activity in the kherson region and they note russia is having manpower problems with its military. and we begin our coverage in kyiv with melissa bell. what are ukrainian officials saying about this counteroffensive in the south? reporter: what we re hearing from regional officials is that day two of that counteroffensive is seeing more fighting in a number of towns along the front line. clearly this is a counteroffensive long anticipated and long prepared for. what we re seeing for the time being are warnings from senior ukrainian officials that while it is under way, people need to be patient. we ve been hearing from a senior aid to president zelenskyy saying this morning this is going to be a slow grind. urging patience on the part of ukrainians. we heard also from the ukrainian president himself in his nightly address speaking of his determination saying that russians needed now to go home since they would he said be chased back to their border. clearly this is a turnin
from the president trump today? reporter: we can expect him to talk up the crime prevention plans. and this is in pennsylvania which is a battleground state and both parties are trying to gain ground. and so the white house says that biden will be playing up the contrasts between the two parties. we will hear him kind of go after republicans for their insistence to seeing that the assaults ban a supported. he wants to see is it back and we ve heard him talk about it a lot after the really high profile mass shootings across the country that we saw the last few months including texas, illinois, and new york. just to maname a few places. of course congress passed gun safety legislation, but the president wants to see more specifically this assaults weapons ban. and we could also hear the president talk about how really
they simply say the government cannot impose unreasonable restrictions. there are many gun owners, responsible gun owners, who favor measures that you would certainly support and that democrats support, things like background checks or, you know, limiting high capacity magazines. do you have any concerns that you re going to alienate them with a measure like this? no. look, we ve been waiting for congress to enact many sensible reforms like, for example, reinstituting assaults weapons ban that hasn t existed at least federally for nearly two decades. we can t continue to wait for congress to enact to impose these reasonable measures. we re seeing mayors throughout the country step forward and saying we re not willing to continue to wait. we have to protect our communities. when do you think you ll see a legal challenge? as soon as the ordnance is wholly drafted and approved and i expect we ll have a lot of lawyers coming at us. good news is we have great
let the story speak for itself. kurt bardella and dave weigel, thank you for being on this morning. still ahead on morning joe, one of our next guests hopes a new endorsement from a progressive star will help her break through the crowded race to be new york city s next mayor. civil rights attorney and candidate maya wiley joins us. plus, a federal judge strikes down california s assaults weapons ban, comparing the popular ar-15 to a swiss army knife. you re watching morning joe. we ll be right back. you re watching morning joe. we ll be right back.
earlier we heard from the former assistant secretary. she called the ar a mass murder weapon. it s the go-to firearm for mass shooters. do you think an assault-style weapons ban could help prevent these tragedies? i will tell you, i think that as many folks have said today, there s not really any one thing that we can do to ensure that these mass shootings won t happen again. there are many things we can do to try to reduce the odds or effectiveness of the shooter. an assaults weapons ban we can take had we the political will to do so. i was an agent on the streets of while the assault weapons ban, the federal assault weapons ban was in place. it was not a perfect law. it was a tough statute to actually charge people with offending. the facts are, if you go back