building. we have to warn you. this is upsetting. >> okay. i don't know who's watching. we got hit by a hurricane. i'm at work in mayfield. and we are trapped. please, y'all, give us some help. we're at the candle factory in mayfield. please. please. >> in arkansas, at least one person is dead. five seriously injured after the apparent tornado hit a nursing home. early reports say two people died and multiple injured at the amazon center in edwardsville, illinois after a 100-foot portion of the wall collapsed. we will stay with the story. a lot going on. i want to get to stephanie stanton who has been covering this. stephanie, good morning. this is a fast breaking story. we are learning about the damage and as sun starts to come up and what that damage looks like. there is still danger of more storms. >> reporter: good morning, ali. we are monitoring what is happening over in the several states in the midwest. from here in florida, i grew up in the chicagoland area. i'm familiar with tornadoes. i have gone in the basement many times. the devastation that we are seeing now is really unprecedented. it is incredible. words cannot describe what has happened and what these people are going through. let's take you through some of the more serious things we can talk about. you talked about it off the top. the serious places that were hit by the deadly tornadoes. talking about mayfield, kentucky. that candle plant there. we saw the governor of kentucky earlier this morning in the news conference talked about at least 50 people reportedly dead from tornadoes in that state. we know that the candle factory was struck. the drone video is incredible. you know it is hard to describe. there could be at least a dozen fatalities within the candle factory alone. we know officials are going to be painstakingly going through the debris trying to search for survivors. it is going to be a very arduous job. i have been watching social media and looking at my phone. one woman tweeting out she said parts, if not most of her town, was completely destroyed. we were also listening to the scanner in bowling green, kentucky had officials busy responding to multiple incidents. first responders have been doing an incredible job, ali, with what they have to deal with at this point in time. in terms of mayfield, it is a town of 10,000 people. it is a small town. we saw reports on social media several buildings left without roofs. the courthouse, by the way built in 1888, an incredible picture where part of the roof of the courthouse completely gone. structure completely altered. you know that is just one of the major areas that is hardest hit. you talk about the amazon plant built in 2016 in edwardsville, illinois. half of the building almost completely gone there. we understand there has been at least one fatality reported. i'm seeing reports on social media that officials expect the death toll to rise unfortunately there. monette, arkansas. the nursing home. monette manor in arkansas. the nursing home. we heard the mayor of monette earlier speaking to lindsey reiser. he was choked up. he was fortunate, but so many others were not. they are dealing with so much devastation, ali, especially this time of year before the holidays and a lot of people are just now starting to process what is happening. we will continue to monitor social media and continue to monitor officials and reports and try to bring you the latest information as we see it from our vantage point until we get correspondents on the ground. >> they should be there shortly. i also will be headed to mayfield, kentucky after the show. stephanie, just wave if you have information. we will bring you right back. if you don't know where mayfield is, it is basically north/northwest of nashville. two hours drive of nashville. directly south of paducah. it is about 30 minutes south of paducah. i want to go to meteorologist bill karins. bill, 32 tornadoes that we know of that touched down. the circumstances for more tornadoes continues to exist. >> yeah, we have the potential. we haven't had confirmed tornadoes or reported tornadoes since about 1:00 a.m. in the morning. most of the damage that you are seeing was done by one long track tornado. you will hear a lot of reports today. this was on the ground for over 200 miles. the thunderstorm that produced the tornado was showing the potential for producing a tornado for roughly four hours. i know about 250 miles through four states. that is almost unheard of. we don't know exactly if the tornado was on the ground, lifted and came back down and on the ground again. we will find that out with the official surveys. regardless, we know for portions of the tornado's life, it was extremely violent. that is the ef-4 and ef-5. we haven't had an ef-5 in the country for years. ef-5s are ones where all you see left is the cement on the ground. foundation of the house. that's it. if a roof and structure remaining, it is lower than an ef-5. you see the damage that was done to the factory, that looks to be at least an ef-3 or ef-4. the picture of the courthouse in front of mayfield, the top of the building was ripped off. the building itself is standing. it looks like a brick building. the trees on the sides were stripped down to the bark in some cases and not a lot left. let's show you what happened. the first tornado warnings issued at 6:00 p.m. arkansas and missouri and st. louis residents knew it was a dangerous day. it was warm and humid for december. we knew we had the chance for tornadoes. it wasn't like this was a surprise for anyone in the area. the one tornado that produced almost all of the problems or most of the problems was the one that developed right at 5:40 p.m. just to the southwest of jonesboro, arkansas. that is the first tornado warning was issued. then we tracked that storm. that one individual super cell for four hours. i paused it here when it hit mayfield, kentucky. that was right around 9:30 p.m. the tornado issue just 20 minutes before that. everything was going off. they knew they were under a tornado emergency. it was extremely rare. you get a tornado emergency. everyone was getting families to the sturdy shelter. factories, in this portion of the country, they should have a safe room in the candle factory. we hope that was the case. everyone was rushing to where they were going. it was a matter of the tornado hits and can we survive it. i was saying sometimes can't survive an ef-4 or ef-5 unless you are underground in a tornado shelter. in the interior room, it may not be enough. >> viewers are familiar with hurricane scales, but tornado scales are different. tornadoes pack a lot of energy unlike hurricanes. you see the pattern of the storm moving and on the right side of the strong wall, you are okay other than flooding. tornadoes are a different situation. you know a tornado is coming by virtue of the environmental circumstances being appropriate. you don't know where it is coming from and where it will hit. >> we played that call at the beginning where the person in the building said they were hit by a hurricane. in the aftermath, they were not hit by a hurricane, but that is what they were relaing to what it was like. utter devastation. we know a hurricane is coming. there is a build up. tornadoes are a different beast. tornadoes are smaller. we call them one-to-two miles wide. a half mile wide. when we get helicopters, you will see pictures of the path where it went through the neighborhood. you will see some homes a quarter mile away from the tornado with minimal damage and where the tornado hit, you see almost nothing left. tornadoes are unfair how it can obliterate anything in its path and half mile away, almost like nothing happened. you know, you get the warnings and they issue them for whole towns. picture the warning. tornado emergency for mayfield. tornado coming for your town. grab your kids and family and head to the safe room or bathtub. the door shut. mattresses and praying. you don't know if that tornado is going to hit your house or it will hit your neighbor's house. obviously, i'm trying not to focus too much on mayfield. that is where we know the devastation is, ali. it will be more than that. eight tornado emergencies issued last night on this storm. i've never seen that before. i've seen a couple of tornado emergencies here and there. over a four-hour period, eight different towns were doing the scenario where they know for a fact a powerful tornado was going to hit and go through their town. it wasn't just mayfield. those are the pictures we have for you now. >> we have drone pictures of the candle factory in mayfield. it is remarkable for the hurricanes and tornadoes we've covered, bill. the damage after the powerful tornado, it looks like buildings were put through shredders and cars in compactors. if a tree falls on a car, you see that damage. in a tornado, things are tossed around like they are weightless. bill, stick around. i'll come to you a lot through the course of the show as we get more information as sun starts to come up in those areas. joining us over the phone is kentucky state trooper sarah burgess. we have pictures of the candle factory. what is the situation on the ground? >> it is terrible on the ground. we have crews on scene that are doing their very best to go through the rubble and recover as many as they can. the candle factory had approximately 110 employees working at the time of the collapse. there is an initial collapse and secondary collapse. we had crews on there on scene working to recover them since then. >> this is an active recovery scene at the moment. you have information that there may be people who are still there or contact with people? >> that is the belief there are still people under the rubble. that is correct. >> what are the services like? we were just saying you are about 35 minutes from paducah. you are a good distance from nashville. what do you have in terms of services? emt? hospitals? everybody is on high alert. we see a lot of emergency vehicles in the video we are looking at with the drone video. what is the situation you need from the help from the state and the federal government at this point? >> the governor has deployed the national guard to us. that helps us here. we have all of our surrounding counies here to assist us and joined in on the team. paducah has two area hospitals. paducah is still up and running. they did not seem to get hit as hard as mayfield. we are doing pretty good as far as those resources go. we absolutely could use every prayer that we can get. meals for all of the responders would be greatly appreciated. anybody that is in the area that is not an emergency respond er or actively involved, we can you stay where you are to reduce the congestion in the area. >> thoughts and prayers we can muster from the audience. it is good to know what help you need. we appreciate that. what is the situation with urban search and rescue? is that something you are typically equipped for and are you in that situation where people are calling from random sites? not the candle factory, but other places in the neighborhood? >> yes, we do have several calls in from residents' homes that have collapsed or damaged where people may be trapped in those homes. we received calls from them. we have rescue teams. we have fire rescue departments and volunteer fire departments and department of emergency services. we have several rescue teams on the ground helping with those recoveries. >> you mention paducah is up and running and not hit as hard as where you are. i guess the issue is power. there are places that may not have been hit by the tornado or destroyed, but you have power? widespread power outages? >> correct. we have widespread power outages. i-69 is shutdown due to a transmission line that takes power across the country. that line is down across the interstate right now. we have that issue. luckily a lot of our buildings have generators. we are operating on generator power right now the best we can. >> trooper burgess, what is the best-case scenario right now? we know a lot of people lost their lives overnight. you are still involved in active rescues. what are you hoping to see today? >> of course, the hope is zero fatalities. that is not looking promising. we expect loss of life. as minimum as possible. we don't have a number. we can't begin to predict. >> you, like other emergency workers, you are not thinking about numbers right now in total numbers. you are thinking of saving the people calling and requiring the help you need. we appreciate that. we are thinking about you. we will stay in close touch with you and your agency and fellow emergency workers. our regards and thanks to all of the people working so hard this morning to save the people in the neighborhood who have been affected by this tragedy. this is trooper sarah burgess of the kentucky state police. we will have live updates on the deadly storm in kentucky. we have people on the way there to cover this story. there are at least 50 people who have lost their lives. there are many more who are in need of rescue right now. lieutenant colonel vindman joins me about the escalating situation at the ukraine border after this. border after this when you switch to t-mobile and bring your own device, we'll pay off your phone up to $1000. you can keep your phone. keep your number. and get your employees connected on the largest and fastest 5g network. plus, we give you $200 in facebook ads on us! so you can reach more customers, create more opportunities, and finish this year strong. visit your local t-mobile store today. people everywhere living with type 2 diabetes are waking up to what's possible... and finish this year strong. ...with rybelsus®. 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(♪ ♪) you may pay as little as $10 per prescription. ask your healthcare provider about rybelsus® today. every day in business brings something new. so get the flexibility of the new mobile service designed for your small business. introducing comcast business mobile. you get the most reliable network with nationwide 5g included. and you can get unlimited data for just $30 per line per month when you get four lines or mix and match data options. available now for comcast business internet customers with no line-activation fees or term contract required. see if you can save by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. we have been covering a series of tornadoes, at least 32 tornadoes touched down overnight. there were serious damage in mayfield, kentucky. it is south of paducah. paducah on the ohio river. michael gordon, a storm chaser, he was tracking the tornado. he was traveling to mayfield. he has been hunkered down. bad conditions continue. he spoke with lindsey reiser earlier. listen to what he said. >> when i saw it on radar, it wasn't looking like it was as large as it really was. after it passed my truck, that was something that when i rolled my window down, you could feel the pressure just drop as it was sucking everything it could off the ground. you could feel the -- the intensity, the noise, the power flashes. just thinking what that tornado was actually doing as i could only see it in the dark. it was, you know, a gut-wrenching thing to see it just keep moving and then to learn its tracked over 200 miles and has destroyed many, many cities. one of them is mayfield. i'm actually sitting here in mayfield next to the candle factory. everywhere throughout mayfield is a destruction. i don't know. i don't like looking outside my truck as it is getting light because there's -- there's nothing left. >> there's nothing left. a lot of destruction in mayfield. you saw that candle factory. there is more damage. at least 50 people lost their lives. i spoke to a state trooper in kentucky who is hoping to discover no more fatalities. the governor of kentucky expects more fatalities. we have reporters on the way to the scene. i will go to the scene as well as soon as this show is over. we are staying on top of the storm. also a ton of news on the january 6th front. we will have the latest on the investigation with colonel alexander vindman next. alexandet as much as you do, like this guy in a hat. that's why progressive car insurance covers your pets for up to $1,000 if they're ever in a car accident with you. this mini majorette's gonna march her way right into your heart. -i'm sorry. can we stop? i know that we're selling car insurance here, but, you know, all the cute little animals, it's too much. define "too much." what's wrong with cute animals? -so are we doing this or what? -nah, it's over. 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[ mittens squeaking ] we continue to monitor the breaking news of the deadly storm system that tore through the midwest overnight. we will have live reports through the course of the show. we are getting more information. the sun has come up. it is helping rescuers. it is an active rescue situation. there are other things to cover. covid numbers are rising. president biden's poll numbers sliding. republicans continue to try to destroy american democracy for their de-throned leader. speaking of the failed former president, since may of this year, when vaccinations became widely available, people living in counties that voted at least 60% for donald trump have more than 2.7 times the death rate compared to counties that voted joe biden. you see the numbers rising where the votes for donald trump were held. the former insurrectionist-in-chief. the january 6th anniversary approaching, the insurrection never ended. the court ruled against the committee from obtaining the documents and reports from the national archives and appealed to the supreme court is expected. it will fall to the supreme court at the same time that select committee continues to work defending democracy. the committee issued six subpoenas. including to max miller. the former senior adviser to the former president who received endorsement in the campaign for ohio's 16th district seat in the house. that seat is currently occupied by anthony gonzalez who is not running for re-election. he has been censured by the ohio gop and called on to resign because he voted to impeach donald trump. that is what the republican party has come to. this man whose face you may not know, not this guy. another guy. ali alexander. there he is. the guy in the middle. the one of the organizers behind stop the steal rally appeared before the committee for an eight-hour long deposition on thursday. upon leaving, he was served with a civil lawsuit. the contents of which are unknown. alexander spoke to the media. simultaneously slamming the free press and trying to sound like his dear leader as possible saying he gave quote beautiful testimony in a beautiful building. the deposition for jason miller was scheduled to take place yesterday, but postponed after he engaged with the committee. then the saga of mark meadows. former chief of staff to the president and former member of congress. a person so confused, he is decrying the just published memoir. he is suing the january 6th committee accusing it of violating civil rights after the committee announced plans to move forward with contempt of congress proceedings for failure to comply after saying he would. that is scheduled to take place on monday. there is a situation with the mysterious and dangerous power point presentation that mark meadows reportedly turned over to the committee. a version of which may or may not be floating around the internet. joining me with this is hugo lowell. his investigation dives into the mark meadows power point presentation. hugo, this is wild. you have people saying this was spontaneous and meant to be a rally and then you find out there are solid plans. someone made a power point and it wasn't just someone. it involved the chief of staff to the president of the united states. former congress member whose complaint is congress doesn't listen to the people. >> yes, mark meadows turned over to the committee the 38-slide power point which recommended that trump should declare a national security emergency to return himself to office. it was the most conspiratorial power point. it happened before the capitol attack. we had reporting last night that members of congress and possibly republican senators were briefed on the content. at the baseline here, the white house chief of staff had in his possession a presentation detailing how to commit a coup and even if he did nothing with it, that is extremely damning. >> hugo, let's talk about in the interest of transparency here. i have not seen the power point presentation. there is some distinction you brought up with the power point presentation that mark meadows may have given the committee versus the one you looked at? >> yeah. i understand that there are at least two versions of the power point. there is another one floating around the internet. that is not what we reviewed. we reviewed was 36 pages. a version 2 marked for dissemination. we spoke to people connected to the power point and people we believe were involved in creating the power point and what we understand from all of those conversations was the one we reviewed and the one meadows turned over to the committee were the same. same title. for all intents and purposes, it is the same document with minor differences. >> i love power point presentations. that is the best way to communicate complicated ideas. what is shocking? that it exists that someone made a power point presentation of how to do an insurrection or was there something juicy and remarkable about what trump had been saying around january 6th? >> the wider picture here is that what emerges from all of this is that trump world was focused on the idea of preventing biden of being certified on january 6th. whether it was the will of lawyers to find to get pence to throw the election or delay the certification or whether with you have the power point to declare a national security emergency. it mentioned ways to pence to throw the election. the overriding picture here is they wanted at all costs to stop biden's certification. even if the chief of staff did nothing with it. that is damning. the fact that members of congress appeared to be briefed on the contents of the power point based on debunked claims of conspiracy theories of election fraud. that is a dangerous position for democracy. >> you know, that last sentence of yours, hugo, debunked claims of fraud being a dangerous threat to democracy can apply to so much going on with respect to the conversation. if only it were a statement in the past. it is not. what you said is currently happening. it is alive and well. if you think the insurrection attempt is behind us, it is not. hugo lowell. congressional reporter. joining us now is the chair of the department of african american studies. he is a political analyst. he is the author of "begin again." professor, i want to pick up where hugo left off with that last comment. this business, this choice about spreading this lie about the election and about voter fraud and election security. it is a choice that members of the republican party and donald trump continue to make and continues to instigate the insurrection. that is based on one lie that has been debunked and still people perpetuating this lie and running on it. >> thank you, ali, for having me. my prayers are with all of the folks experienced the storms. the devastation. it is just overwhelming. you are absolutely right. in this regard, we tend to think of january 6th as a moment. it began, it happened, it ended. what if it is ongoing? the people continuing to make the choice and believe in the lie and circulate the idea of voter fraud and the like. these folks are engaing in the ongoing insurrection. they are challenging the belief or trust in the democratic process. they are using democratic processes and institutions to undermine democratic processes and institutions. what we are seeing are the folks engaged in an ongoing insurrection. we need to name it as such. >> when you say ongoing, very specifically, georgia, texas, arizona, michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, ohio. these are all states in which not only are there state bodies advancing this lie, but in georgia, david purdue, running again. david purdue used to be a fairly normal republican. running on the basis he would not have certified the election and there were problems despite the secretary of state in georgia and despite the governor in georgia saying there was not voter fraud in the last election in georgia. >> absolutely. we see across all the states you named, not only are they perpetuating the lie and trying put in place personnel in some ways to overturn the will of the people and undermining the voting process. we are seeing over and over the republican party engaging in detail actions to disrupt the democratic process. so. it is a five--alarm fire. it seems to me and i hope others hold this view, particularly people in the democratic party and particularly president biden. this is a serious crisis the country faces. we must respond to it in kind. we can't simply think the 1/6 commission is sufficient or the legal process is sufficient. in some ways, the trumpists on using a political rope-a-dope to control the house of representatives. >> this stuff is happening in georgia you are talking about. changing the bodies that count elections and make determinations. you and i are having a great session monday night in philadelphia where we talk about james baldwin. you wrote before the big lie about the lie that continues. as long as america doesn't address history, we are lying to ourselves the outcome. the lie is very alive. that is the case. this is the choice. this is not a natural disaster. we have covered what is going on in kentucky. that is a tragic natural disaster. this bs about the elections and the steal. it is not a lie. it is a choice by republicans. >> absolutely. there is a lie behind the big lie, ali. that lie is this country must remain a white nation in the vain of old europe. what drove many -- remember the social scientist who did a study on the insurrection. many came from counties that biden won, but experiencing shifts. white folks are becoming minorities. the idea of white america displaced or replaced or displaced in history. there is a panic and terror here. i should say this quickly. america has never been -- how can i put this? we haven't been a genuine democracy until 1965. until 1965. remember there were large swaths of americans who could not vote. my dad. my mom. democracy isn't something that has always been substantiated in the country. there have always been liberal forces. we use june jordan's statement to allow us to live in willful ignorance. >> we can overcome this. we can get to something more perfect. it is actually a choice we need to make on a daily basis. professor, good to see you. i will see you monday night in philadelphia. eddie, the chair of the department of african american studies at princeton university and political analyst. we are going to keep covering the deadly string of tornadoes that tore through the midwest and south overnight. images coming in to us are devastating. more than 50 people have lost their lives and police and emergency workers are continuing to rescue others called in and said they need help. we gave new zzzquil pure zzzs restorative herbal sleep to people who were tired of being tired. i've never slept like this before. i've never woken up like this before. crafted with clinically studied plant-based ingredients that work naturally with your body. for restorative sleep like never before. ♪day to night to morning,♪ ♪keep with me in the moment♪ ♪i'd let you had i known it, why don't you say so?♪ ♪didn't even notice,♪ ♪no punches left to roll with♪ ♪you got to keep me focused♪ ok everyone, our mission is to provide complete, balanced nutrition for strength and energy. whoo hoo! ensure, with 27 vitamins and minerals, now introducing ensure complete! with 30 grams of protein. is now a good time for a flare-up? 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>> reporter: it is a search and rescue mission here. i'll step out of the way to give you an idea. that is the amazon facility. that wall right there which is no more than a length of the football field and winds ripped off the roof. the storms have since moved on out of the area. we are 20 miles outside of st. louis, missouri. as you take a closer look, there have been two confirmed dead here overnight as search and rescue efforts continue. 30 were taken away and back with loved ones. one person was injured badly. they were flown to the area hospital to get further treatment. it is still very much an active situation and scene here. we know the facility loads up the amazon trucks to be out to deliver to folks for people who ordered items here. there is not too much product inside. according to one worker we have spoken with this morning. there were people inside the building and search and rescue crews are still searching for people in the building. we spoke with first responders who said this effort to last several days. the edwardsville mayor says the governor of illinois reached out to offer support. the mayor says thoughts and prayers continue to reignite. i'll send it back to the student studio. >> rhyan, is this an isolated pocket of tornado damage or around everywhere in edwardsville? >> reporter: there was significant storm damage. we had damage on the missouri side as well. it seems to be isolated. this building is the only one damaged out here this badly. there were a couple of deaths on the missouri side and damage in spotty places. definitely isolated. >> thank you for the reporting. we will check in. a reporter at ksdk in st. louis. thank you. we continue coverage of this. it has been seven years since russia -- i'm sorry. i'll check with the control room what it is we're doing next. stephanie stanton has been covering this for us until we get reporters on the ground. stephanie, let's get the latest information. i spoke to a kentucky state trooper live since i spoke to you. the emergency workers keep hope alive. they don't end until long after anyone thinks they should stop working. she had a sound in her voice that was very, very worried that they would find a number of people who had not survived this. >> reporter: indeed, ali. this is emotional for these first responders. right now, this is still a very active rescue mission. they looking for survivors. as time goes on, as we all know, it turns into a recovery mission. that is when the death toll starts to rise. i want to talk a little bit about the aftermath of this because these tornadoes have ripped through and now you will have entire communities, thousands of people across the state, who have to pick up the pieces and carry on. that is just the devastation which is beginning for a lot of the families. when you look at the pictures and videos coming in, you see how the tornado rips through and see how you see one house that is damaged or minimal damage and several houses completely destroyed. it will go like that throughout all of the communities. you have people whose homes were untouched and others who lost everything. right now, it is important for the communities to come together. the red cross is, of course, asking for donations. they are mobilizing teams to get to the regions to help in any way they can. i also took a look at the cdc web site. they have post-tornado tips. i want to go through these, ali, for folks to understand what to expect. they need to be careful near damaged buildings. never enter a damaged building. you don't know if it is stable. watch for hazards like nails and broken glass. you have electrical hazards or destruction of gas lines. you have to be careful of that so you don't get co2 poisoning or explosion or fire. talking a bit about the power being out. they have to deal with the power outages for days if not weeks. that will create hazards. youflashlights. you need to be careful with candles. also the food and water. clean food and clean water. a lot of the folks will be up against this in the coming days and weeks, ali. >> you are from illinois. you spent time in illinois. i was talking to a reporter from southern illinois, st. louis, basically. he was talking about the power outages and widespread damage. remember, it is still winter. gas stations close with power outages and there is all sorts of issues with getting power. mayfield, kentucky, completely without power right now. even for those people not previously injured power. even for those people not grievously injured by the storm there is a lot of work that will have to be done to bring normalcy which is why the national guard and the state's getting involved and we're waiting for a comment from the president to see what sort of aid goes into these places because this was a very long swath of land across which these tornadoes traveled. >> yeah. absolutely. and you said it. we are in winter there. fortunately, i understand the weather is slightly mild and they're not getting blizzards that i know of, but it is cold there and they'll need help, ali. >> it's going to be very difficult to watch how this develops over the course of the day. stephanie, thank you. i want to go to nbc meteorologist bill karins who is covering this. bill, what do you know? >> well, we're starting obviously at daybreak. carrie is in kentucky and we're getting pictures in and letting the viewers know the way it works. the storm chases are out there and there are drones and pictures on social media that we have to get permission and we pay for them and then we'll show you the pictures. i've seen pictures and it looks like a bomb went off and it looks like an ef-4 went through downtown and we showed you the candle factory, but there are a lot of homes that have been destroyed through mayfield also and it's not just the candle factory. when you see pictures like that you know there are more injuries and deaths probably outside of the factory. not probably, definitely. for everyone just waking up and joining us, let me show you. we had 32 tornadoes reported. we had one tornado that tracked about 250 miles through four states. we don't know if it was on the ground the entire time or not. it looks to be one of the most significant tornadoes we've had in this country in a long time. i did get someone asking me, with the storm itself, we had the first warning at 5:50, ali. the tornado warning in mayfield went up at 9:05 and the tornado emergency was at 9:27 and the tornado struck at 9:30. so they did know they were in a tornado warning and they only had a couple of minutes to know that they were in that emergency. >> what's the spread between a tornado emergency being declared and a tornado on the ground? >> a tornado warning will trigger the sirens and it will trigger your phone. it means your area has the potential to be hit by a tornado and when they hit an emergency for a smart, specific town. they know confirmation on the ground there is a powerful, destructive tornado about to go through your town, you should be hunkered down anyway and it's an exponential level of alarm that if you hadn't gotten to shelter you should have been because you had minutes or seconds left. >> you talk with this thing going on for 200 miles, is that common? do you see a lot of that in your career? >> no. this will -- only 1% of tornadoes are, like, ef-4 or ef-5. typically they're only on the ground for a little bit and this is what we call a long track tornado and it was at night. this could go down as one of the longest, strongest tornadoes we've ever recorded. ali, this is the middle of december and two weeks from christmas and that is the part that is unheard of. >> it is remarkable and we'll get more information as the sun comes up and we'll be talking to more people and i'll be coming back to you a lot. thank you very much, bill karins. stay with msnbc of continuing coverage of the storm situation. we will not leave it and we will come back to you with new, important news. a lot of people have lost their lives and active rescues for people. there is another important story that we need to talk about is russia and ukraine. i want to lay this out for you. the russian president vladimir putin believes that ukraine should be subservient to russia. ukraine aligns itself these days more with the west, rejecting russia's influence. seeing this as a threat, russia sent troops to the border of ukraine in recent weeks signaling a possible invasion if ukraine doesn't align with its loyalty. ukraine is not a member of nato and nato is the world's military alliance so nato countries do not technically have obligation to offer military assistance if russia attacks or invades as they would if a fellow nato country did. president biden has been grappling with this question. >> we have a moral obligation and a legal obligation to our nato allies if they were to attack under article 5. that obligation does not extend to nato -- i mean, ukraine. >> article 5, that says an attack on nato country is equivalent to an attack on all other nato countries. president biden had a phone call with president putin and he threatened sanctions on moscow if it were to invade ukraine. the biden administration prepared a $200 million package of additional military assistance for ukraine in recent week, but chose to hold off on delivering the aid despite appeals from kiev and some lawmakers, but our sources say there are other options on the table in the event of further incursion by russia. joining me is a man who knows a great deal about this. alexander vinman is a retired colonel in the united states army and the former director for the eastern european caucuses and russia for the national security council and the author of the book here "right matters. an american story." you know alexander vindman because the fact he was a whistle-blower because of what was wrong with the trump administration. he knows a lot about russia and ukraine. colonel vindman, good to see you. thank you for being with us. what should we know and what should we be worried about with respect to the buildup of russian troops on the ukrainian border? >> ali, good to see you, too. so this is a serious situation. this is a serious situation that's likely to result in probably the largest military confrontation in europe since world war ii. it has direct implications on u.s. national security interests. it has direct implications on european stability which is critical to u.s. national security. it is our principal ally, nato, europe, most important trading partner or one of the most important trading partners and the instability there will have a direct impact on the united states. we are not doing enough right now to avoid this confrontation. i think vladimir putin is emboldened and the rhetoric continues to increase. most recently, the demands for a legal exclusion of ukraine from nato continue to be on the table for the russian side even though president biden said that's off the agenda and even unfortunately the pronouncements from this administration including president biden have not necessarily been helpful. we have legal obligations to defend nato, that's true, but moral obligations extend to ukraine because of those things i laid out. values and democracy looking to pave its own way and looking to integrate with the west. interests, it's critical to our geopolitics. i wrote an articel that was in "the new york times" yesterday. where ukraine goes, russia is likely to follow. if ukraine is prosperous we alleviate our burdens with an adversarial russia and this is what's missing rendering military aid is important and it's not going to be the decisive factor, but it's going to be important. positioning u.s. troops to deter russian aggression is in u.s. interests. it's not belligerent, it's deterrence and all of the discussions about sanctions are important. nothing should be off the table and we shouldn't bend to russia's unilateral demands here. >> you say nothing should be off the table. the president has basically said troops are off the table because under nato there would be an obligation. russia is very clear that they do not want ukraine moving toward being a nato country, but it begs the question for all of those countries not part of nato. is there an obligation on the part of the free world to defend them when they are faced from aggression, in this case russia, but from whomever it would be? >> you're right. we're want going to commit u.s. forces to put boots on the ground, but in terms of dialogue and diplomacy, you don't know how the situation will unfold. it could quite possibly we come a catastrophe and that is a helpful position to be in russia is triggering additional u.s. force presence by europe and we should also not be establishing kind of a new, more defensive position where only nato countries are part of where security interests are. we want something much broader. we want -- there are u.n. -- u.n. protocols between states and that's really the red line and not nato. >> lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, thank you for joining us. he's the author of "right matters," former security director for eastern europe and a fellow at the johns hopkins school of advanced international studies. all right. we'll bring you another update on the devastation in kentucky and other states after severe tornadoes. another hour of "velshi" begins right now. >> it's saturday, december 1st -- december 11th, i'm sorry. i'm ali velshi. a devastating series of tornados and tornadic thunderstorms touched down overnight in at least five states in the midwest, arkansas, missouri, kentucky and tennessee, 32 tornadoes are believed to have touched down and people dead in kentucky alone and the figure might be closer to