good day. i m chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. a deadlock in congress and a stalemate on the battlefield. the excruciating reality facing ukrainian president zelenskyy as he comes to capitol hill looking for help. could he wind up going home empty-handed? plus, a question the supreme court has never had to answer in the course of american history until now. can the former president face federal prosecution for alleged crimes committed while in office? the massive stakes involved, and the new implications that the court could be ruling to decide things once and for all. and a new nightmare emerging in gaza. word that fully half of the population there is starving. the latest on that and new calls from the heads of multiple global organizations for the u.s. to step up and put a stop to, quote, the humanitarian nightmare taking place. i ll talk to one of the women in charge coming up. but we start with the ukrainian president, volodymyr zelenskyy
coordination. here to react fox news contributor dan hoffman and u.s. institute of peace senior adviser dean cheng. dean, to you. what is the message that russia and china hope for america to take away from unprovoked actions over the weekend? i think they are sending multiple messages one of them is look at the capabilities that the two countries have that they are willing to coordinate together. the other is if you, the u.p.s., are going to operate in the black sea near russia, if you are going to operate in the south china sea near china, hey, we can do the same thing. we can operate the bearing straits. i would expect them to see them in the future operating off of california washington state. brian: dan, i didn t have to tell you. this didn t happen in a vacuum. they are buzzing russia and china are buzzing our planes and our drones, sometimes taking them down. they are cutting off our destroyers as we go in through international waters. and we basically have had no response
we re learning from the deputy prime minister that that roadway is going to be out of commission for quite some time. no car traffic, truck traffic on that vital bridge until mid-september. it s not going to be fully operational until november. what we know is that they have claimed responsibility which is quite remarkable because they rarely claim responsibility for their most brazen and daring attacks. they say it was a joint operation between their navy and security services. they tweet that had the bridge is asleep again. alex marquardt, thank you so much for that. obviously war is just one of many developments with this grain deal that russia has pulled out of. it is significant. we re going to discuss that and more with former u.s. ambassador to ukraine william tailor. he s also the vp at the u.s. institute of peace.
which allows ukraine to export its grain and other food staples. the initiative is a big deal brokered by the u.n. and turkey last year. russia s wartime blockade would drive a global food prices and lead to famine. the deal expires tomorrow. putin, being the dictator he, is he wants to suspend it. he s also upping his rhetoric when it comes to weapons. he is saying russia has its own sufficient stockpile of cluster bombs and will use them against ukraine if ukraine uses them first. these are the same weapons president biden approved for ukraine. the pentagon confirming last week those munitions have been delivered. with us now, former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, william taylor. he is now vice president of russia and european affairs at the u.s. institute of peace. ambassador, good to see you. let s talk about the president s decision to send cluster munitions to ukraine. here is national security adviser jake sullivan today on meet the press. our moral authority has not derived from
if they don t use cluster munitions right now they will run out of munitions and that s the argument that president biden is making and why he believes that the united states has to offer cluster munitions to the ukrainians at this point in time. all right. colonel cedric leighton, thank you for laying it all out for us on this monday morning. for more on what we re watching at the nato summit, joining us now former u.s. ambassador to ukraine william taylor, vice president of the russia and europe center at the u.s. institute of peace, also with us staff writer for the new yorker and biden biographer evan osnos. president biden if there s one area i think foreign policy is something he has been expertise in, but i think when you talk to his national security team what they ve been able to do in terms of nato, in terms of strengthening the alliance over the course of the last year plus has been, i think, one of the cornerstones of this administration. what do you think this upcomi