and the "atlantic's" steve clemmons. he's also an msnbc contributor. ambassador mcfall, what is the significance, the real significance to russia of being dropped from the g8? russia's trying to play it as oh, this is no big deal. >> i think it's the end of a 30-year era. an era that began under president reagan and mikhail gorbachev which was defined by engagement with russian leaders, engagement with western leaders, and integration into these western clubs. gorbachev was invited in the summer of 1991 to be a guest of the g7. it took several years until they formally joined in 1998. but that's always been the strategy. integration, bringing russia in. that era ended, i think, today. >> steve clemmons, there's been a fascinating at minimum dual-track approach going on here and possibly more where there's an awful lot of obviously now very tough action being directed toward vladimir putin from what was the g8, now the g7. also from president obama. while john kerry is constantly, it seems, keeping the russian foreign minister as close as possible and s

joining us, nick collis and scott clemmons. thank you both for being here. >> thank you. good morning. >> we heard gdp numbers for the quarter were worse than we were expecting. does this matter? is a backwards looking number? >> backwards looking number. it does base line expectations for how q 1 is progressing. for controversy about weather and impact on the economy. useful to see the economy is quite slow. >> you think the e skon conomy worse than the weather is letting on. >> slow growth economy. when that happens. we get a lot of pulls and tugz -- pulls and tugs on the economy. choppy. in for a year like this. kind of slow, choppy, growth. >> not a great, not, thing for the markets or for anybody frying to work in the environments. scott, you agree with the assessment? >> i do. more of the same. surprised at preliminary release of fourth quarter gdp. this doesn't strike me that the revision is negative. more of a -- back down to an economy that is growing along at a modest pace. it has been doing some time. >> how do you think janet yellin did before the senate? >> s

(applause) >> [speaker not understood] clemmons. [speaker not understood]. [speaker not understood]. demetrius [speaker not understood]. next speaker. >>> hello, my name is angel van stark and i am the youth commissioner for district 8. and in light of recent events, it seems that this situation brought up another problem that has been facing some of my constituents in my district. and what i'm talking about is very little publicized -- the valencia garden incident that occurred in november. and this is because of what happened yesterday at ccsf. and i would like to bring it to everyone's attention that things like this shouldn't happen. (applause) >>> people should not be forced to protest because it is our right to be able to voice our opinion regardless of where we come from or regardless of what our economic status is. but i am not here to criticize the police department. i am here to offer solutions that were brought to me by the same constituents that voiced these concerns previously. the solution that i proposed is to the supervisors and to the police

. >>> steve clemmons, good morning, i know you were just on the phone with the white house. what did they tell you? >> i was talking to a senior administration official and they -- by executive order, they have taken the authority to sanction both russian and ukrainian interests. ukrainian is important, because there are certain ukrainians that continue to be part of the moves by russia in this illegal act they have taken. we've already had the authority to deny visas, to traveling russians and ukrainians who have been essential mucking up the is works in the transfer of power and direction. i think -- the senior administration federal told me they are monitoring events closely, and they've been satisfied to see that it is russians have not made further moves in the eastern part of ukraine, which is an important solve the canary in the coal mine. so that hasn't gone forward. and of course we have the vote today in the legislature in crimea, voting to go independent, which is -- which is at odds with the process by which any section of ukraine can go through a referendum proc

. >> let's bring in steve clemmons, editor at large for the "atlantic" and heather conley. thanks to you both. steve, it strikes me that i would expect that folks are probably at the white house and the state department and the defense department for that matter working the phones, trying to see what kind of support there could be for measures like a boycott of the g-8 or kind of investigating what their options would be. >> well, i think various cabinet secretaries like john kerry and chuck hagel have been working the phones on both sides, with putin, leaders in ukraine, ange angela merkel. the president has communicate to putin we can't afford a retriggering of cold war lines, that ukraine should not be forced to choose between moscow on one side and europe of the both. chuck hagel had a talk today with the russian defense minister, a very, very tough talk and officials said it was conveyed in our eyes russia invaded ukraine today and then asked for permission later from the russian parliament. >> sure. heather, to that point, though, what options does president obama rea

steve clemmons is washington's editor at large for the "atlantic."h, steve, the idea of sanctioning these oligarchs, putin's banker, other members of the inner circle. how effective, in your mind, will that be to stop the aggression of russia toward its neighbors? >> regrettably i don't feel it will be very effective because we've chose on the create personal pain for something a government is doing. when you see fireworks like we just saw in red square, that's one of the most globally obnoxious thing i've seen in a long time. this is a government, this is a great number of people inside russia who solidly support vladimir putin and so to a certain degree the more we go after oligarchs or people who have enormous wealth and try to swat them even with the banks and supposed luxurious life-style, they have lots of other ways and back doors to continue to benefit out of the corruption and positions they've put themselves in. so i don't find it effective, i find it symbolic but not enough. >> now, the sort of argument that was in this navlny op-ed and he

. >>> i want to continue the conversation with "the washington post" and contributor steven clemmons. we just got word that at 10:45, 25 minutes from now, the president will go into the briefing room and have a statement on ukraine. anne, what would we expect to hear from him? >> he's going to explain in his own words what the white house did this moerning, which was to significantly advance the u.s. sanctions against russians and then also against ukrainians, including the former deposed ukrainian president viktor yanukovych who is now in russia. these sanctions do much the same as sanctions u.s. has announced before. they are freezes on assets abroad and a ban on travel to the united states. but they are very significant for who they target. notion yanukovych himself, one of the best known names in this whole crisis, it names several very senior aides to russian president vladimir putin. not putin himself, but one of the people who is essentially his chief of staff, his chief adviser. >> let's bring this down, steve, to its simplest terms for people who don't necessarily understand