rising possibility of russian military action at any time. at the same time, president biden is considering moving troops within europe closer to russia's border as well as in the black sea and increasing bomber flights over the region. >> even as we're building up deterrence, even as we're building up defense for ukraine, we're also engaged in diplomacy and dialogue. that's the preferable path forward for everyone. it's the responsible thing to do, and we'll pursue it as long as we can. at the same time we'll continue to build up the defense and deterrence that is necessary. >> the optimism, the fight against the omicron variant is growing in the u.s. across the country as the national 7-day average of confirmed cases finally begins to shift downward after a record setting surge. there is still pressure on hospital workers in some western is southern states where omicron cases are at their peak, and vaccination rates are low. our nbc news poll contains bad news for democrats with more than seven in ten americans saying the country is heading in the wrong direction. this is the frustration among progressives with senators joe manchin and kyrsten sinema boils over and arizona's democratic party censured sinema over the weekend. >> you've got 50 republicans who don't want to do anything except criticize the president, and then you have sadly enough, two democrats who choose to work with the republicans rather than the president and who have sabotaged the president's efforts to address the needs of working families in the country. is it frustrating? it sure is. >> we begin this hour with the rising tensions along ukraines borders and nbc's matt bradley who is in kiev. matt, ukraine's leaders are bracing for an attack as intelligence nbc news is reporting was provided by the u.s. to the uk announced by the british, revealing that the kremlin is trying to install a pro-russian leader with the government, to topple the government. >> reporter: that's right. there's been a lot of skepticism. there were five men identified in the intelligence report. now we're hearing this is actually originating with the americans, the americans shared it with the british, and the british were the ones who made that announcement only a couple of days ago. but politicians here in kiev and in moscow and notably those men who were accused of being part of the plot or the men who were going to be put in place in government here as part of this supposed conspiracy, this alleged coup plot, they also laughed this off, and a lot of politicians here say it just wouldn't be that easy and these men, most of them are already living in exile in moscow so aren't exactly available to come and participate in a coup. a lot of folks say if vladimir putin expects to topple the government in kiev, he'll have to do it with brute force, bringing in tanks and guns, not by a sub tra fuj or coup d'etat, it's going to take a war. >> you would understand the government being defensive about this, and there are some clearer, you know, levels of friction between the u.s. with the reporting, and that's one of the reasons why of course they had the brits report it. joining us now, jerry may bash, former chief of staff of leon panetta, and cia, and "new york times" diplomatic correspondent, michael crowley. jeremy, first of all, on that intel which, clearly, according to nbc news was provided by the u.s. to the brits, the brits announced t but also it comes just days after the state department and the treasury sanctioned four ukrainians, including two sitting parliament medical examiner, and blinken has been warning all over europe, this doesn't have to be a physical invasion or even the incursion that, you know, the president stumbled with at his news conference wednesday. it could be efforts to topple the zelensky government. it could be all kinds of, you know, insurgency, false flag operations, and still blinking pointing out there's a window for diplomacy here between secretary blinken and the foreign minister lavrov when i was covering that on friday. >> yeah, two points, andrea. first, with respect to the intelligence picture, throughout this crisis, we have been collecting intelligence, sharing it with our key partners, our closest partners, including the british and the rest of the nato alliance. if you talk to u.s. officials, it wasn't until late in 2021 when we were able to declassify, i should say classify for release to our nato allies, a lot of our intelligence about what putin's ambitions were and the posture he was arraying on the border of ukraine looked like. nato perked up and realized, this is a series crisis, we have to get along. so using intelligence to get the nato alliance together and unified is something that has occurred and will have to occur in the future, and then with respect to your second point, andrea, yes, vladimir putin has a lot of tools at his disposal, he's great at the gray zone, at the hybrid warfare, as people say doing things short of armed conflict, including covert activities, including things that he can deny, little green men. cyber activities, things that are not so kinetic, and you won't see something go boom but will have a political military or economic effect on degrading ukraine, and so that's something that the united states and our allies are certainly aware of, and we're going to respond in force as president biden made clear last week. >> michael crowley, you were in berlin, in kiev and in berlin with secretary blinken when he was trying to pull together the nato allies and smooth over cracks in the allies, particularly germany, and france. we saw some of that when you and i were in geneva as well. let's talk about germany because my reporting is that germany is having an internal debate right now over whether or not to improve the artillery that estonia wants to survive which has german made parts, and their export controls on arms are similar to ours that germany has to approve it if somebody wants to sell to a third country or provide to a third country and that there is some push back. i think the americans would be very unhappy if germany comes out front and says to estonia, you can't provide it, but they are taking their time. it's been three or four days now while estonia applied for them, and they haven't done that. and france, macron trying to suggest that the eu and france have their separate talks with lavrov and the russians rather than the u.s. leadership. let's talk about france and germany. >> that's right, andrea. really one of the core messages of the biden administration that you and i have heard so many times from secretary blinken including in europe this week is this idea of, you know shoulder-to-shoulder unity with our nato and european allies in deterring russia and threatening these swift and, you know, massive sanctions that secretary blinken keeps warning of. i think the reality when you look more closely at it is that there is not unity on how to respond. france and germany in particular have a lot to lose from an economic fight with russia. they are heavily dependent on russia economically. the germans get a vast amount of their energy supplies from russia. that's one reason we are seeing this nord stream ii pipeline, and one factor there is that germany is moving away from nuclear power and so more dependent on things like natural gas. so the germans and french, nobody wants a war with russia, but the germans and french stand to lose a lot from an economic war with russia. the united states has very few economic ties to russia, and we wouldn't have actually lose all that much as a result, and you are seeing all kinds of instances like this, andrea. i would remind you also you probably saw the reporting that when the british flew javelin anti-tank missiles into kiev last week, and in fact, we parked when blinken landed right next to a british plane that had just finished unloading those missiles, that military jet did not fly over german airspace. i'm not sure if it was confirmed what the reason was but it sure looked like the germans were essentially saying we don't want any part of sending arms to russia right now. they don't want to escalate, and that's a problem for the biden administration. >> and when you were in berlin, blinken was meeting with the french, the british, as well as the germans. there was already an attempt, and one of the things that the president said, you know, on wednesday night was that the allies were not united and undercut what blinken was doing, telling the truth out loud, speaking truth about the situation. jeremy, one of the other factors here is what kinds of economic sanctions and i reported in early january that they were considering export controls on semiconductors and other high-tech components that russia needs for its industrial complex. now that's been ramped up. that's one of the things that is front and center. how, you know, important could that be as a pressure tactic against russia. >> we are definitely hearing, andrea, that the commerce department and other parts of the u.s. government are preparing a significant set of restrictions, export controls, changes to the rules and regulations that govern how technology can go to russia, and i think this is very important because it's a way to deprive the russian economy of certain technologies. but look, this has to be calibrated and done with precision because as michael pointed out, you know, no tool of state craft is perfect. obviously if there was a perfect tool, we would employ it, but whether you engage in military actions, you worry about collateral damage and collateral effects when you engage in cyber attacks, you have to worry that the malware is going to be out there and can't be used against you. and economic issues and sanctions. when we engage in sanctions, it hurts not just the russian economy but the counter part, european companies, american companies that are going to be coming here looking for exemptions to make sure those are well calibrated. this may erode over time. >> and just to point out to all of our viewers and to all of you, that importantly, the president has added a 3:00 efferent with the european leaders now to his schedule, which is a video conference with all of the european leaders on obviously ukraine and russia. so that is happening this afternoon. that had not been previously announced. so they're clearly trying to shore up this alliance after blinken met with his counter parts in the eu earlier this morning. thanks to all of you and matt bradley in ukraine. we have breaking news in washington, raising major red flags among proponents of affirmative action. nbc justice correspondent pete williams joins me now. take us through the cases of the potential outcome. >> the two cases, you're right, are from a private university, harvard, and one of the nation's oldest public universities, the university of north carolina at chapel hill. in both cases, students for fair admissions, a group is challenging the use of race-conscious admissions policies. the supreme court has said repeatedly, most recently a seminole decision in 2002 that was more or less upheld six years ago that universities can consider a student's race as one among many factors in trying to achieve a diverse student body. but the challengers here say that's an amorphous concept. if universities want to get a diverse student body, students of different experiences and qualifications, they should look specifically at those things and not use race as a proxy. so the reason it's a bad sign for defenders of affirmative action, andrea, is the court has changed since the last rulings on affirmative action. ruth baden ginsberg and kennedy are gone, and they would like more skeptically at affirmative action, though brett kavanaugh and amy coney barrett have not ruled on affirmative action. so the case will be argued in the fall, andrea. the fact that the court has agreed to hear this case after lower court decisions ruled in favor of the schools is a bad sign for defenders of affirmative action and a good sign for people who want to see it go away. >> and, pete, this brings me to something early in my career in the '70s in washington, there was the bake case that i covered in the supreme court, that was the first case upholding the right of colleges. that must have been the rehnquist court. >> it was hugely important. that's the one that said universities can't have strict quotas but can use race as a factor in achieving diversity, and that's the policy that the supreme court has up held and we'll see if that survives next fall. >> again, this is a case where the supreme court with its new strong conservative majority as in roe, some of the gun cases could be moving in a different direction from what is commonly known as i learned from you, starry desigh sis. >> the harvard case was before last term. it's not going to be argued this year either, it will be argued in the fall, the two cases from harvard and usc. >> was the harvard case the asian american. >> the usc is asian american and white students who say the policy was discriminatory. >> great to talk to you. on a monday, we hear from the court. thanks so much, pete. >> you bet. and downhill slide, faith in american democracy is falling across the board. what that means in our new nbc poll, ahead of the midterms as andrea mitchell reports on msnbc. ead of the midterms as andrea mitchell reports on msnbc. 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findings telling you? >> we were talking about a couple of days ago some of the other numbers looking at joe biden's approval rating, suggesting trouble for his party in the midterm elections. here's other numbers pointed toward the midterm elections. here's the generic ballot, asking folks, which party would you prefer control congress after the 2020 midterms. you see democrats up 47-46 in this poll. what's troubling for democrats is let's compare this to this time in the last midterm cycle. the last midterm cycle was 2018, donald trump was president, democrats had a very big midterm, they flipped the house, they gained 40 seats. the climate back then that delivered that to democrats looked like this. democrats had a 6 point advantage in the generic ballot question when we tested it at this point in 2018. now it's more of democrats by a point. it's basically dead even. that's the difference in the climate from donald trump being president. democrats saying, hey, let's be a check here on donald trump, that was their appeal in 2018. now democrats are in power. the generic ballots closer. that's also this. this is a question we asked in the poll. gauging the intensity of interest and enthusiasm for the november midterm elections. basically asking folks to rate their interest. about 51% overall say they are very interested, very excited for the november elections. but look at the partisan gap this that. it's more than 60% of republicans, of republican voters who are extremely interested in november. in less than 50% of democratic voters, and again, let's compare this to that last midterm cycle. we were asking the same question heading up to the 2018 midterms. this is what it looked like back then. the democrats had the advantage. in 2018, early 2018, it was 60% of democrats who were the most enthusiastic for the midterm elections and it was a smaller number for republicans who rated themselves as highly enthusiastic for the midterm elections. that's flipped, the generic ballot is tighter, the enthusiasm has shifted at least for right now in the republicans' direction and comes on the heels of the polling that put biden's approval rating in the mid-low 40s. we also just to give you a sense of the overall temperature here of the electorate, here are a bunch of names we kind of tested, asking folks positive, negative feelings towards them. you can see biden's positive number under 40. trump's also under 40. both parties well under 40. kamala harris you see barely over 30%. we also did test liz cheney, not a lot of people have an opinion of her. that's low numbers on both ends there. you get a sense. not a lot of enthusiasm for anyone. >> tell me the truth now, now that i've got you there, after the greatest nfl weekend of the year, for sure, do you prefer doing the politics or the football? >> you know, it was great to watch. i loved being a spectator yesterday. we followed the playoff chase, and i couldn't have imagined, i mean, every game a single possession over the weekend, that's incredible. >> and the kickers, unbelievable. >> special teams. >> special teams. thank you. speaking of special, thanks very much, steve kornacki. >> you got it, andrea. former top economic adviser to president obama, austin ghouls by. and victoria francesco de soto, new dean at the university of arkansas, and boston globe columnist, kimberly atkins. i have to start with you, what we're seeing on wall street, the dow falling a thousand points on a mix of concerns. inflation from what we're going to hear from the fed this week, , maybe earnings, maybe ukraine. it's 3%. >> this comes at a time when we were starting to get a little bit of optimism that maybe the virus was not going to be as serious as we thought. maybe the omicron variant would go away, you have seen in some of the data, but markets definitely don't like wars, and markets don't like the fed tightening, and it feels like both of those are about to come, we could be in for a bumpy ride on investing. and on the wider economy, you know, we're still dealing with inflation, though growth still seems strong and the job market is pretty strong, so people's sour mood in those areas is a little surprising. >> of course in terms of politics, the overall economy is strong. but it's not a good political, you know, people don't feel good about it because inflation seems to be really bothering people in terms of, you know, their purchasing power. they're not feeling great about their economy, and despite what the president said, he's correct about the economy being strong at the news conference, but there's a disconnect there, austin. >> i agree there is a disconnect. part of it, i think, comes from relative to what you expected, and, you know, a year ago as the new president came in, people were thinking, we're getting a vaccine, the thing is going down by the summer, this is all going to be going away, and we got two different variants in between there, plus some inflation, so i think that relative to where we wanted to be, i think that's definitely contributed to the sour mood. >> and victoria, on ""meet the press" elissa slotkin, running for reelection, said that the economy and inflation, the top concern for her voters in michigan. let's watch. >> they're talking about the price of groceries, the price of gas, they're talking about crime. those are the things that people are talking about, and i think that's in my mind what the white house should be laser focused on. where's the war room on the cost of living. where's the task force on inflation. where's the argue around that because that's where everybody is talking about when i sit down with them. >> she's also a national security democrat having been the former cia official. are democrats missing the opportunity on messaging here? why isn't the white house focusing on that aspect that people care about, rather than bbb and process and joe manchin. >> the build back better, andrea, as well as coronavirus has been in the background. my hunch is that there will be a greater pivot toward inflation, and if you think about it, inflation is one of those issues that can really unite the electorate in terms of what we're going to do. on the topic of coronavirus,you have folks who say we're done with it, we're going to get back to our normal lives. on the national security front, folks think we should be aggressive, hawkish. other folks say let's stand back and focus on our own stuff domestically. inflation is something that really folks on wall street, folks on main street can come together and say, we need to battle this, and in addition to that, it is one of the most tangibles that we see now. obviously there's the coronavirus, folks getting sick. but in addition to that, it's can i pay my grocery. can i go and, you know, purchase what i want without having to worry if i'm going to be able to make ends meet at the end of the month. inflation, which is a good amount of time until the midterm, this should be where the pivot happens across the board. >> yeah, and kimberly, just over this weekend, senator sinema censured by arizona democrats for defending the filibuster and blocking voting rights. is there a danger in democrats going after their own? >> well, it seems to me that it's democrats need to solidify around a message that is -- that answers to what the voters have been telling them. i think that that is exactly right in terms of what we have been talking about. it does focus largely on the economy. i think one reason we have not seen president biden getting more positive numbers about the economy, despite the fact that there's good news on the jobs front is that there's so much uncertainty surrounding it with the ongoing extended pandemic that as you said, we thought would be over by now or at least we'd be in a different place. even if people are doing all right, the uncertainty with rising prices is enough to be unnerving to most americans, plus, you have other things, such as secures democracy and voting rights, which are the things voters told democrats they wanted when they voter for them. none of those things seem to be working. none of those things seem to be accomplished yet. the poll numbers are reflecting frustration, and i think on the republican side, they're seeing an opportunity and that's where the excitement is, so that is the biggest problem for democrats. it's not just the economy. that's a big part of it. but it's all of the things that they have not yet been able to secure, and so that's what democrats need to get together with senator sinema and figure out how to move forward on that. be. >> but it doesn't look like they're going to, brendan, because bernie sanders said it's time for democrats to vote first on the build back better plan, even if it's broken up, before going to the individual pieces, so he wants to get people on the record and get that floor vote first which means that this endless argument with joe manchin is not going to end anytime soon. here's what he said on "meet the press." >> they want action on home health care, they want action on climate. we've got to bring these bills to the floor. we've got to debate them. at the end of the debate when we see how things shake out, we can then pass strong legislation which will help all democratic candidates because you have a republican party right now, which is playing the obstructionist role, they stand for nothing. >> so brandon, if they do bring it back in pieces, after they have this really symbolic vote and put people on the record, which a lot of people think is a bad idea. if they do that and bring it back, what will republicans vote for? >> yeah, i'm sure it makes bernie sanders feel good to say that but i don't know how that advances their causes either legislatively or politically. if democrats want move ahead and sort of breakthrough this malaise, they need to check in with reality. and that means they need to focus on what is doable, and stop making promises about things they know can't happen. president biden gave a speech last week at a conference here in washington and did a full-throated endorsement of the build back better act and all of the provisions we know are not going to become law. you look at polling, and democratic enthusiasm is down because they keep promising things they can't get done. i don't know if there is republican support for any provisions, but there are things they can do, climate provisions or child care or prescription drug reform. there are things they can do, and they know there are 51 votes to get them done. they need to focus on that and drop the nonsense that this broader agenda is alive. it may be painful in the short-term, but it's going to feel much better for them to be signing bills into law, and make an affirmative case to voters if they got something done. right now, they have very little. >> we're going to leave it there, but our midterm coverage is going to get more and more intense because both parties are at a precipice here, and you know all the indicators are that the republicans have a big advantage. so thanks to you all, and we'll be in touch a lot in the coming days, weeks, months. and pushing back, thousands gathering on the national mall in washington to question vaccine mandates, as covid cases drop in some regions. stay with us, this is "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. h us h us mitchell reports" on msnbc uh, i-i'm actually just going to get an iced coffee. well, she may have a destination this one time, but usually -- no, i-i usually have a destination. yeah, but most of the time, her destation is freedom. nope, just the coffee shop. announcer: no matter why you ride, progressive has you covered with protection starting at $79 a year. voiceover: 'cause she's a biker... please don't follow me in. hi, i'm debra. i'm from colorado. voiceover: 'cause she's a biker... i've been married to my high school sweetheart for 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mandates. robert f. kennedy jr. marching in opposition to mandates. joining is dr. paul offit at children's hospital of philadelphia, member of the fda advisory committee. thank you, dr. offit, it's always good to see you. are you concerned with the marches, that they have an influence on people as we have such a low vaccination rate, relatively low in this country. especially among younger people. >> yes, and it really shocks me, i mean, if you had told me say a year and a half, two years ago that we would have a pandemic in this country that would kill close to 900,000 people, that we would have a vaccine that has been clearly shown in millions of people to be safe and effective, works out of the morgue, and our ticket out of the pandemic, and nonetheless, tens of millions of people would reject it, based on the sentiments that the antivaccine activists had, i would say that's not possible. i was wrong. if anything, the anti-vaccine movement has gained in terms of its power because it's linked itself to the right. there never used to be a politics to the anti-vaccine movement. the left, i don't want anything with a chemical name injected to me, on the right, government after my back, don't me what to do. now it's almost solely shifted to the right. >> i know you do rounds, you have your rotations, and you see these children at children's, one of the world's greatest children's hospital, right now, the vaccine made for kids, extremely low, which is 19% between the ages of 5 and 11 being fully vaccinated. those younger than five, still not approved. we don't have the data yet that justifies that. you see these patients, you know, these children, some on ventilators, right? i know it makes you angry, frustrated. >> it breaks my heart. to work in a children's hospital is to work in a place where there's a lot of tragedy. there's so much in medicine that we don't know, and can't do. this we know. we know that the vaccines are safe. we know they're effective, we know they can keep children out of the hospital. we see children over 5 years of age come to the hospital, they're invariably not vaccinated nor their parents. it's all preventable. what do we do to convince people? how much more information do we need? >> well, one thing is when we see -- when we look at our new nbc poll, let me cite these numbers. the public is more likely to trust nonexperts who employ them or the government agency who has the data, cdc or other health experts, maybe it's on the teachers. you know, maybe it's on their employers who have a lot of clout, the large corporations in america, and small to reach out to families. >> i agree. i mean, you look at somebody in philadelphia, dr. stanford, who is an african-american surgeon at temple who goes into the north philadelphia community and convinces 4,000 people to vaks nate. it has to be people we trust, people whose advice we value, and it has to occur at the grass roots level. i don't think this is going to happen at a federal level or state level. i think it has to happen at the ground level. hopefully it will. we need to get past this pandemic, and we can. that's the frustrating part. we can get past this if we just vaccinate ourselves. >> and give us the latest data, your take on what you're reading and hearing from your colleagues about children 5 and younger. a lot of parents want to know about this. especially those who want to vaccinate their children, but i think the latest that i had read was that there's no definitive support for it. >> well, certainly children less than 5 years of age can be hospitalized and go to the icu. that definitely happens. as a general rule, children get infected less frequently, and less severely. that doesn't mean they can't be infected and infected severely. in terms of the vaccine, we know with a greater than 12-year-old the dose. was micro. the 5 to 11-year-old, the dose was 10 micro gram. it looks like there was a varied respons the fda advisory committee have not seen the data. when we see them, then we'll be able to make a reasonable decision. >> dr. paul offit, we appreciate your expertise. thank you so much. >> thank you. in the line of fire, police officers gunned down on duty, leading one city to potentially bring back a controversial police unit. you're watching andrea mitchell reports on msnbc. you're watching andrea mitchell you're watching andrea mitchell reports on msnbcd eat it too. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? deon, hand it over. now how does that make you feel? like a part of me is missing. gabrielle? this old spice fiji hand and body lotion has me smoother than ever. that's what it does. this is the new world of work. each day looks different than the last. but whatever work becomes, the servicenow platform will make it just, flow. whether it's finding new ways to help you serve your customers, orchestrating a safe return to the 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his car and started firing. in new york city, a 22-year-old rookie new york city police officer is dead. his partner now clinging to life after they were ambushed while answering a domestic disturbance in harlem by a man shooting a stolen glock pistol. mayor eric adams, newly inaugurated mayor, calling this an attack on the city, pleading for federal help to get guns off the streets. this marks the 5th officer shot this month alone in new york city. joining us now is msnbc law enforcement analyst and former member of president obama's task force on 21st century policing, sedrick alexander. sedrick, this is so heartbreaking. we've seen the parade taking injured officer to another hospital, to nyu presumably for more surgery and treatment. the city is just incredibly -- >> yeah. the city and the community and the country, yeah, the whole country, andrea, that is in mourning. let me say something here. anytime a police officer is hurt, injured or killed in the line of duty, it's not just an attack upon him or her, it's actually an attack of the community at large. what we have in this country, we know we have a large proliferation of guns on american streets, and police departments across this country are doing the very best that they can to take these guns off. but it also appears to be for every gun they take off, a dozen or more find themselves right back in that community. there are a lot of things here that i think are going to have to be attended to if we want to address this issue in a realtime way. one is police need the support they need not just from state and local partnerships, which is not a new strategy, by the way. but they also need a support from the federal government, from congress, to really take a look at the gun laws in this country and begin to find ways to protect those that are lawful gun owners, and at the same time we have to go after those who are legal gun owners. these guns are finding their way into many major cities across the country, large and small, by the way, and when police officers just merely are doing their job, responding to calls for service to protect us are finding themselves the victims in casualties of this heinous kind of event. that is just occurring way too often. we need help from the federal government in this. >> both the mayors of new york and detroit have asked the white house for help, but isn't the white house, well, the white house would say that they've tried to do things, certainly during the obama administration as you know so well, but you've got the supreme court now even more poised, let's say, to take action in one case, a new york state gun law. and so, you know, this gun that was used against this police officer and his partner, officer rivera who died and his partner was stolen in baltimore we're told in 2015, it was a glock with 40 rounds of ammo. i mean, and this was a response to a domestic dispute where a mom said, you know, it's my son, and they went into that back room and were ambushed, gunned down. the second officer was shot in the back of the head. >> right. and that's the tragedy. and it's a horrible tragedy. and until congress began to do something because what has happened unfortunately, so much is being politicized in this country, that everyone is at risk. we have a bail reform system that is clearly not working. you can talk to many chiefs across this country, and they'll tell you, they are dangerous felons on the street, who have violent histories. that's not helping this situation whatsoever either. there's a lot of disconnects in our government that have to be attended to, local police, local elected officials, state officials are doing the best that they can. there needs to be more support from congress, particularly around these sales of firearms from private individuals. we got to find a way to make sure that people who have mental health histories who could potentially be dangerous are tracked, but we got to do a better job, a much better job at trying to slow down the rate of these number of guns that are getting into our communities, and doing major damage in not just physical damage but actually traumatizing an entire community. two police officers lost their lives here in recent days, and there's been a number of others who have been injured just at the beginning of this year, so there's some things that clearly are going to have to take place. >> amen to that. thank you so much, sedrick. thanks for being with us. >> thanks for having me. and chasing history, a legendary journalist, carl bernstein joins me on how the lack of local newsrooms impacts our democracy in his great new book here on "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. mitchell mitchell reports" on msnbc. rethinking how we communicate to be more inclusive than ever. with app, cloud and anywhere workspace solutions, vmware helps companies navigate change. faster. vmware. welcome change. ♪♪ i'm getting vaccinated with prevnar 20. so am i. because i'm at 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about getting vaccinated with prevnar 20 today. according to new polling from nbc news, an unprecedented number of americans now are concerned about our democracy. three quarters of all americans believe our democracy is under threat with respondents describing the state of america as downhill, divisive, struggling, lost, bad. for some long range perspective, i want to bring in the pulitzer prize winning journalist who has been watching american politics for more than half a century. his new book is titled "chasing history, a kid in the newsroom." >> i've been reading your book and i couldn't put it down. it's been called a rollicking good book. and there may be a connection here. fully a quarter of the news, the local papers that operated 15 years august are gone. and maybe there's a connection between the lack of local news as you knew it in "the washington post," the national paper, but also "the washington star" at the time and challenge to our democracy. what do you think? >> we had a lot of challenges with our democracy, starting with the seditious ex-president, the first seditious president in our history and what he has laid down in terms of the polarization, accentuating the polarization in this country. we have myriad problems, one of which indeed has to do with the news. part of that problem in the news is this dert of good, local newspapers, "evening star" where i want to work at 16 and all the opportunities kids today don't get. we lost the local papers which pro described a kind of cohesion and help keep the social fabric and social compact in our towns and cities. incidentally, it not just due with the internet. it began with a repacious papers that came in, bought up local papers, made them just advertising vehicles and that started to rip this social fabric. but also i think we need to look at the fact that we also have an awful lot of great reporting being done today. look at the white house. i would say that the reporting by the greatest number of news organizations in the trump white house is probably the best i've seen in my lifetime, and it's great investigative reporting going on by nonprofit organizations. i think we have more of a problem of people in this country looking for information that already buttresses their religious, social, political belief to an openness of the best attainable version of the truth. my experience at the "washington star" is where i got that concept. we called it the complexity of the truth. it's about a kind of reporting described in this book that is going out, perseverance, source after source after source after source. it's not rocket science. we just need to stop being lazy in our profession. >> we rely on the internet and gathering from social media, crowd sourcing, but we don't as often have the experience and unfortunately i would also add during covid because many of our companies are not for understandable reasons ling -- letting people go out face to face with people. the desk assistants aren't getting out in the field as they used to. >> yes, it's very hard in this day and age for people to have the kind of experience that i got between age 16 and 21 at what was greatest afternoon paper in the country. we took great delight in beating a paper across town and we were a better paper than "the washington post" was in that day. there was kind of a streak we had at the "washington star" that even at the "washington post" i never saw. what this book is about is this kid, me, who at the age of 16 with one foot in the pool hall, one foot in juvenile court and about two inches of a foot in the classroom got this best seat in the country. i got to cover jack kennedy's inauguration when i was 16 years old. i got to cover his assassination, i hate to say, and probably the most horrific moment of the time that i was at "the star." i got to cover fires, murders, scandals. the first investigator series i did was about the university of maryland, not about a big national subject. so what i was able to do and it's very difficult to be able to do in today's newsroom atmosphere is get out on the street, be taught by the greatest reporters of their generation. we had three pulitzer prize winners when i went to work "the washington star," covered an awful lot of civil rights, the anti-war movement. so you get this experience and there's a straight line in the book to watergate, even though the book ends in 1965 because you can see from what i was doing as a kid at the star as an adult or 28 to 30 years old which was how old woodward and i were during the coverage of watergate, you see that so much of the technique that we used came back to what happened at the "washington star" with this luckiest kid in the country and these great, great characters, who also don't exist, he's runyanesque characters in the newsroom, without college educations like myself, dropouts. it was a different world but a world worth looking at in terms of the results of the reporting. >> so true. we've got to leave it there. we're getting into "mtp daly" territory. love the book. the book. a group of investment professionals manages ben's ira for him, analyzing market conditions and helping him stay on target. he gets one-on-one coaching when he wants some advice, and can adjust his plan whenever he needs to. and now he's so prepared for retirement, ben is feeling totally zen. that's the planning effect from fidelity. as a business owner, your bottom line ben is feeling totally zen. is always top of mind. so start saving by switching to the mobile service designed for small business: comcast business mobile. flexible data plans mean you can get unlimited data or pay by the gig. all on the most reliable nationwide network. with no line activation fees or term contracts... saving you up to $500 a year. and it's only available to comcast business internet customers. so boost your bottom line by switching today. comcast business: powering possibilities. if it's monday, downhill and divisive. new nbc poll numbers paint a bleak picture about how americans feel about the current state of the country. what it means for the president and his party coming up. and the u.s. urges americans to consider leaving ukraine now. and as the pentagon weighs sending military assets to the region in fears a russian invasion could be imminent. and we're keeping our eyes on wall street right now where the dow has plummeted more than a thousand points today since wall street is on track for its worth month since 2020 when the pandemic began. welcome to "meet the press daily." i'm garrett haake in for chuck todd. the sheer volume of issues facing president biden right now keeps growing and growing. it fierce putin could advance on ukraine any mome