obstacles remain but those numbers are a welcome sign of progress. that does it for me this hour. i m going to be back here tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m., and you can always catch me on morning news now on our streaming network at 7:00 a.m. eastern. andrea mitchell reports starts next. good day, this is andrea mitchell reports in washington. with new developments from moscow today, vladimir putin in a big display, holding a national security meeting and leaning into recognizing the independence of two russian-dominated separatist regions of ukraine. not annexing them yet. we re formally adding them as mother russia as the white house says president biden would only hold a summit with putin if he does not invade. when president macron asked president biden yesterday if he was prepared in principal to meet with pruitt if russia did not invade.
moment of possible invasion. well, of course some republicans, as you mentioned, especially those who might want to run against joe biden or the democratic nominee next time around have been critical, but i think the fact is there are other republican leaders in positions of leadership who have either been supportive or have kept quiet about it. it s been interesting to see president biden apply some lessons learned, i think, from his unhappy experience last year with the withdrawal from afghanistan. he s kept the congressional leadership more informed, kept our nato allies and the american people informed about what be ahead, including higher gas prices. exactly right. i don t think we can take this any further because we re going to broach into the chuck todd meet the press daily time zone. but thank you both. we ll have a lot more opportunities to talk. this does it for this edition of
inevitable is going to lead to some type of military conflict. jon brennan, your expertise, your study of putin for decades in the intelligence world is so invaluable. thank you very much. thanks, andrea. and down to the wire, the supreme court pick due this week. the president hoping it is a win he can tout in the state of the union address on march 1st. this is andrea mitchell reports. you re watching msnbc. mitchell. mitchell. you re watching msnbc. and a touch of sea salt. it s like a double double for your tastebuds. subway keeps refreshing and refreshing and refreshing.
we ve seen it before. and they re as good as anybody in the world, and, again, it plays into the putin background and thinking and how he was schooled and shaped. this is rank kgb stuff, and he uses that. so i think that kind of thing will continue, but it depends on the next few days and what happens here. if in fact, president biden has an opportunity to sit down with president putin, that could move this thing in a different direction. then again, it could mean nothing. i don t think the russians are going to give up those those tools, cyber attacks, and using cyber as they have very effectively. and your message to corporate america in terms of whether or not we re defending ourselves and our own institutions and our own infrastructure against what could become an escalading cyber
based on intelligence that the invasion was the next several days, and the russian troops had moved toward a decision that vladimir putin had ordered the invasion. that s right, andrea, and i think that s why there s so much skepticism when it comes to these potential diplomatic talks. the administration, you heard jake sullivan there saying of course they are going to keep the door open to diplomacy. that is why the secretary of state has agreed to meet with his russian counter part. that is why president biden agreed in principle to meet with president putin, but both of those meetings are contingent on president putin not invading and the intelligence as you point out, andrea, has not changed. president biden believes president putin has made his decision, is determined to move into ukraine. the size and scope remain unknown, but again, that is why they are being very cautious when they talk about these potential diplomatic talks. the other piece of this, andrea, if the president