and good evening. i'm erin burnett. out front tonight, javelins and east gander missiles, the u.s. and russia flooding the zone around ukraine as president biden warns u.s. troops could soon be headed there. pictures of 300 anti-tank missiles arriving in kyiv today as president biden says the troops are ready to go to eastern europe. >> i may be moving some of those troops in the near term. this would be the largest k-- i we move in with those, it would change the world. >> the white house believes this could happen. today telling reporters the biden administration believes an invasion by putin is, quote, imminent. that warning comes as russia is making new and aggressive moves along the ukraine border. >> we have seen a consistent accumulation of combat power by the russians in the western part of their country around the borders with ukraine and belarus. >> in addition to the troops, can you talk a little bit more, can you have specificity about with weaponry they are piling on the border? >> our armor and conventional ground troops and logistics and sustainment and medical support and aviation support. >> that's what you need for a war. that's what the pentagon is seeing. and it's what russia wants us all to see. the defense ministry today putting out new videos both land and sea-based threatening them. i want to show you some of them so you see what they are putting out of what they are doing. admiral kirby described it. russian troops carrying out so-called planned combat readiness exercises in that one there. and then the east gander m operational and tactical system. they are moving that. in the video you see troops placing the short-range missiles into combat positions. the system has a range of 250 to 300 miles and can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads. it is important to remember when i give you those distances because if these weapons were place aid long russia's border with ukraine or belarus's border with ukraine, you can see the 2-3 hundred miles is well within the range of kyiv. the border of belarus, only 60 miles away. russia with troops along all of those borders now. in belarus, russia releasing video of troops unloading tanks and other armored vehicles from the trains. this is what they are amassing along those borders. and then at sea russia's now conducting joint drills with the chinese. putin showing an anti-submarine warfare ship and navy cruiser outfitted with missile launchers and torpedo tubes. he is threatening and saber-rattling. despite this and these videos they are putting out, russia continues to insist there is no plans to launch an invasion. instead, blaming the united states and allies for soaring tensions. all of this prompting countries to leave ukraine, australia and canada, pulling families of diplomats out of the country because of fears of an invasion are real. all iowaen eyes are on putin. america's adversaries are also watching. they are testing biden as well. north korea firing two cruise missiles this morning according to the south korean military. it was kim jong-un's fifth test just this year. we are still in january. and taiwan accusing china of 52 warplanes sent into airspace this week, including nuclear-capable bombers. america's foes are watching to see what happens in ukraine. matthew chance is in kyiv tonight. what are you learning from ukrainian officials this evening? >> reporter: well, it's a strange one because on the one hand ukrainian officials are welcoming the potential deployment of 85,000 u.s. troops to the region to bolster nato defenses here. they are welcoming the recent delivery today of u.s. anti-tank missiles, javelin missiles that -- there was some, you know, large numbers of them delivered today. but they are pushing back on the u.s. characterization on the sort of imminent nature of any conflict here. they are saying that's not what they are seeing at all and they don't think that putin's forces, that russian forces are exactly prepared right now to launch an imminent attack against the country. i spoke to a senior ukrainian official close to the leadership here saying that, you know, they have been looking at -- ukrainian officials have been looking at satellite images on a hourly basis from the u.s. and other western intelligence agencies as well and they are saying they are not seeing russia getting into combat mode or positioning themselves to attack. so that's a real difference from the sort of characterization that they are getting from the white house. they are saying they don't see the threat from russia at the moment is imminent, but dangerous, and they don't believe order has been given for an invasion to take place yet and when an order is given it's the assessment of ukrainian officials that it will be between one and two weeks before those forces close to ukraine's borders would be ready to strike. >> if that's the case, it's not the lightning strike we hear is possible from the united states and others. all right, thank you very much. i want to go to retired u.s. army major general james spider marks, the head of geopolitical strategy at academy securities along with evan farkas, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for russia, ukraine, eurasia in the obama administration. general marks, let me start with you. the white house today clear where they stand using im fent to to describe an invasion. you heard admiral kirby laying out all that they are seeing them do in terms of all the support that would be needed for invasion, too, and object we h have, obviously, we havet satellite images and images that putin wants us to see. do you see this as imminent and inevitable? >> i do. what you have in place is all the necessary combat enablers, is what we call those, in order to conduct an invasion. they are positioned. they have been there for a while. most importantly, what you see over the past few weeks is you have seen an increase in the number of rocket and artillery forces. look, let's be frank. >> this is a russian formation, but these are soviet-like tactics and the soviets went to war with an overwhelming amount of artillery fire. you mentioned it upfront. those rocket forces certainly can reach kyiv. what i see is the possibility of an invasion is imminent. we could label that in terms of days or weeks, but they are in place. and the ability to transition from the position that they have right now, the training that they are doing to maintain those skill sets and then to launch, to cross the line of departure, really could be a matter of hours or days. >> and that timing is so crucial because, as you say, imminent is a word. when you start so put specifics on it, that's what gives it meaning. evelyn, one of the videos they put out, and putin does this on purpose, right, sort of showing the relationship, the alliance between china and russia. and these exercises they are doing together. china's denying a report tonight that it may have asked putin not to invade ukraine during the winter olympics. putin is scheduled to go to the olympics. how do soy this? would putin invade during the olympics? is this something that plays into his timeline? what do you think his timeline is? >> it's really interesting that you brought that up because that's exactly what i was thinking in terms of this question of imminent. i do think that it's more likely that putin would strike now rather than during the olympics or even after the olympics because he would have to sustain this high level of readiness all the way through almost the entire month of february. the chinese probably didn't ask putin not to invade right now because they don't have to. i mean, vladimir putin knows full well that, you know, president xi would be mad to have russia distracting the world from the olympics during that timeframe of february 2nd to 22nd when the olympics are being held in china again. so i think he knows that he either has to go now or later. as said, there are constraints on that. there are some other weather constraints. but the most important thing to consider is whether there is still any likelihood that he won't use military force. and i think that we have seen very little sign of that. he does not appear likely to back down. he has only escalated the situation. i wouldn't say the door is closed because the way vladimir putin operates, he lines everything up so he can take either option and lots of different military options, and we won't really know until he decides. >> and general marks, let me enter two things, one thing people may not have heard. the secretary-general of nato said they will not deploy nato combat troops to ukraine. that's something that president biden has said more than once about u.s. combat troops going to ukraine. >> there is not going to be any american forces moving into ukraine. >> they never were on the table. >> that is not on the table. >> so, general, what does this say if the u.s. has said they are not doing it and nato is not doing it, but nobody is doing it but ukraine, at least from what people are saying. what does that say to putin? >> well, what it says to putin is that you, putin, have achieved one of your objectives, which is to fracture nato. when you take options off the table, you remove that ambiguity from your opponent and you have eliminated a number of options that he or she must deal with. for the president to say we are not going to deploy forces, that's for a domestic u.s. consumption. but it has an international impact that is very, very pronounced. for the nato general, secretary-general, to say nato will not deploy, again, it gives putin all the ammunition he needs figuratively to, as evelyn described, have a number of options that are available. we should never take options off the table. i simply don't understand that. >> right. you are negotiating against yourself in that situation. evelyn, i want to ask you about sanctions because that's kwhas theoretically on the table, right? we are going to sanction the hell out of them, right? if the u.s. needs allies onboard, they need nato, right? those allies in europe, they rely on germany -- sorry, rely on russia, germany, right, they said, okay, we will impose sanctions but not send any weapons of ukraine, taking off the table and we know the reason. russia is germany's largest supplier of gas. 50 to 75% of german gas comes from russia. the rest of the eu gets 40% of its gas from russia. to sanction russia on gas is going to crush europe. does the u.s. have any solution to that? >> well, aaron, i mean this is a really good point. it's crazy because when i was in the obama administration we had one guy running around, you know, high-level envoy trying to work on energy security so that putin wouldn't have the europeans over a barrel on this issue. clearly, we didn't succeed. and the german government, you know, they really need to come up with a contingency plan for heating gas for their citizens instead of doing that, of course, they are still clinging to the idea that maybe they can have this second pipeline to russia. the issue about not sending arms is a little bit different. it's tied to their history. i would say in this instance they should break with that history because 14 is actually a dictator doing exactly what hitler did, grabbing territory in the name of his own ethnic claims. so i actually think that the germans should change that policy but i understand why they are making that distinct. i commend the uk, the baltic states, poland for providing assistance to the ukrainians and that is part of the deterrence. i mean, moving all the material and equipment, not just to nato allies, but to ukraine, is part of demonstrating to putin that there will be a price to pay if he moves. >> thank you both very much. i appreciate your insight. >> thank you. all right. next, a cnn exclusive. the justice department revealing for the first time the prosecutors are looking into the people behind those fake 2020 lecter slates, that would have declared trump the winner of states he lost. an inside look at the exec executive order that could have led to a constitutional crisis had trump signed it. and chinese tennis champ who had gone missing. with liberty mutual, so we only pay for what we need. -hey tex, -wooo. can someone else get a turn? 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[sigh of relief.] slack. where the future works. the living room slash yoga shanti slash regional office slash... and this is the basement slash panic room. maybe what your family needs is a vacation home slash vacation home. find yours on the vrbo app. . new tonight the justice department now looking into the fake electoral college certifications that declared former president trump the winner in seven states that he actually lost to joe biden. they were sent to the national archives in mid-december 2020 as part of a wide ranging effort led by rudy giuliani to push the big lie and overturn the election. now, the fake certifications were all signed by rogue pro-trump supporters. here is the deputy attorney general with evan perez in an exclusive interview. >> on the issue you raised in terms of fraudulent lecter certifications has been reported, we have received those referrals. our prosecutors are looking at those. i can't say anything more on ongoing investigations. but more broadly, look, the attorney general has been very, very clear. we are going to follow the facts and the law wherever they lead to address conduct of any kind, and at any level, that is part of an assault on our democracy. >> and that was an interview with evan perez who is with me now. those comments from lisa monaco significant because they are the first time that the doj has said anything about this, you know, these fake certifications and what they are doing about it and whether they are looking into it. so tell me how significant it is and what it means. >> well, erin, it's significant for the justice department to even address this as you know they are very, very hesitant to talk about ongoing investigations. we already heard from prosecutors in a couple of states that made those referrals and they are very gratified because they know it's important for there to at least be the message that the justice department is taking this seriously, they will look to see if there are any crimes they can prosecute. and, look, this is driven by the falsehood that there was vote fraud. some of that we know is driving threats against election workers around the country. lisa monaco, the deputy attorney general and i, talked about that. here's what she had to say about that. >> i'm concerned about the really disturbing nature of the threats that we've seen. they have been disturbingly aggressive and violent and personal. we set up an election threats task force and you are seeing the fruits of some of that work. you saw an indictment just last week that is a result of that election threat task force. that case and that indictment and those charges were the first coming out of that task force, but they will not be the last. >> and, erin, one the important things to note there is that, you know, states are having trouble recruiting workers for these elections. some of them are coming up just in a couple of months. so it's very important for there to be some kind of deterrent and that's one of the things that i think you are hearing from lisa monaco. >> thank you very much. i want to go to abby philip, and sean wu, former federal prosecutor. sean, these fake election certifications, from what you know, do you believe there is enough evidence for the justice department to actually file criminal charges over them? >> we don't know that much about it, erin, at this point. certainly, facially, it sounds like it could violate both state election and fraud laws arizona federal laws. as evan's reporting points out, it's very, very significant that lisa monaco, the number two at the justice department, made this statement. i worked with lisa closely, we worked for former attorney general reno, and she is very careful how she acts and talks. so her phrase there ongoing investigations is a very, very significant phrase. >> right, right, she didn't just say it lightly or, you know, because she realized she misspoke. it was done carefully. abby, does any of this give trump pause in his political re-em re-emergence? this is getting at the heart of what rudy giuliani was pushing, right, to overturn the election in seven states that trump lost. >> yeah. i mean, i really don't think that trump is very much fazed by any of this, more nor are his most ardent supporters. one of the interesting things hearing a few days ago that one of the characters in this terrible saga, boris epshteyn, shru shrugging this off and admitting this was their plan. the reason is because these are people who truly believe these lies and truly believed at the time that this was a legitimate thing for them to do. now, that doesn't change that this may very well be charged as fraud and that they could be facing real legal jeopardy for all of this. but i think that the reality is that the facts have never gotten in the way of these people pushing these lies and believing them fervently, and i don't think that it will really affect former president trump's thinking on his own political future or on whether or not he wants to advise his people to cooperate with any of these investigations whether on capitol hill or elsewhere, you know, at the justice department or at the state level. >> sources with direct knowledge of what happened here tell cnn that rudy giuliani was the leader of the efforts to put forward these illegitimate electors in the states trump lost. he was the leader and micromanaging it, all the details. when the january 6th committee announced that it was subpoenaing giuliani, it cited a hearing in michigan where he said this. >> i would never certify an election or have my name associated with anything that was false. now, it is your responsibility to do that. the power is given to you. in the mcpherson case in 1892, united states supreme court made clear that you can take that power back any time you want to. any time. you can take it back tonight. you could take it back the day the electors go back to washington. you could take it back any time you want. >> whenat do you take away from that and how concerned rudy giuliani should he be now legally? >> he should be very worried legally. he says that, quote, he wouldn't associate himself with anything false, and there he is doing exactly that. and these evidences coming out that he was in charge of this, his own representations of his role sounds like he is a mastermind, a key player. that's going to be a big problem for him here. i mean, there may be some defenses down the road claiming that some of these documents have some disclaimers on them. but overall, if the department is looking at this and they charge, they are going to charge the whole kit and caboodle. and i would be very surprised if he is not charged, frankly, if this continues. >> you have what's going on at doj and then the january 6th committee. alex jones and anyone who stunt know, he is one of those who helped push the big lie on his show infowars. he revealed he met with the january 6th. he took the fifth 100 times. making it clear he wanted nothing to do with them, wouldn't answer their questions. however, he then also said this. >> i just had a very intense experience being interrogated about i the january 6th committee lawyers. they were pro light, but they were dogged. the questions were overall pretty reasonable. they have everything that's already on my phones and things because i saw my text messages to caroline and cindy and some of the event organizers. right there. so they already have everything. >> you know, it's amazing, abby, that trump and his allies tried to discredit the committee, say it's a fraud and sham, newt gingrich saying they should be the ones to be indicted, but, you know, anyone that i have talked to who has been in front of that committee, and i'm talking about republicans have talked about how professional it is. alex jones who takes the fifth admits he is impressed by their investigative work and professionalism. >> honestly, erin, he sounds kind of shaken in that clip about the experience overall, and it seems to be partly because he maybe wasn't expecting there to be that much detail, wasn't expecting his text messages and documents to already be in their possession. he talked about pleading the fifth and doing so because he was concerned that he would be sort of incriminated based on his inability to recollect things completely accurately. i think what he is trying to convey to his supporters is that he didn't plead the fifth because he had something to hide. he is trying to signal to them that he wasn't necessarily hiding. but i think of these individuals are worried because they were -- we are so knee deep into something that turned out to be quite violent and many don't know what that means for their own legal jeopardy. >> brad raffensperger said, they asked the questions. they already knew the answers. they had the texts. they had done their work. vau both thech. next, president biden says schools should remain open. i am going to talk to a principal who is back but warns the children and schools and teachers aren't okay. a chicago principal next. an inside look at the threat to democracy as laid out in that executive order which would have directed the united states pentagon to seize voting machines in key states. with us, a new kitchen became part of our f financial plan. ♪ ♪ find a northwestern mutual advisor at nm.com do your eyes bother you? my eyes feel like a combo of stressed, dry and sandpaper. strypaper? luckily, there's biotrue hydration boost eye drops. biotrue uses naturally inspired ingredients. and no preservatives. try biotrue! like pulsing, electric shocks, sharp, stabbing pains, or an intense burning sensation. what is this nightmare? it's how some people describe... shingles. a painful, blistering rash that could interrupt your life for weeks. forget social events and weekend getaways. if you've had chickenpox, the virus that causes shingles is already inside of you. if you're 50 years or older ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingles. as a dj, i know all about customization. that's why i love liberty mutual. they customize my car insurance, so i only pay for what i need. how about a throwback? ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ growing up, bilal was obsessed, obsessed with superman! not because he could fly, but because superman stood up for people. maybe it's because of our family's own immigrant story, or he's just that nerdy. throughout his career in the obama administration and the private sector, bilal has never stopped helping others. we don't need a superhero to solve san francisco's biggest problems like crime and homelessness, just the innovation and courage to lead. join me. tonight the superintendent in flint, michigan, defending his decision to zik with virtual learning indefinitely. suicide have been remote since january 5th. they were supposed to return to the classroom this week, but now no. parents trying to figure out how they will work and have kids taken care of. >> i have to be able to make a living so that i can pay for a roof over our heads. so i can pay for food. and if i can't have someone who can sit with the kids during their school hours, then i have to. >> this comes as president biden continues to push schools so stay hope. of course, he sent $120 billion in federal funding to schools from the american rescue plan. >> we are not going back to closing schools. schools should stay open. and many states and school districts have spent this money very well. unfortunately, some haven't. i encourage the states and school districts that use the funding to protect our children and keep their schools open, use it. >> one district where students are now back is chicago, but a principal in that city has a dire warning writing, quote, it is the wildest stretch in two years of pandemic schooling. covid is everywhere. kids are in and out of quarantine. children are not okay. teachers are not okay. schools are not okay. now the chicago principal who wrote that op-ed. i appreciate your time. tell me how you have seen your students impacted in your school by the pandemic and also by not consistently being in the classroom with their peers and teachers. >> sure. well, i appreciate you having me on. it's good to be here. you know, anybody in any school in america will tell you that kids are having an incredibly hard time this year. we are out of practice being in community, all of us, and so schools are a place where we come back together. we relearn how to be in a community. we're seeing kids struggling with self-esteem. we're seeing kids really struggling with what it means to be in relationships with each other. we are seeing kids struggle with what it means to be in a classroom community. that makes it hard. it makes it hard for them. it makes it hard for their parents. it makes it hard for their teachers. you can see the hurt in them and how difficult it is and how important it is. >> you paint a vivid picture in your op-ed. i hope everybody reads it. it's online, about what it's like to be a teacher right now. you write a kindergartner throwing chairs, second grader tearing up a classroom, a middle-schooler swearing in your face and falling to the ground in tears. you can't discipline your way out of trauma. it is clearly impacting the behavior of students, of children everywhere. tell me more about what your teachers are dealing with. >> sure. i mean, so my wife is a teachers, not at my school, and, you know, of course i am in close conversation with the teachers at my school, and they would be the first to tell you just how hard it is. and i don't want to come down on our students. i don't want this to be a piece about how bad the children are. we love our kids. i love our kids. and what you can see is just what's happened to them, what happened to all of us, which is that this pandemic has broken a lot and taken a lot from us and left us without a lot of the skills we would have if we were together for years. i am not saying if schools were opened, this wouldn't have happened, but you you sew it in the school. you feel it in the school. you feel kids having a hard time listening, working in groups. some kids really started with the basics of being in class doing the what teacher wants, working with the other kids. >> i jussie smollett wo-- you a talking about being a child and being human and cared for and that is so essential to schooling, all schooling, and also elementary school schooling. then on top of of it you have kids who are behind. a lot of kid who are never going to catch up, right? they will have to be pushed through the systems in various places around this country. what do you need to do? i mean, it sounds like the needs are so great and so beyond our abilities right now. i mean, what do you need to get kids caught up academically and also supported emotionally and socially? >> yeah. i mean, first, i challenge the idea that we weren't going to get caught up, you know, caught up to what. i think, like i said, schools are communities of children. we have all been hurt by this pandemic. the kids feel it and they feel is as kids. so they are coming back and showing us that hurt and they are showing us a lack of self-esteem because of everything they have been through. so we have to take care of them. the first thing that has to happen is they have to be in school feeling safe, they have to feel safe in school, and if we can get that right, if we can get them back together in a way that they feel okay with, then we can do the rest. then we can figure out fractions and the rules of grammar and all that. we can catch up with that. but that coming back together is something we all are still trying to do right now. >> all right. i really appreciate your time. thank you so much. i hope anyone watching will read seth's full op-ed. thanks so much. next, an inside look at the alarming executive order that could have upended the election had trump signed it. plus, things are getting worse for british prime minister boris johnson. police investigate a number of parties he attended during the uk's strict covid lockdown. we've all had to find new ways to keep going. and cue has made that easier. with cue, you get lab-quality covid-19 test results in just 20 minutes. speed and accuracy. it's just for the nba; it's for you too. cue health. the official covid-19 home test of the nba. go cue. go you. ordinary tissues burn when theo blows. so puffs plus lotion rescued his nose. with up to 50% more lotion, puffs bring soothing relief. a nose in need deserves puffs indeed. america's #1 lotion tissue. ♪ get a head start in investing with the new schwab starter kit™. new investors can open an account and get $50 to split across the top five stocks in the s&p 500®. you can also unlock short videos, step-by-step guides, and other easy-to-use tools designed for people just getting started. plus, investment professionals are on standby 24/7 if you ever have a question. it's the smarter way to start investing. ♪ get your personal points plan! i'm james corden and i'm here to tell people that ww is getting even more personal. keep on shopping, ignore us. i've lost like 28 lbs. you look great! i love that my clothes fit better, but i just love ice cream a little bit more than that. the new ww personal points program is particular to you. so what kind of foods do you like? avocado. ice cream. sandwiches. no food is off limits. when can i start?! don't pay until spring. join today at ww.com offer ends january 30th. international vote rigging conspiracy to deprive then president trump of a second term. a special counsel appointed to investigate alleged election fraud and to bring criminal charges if warranted. all of these things were part of an executive order. an executive order written and was intended for trump to sign, and it would have directed the pentagon to seize voting machines in key states. all off this was published, the entire order, by politico. he didn't sign it though. tom foreman is out front with the story. >> reporter: it reads like a fictional thriller. the inauguration postponed voting machines seized by the military and donald trump's presidential power extended by weeks while his hand-picked investigators decide who won the election. >> we won this election and we won it by a landslide. >> reporter: the december 2020 draft executive order could have triggered all of that if it had been signed and enacted before joe biden's win was certified. >> it's a lawless document and really breathtaking in its approach to our american democracy. >> reporter: so what's in it? according to politico, the draft is a patchwork of conspiracy theories and dubious legal arguments previously pushed by team trump. for starters, the paper claims president trump had a constitutional right to declare an emergency and pull in the pentagon based on probable cause the vote was rife with fraud. >> decertification of the election. >> reporter: court after court dismissed those claims. >> the sheer brazenness and, you know, the illegality of it all is pretty shocking. >> reporter: chris krebs, once served as trump's cybersecurity advisor. >> this is a violation on its face of posse come itto theis a, a degree restriction on using federal troops for federal law enforcement action. >> reporter: but there is more. the paper cites a forensic report that found toe minute kbrun voting machines used in several bagram states were intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results. the draft falsely says dominion is owned and controlled by foreign entities, adding multiple expert witnesses identified acts of foreign interference in the election. but that report was soundly debunked about i a much more comprehensive analysis by the state of michigan. while a judge cited in the draft questioned whether the machines might be subject to tampering, the paper claims it happened. witnesses in georgia have provided evidence of crashes. the replacement of a server. impermissible updates. but the draft offers no prove and dominion officials are suing some trump advisors for billions for defamation. >> this was absolute banana republic stuff. no one writing this document or taking this document seriously, in my view, could have been of sound mind. >> reporter: we don't know who wrote this. we don't know why it wasn't signed, how seriously it was ever considered, erin. we know this. it fits completely into everything we've seen from team trump. keep delaying. keep denying. keep trying to not admit the simple truth. joe biden won. donald trump lost. >> all right. thank you very much, tom foreman, for that detail. i want to go now to bill gates to talk about this. he is the republican harimann of the board of supervisors in mayor cola county, arizona, at the center of this. chairman, you see this executive order. trump considered signing it. he actually never is. when you look at it, the order was written with all this detail, empowering the pentagon to seize voting machines, such a thing was drafted and ready, what in the world is your reaction? >> well, erin, thanks for having me. it's really frightening to think that we got this close to that executive order being signed, that this sort of executive order would even be written. but instead what we saw here in arizona was that the state senate did president trump's bidding and specifically subpoenaed the election machines and the 2.1 million ballots from maricopa county. so they decided, we actually saw that play out here as your viewers know. >> so, the executive order, you know, alleges that those debunked conspiracies about the dominion voting machines that you are talking about, you know, they said that the machines were used by international actors, right, that they went in and changed the tallies, right, the wh whole thing, which is completely false. so what do you say? i mean, a lot of people believe this. you oversaw an election that used dominion machines, you know? and this whole thing at its core is alleging something that is a lie, which is that the machines were, you know, messed with and tallies were changed. >> right. and this has been proven again and again to be patently false. this issue was raised in the courts multiple times. there is no basis to it. and then, further, we conducted our own audits in maricopa county that established there were no issues with those machines. there was no malware placed on them. those machines were never connected to the internet. there was simply no basis for this claim. but, unfortunately, all of this led really, all of this that was sort of sewing these doubts at this time that were articulated in this executive order laid the predicate for the so-called audit here in arizona. >> right, right. so-called, of course, the bottom line, right? i mean, it was not a real audit. even though its conclusion was that biden's margin was bigger than what had been reported. i appreciate your time. i thank you so much. >> thank you. next, what's happening in the uk is bizarre. another huge employee to prime minister boris johnson. we are finding out about these parties, multiple, plural, being looked at by police during covid. and at the australian open in the form of these t-shirts. and he gets one-on-one coaching when he needs it. so ben is feeling pretty zen. that's the planning effect from fidelity if you have advanced non-small cell lung cancer, your first treatment could be a chemo-free combination of two immunotherapies that works differently. it could mean a chance to live longer. opdivo plus yervoy is for adults newly diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer that has spread, tests positive for pd-l1, and does not have an abnormal egfr or alk gene. together, opdivo plus yervoy helps your immune 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serious jeopardy. bianca is out front. >> jacuzzi party in downing street. >> from bad to worse. the british government was already investigating prime minister boris johnson for allegedly breaking covid rules. now, london's police also known as the met, are too. >> i can confirm that the met is now investigating a number of events that took place at downing street and whitehall in the last two years. in relation to potential breaches of covid-19 regulations. >> i apologize for the impression -- >> for weeks, johnson has been struggling to contain the growing scandal. >> -- that i have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no covid rules were broken. >> in the new year, new allegations that downing street staffers threw a raucous party on the eve of prince philip's funeral in april last year, which queen elizabeth attended on her own. johnson apologized to the queen and admitted he did attend a bring your own booze party in the may 2020 lockdown and said it wasn't his fault. >> nobody told me, and nobody said that this was something that was against the rules. it was a breach of the covid rules, that we were doing something that wasn't a work event. >> but now, cnn affiliate itv reports on johnson's own birthday in june 2020, he attended two separate parties at downing street with as many as 30 people, including the decorator redesigning his apartment. this photo was taken earlier that day. at the time, up to six people could only meet outside and indoor gatherings were not allowed. a source who worked at downing street at the time confirmed to cnn that johnson's wife organized a gathering in the afternoon and that they sang happy birthday. just months before, johnson had written to a 7-year-old girl congratulating her for postponing her own birthday party. >> the government recognizes and i recognize the public anxiety and indignation that it appears as though the people who have been setting the rules may not have been following the rules. and i would like to repeat that sentiment today. >> well, well, well. all too soon, the minister and i find ourselves here once again rather than dealing with the cost of living crisis and families, we're talking -- we're talking about scandals in downing street again. >> the crisis for boris johnson is now political and potentially criminal. his spokesman says no laws were broken but the police investigation comes add a time when many in his own conservative party are actively plotting to get rid of him. johnson has spent the past two weeks throwing them red meat, scrapping covid restrictions earlier than planned, upending the fees to fund the bbc, and getting tough on russia. whether he stays in power may depend on the outcome of these investigations, which the police commissioner said will go where the evidence takes us. erin, as the amount of allegations of parties inside downing street while the country was under a strict lockdown starts to break into double digits, the hypocrisy and the outrage over that hypocrisy felt by the public and mps has reached a fever pitch and it's subsiding into an exasperation felt in the country at large and also by his own mps who are now making moves, it seems this week, to potentially try to oust him. >> an incredible story. thank you so much. >> and next, why t-shirts asking where is peng shuai can now be seen throughout the crowd at the australian open. d of seeing the world. but i'm not chasing my dream anymore. i made a financial plan to live it every day. ♪ at northwestern mutual, our version of financial planning helps you live your dreams today. find a northwestern mutual advisor at nm.com i brought in ensure max protein, with thirty grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! 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"ac 360" starts right now. good evening. tonight, all the latest on what is perhaps the most serious confrontation with rushy sns the end of the cold war. today, the biden administration briefed bipartisan members of the house and senate leadership on the ukraine crisis. and in public, even as it signaled uncertainty about moscow's intentions and left the door open to a diplomatic solution, the white house was also notably grim on the prospects of a russian invasion. >> i think when we said it was imminent, it remains imminent. but again, we can't make a prediction of what decision president putin will make. we're still engaged in diplomatic discussions and negotiations. >> nothing has changed the