want to hold congress to its words very strictly so that the president and his secretaries cannot make policy on their own. that's an objective of theirs that really comes from opposition to environmental regulation, but across the board, they are doing what they can to try and curtail the power to regulate both on behalf of the president and on behalf of his executive agencies. you see justice kagan in her dissent forcefully pushing back on that and saying the people who are trying to make policy here is the court. the heroes act itself actually gave the secretary very broad authority to modify or waive certain conditions and substitute them with new

conditions or terms. make no mistake, justice kagan says, the policy making here is done by the court enlarging its own authority at the expense, not only of congress, but of the president and his agencies. >> lisa, let's pull on that justice kagan thread a little bit. i want to read a quote from the dissenting opinion there, which i find fascinating. the court's first overreach in this case, and i think this is what you were referring to, is deciding it at all. under article 3 of the constitution, a plaintiff must have standing to challenge a government action, and that requires a personal stake. an injury, in fact. we do not allow plaintiffs to bring suit just because they oppose a policy. talk more about this, lisa. >> yeah, i mean, even as julia said at the beginning of her comments, there were a number of ways that this court could have decided the student loan dispute, and one easy out for them would have been to say that the missouri state corporation that was the plaintiff here

didn't have any standing because the state wasn't in a position to litigate for this separate public corporation. that's what justice kagan is essentially saying. like you're giving this entity a pass on something very fundamental to litigation. does the person who's bringing the case even have an injury at all? she's saying, no, they didn't, and instead, the court skips over that to try and decide in its broadest possible terms that the heroes act doesn't say what the president and congress at the time thought it did. the other thing, yasmin, that i'm really struggling with is this is a court that prides itself on being textualist, meaning they read the plain language of statutes and they try to hold congress to that plain language. but here you see chief justice roberts in his majority opinion even quoting from a press conference that speaker pelosi gave in 2021 as support for the proposition that the president and the secretary of education don't have the authority to impose debt cancellation on

their own. if the plain text of the statute is enough, you don't need to import statements that speaker pelosi made at a press conference in order to support that point. >> we're following developments on these two cases out of the supreme court, right? let's weigh in first on what you're hearing from the white house on one of his fundamental campaign promises, right? student loan forgiveness ask what more we think the white house may do, how the president will address the nation in just over an hour or so from now in from what we're getting from the supreme court. >> the white house has been following these supreme court cases we're talking about. this directly impacts them in terms of it's about an action the president took, an action he took on the eve of the midterm elections seemingly as a way to help galvanize young voters. we will hear from the president. according to the white house, he's going to lay out some new ways to help protect student loan borrowers, to help give them some relief. we don't know what that looks like.

there are a range of things the president could consider. one thing some progressive activists calling for. part of the policy is a pause on having to pay any more student loan payments at the moment. they're saying he should extend that indefinitely. we haven't heard from the white house what that might look like. that's one piece of add vase they're getting. as it relates to the colorado case, it's interesting having to do with the antidiscrimination law that the web designer was challenging here. this is one where the white house is not unlike the affirmative action case yesterday or the student loan case today outlining a prescription to it. they do say the president will continue to fight for the equality act. in a statement, the president just released in the last hour, nobody should face discrimination because of who they are and who they love, and anybody's dignity or identity is challenged, democracy is threatened and we all suffer. so this is an example of some key constituencies for this president in terms of his political coalition, the lgbtq community, young voters, african american voters, and they are all going to be looking very

closely now at the white house to see how they can respond beyond just saying go out and vote. >> when i stood outside the supreme court after the dobbs decision, i spoke to a lot of young voters, ask they spoke to me about the dobbs decision. many of them coupled it with student loan forgiveness. that was top of mind for so many young voters then as we believe it is today as well. before we move on to the other decision, julia, lisa, i just want you to quickly weigh in on whether or not the president, his administration could feasibly pull off a possible extension of this moratorium on loan payments, the plans that they are mulling as mike memoli tells us. >> i think it depends on whether or not there's another statutory basis for doing so. but if the trump administration taught us anything about a reaction to supreme court decisions, it's if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. you'll remember, yasmin, that the muslim ban that trump

implemented didn't experience success with the supreme court on its first try, but it did when he reworked it, and maybe president biden and his team have taken a lesson from that and are going to try and fiesse this in a way it would pass muster with this court. >> this may not be the end all, be all with trying to get something like this through the supreme court. julia, let me go back to you. mike touched on it, the decision with the wedding web design case. talk us through that and some of what you're hearing there. >> reporter: i will, yasmin. first i wanted to go back to the priest discussion to tell you that about 50 marchers just left the supreme court to go to the white house to ask the president to do exactly what you've just been talking about, come up with another plan, a plan b to work on student loan forgiveness. we'll update you on that rally as it amasses. things have actually gotten a lot quieter on the supreme court because eyes are on the white house to see what might come knicks for the student loan borrowers. as far as the 303 creative case where that web designer in

colorado, she had already had some clients who were lgbt. she was worried they might ask her to do a wedding website, even though it's not clear that they actually had -- or they haven't asked her so far to do a wedding webwebsite. she was worried under colorado's laws she would be forced to do so. something that came up today as justice gorsuch was summing his opinion in the case, he said imagine if someone who was pro-lgbt, say you have a gay person being asked to create a website that's anti-lgbt. they're trying to come up with a lot of what if scenarios here for the conservative justices showing they're trying to protect minority rights here under the guise of free speech. msnbc recently spoke to the plaintiff in this case and the attorneys arguing for the other side, and here's what they had to say. >> today's decision affirmed that states like colorado cannot eliminate beliefs they dislike from the public square.

people like lorie who believes marriage is a unique relationship between a husband and a wife should not be bullied, persecuted, or banished from the public square. >> this case will have the impact to cause considerable mischief undermining the principle that once you open up the doors to the public as a business, you have to serve all comers. >> reporter: so you can see with these decisions and these are some very controversial, highly polarizing decisions today across the country, often happens at the owned. term. it's also just another way to show that this conserve tich court that's really broken down time and time again on these 6-3 opinions is going to continue. we may see more challenges in the next term from conservative states who are empowered, inspired by what they've seen today. >> a lot of folks are worried this is a slippery slope and why the majority opinion tries to

argue it is not and this is a very narrow decision, you look at this decision today and you wonder if an interracial couple is asking for their wedding website to be designed by an individual who does not believe in interracial marriage, upon this decision now they can refuse service to those individuals. what do you make of this decision today and how worried should people be that this, in fact, will turn sba something so much bigger as members of the lgbtq+ community fear they've lost rights today. >> you ask me how worried people should be and the answer is very. this is a court that supports such an expansive view of religious freedom that they are willing to let that view of religious liberty encroach upon the rights of others. today's decision is about a web developer who might not even have had a request before her to design that wedding website. in fact, the guy who supposedly sent her a request to make that gay wedding website has denied to the new republic that the

request ever came from him. again, as with the student loan case, it's not even clear that this is a dispute that should have been before the court, but let's take a step back for a second. lorie smith's chief argument was that this was an encroachment on her free speech rights. she would have had to entors the wedding of these two people. what's to stop someone from coming forward and saying, i'm a checkout bagger at a grocery store, and somebody came in wearing a t-shirt that says love is for everyone. if i have to check them out and bag their groceries, i'm now endorsing their message. that's the slope we're talking about. it's a very, very dangerous slope not only for the lgbtq community's access to normal, everyday services but as you said, for other folks who are claiming religious liberties and the right to be exempt from other general legal applications, right? there are a number of laws that require services to be provided to folks across the board.

what's to stop religious ob/gyns from saying i don't want to perform, for example, well woman exams on people who identify as lgbtq or i don't want to give tests for hiv and aids for people who identify as gay. i think this is a really dangerous decision given that this court believes that religious liberty, when it can collides with other well-established rights, that religious liberty and free speech get to win. and let's see how far this court is willing to take that. i for one am scared. >> so the question is the over arching question, i should say, what precedent does this set for the supreme court as we go into the next term. a supreme court already suffering as we well-known all eyes on the supreme court, and especially the communities that are being targeted it seems in these decisions. nbc's julia ainsley thank you, mike memoli, thank you, lisa rubin, thank you as well. we've not a lot more show ahead.

up next, the president's student loan plan has broad support, especially amongst voters under 30. how will the high court's decision impact the 2024 presidential race? we are back in just 60 seconds. s ♪ what do we always say, son? liberty mutual customizes your car insurance... so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. now you get out there, and you make us proud, huh? ♪ bye, uncle limu. ♪ stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ (bobby) my store and my design business? only pwe're exploding.need.

but my old internet, was not letting me run the show. so, we switched to verizon business internet. they have business grade internet, nationwide. (vo) make the switch. it's your business. it's your verizon. we are following that breaking news, everybody. the supreme court striking town president biden's student loan forgiveness program, a plan that 47% of americans supported according to the latest usa today ipsos poll and was a major campaign promise from candidate biden back in 2020. i want to bring in now nbc's shaq brewster who's in chicago for us feting reaction from voters on the ground. also with us, tim miller, the former communications director for the jeb bush 2016 campaign and the writer at large at the bulwark, and an msnbc political analyst. shaq, let me just start with you on this one. i know you've been speaking to some folks out there. you've been covering this for some time. how is this going to affect people on the ground? how are they reacting?

>> reporter: well, if you have loans, the bottom line is as things currently stand, those repayments need to begin in the fall, in october. so that's kind of the sense that a lot of people have been telling me that there's some frustration that those payments will be starting back up. you know, one thing to keep in mind here is 26 million people put in an application for forgiveness. more than 16 million people were approved for some sort of forgiveness, so many people were expecting to get that relief. one couple described it to me as they're going to have another mortgage payment starting back up in the fall. but that, of course, is not everyone. there are plenty of people who are opposed to this forgiveness program to begin with and supported what the supreme court did. i want you to listen to a mix of opinions here, starting with a gentleman who was torn on the issue, because he said he and his wife paid their loan, but their daughter who is a teacher is struggling to pay hers. >> it's your responsibility,

right? you borrow some money to go to college, and there should be a responsibility to pay that back. but in saying that, i think we got to do a better job in financial aid to begin with. >> i think it's a real shame. >> why? >> because i think it's something that's desperately needed that congress won't act on. i think biden has no choice but to act. >> reporter: another person connected today's decision to yesterday's decision involving affirmative action and put it as a question for the court and the priority that this court had. there's a lot of opinions out there, especially because it impacts their monthly budgets. >> tim, let's talk politics with all of this because ultimately this was a major campaign promise, right, for then candidate biden as he ran for president. as i mentioned to mike memoli in our last conversation as i sit outside the supreme court for the dobbs decision, there were a lot of young folks that wanted to see student loan forgiveness happen. they were looking for president biden to make it happen. when you're looking at polling, there's support for t 47% of

americans according to the usa today ipsos poll supporting student loan forgiveness. 53% of people 18 to 29 in support as well. who takes the heat for what took place at the supreme court today when it came to student loan forgiveness? >> reporter: well, who should take the heat are people on the hill, mostly republicans but also manchin and sinema and a couple of others who wouldn't support this. the reality is anybody who had reasonable expectations for what any court would have tone, at least in this case, is they would have not upheld this executive action. there are limits to what a president can to. if you sort of imagine the shoe being on the other foot, you wouldn't want a republican president making decisions about who's allowed to pay things and who isn't going around congress. if you're a democratic viewer.

the reality of this is this has to go through congress. i think joe biden did what he could to try to make this happen. even nancy pelosi said that she wasn't sure this was going to be legal or didn't think it was going to be able to go through. now in 2024 this has to be a campaign issue. democrats need to do a good job about messaging to younger voters, about how elections have consequence asks democrats have to go out and win in 2024 if they want to have a different result. >> especially after dobbs, right? there was a lot of questions as to what the president could do to change the supreme court. he was asked about that and if he had any intentions of making dramatic changes to the supreme court by my colleague nicolle wallace yesterday here on msnbc. i want to take a listen to what he had to say. and then we'll talk. >> will you look at court reform again? >> well, i did look -- here's two things. before i got elected while i put together a group of

constitutional scholars to try to expand the court, which i think is a mistake. after all the judgment was that doesn't make sense because it can become so politicized in the future. >> i'm going to ask you this question, tim. you know what it's like to galvanize voters to vote for supreme court slots. right? republicans vote for supreme court slots. historically democrats do not. what does the president need to do now to galvanize voters if he's not going to make sweeping changes to the supreme court? >> maybe that should be the other foot. who knows what will happen. clarence thomas not exactly a spring chicken. new supreme court are going to open up. i might be an outlier on this one, i want president biden to answer to that. i get that it's frustrating. i get that people want change to happen now. i understand that, but we are

going down a very dangerous place if each side decides that, you know, if the democrats decide that just because the republicans acted improperly when it came to merrick garland or when it came to neil gorsuch, i agree with that. we should try to do radical changes as well. i think a lot of voters, that was the reason why biden was elected. he repealed to a lot of voters that wanted to return to normalcy. i'm frustrated about the court. i'm venting on twitter right now about the decision act the 303 website designer. there are ways to go about this and i'm happy that president biden is going about it in a way that is within the law, and i think that hopefully that will serve him well in 2024 if he's up against an anti-legal autocrat want to be like donald trump. >> weird, venting on twitter, who does that. tim miller, shaq brewster. still ahead, how lawmakers are responding to the supreme

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welcome back. on capitol hill strong reaction to today's twin supreme court decisions. in a tweet, senate majority lead r chuck schumer said the ruling on lgbtq+ rights by the, quote, maga right activist wing of the supreme court is a giant step backward for human rights. marsha blackburn tweeted that the court's other ruling confirms what we've known for quite some time. president biden's student loan forgive plan is -- it's wildly unfair to families who choose to make personal sacrifices to

avoid debt. i want to bring in ali vitali. as always, good to talk to you. what more are we hearing from lawmakers this afternoon on capitol hill in reaction to these scotus decisions? >> look, yasmin, those two responses that you point out, are pretty much indicative of the way republicans and democrats are reacting to these two decisions. focusing on student loan debt where chuck schumer had a similarly angry reaction. schumer of course was one of those key senators along with elizabeth warren and others who pushed the biden administration on this student loan plan in the first place. now schumer having a reaction that the court made the wrong decision. many other democrats echoing that sentence. mitch mcconnell calling the initial student loan deal a raw deal for hardworking taxpayers

and saying in a statement, he goes on to say that the president of the united states can't hijack 20 yeermd emergency powers to have the pockets of his high earning base and make suckers out o working families. mccarthy on the house side also echoing what mcconnell said there saying that biden's student loan giveaway is ruled unlawful, echoing the court there, and then saying the president must follow the law. speaker pelosi's words were also yauz ds in this decision by the supreme court. i remember being in front of the then speaker when she said in 2021 that she didn't think that the president had the authority to do what he was doing on student loans and it had to be an act of congress. we knew then what we know now, there is no numbers reality for that to happen through congress, and that's why we saw the biden administration take the steps that they did. nevertheless, i think some

conservatives i'm seeing, especially on twitter are get glee out of the fact that pelosi's own words were used in this decision to tear down something by this administration, but i think by and large, again, in the decisions we saw yesterday, the decisions that we saw today, and even a decision that we saw a year ago in dobbs, this is something that democrats are going to take not just on twitter, not just online for reactions but they're going to take it on the campaign trail, yasmin. >> i'm wondering if republicans will as well, especially the former president of the united states being integral to those appointed to the supreme court helping get these decisions across the finish line. i'm sure he will. ali vitali for us, as always, thank you for my friend. congressman george santos back in court today, everybody, making his first appearance since he pled not guilty to 13 federal counts including charges he misled donors, stole from his campaign, admitted unemployment fraud, and lied to congress about being a millionaire. that's a lot. nbc's rehema ellis is at the federal courthouse in central

islip, new york. i know you're wearing a mask because of the poor air quality we're dealing with right now. those canada wildfires making their way to new york yet again. outside that courthouse today, what happened? what can you tell us? >> reporter: >> reporter: it was a very brief hearing. what happened was the federal prosecutors told the court they had turned over more than 80,000 pages of documents to george santos attorney. george santos, neither he nor his attorney came out of this briefing hearing and offered any comment: there were some protesters, about ten or so with signs and very vocal calling for santos to step down. one man i talked to, i asked him why did he feel a need to be out here. take a listen. >> george santos spent a good portion of the last years

political cycle misrepresenting who he was, and too many people failed to notice, to identify what was going on, to be present. i think it's incumbent upon us now to show up, stand firms and let him know and let the community know and the public know and our country know we are not going to be fooled again. we are going to stand firm. we will stand up to george santos and be present every step of the way. >> reporter: george santos insists that he is innocent of all the charges that have been leveled against him no trial date has been set yet, but the next hearing is set for september 7th at noon. >> rehema ellis, thank you. appreciate it. we're getting some breaking news in, folks. as i mentioned there was a possibility of hearing from the president later on today with regard to supreme court decisions. we're going to be hearing from

him at 3:30 p.m. eastern standard time. so far what we know the president's thoughts on both of these decisions not only the wedding designer decision along with student loan forgiveness, calling the supreme court ruling in favor of 303 creative, quote, unquote disappoint saying the administration will work with states to fight back against attempts to roll back civil rights protections, and of course the president will be addressing the student loan forgiveness plan that he campaigned on let's not forget, promises that he made, and i'm sure the fight that he will be continuing. so we're going to be bringing you those comments live 3:30 p.m. eastern time here on msnbc. we're going to be hearing his reactions to the two most recent supreme court decisions released today that will have monumental effects in the time to come. thousands of flights delayed and canceled this week putting what could be a record breaking

travel weekend off to a shaky start. the outlook for the millions of people heading to the airport today and tomorrow. plus, those hazy skies are not making things any easier as we just saw rehema ellis on camera with a mask on. you've got more smoke from canadian wildfires drifting over the midwest and east coast as well, making it hard to breathe, everybody. when it could all start to improve, we'll be right back.

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destinations. tom costello. >> good day, we are expecting 2.8 million people to go through tsa check points today. if we just have just a smidge more, we will set an all-time record for travelers through check points. the all-time record was back thanksgiving of 2019. that says, yes, air travel is back. it is completely back to pre-pandemic levels and, in fact, close to exceeding pre-pandemic levels. united airlines has been the story all week. it's said to cancel a quarter to a third of its flights multiple days this week because of operational issues it's had at its major hubs, newark, denver, houston intercontinental as well as a chicago o'hare and to a lesser extent we've seen that also at san francisco. the airline says it's getting very close to getting back to normal operations, at this hour about 5% of the flights for united are canceled as they continue to recover, and the most affected airport continues to be denver. meanwhile, in the northeast and here at washington reagan airport, we had this heavy

canadian smoke coming in here. that has delayed operations, certainly yesterday. we had red air quality here that was the worst in the world, and it slowed operations at the three airports in washington. so we are anxious to see that smoke dissipate and move out of here. it could still be a factor not only in washington today but up and down the east coast. >> thank you to tom costello for that. i want to bring in nbc meteorologist angie lassman. we're having this air quality issue yet again, i know that's affected some flights along with this deadly heavy wave we're experiencing as well. >> we've got a really busy weekend ahead when it comes to air quality and heat and strong storms. let's start with that air quality tom mentioned, still 110 million people at risk for this poor air quality. it's mainly the worst focused into parts of the northeast and great lakes, new york, philadelphia seeing some of that difficult air quality today, so just be mindful for the strenuous activities outdoors through the day today. we're going to see some

improvement. here's how it's laid out. we'll still be dealing with that smoke plume coming from those canadian wildfires. we'll start to sea not only showers and thunderstorms working through to clear out the air, but also a switch in the wind direction. when we have westerly winds that clears the smoke from our area, and we're looking at improvements for the air quality. not so much of an improvement per se over the next couple of days when it comes to the heat. we've still got 64 million people under heat alerts focused from the ohio valley stretching to the gulf coast and even on the southwest. california is going to see some of their hottest temperatures of the year in the coming days. here's what it looks like in the southwest. palm springs headed to 119 by sunday. it's not just the southwest. you saw those alerts for parts of the gulf coast and extending north as well. these temperatures are going to be into the triple digits and really uncomfortable through the week. >> angie lassman for us, thank you, angie, appreciate it. it is troubling form of harassment that is on the rise. how the fbi is trying to stop the dangerous practice known as

swatting. plus, new options on the table to boost ukraine's fight against russia, but not everyone thinks they should be used. we are live in ukraine coming up. and now she's got myplan, the game-changing new plan that lets her pick exactly what she wants and save on every perk. sadie is getting her plan ready for a big trip. travel pass, on. nice iphone. cute couple. trips don't last forever, neither does summer love. so, sadie is moving on. apple music, check! introducing myplan. get exactly what you want, only pay for what you need. switch now and get iphone 14 pro max on us. offer ends july 5th. it's your verizon. i'm saving with liberty mutual, mom. they customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. you could save $700 dollars just by switching. ooooh, let me put a reminder on my phone. on the top of the pile! oh. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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coming as the biden administration considers sending cluster munitions, a controversial weapon that could have a major impact on the battlefield. that's according to two senior u.s. officials. we are also following the uncertainty surrounding the russian military after the mercenary revolt, i want to bring in nbc's kelly cobiella who's standing by for us in dnipro, ukraine, also with us michael mcfaul, former u.s. ambassador to russia and an msnbc international affairs analyst. kelly, let me start with you on this one, hearing reports from inside ukraine that russian forces are pulling out of zaporizhzhia, home to europe's largest nuclear power plant. what do we know about this? >> reporter: so this information is coming from the ukrainian military intelligence. the intelligence chief there warning that they have reports that the ukrainian staff, very small contingent of a ukrainian staff which stayed on at that plot has been told to evacuate by monday, that there are fewer -- they're scaling down

military patrols there as well, and the fear, which the ukrainians have been sort of sounding the alarm on for the past -- at least for the past week is that russia will -- is planning some sort of terrorist attack at the plant. the ukrainians have been holding drills in case of some sort of nuclear event in the area. that was happening yesterday, now the head of the iaea, the u.n.'s nuclear watchdog yesterday told french tv that he was at the plant two weeks ago and that he saw no sign of any sort of plan to attack the plant, but he said anything can happen, and that's what worries him. also, the foreign minister for russia, sergey lavrov weighed in on this today. he said that these are, quote, pure lies on the part of the ukrainians and that the ukrainians are playing, quote, a dangerous game. there was more activity in other parts of ukraine today. there was a strike by the ukrainians in the southern city

of berdyansk, 50 miles west of mariupol. ukrainians claim they hit military headquarters for the russians ask a fuel depot there, if true and the russians aren't commenting on it, if true that would mean they're using those long-range weapons that were given to them by the brits on that strike. and then another thing to mention, you've already mentioned it in the lead in there, the status of the wagner group, a russian, high-ranking russian lawmaker has said that the reason for the mutiny was that prigozhin refused to sign over command and control of his fighters to the russian military and that's why he marched on mo, that he was going to lose control of those fighters. the pentagon says there is still a small element of wagner fighters in russian controlled ukraine. zelenskyy says they're now moving forces, adjusting their position in the north because of

the possibility of wagner fighters in belarus. >> ambassador, so after, you know, you and i have spoken multiple times now since this rebellion, revolt, whatever you want to call it at this point, whoever you were talking to, and the idea was the narrative is, okay, ukraine needs to double down on the counter offensive should the west, should the united states be sending more arms to help with that initiative, considering the weakness that we're seeing inside moscow right now. we're hearing this reporting that i mentioned of the sending by the united states of these cluster bombs to ukraine. there are these warheads that scatter multiple bombs over a wide area when they explode. you have some human rights groups saying they're a danger to civilians and key u.s. allies have signed a ban on them. is this a good idea to send these cluster bombs? >> the ukrainian armed forces believe that they can use these cluster munitions without threat

to civilians. i think the situation on the ground in ukraine is different than others wars where these have been used, and that civilians have largely been cleared out of the places that we're talking about because they're armed and embedded throughout the territories with mines, throughout all of these positions, there's not civilians there. i'm not a military expert, but i hear the ukrainians when they say they need more weapons to push the russians out of their territory. to me, that's the fastest way to end this war, and that's the fastest way to protect civilians. don't forget that every day this war goes on innocent civilians are being killed every single day by vladimir putin and his forces. so the faster we can help them to end this war, the more civilians who will be saved. >> i want to talk about surivikin, we haven't seen him in a couple of days.

the understanding is he may have been arrested because of his cooperation with prigozhin. a lot of uncertainty surrounding this, ambassador. what do you make of his possible involvement here and that he may have been apprehended by russian authorities? >> well, to underscore the uncertainty, it hasn't been confirmed by the russian government that he was arrested, although some are saying, some are reporting and suggesting he was arrested on saturday, already several days ago. what i can tell you about surovikin is, remember, he was in charge of the war, invasion, occupation of ukraine, and then was removed and general gerasimov, who was put in his place, very unpopular among armed forces, he's revered by those forces, revered by the

wagner forces and he's been very close to prigozhin for a long time. if it turns out to be true that he was part of the plot, that's a pretty big blow to mr. putin, and the regular armed forces of which mr. surovikin was a part of. i think he'll endure it. i don't think putin is under threat of being overthrown, but it just underscores that there are deeper divisions, perhaps not just between wagner and the regular conventional forces but within russian conventional forces as well. >> there's a reason he disliked gerasimov, as well as prigozhin and what would have brought them together in this rebellion. michael mcfaul, kelly cobiella, thank you as well. the alarming rise of s.w.a.t teams as a dangerous prank. random reporting on how the fbi hopes to stop it. you're watching msnbc. we'll be right back. you're watching msnbc. we'll be right back. undry's biggest myth... that cold water can't clean.

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welcome back, the fbi is taking action to stop a dangerous trend, police pulling -- pulling away from real emergencies. >> in 2018, science fiction author posted a casual tweet. >> i personally said i never found norm mcdonald funny. >> it caught the attention of online harassers who began swatting patrick and his wife nicky at home. false calls trick 911 dispatchers into sending an all out response. the experience can be terrifying. >> i make my way downstairs to find that there are half a dozen police with pistol drawn, shotguns, ar-15s, flashlights pointed at my head. i'm pulled out of my house and

on my front porch i'm handcuffed. >> our house has been swatted 42 times. >> police have actually come in some form to your door? >> yes. >> reporter: no central agency tracks swatting but one estimate put the number at more than 1,000 incidents in 2019 alone. in six days this april, at least nine universities were victims, and police estimate each incident costs communities more than $10,000. patrick and nicky are still constantly harassed. >> they have been texting us during this interview. >> using voice synthesizers and other technology. >> get a real job. again, you'll be able to learn a trade in prison. >> reporter: at the same time, they can't get the police to stop coming. the milwaukee police department tells nbc news they have been to patrick and nicky's house at least 40 times. but they didn't share any ideas for how they're going to solve this problem. >> in a statement, they told us, mpd has a duty to respond to calls for service in order to

ensure that no one is in danger. >> how dangerous is swatting? >> it's extremely dangerous. >> reporter: now, the fbi is getting involved, creating a swatting command center so police departments can exchange information. >> we know the problem exists throughout the country. i think the fbi recognizes that we have resources to help track what's going on to be able to easily share information with one another, to report incidents. >> reporter: meanwhile, patrick and nicky are in their fifth year of daily harassment. >> what has it done to be in this position? >> it's taken away our sanctuary. we don't feel safe in our own home. >> every department in this country should have policies, procedures and training around it. people have died from it. there is no excuse. >> reporter: a waste of public resources and a nightmare for its victims. jake ward, nbc news, milwaukee. we have a lot to cover in our second hour ahead of "chris jansing reports." let's get right to