special counsel s investigation. standing by for the next big announcement in the race for the republican presidential nomination. the former new jersey governor chris christie kicking off his campaign this hour. we ll have live coverage. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer, you re in the situation room. announcer: this is cnn breaking news. let s get right to the breaking news on the special counsel s investigation of former president donald trump. our senior legal affairs correspondent paula reid is joining us right now. paula, tell us about this new york times report and why potentially it is so significant. reporter: incredibly significant in the special counsel investigation. the new york times reporting trump s former white house chief of staff mark meadows testified before the grand jury, that special counsel jack smith has been using in both of his investigations, both into january 6th and also into the
now, obviously the context here that christie is jumping into what has been a growing gop field and polls have shown he has a lot of work to do. when you look back at 2016 he held a lot of town halls in new hampshire and still ended up finishing sixth in the primary voting here so they are trying to build on, of course, what happened in that 2016 campaign, make sure that things are different this time around. kicking things off with what has become a signature type of town hall here in new hampshire and then when we get to the actual speaking portion of things, he will make remarks and then take questions from the audience as well as he lays out again these very first steps for his campaign and more importantly sets the tone for what this campaign will be and if it s able it stand out from an ever-growing pack. anxious to hear what he has to say. omar, thank you very much. i want to bring in our political expert, dana bash, let me start with you, christie is angling to
biden going after republicans in the midterms. what about at tonight s white house correspondents dinner. a lot of people are waiting to hear what the president said. reporter: it seems like no topic is off limits and he s expected to poke fun at himself and the media and even republicans. of course his aides do say this is a difficult time for standup when you have things like the brewing war in ukraine and also the covid-19 pandemic that the country has been dealing with. but the president has been working on this speech for a few weeks. he s been receiving a possible joke submissions from a host of aides here a here at the whit house and they insist that the president wants to ensure that he s honoring and supporting the free press, something that you ve heard him talk about that recently. of course there is also covid concerns for tonight. the president will likely be wearing a mask when he is not speaking only attending the speaking portion, not going to the eating portion of t
care. reporter: alex, the speaking portion of the rally is wrapping up right behind me right now, pretty soon participants are going to walk from where i am now down pennsylvania avenue to the supreme court, and they hope that their presence there really makes an impact and is heard by the justices when they reconvene on monday. you know, i think it s somewhat symbolic that they re going to be walking along constitution avenue. so thank you for that, and we ll see you in the next hour. coming up next, the next round of subpoenas from the january 6th committee, why saying no to showing up in congress might not be such a good idea. trump sued her, she won. omarosa manigault newman is going to talk about her legal victory and what it could mean for the former president s niece, mary trump. that s ahead. resident s niece, mary trump. that s ahead
a major escalation today in what is arguably the biggest east-west crisis since the cold war. ukraine carried out special ops against pro-russian militants that were armed. they retook an airport in the eastern speaking portion of ukraine. the nation s acting president said he is flushing out armed ininsurgentents that have seized control of several government buildings over the past few days. the u.s. is blaming russia, russia is blaming the u.s. while experts say putin is trying to strengthen his negotiation position ahead of russia s talks on thursday in geneva with the u.s., the e.u., and ukraine. the white house is standing by ukraine saying kiev has the right to respond to the provocations and to be clear, president obama is not considering providing lethal aid. let s get to friend of the show howard fineman, editorial director of the huffington post media group. always great to see you. hi. crisis after crisis, whether it be iran or syria, the united