talking to hhs and communicating to the president they were going to have to take some actions here and what happens with the president s own staff because he later told us it was weeks after that plant closure had happened that he really began to understand the severity of the shortage that was going to be happening. and the shortage was already weeks into happening by then when this already happened. let s listen to what he said about when he became aware of this. i became aware of this problem sometime in after april in early april, about how intense it was. and so we did everything in our power from that point on, and that s all i can tell you right now. let me ask you this, careen jean-pierre, the press secretary, says there has been a whole of government approach since day one of the recall, which was in february. how is that even possible if the president which clearly he s a key part of government doesn t know about this until april by his own admission. and the pre
year one of the biden presidency and digging into where the administration goes from here. nbc s chief white house correspondent peter alexander there at the white house. steve kornacki at the big board with the new polling we mentioned. i also want to bring in robert gibbs, an analyst who served as press secretary during the obama administration. mr. kornacki, you have your finger on the pulse of the people with the numbers. how are folks grading the president so far on his first year in office? new nbc poll numbers, craig. and the answer to your question is a lot more don t like the way joe biden s handling his job as president than do. a 42% approval rating for the president at the one-year mark heading into this midterm election year. you can put this in perspective a couple ways. first, let s compare the number for biden at the one-year mark to his recent predecessors at this point one year into their
obtain the political objectives. really, what we re expecting if president biden is correct that russia is intending to go into ukraine, what we re expecting first, most likely, is, in fact, a so-called limited incursion. air strikes, artillery strikes, before a serious commitment of ground forces. russia is sitting on the sideline right now essentially circling, watching the west, looking for the reaction. looking for cracks to exploit. so that kind of statement definitely is being read in russia. though, they re not openly talking about it. i mentioned that holding pattern. of course, the kremlin press secretary today was asked about this. and he kind of couched this in the standard russian response we re seeing in the leadup to tomorrow s meeting. that is they re saying all of this is a manufactured crisis by the west to try to create a justification for hostility either by the west or by ukraine against russia or russian speakers in eastern ukraine. that s what they re telling the
appreciate you joining us on the breaking news. ultimate catch 22. jacqui heinrich, jacqui, give us an idea what you are hearing from the white house right now. here at the white house, press, the press secretary, jen psaki said we are not going to have much to say about this. the president has always said if he had a chance to nominate someone to the supreme court he would. it would be the first supreme court pick of his presidency, potentially the only one, and we have been talking about all hour, he pledged on the campaign trail that he would nominate a black woman. now, jonathan turley pointed out interestingly enough last hour that that would tee up sort of an interesting decision for biden on whether he wanted to follow through with the pledge he made in the spirit of representation for a court that would not accept that kind of exclusion for something like college admissions, excluding everyone who is not black and female. but the president has made pretty clear his objectiv
message that yesterday did alarm certainly many of america s allies and obviously the ukrainians as well. given the circumstances with 100,000 russian troops now amassing at the border to ukraine. the key quote for the president was if any assembled russian units move across the ukrainian border, that is an invasion. yesterday the president seemed to suggest that there was some sort of a sliding scale in terms of the level of punishment depending on the size of the invasion. saying if it was just a minor incursion, perhaps, the repercussions, the consequences would be different. that caused a swift cleanup job here at the white house with the national security spokesperson quickly putting out a statement that was retweeted by the press secretary. the press secretary putting out a statement saying the u.s. and allies would respond in a swift and severe and united way if russia was to invade in any form. the bottom line is it does stir