live inside ukraine after new that a russian invasion could be imminent. and we'll also go inside the biden administration's new plan to provide free covid tests and n95 masks to millions of americans. but we start this morning with that breaking news out of new york where new court filings show the state attorney general letitia james turning up the ahead on former president trump, and his daughter ivanka. james says her office has uncovered a lot, quote, significant evidence, unquote, that trump and the trump organization repeatedly misled the value of his assets to obtain economic benefits and tax deductions. in some cases, misstating values by hundreds of millions of dollars, but the office has not reached a final decision on whether the evidence merits legal action. joining me now nbc's ken dilanian, and former federal prosecutor and legal affairs columnist for "politico." good morning, gentlemen. boil this all down for us, ken. what does this motion tell us about the investigation? and have we had any response from the trump organization? >> good morning, chris. it tells us that investigators believe they've documented what many people have been saying for years, which is that donald trump, his children, and his company have repeatedly and pervasively made misstatements on financial documents for their own benefit. you'll notice i don't use the word lie because that's not what the a.d. is alleging here, and that's really the whole point of trying to get testimony from donald trump and his children, to prove that these misstatements were intentional they would need evidence about state of mind. and for that they need to talk to the people involved. it's a civil investigation but there's a separate criminal investigation by the manhattan district attorney looking at very similar issues. to give you two small examples of what we're talking about here, trump said that his apartment in trump tower was 30,000 square feet according to this filing when actually it was around 10,000 square feet, and the trump organization valued a parcel of land in westchester county at nearly 300 million when, in fact, it was worth no more than $50 million according to an appraisal. the point of doing this was to overstate trump's net worth to make it easier to get loans from banks including deutsche bank. the filing said eric trump cited his fifth amendment privilege in refusing to answer questions about these matters in a 2020 deposition. we reached out to the trump organization and attorneys for the former president, for don jr. and ivanka overnight for comment but have not heard back. an attorney for trump said last month, quote, they've been investigating these for three years. we're not concerned about it because we've done nothing rana the a.g.'s office says are examples. for example, he may have overvalued one property by $500 million, he included seven mansions that don't actually exist, and yet, she says they haven't decided if this case is worth legal action, explain this to me. >> well, the starting point, chris, of a fraud case is whether a false statement has been made. that is definitely a key piece. we have the false statement there. the question now is whether those were intentional lies that would fool the lender. and certainly there's a good reason to believe they may be. all the lies are going in one direction, all the false statements in one direction. all are certainly to the benefit of trump and his company, but the proof needs to be, the evidence needs to be that they knew and they intended to do that, and that's really what this investigation is. >> so renato, what you're saying is there is still a way for someone like donald trump to say, yeah, that's my signature on the paperwork but i didn't come up with those numbers, it's not my fault. i pay people to do that. >> i've tried a lot of fraud cases and that is usually the defense. the executive is so busy, he has so many things. he signed his name to all sorts of papers and didn't pay attention to what was on page 44 of this document or 97 of that document. >> all right, so ken, i understand trump org has made a statement. what are we hearing from them? >> it just hit my email. i'm going to read it to you, quote, the only one misleading the public is letitia james, the statement says. she defrauded new yorkers by basing her entire candidacy on a promise to get trump at all costs without having seen a shred of evidence and in violation of every conceivable ethical rule. three years later she's now faced with the stark reality that she has no case. in response to trump suing her and filing multiple ethical complaints the statement goes on and on the heels of her failed governor's race she has no choice but to mislead the public yet again by misrepresenting the facts and ignoring her own inflammatory comments. her allegations are baseless. much of this statement is in contention, but we wanted to get it to you. >> thank you, so renato help us see inside what might be happening inside the a.g.'s office. what's their next step? what are they looking for to make this decision? >> what they really want to do -- what they want is to get testimony from some of these people or they want them to take the fifth in order to establish the the intent that they would need to do to bring a civil case. in other words, they need to have some evidence that these false statements were intentional and getting witness testimony from the people who were making these representations, the people that signed off on them, that's how they're going to get there. and in a civil case, not in a criminal case but in a civil case, taking the fifth as eric trump did in certain circumstances can move the ball forward. >> thanks to both of you. we appreciate it. and there was another big development overnight that we need to get to and tell you about now. new subpoenas issued by the january 6th committee targeting four of the president's prominent legal allies, rudy giuliani, sidney powell, jenna ellis, and boris epstein, committee chair bennie thompson says the four pushed election lies and efforts to overturn the results. nbc's capitol hill correspondent garrett haake is covering that for us. so we've seen a lot of subpoenas come down, but these are interesting because they are going after lawyers. tell us a little bit about these arguments that surround attorney/client privilege. >> reporter: look, these are subpoenas for folks who are right at the center of the whole so-called stop the steal movement. you had rudy giuliani, sidney powell, especially closely advising then president trump about what they thought were methods to void the election results and going out in public fighting it. giuliani testifying in front of state legislatures. he had that infamous press conference at a garden supply store in pennsylvania. these were very out there folks. they were also attorneys and they're all -- at least according to rudy giuliani's attorney -- planning to use that attorney/client privilege to not answer these questions. giuliani's attorney put out a statement calling this a grand stand political ploy and saying do you really think that four attorneys will come talk to you about all this? the committee is in for another potentially protracted battle here, if they really want to secure the testimony from these four witnesses. >> i also understand that the national archives is going to be handing over some papers from the trump white house. do we know much about that? >> no, that's about as much as we know right now. we're told the documents total four pages. that's it so far, and this is basically the archivist coming out and saying, look, unless some other court intervenes today i'm putting these out. we'll all be waiting to see what is included in this release. >> garrett haake, thank you so much for that. let's head overseas now where the white house is warning that a russian invasion of ukraine could be imminent. as we speak, secretary of state antony blinken is in kyiv where he met with ukrainian's president even as russia troops continue to amass on the border. secretary blinken will meet with his russian counterpart on friday. he said this morning moscow is fully aware of what's at stake. >> we've made very clear to moscow if it chooses to renew aggression against ukraine, it will be met and it will face very severe consequences and again, that's coming not just from the united states but from countries across europe and beyond. >> richard engel is nbc's chief foreign correspondent. he is in kyiv right now. where do things stand? do soldiers, for example, that you've talked to also believe that an attack could be imminent? >> reporter: so we're in a diplomatic phase right now, so there's obviously two sides of this. there's a military component and diplomatic component. secretary blinken is in kiev right now. he finished his meeting with the president. he's giving a press conference as we are speaking right now with the ukrainian foreign minister. earlier in the day, he spoke with u.s. embassy personnel and he's been sort of making the rounds on this tour. his next stop is to germany. the germans have been meeting separately with the russians. the german foreign minister was in moscow yesterday, and then the final stop on this particular round of diplomacy. there was another round of diplomacy just last week, is to geneva where he's going to meet the russian foreign minister sergey lavrov. militarily the situation is very tense on the border. you have the russian troops, about 100,000, over 100,000, the exact number really depends on which estimate you get, anywhere between 70,120,000 are on three sides of the russian border, the north, east, the south. and then tanks and troops were recently moved into belarus, which also borders -- also borders ukraine. it's actually relatively close to kiev, and russia has said that it will send aircraft and antimissile systems into belarus as well, and the expectation is those troops will stay there for a considerable amount of time. so the ukrainian troops on this side of the border are nervous. they're worried about what they describe as provocations. they say that the russians are -- and russian-backed separatists are trying to goad them into a fight. if you remember just a few days ago, the white house said and the pentagon announced that russia, it believes had already infiltrated provocateurs into this country who could carry out an attack to deliberately cause a conflict, to deliberately give russia a pretext to cross the rubicon, to cross that border and invade ukraine. so you have diplomacy escalating once again this week after last week a series of talks did not succeed in reaching a breakthrough, and then you have the border continuing to be reinforced with additional forces moving into belarus, and then u.s. officials saying that russia is now ready. it's not a question of a buildup and when and one day and potentially they could be ready, but the u.s. officials saying they're ready now if they want to go. >> richard engel, keeping a very close watch on all of it for us. thank you. the fashion world is remembering an icon this morning, renowned journalist, andre leon talley passed away. he joined vogue in 1983, shaping fashion trends, never afraid to break the rules. talley advocated for diversity in the fashion industry encouraging top designers to include more black models in their shows. he was raised by his grandmother in the jim crow south. the cause of his death has not been released. andre leon talley was 73 years old. the biden administration site to get free at home covid tests is up and running. first, verizon and at&t are limiting 5g service around airports after airlines warned of a catastrophic disruption, so why are some airlines still scrambling to change or even cancel flights? 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(vo) verizon is going ultra! and so is manny! event planning with our best business unlimited plan ever! with 5g ultra wideband now in many more cities and up to 10 about skyrizi. times the speed at no extra cost, the downloads are flying fast! verizon is going ultra, so your business can too. developing at this hour, verizon and at&t are going forward with their launch of 5g, but with one big caveat. the telecommunications giants temporarily are limiting 5g service around some airports. that move comes after airline ceos warned about the potential for catastrophic disruptions. alaska airline's ceo reacting right here on msnbc. >> i'm cautiously optimistic, holly. it's really good news. there's still work to be done. our safety regulator, the faa has to take this data and tell us all the airports we operate across the country are safe to fly in as before. >> president biden also weighing in saying the agreement will avoid potentially devastating disruptions to passenger travel, cargo operations, and our economic recovery. but delta says it's planning for the possibility of flight cancellations, even after this agreement, and a handful of international carriers have already decided to cancel some flights to the u.s. let me bring in tom costello who covers aviation for nbc news, and captain dennis tager spokesperson for the allied pilot's association. good to see you both. this plan is just temporary right? what happens next? >> reporter: the bottom line is, let's pick up on what you just said. some people may not understand why would delta be warning about cancellations if they turned off the 5g networks around airports. the reason is, yes, the 5g is turned off around airport, but the network is now running nationwide. there is some concern that as planes fly over cities that they could pick up interference from 5g, not maybe on that final approach into a runway, but simply flying over cities because the power on these 5g sites in the u.s. is significantly higher than it is overseas. so out of an abundance of caution, some airlines have, as you mention, already canceled flights into the united states, emirates air, japan airlines, air india, on the boeing 777, that wide-bodied plane used for international flights, concerned that it may be vulnerable to 5g interference. they don't know for sure. out of an abundance of caution, some international carriers canceling those flights and some u.s. carriers, including delta, just acknowledging that as they go forward they don't know all the answers yet and they're wondering whether the entire 5g network could pose a threat or risk, and so they're taking that as a precaution. as for you and me and anybody else who flies today, no problems. we have very few flight cancellations nationwide, the weather's pretty good nationwide, so this 5g rollout is really not affecting flights today. we don't know how long 5g will be turned off at airports. the faa needs to do that deep dive to determine whether there's any vulnerability or not. that could take weeks or months until they look at every single airport, every runway, and also all the various makes and models of altimeters that are out there in various planes to see whether any of them are vulnerable. so this is going to take a little bit of time, chris. >> let me try to understand this from your perspective, captain because the argument i've heard or one key argument i've heard is that this is already working abroad. 5g is operational elsewhere. it hasn't messed things up there, so explain your concern. >> well, and tom's coverage has been dead on. the tirchs is the faa points this out, for instance in france they have the antennas pointed downwards, they have depowered it, and they operate in a frequency that is further away from the frequency that my airplane is receiving, so they've taken precautions. are those the ones that make it work that work for the french? for us the proposal was just full on bombard the airplane, frequency right up against my radio altimeter, as tom said, i actually just got from american airlines on my ipad 25 pages for the 737 model that says these are the potential 5g interference issues that you may have. so if i go to an airport, the ones that are protected, i guess we're good to go other than what tom brought up, and we're going to be watching that. if i have to go to an airport that is not 5g -- it has 5g bombarding it, then you have several systems on my airplane that could be affected. thrust reversers, collision avoidance, speed breaks, all these things that are critical flight safety tools that you have on the airplane may operate erroneously, so i've got a 25 page bulletin to review prior and then coming into the airport, if it's an alternate. i could go on and on. the bottom line is this is still very complex, and it's nestled in the reality that this is about safety. >> well, yeah, and i guess that's what a lot of passengers want to know, right? nobody wants their flight to be canceled. nobody wants to have fewer flights to choose from, so how complex is this from your perspective? how easily could it be worked out, how difficult could it be. what do you see happening as we move forward with this? >> this is the most frustrating thing. i don't know how in the world the cell phone companies, at&t and verizon, could have such an impact on what i do and the safety of flight. it is what it is. what we can do is just continue to push on this. it was great that the white house and president biden came in and gave us these sanctuaries, but they're not all all airports. as we said, some airport s. what comfort would you have if i said some of our flights are going to be protected and some of them we have procedures for. that's the paradox we're in right now. it's not comfortable. our passengers are going to be safe because we have procedures, but that's an additional distraction that can happen on the airplane, and that's what we do in the u.s. we mitigate rusk. risk. we don't wait for something bad to happen. that's what we're trying to do, every union, the airline, the faa and onward. >> let's say you're the pilot and you run into some other o'problem whatever it may be, unrelated to 5g and you have to land at another airport that's not your destination, may not be an airport that is protected, right? >> that's exactly it, and you brought up another great point. what if i have an engine failure or some other system and i'm going into a 5g airport and then these other things kick in. we all know about these layers of distractions and other anomalies, 737 max had that happen for a different reason. we're human beings in there, and there's only so much we can deal with at one time and process. even the faa notes that in their bulletin to us saying you may not catch this. so it's still a significant issue. we're going to be safe out there. we've got a break in the action, but this is not over yet. >> captain dennis tager and tom costello, as the captain says always on the flight deck with the latest for us. we appreciate it. up next, president biden set to give his second solo news conference as president later today. why his team is eyeing a reset nearly a year into taking office. year into taking year into taking office versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein. an easy to get a quote at libertymutual.com so you only pay for what you need. isn't that right limu? 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>> just to underscore that uphill climb for the president, recent polling shows that roughly seven in ten americans feel like the country is on the wrong track, which is the wrong trajectory for a president who's hoping to try to maintain the advantages they have, as narrow as they are in both the house and the senate in the midterms later today. there is a sense they haven't done a good enough job touting their achievements, the covid relief bill that was passed without republican votes, the trillion dollar infrastructure bill that did have the support of some republicans, and so certainly the president will try to use this as an effort to do that. there was also a communication reset in praise place. they feel like they have been bogged down in washington, and all of that obviously is demonstrated by those recent failings or certainly setbacks as it relates to build back better stalled, the voter rights bill, that will likely run into a brick wall there as well. among the questions, i think, the president will be pressed on is what his vision is going forward as it relates to build back better. what is it going to do for americans concerned about the expiration of the child tax credit. one family in d.c. said they were relying on that money and without it right now they really feel like they are in dire straits. and then beyond that, what is the plan b as it relates to voting rights going forward. a lot of challenges for this president to try to pick up his approval rating. it's not going to happen overnight, but with inflation soaring and things of the like, the president will try to demonstrate we are headed in the right direction in spite of american's views otherwise sfwr . >> it's one thing to change communication strategy. there is an easy argument to be made that they have not, this administration has not necessarily taken credit for the things that they have done, that they could brag about. having said that, what have you done for me lately, right? so what are they seeing that they can get done? what is sort of the plan, especially in an election year so that they can show the american people it's not just what we did last month, but it's what we're continuing to do month after month. >> yeah, i think that's where the conversation is, and that's honestly, where a little bit of the struggle is going to be. if you can't get anything new done, you can't message anything new. but i think like peter was saying, they do think that they can continue to do a better job talking about especially this bipartisan infrastructure deal, the things that are coming, right, out talking about the things that people are going to be seeing, talking about lead pipes being replaced, talking about bridges going away. talking about some of the climate change mitigation as well as some of the rural broadband that's going to be coming forward, so they're looking at that. but then, you know, when it comes to voting rights especially, that's an issue that they are going to have to continue to talk about. they raised expectations, both the senate and president biden by jumping in and talking about the filibuster knowing that this was coming to a head today with no real win here for the white house. and i've talked to lots of aides about this in the white house, and what i've heard is, you know, they are moving forward no matter what ends up happening today. they don't really want to talk about a plan b. they've been kind of coy about that. you don't want to put out plan b because that's an acknowledgment plan a isn't going to work. vice president harris is looking at possibly public engagements they can be doing. they're trying to figure out ways to make sure the american people, see them, this white house as working in their favor. what it looks like to change messaging in this second year, to talk more to the american people as they've been saying, that's yet to be seen. >> and you know, kayla, one of the biggest frustrations for the president is you've got all this positive news in the economy, right? you've got job growth. you've got salary growth. you've got low unemployment, but you also have inflation and higher prices so you wonder how messaging, excuse me, can help when it comes to the economy. >> well, it's unlikely that messaging will help here, chris, and from the standpoint of a possible reset at the white house, there is not going to be an economic reset until the administration understands what form and outcome the build back better package will take. the message for the last several months has been it is that package in its entirety that will bring down costs like child care and health care for average americans and they still believe that certain elements of that package could end up going forward. so they don't want to change the message just yet. they have also used the bully pulpit to allege corporate collusion as one possible source of inflation, but americans aren't buying it. in a recent cnbc poll, a plurality of respondents said it was the president squarely who deserved the blame for inflation, not corporate america, not the pandemic, not the global supply chain, but beyond messaging there's really not that much you can do. oil prices are already back where they were before the white house released emergency reserve, and the administration also wants to be respectful of the federal reserve, which has a really core job to help keep inflation in check. when i talked to administration official s, they're adamant inflation will course correct by the end of this year. the problem is voters may have their say before then. >> how true. ali take me to capitol hill, tonight is the night we'll see a vote on voting rights. >> reporter: tonight is the night we're going to expect to see a series of votes on voting rights. the senate has been barrelling towards this moment for weeks ratcheting up the fever pitch, even though the realities here in terms of where senators stand have remained pretty static since mid-december when this all kicked into the high gear it's in right now. what we're going to see tonight around 6:30 is the first in these series of votes. it's going to be senator schumer on the file filing cloture on the voting rights bill package. that is expected to fail in overwhelming republican lack of support on this issue. and then of course we move on to the rules change that senator schumer put forward yesterday. a targeted change that would institute a talking filibuster solely on this voting rights bill issue. that's not something that has the support of senators manchin and sinema, and they do need all 50 democrats on board to do it. so that's also likely to fail too. the reality when we were talking to senators here yesterday after they all huddled together for a planning meeting was that there is frustration within the caucus around manchin and sinema boiling over to a point are where some senators are talking about potentially primarying those two senators several years from now when they come up for re-election. these votes are challenging for other senators in tough races of them own. some of them wondering if it's not too tough of an ask for them to have to vote on rules changes that aren't going anywhere anyway. >> that leads us to the question, eugene, how do you see this vote on the filibuster playing out? could there be more democrats besides manchin and sinema who say huh-uh? >> they always have been kind of senators who use the joe manchin and kyrsten sinema as kind of let them take the hits while they sit back and have some of the same ideas. i think when there was the vote on the $15 minimum wage, and we saw all these other senators who voted against that who hadn't been outspoken as joe manchin had been. i think it's very possible that we may see this, like ali said, all of those folks who are front line democrats who possibly will see the voters in november and have these difficult votes, if it's not going anywhere, what is the political benefit, right? so that is something that they're weighing and those conversations are happening. it's d.c., it's capitol hill, a lot can happen and with kyrsten sinema and joe manchin willing to take the hits, do they say i'll just say yes and hope that the the democratic voters in my state are on my side. thanks to all of you. and we've got breaking news on wall street. the markets can kicking off the day up slightly, but you know the dow tanked more than 500 points on tuesday. so let's go right to cnbc's dominic chu. looks so far like they're in positive territory, 123, but let's talk about yesterday's dive and whether it can recover those losses today. >> i mean, so the best way to describe today's action, chris, is probably stable. what you're seeing is that 100 pointish bounce to start the day. a good amount of that is positivitity around company specific stories that have investors feeling more optimistic, specifically big bank earnings reports from bank of america and morgan stanley, and united health doing well. this one in particular is probably a focus because of the conversation that you were just having, chris, with the folks like kayla tausche a and peter alexander, this is consumer giant procter & gamble, they're specifically being closely watched because the maker of everything from pampers diapers to tide laundry detergent to crest toothpaste could give us a signal as to consumer behavior in a time where inflation is even more of a concern. on the one hand, p&g got hit from rising costs for raw materials and freight and transportation, but -- and here's the key -- it was automobile to raise prices on its key goods and consumers seemed willing to pay for it. now to your point, chris, that positivity does not get us back to the 540 points we lost yesterday, but interest rates continue to be a big focus. interest rates could serve as a tapping on the brakes on the overall u.s. economy. >> thank you for that. coming up, the biden administration announces a plan to send masks to millions of americans as their website providing free tests to all americans goes live. i'll tell you how to order them and how soon you'll get them next. and how soon you'll get them and how soon you'll get them next [bacon sizzles] ♪ [electronic music plays] ♪ woo! when i break a long run, i'm talking long, long. 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[announcer] there he goes. old spice works harder for longer. hey derrick man, you gonna be much longer? it's gonna be a minute, minute. hey derrick, quit playin'. derrick! up at 2:00am again? tonight, try pure zzzs all night. unlike other sleep aids, our extended release melatonin helps you sleep longer. and longer. zzzquil pure zzzs all night. fall asleep. stay asleep. when you really need to sleep you reach for the really good stuff. new zzzquil ultra helps you sleep better and longer when you need it most. it's non habit forming and powered by the makers of nyquil. new zzzquil ultra. when you really really need to sleep. to see my ancestors' photos was just breathtaking. wow, look at all those! what'd you find? lorraine banks, look, county of macomb, michigan? oh my goodness... this whole journey has been such a huge gift for our family. ♪ got my hair ♪ this whole journey has b ♪ got my head ♪gift ♪ got my brains ♪ ♪ got my ears ♪ ♪ got my heart ♪ ♪ got my soul ♪ ♪ got my mouth ♪ ♪ i got life ♪ this morning the largest deployment of personal protective fweer in u.s. history. the biden administration announcing it will make 400 million free n95 masks available across the country. that news comes as they officially launch a website that allows americans to order free at home covid tests that will show up at their door. a soft launch of the website overnight already saw more than a million visitors and very, very few glitches. one of those visitors was me this morning, i tried out the website start to finish logging into the site and then putting in my information and i was done in 41 seconds. pretty much as fast as you can type in your name and address and hit the order button. so for yours, you can head to covidtests.gov and order four per household. the white house says expect them to ship in 7 to 12 days. that's not the only way to get tested. there are now more than 20,000 free testing sites across the country. these new weapons coming as omicron continues to surge across the country. california alone added a record 1 million new cases just last week. i want to bring in infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist dr. celine gounder, she was a former adviser to president biden on covid and nbc white house correspondent mike memoli. good to see both of you. so dr. gounder, you have the masks, you have the tests. help us understand how this fits into the overall fight against covid. >> chris, i think we've understood over the past year that while vaccines remain our number one, number two, number three most important tools to fight covid, not everybody is vaccinated. about a third of the country remains unvaccinated. vaccination rates in particular are lagging among kids 5 to 11, and in the midst of this surge, it's become very clear that we need to layer other tools, tools like masking, so if people can protect themselves further from the risk of being exposed as well as tests, which empower people to figure out do they have covid, if they've had a high exposure or symptoms, how do they protect others, maybe grandmother in the nursing home from an exposure if they've recently had covid, and increasingly testing is going to be important so that people can access some of the new antiviral medications like pfizer's drug which are truly ground breaking but only if people get them quickly after they're diagnosed. >> yeah, so let me ask you about when we should be using these tests because four per household may be good for me. i'm single, but if you got four, five, six people in your household, that's not even one per, right? when should we use these at home tests once we get them? >> the administration is really advising that people use them if they have symptoms, if they have had a high risk exposure, and to protect vulnerable people in their lives. that might be somebody who's highly immunocompromised, somebody who's getting treatment for cancer. somebody who's older living na nursing home. trying to figure out did that exposure lead to an infection, and secondly, are you a risk to other people. >> mike, there have been just a few small glitches things like i think yesterday we saw this on twitter and the white house acknowledged apartment dwellers having problems because they have the same address as somebody else in the building, and so it looked like somebody was trying to order two sets of tests, but generally very, very smooth. i'm wondering does the white house see this as a much needed win? the president can tout this when he has his press conference later, and frankly, coming at a time when he's had a run of bad news. >> yeah, chris, i like you took that website for a spin, and i think there's certainly a sigh of relief at the white house at the fact that there have been so few glitches. this is an administration that has many veterans of the obama administration and we know how a rollout of a major health related website caused significant set backs for the obama administration. jeff signs was part of the effort to fix healthcare.gov when we saw the glitches there. the president as he heads into his news conference today and wants to tout some successes will likely discuss this. when you think back over the past years two of the biggest setbacks his administration has faced particularly around covid revolve around the delta surge which took off after the white house had marked independence from the virus last 4th of july, and then we saw the omicron surge take off before the holidays which revealed the fault of the testing and the masking strategy, and so the white house is really at a point now where it may have taken so m some time to get their house in order, but they feel now as they have been discussing the largest deployment of personal protective equipment in our nation's history, tripling the number of n95s that are available. these masks are going to be available at some of the very same locations where americans got their vaccines, community health centers and pharmacies. i think what it reflects, chris, as well, is the fact that the white house was so focused on vaccinations. so much of the marshaling of the logistical manpower of the federal government went towards getting vaccines out as quickly as possible. some of these issues like masking and tests maybe fell by the wayside. the white house making up for lost time and feeling good about the results. >> everybody likes free stuff but also when you're talking about those tests, a lot of people had trouble getting them. mike memoli, dr. celine gounder, great to have both of you here today. thank you. and coming up, more on the battle over voting rights legislation now stuck in limbo in washington, but state lawmakers are working right now to change voting laws and electoral maps in a key swing state that president biden won by only about 20,000 votes. we'll take you there minutes before a contentious court hearing. well, voting rights legislation in our nation's capitol is doomed to fail later today. the battle at the state level is kicking into high gear. as part of our county-to-county series, we're going to wisconsin, where in just moments, the state supreme court will hear arguments that could determine the state's political maps for the next decade. nbc's shaquille brewster is at the state capitol in wisconsin. so, shaq, how did we get here and what are we expecting when the court's gavel falls in just a few minutes? >> we're expecting hours and hours of arguments inside the room behind me. i've seen some people going in and watched some of the parties enter and i saw lots of maps, lots of big cardboard cutouts of the maps. that's what the court will be hearing as they determine how they want to redraw wisconsin maps. we know every ten years, after a u.s. census, the states are responsible for redrawing those legislative and congressional maps. well, in wisconsin, that's a responsibility that falls to the republican legislature, with approval by the democratic governor. if you follow wisconsin at all, you know that those two parties do not agree on much of anything. so now this is a responsibility that has fallen to the courts. normally, it's a federal court that will take control and take responsibility of redrawing the maps, but this time, the conservative supreme court here in wisconsin say they want to take control of drawing the maps. and those are the arguments that they are going to hear. democrats are saying, they want maps as far away from the current existing maps as possible. this is a state where democrats have won recently in state-wide elections. look at president obama, the governor, tony evers. however, if you look at the legislature, there's a veto-proof majority that republicans have. republicans want maps as closely aligned to what the existing maps are right now. that's what the court will be going through in listening to those arguments. in the past month or so, they handed republicans a major win, saying they will not consider the partisan makeup and the partisan advantage in exist maps, and that they will adopt a so-called leash change theory, saying they will try to adopt maps and adopt new maps and new lines that closely resemble and existing ones as possible. that's what litigants are going to be pushing back against a little bit. and trying to get the court to define exactly what that means in this entire redistricting process, chris. >> we're going to be watching closely. critically important, not just in wisconsin, obviously, but in states across the country, where there are, let's say, disagreements about how those maps should be drawn. shaq brewster, always great to see you. thank you very much. that's going to wrap up a very busy hour. i'm chris jansing in for stephanie ruhle. jose diaz-balart picks up breaking news coverage on the other side of the break. other side of the break. ugh new vicks vapostick. strong soothing vapors... helprt your loved ones. for chest, neck, and back. it goes on clear. no mess just soothing comfort. try new vicks vapostick. you're a one-man stitchwork master. but your staffing plan needs to go up a size. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire new vicks convenience pack. matching your job description. dayquil severe for you... and daily vicks super c for me. vicks super c is a daily supplement with vitamin c and b vitamins to help energize and replenish. dayquil severe is a max strength daytime, coughing, power through your day, medicine. new from vicks. this is elodia. she's a recording artist. 1 of 10 million people that comcast has connected to affordable internet in the last 10 years. and this is emmanuel, a future recording artist, and one of the millions of students we're connecting throughout the next 10. through projectup, comcast is committing $1 billion so millions more students, past... and present, can continue to get the tools they need to build a future of unlimited possibilities. it's been nearly two years since the pandemic started. our students and teachers tried their best, but as a parent, i can tell you that nearly 18 months of remote learning was really hard. i'm so angry that instead of helping our kids get back in the classroom, the school board focused on renaming schools schools that weren't even open . please recall all three school board members now. for the sake of our kids, we can't wait one more day, never mind a whole year for a fresh start. 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(robert) thank you. subaru. more than a car company. good morning, 10:00 a.m. eastern, 7:00 a.m. pacific. i'm jose diaz-balart on a busy wednesday morning. as covid cases continue to surge, the biden administration says it will distribute hundreds of millions of free masks. as it unveils a website where you can order free at-home tests. this comes as president biden will hold a news conference today to mark the end of his first year in office, as a top priority, voting rights is headed for defeat in the senate. we'll also take a closer look at where things stands with immigration reform. another top biden priority. meantime, former president donald trump's family business is firing back after the new york attorney general says her office's civil investigation has uncovered evidence of fraud. and the secretary of state visits ukraine as the u.s. warns russia could invade at any moment. we'll talk with connecticut senator richar