we're also following breaking news from wall street. look at this number. the dow down something like 3.5% as we speak. with an hour until close. it's the worst day of the year so far for the markets. why? tech stocks, they're dropping. we're going to talk with labor secretary, marty walsh, about this, inflation, and about tomorrow's big jobs report. i'm hallie jackson in washington. good to be with you. we're with our nbc news team, too. carol lee covering the white house. cal perry is in ukraine. we're joined by helene cooper, an msnbc political contributor. also with us, the former ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul. carol, let me start with you and these new details we're learning about the first lady's trip to the border in eastern europe here. a significant trip for her. a real step on to the international stage. >> it really is, hallie. and so if first lady's going to spend four days in eastern europe and she'll start in romania where she'll meet with u.s. troops at an air base there as well as some u.s. and nato officials and so that's where she'll begin the trip. then she flies over to, she meets the romanian first lady, who is someone who has continued to work since being first lady, in education. she's also a teacher. from there, the first lady will go to slovakia where she'll visit a refugee center and public school that's hosting refugee students. then she'll make the very important trip to the border that you mentioned. while there, she's meet with aid workers and refugees. she then meets with the president of slovakia and wraps up her trip. she's the latest high profile u.s. official to travel to the region to highlight the refugees fleeing ukraine and the efforts by countries surrounding ukraine to try to host them and process them and get them to move on to different places. it's also significant for the first lady. this is her second overseas trip since her husband took office, hallie. >> carol, thanks. cal, this is a very high profile visit and it comes as we're learning new details about what's happening at the steel plant in mariupol, which has become the center of the action in the south of ukraine. >> reporter: certainly on that eastern front. this is where we're seeing the fiercest fighting and look, the eyes of the nation continue to be on that steel plant. the news coming out of there is pretty dire, that this could be the final stage in the final hours of fighting there. we've heard from ukrainian commanders on the ground and you're seeing video of the plant on the left side of the screen. that russian forces have moved on to the complex. and that there was heavy, small arms fire happening within and above the sort of tunnels where civilians and wounded ukrainian marines are huddled underneath. ukrainian defense forces saying the russians are not holding back anything. they're using artillery, air strikes and moving in on the ground. the situation was told to us as being quote, very difficult. i think that's an understatement. the question is how many civilians remain. up to 30 children could be there in addition to the wounded military personnel. we have heard of shelling, artillery and mortar fire, up and down the eastern front. that according to the ukrainian defense minister. heavy shelling in the center of the donbas region. about 810 apartments there were destroyed. more than 25 people wounded. in shelling today and this is sort of the third day of fierce shelling that the russians have unleashed both in the center of the country and along that eastern front. where i am, hallie, we continue to see the clean up. the sort of accounting for the war. close to 8 million people are on the move. internally displaced. about 20% of them are trying to return to their homes. they're often coming back to villages that have been completely and totally destroyed. there's the ongoing conversation about how to support these people when you don't have the services. >> cal perry in kyiv. let me go to you and your reporting that has triggered a lot of response. we just heard in the last couple of minutes from john kirby who denied this is happening. i want to play a little bit of what he had to say. >> we do not provide intelligence on the location of senior military leaders on the battlefield or participate in the targeting decisions of the ukrainian military. ukraine combines information that we and other partners provide with the intelligence that they themselves are gathering on the battlefield then they make their own decisions. and they take their own actions. >> i want to give you an opportunity to respond to that and similar pushback we've heard from the nfc. >> hi, hallie. thanks for having me. i'm not going to get into whatever parsing the nfc or pentagon is doing about our story. we're pretty, we feel pretty confident about our reporting. which is that the united states has been and still is providing the location and other details about the russian military's headquarters which relocate frequently throughout ukraine. mobile headquarters are where the generals and senior leaders are. ukrainian officials then combine that geographic information with their own intelligence including intercepting communications because a lot of these russian generals are talking on unsecured cell phone lines and that alerts them to the presence of these senior russian officials and they conduct artillery strikes and other attacks that have killed these russian officers. some 12 russian generals have been killed now using these different means of intel gathering and many of them are because we're told by administration officials, because of the intel shared by the united states. >> thank you for that. thank you for bringing us more of your reporting. carl lee, thank you. ambassador, let me turn to you about these headlines here and let me start with the first lady's visit. we've seen nancy pelosi visit. secretaries blinken and austin. president biden has not. here's what president zelenskyy said to fox news yesterday about the prospect of that. watch. >> i think it's very important. because you know, in our minds, in our society, president biden, the president of the biggest democratic civilization for ukrainians. >> you know, biden will visit the border now. ambassador, it is just not the biden president zelenskyy wants to see. how significant is it? this trip? >> i think it's fantastic. because you and i are talking about it right now. right? that's exactly what it's designed for. it's to get us to talk about what's happening in the region, to go to our allies. these are all our allies she's visiting. to talk about the humanitarian assistance that needs now more assistance and more approval from u.s. congress. i think it's very important. it's meaningful to ukrainians, but also meaningful for our own domestic politics here at home. >> explain that. >> well, you and i are talking about it right now, right? we're not talking about other issues. there are a lot of other issues going on in the united states. there's a $33 billion package that's been submitted. the u.s. congress needs to approve that. that's why speaker pelosi went to kyiv. i applaud that, too. by the way, she also talked about sanctions on that trip. that's another piece of the story. ukrainians want us to do more on sanctions. these kind of trips help to bring that debate back to the united states. >> want to get your reaction to something else. putin apologizing to the prime minister of israel after sergey lavrov falsely claimed hitler has jewish origins. when is the last time putin apologized for something? >> i hope we can get to that as well. i would love to see exactly what he said. that's the way it's being reporting. reported that he apologized. i've never heard putin apologize that's why i'm skeptical. but if he did, good. because what mr. lavrov said was absolutely outrageous. not defensible. and he needs to be held accountable for it. frankly i don't understand why anybody meets with lavrov anymore. he just plays this disinformation game, literally, for decades. i used to deal with him as a government official in moscow, but i think you lose your credibility when you compare zelenskyy to hitler and we should stop treating him normal. i think he should be pushed to the sides and treated like some pariah that he should be. >> you mentioned the reporting from "the new york times" we've been talking about with pushback from the pentagon, et cetera. you heard helene there. obviously they're confident in their reporting and this issue of u.s. intelligence sharing with one we've been talking about for several weeks. the idea of intel sharing and how it might help ukrainians in the battlefield. how do you see it? >> i want us to stop talking about that. i'm glad we're talking about trips to the region, and helene's job is to report that. but it is not the job of the biden administration or any official in the government to talk about intelligence with reporters. i just think it's a mistake. ethically, morally, legally, it's a mistake. number two, i think it undermines american national security interests and number three, i know that the ukrainians don't like it because i've talked to senior ukrainian officials before this latest story about it. it makes them look like they don't have the capability to do that themselves. so i hope whoever talked to helene will stop talking to helene and her colleagues at "the new york times." >> ambassador, appreciate your time. different perspectives from journalists as you might imagine, but always good to hear from you. thank you very much. coming up, some of the other stories you heard the ambassador mentioned. there's a lot out there. senate democrats setting up the first vote to try to protect abortion rights federally since that supreme court leak. when and now he expect that to go down. we're talking about it. first, what's going on with the markets? we'll talk about why wall street east taking a dive. a check on that and your money. plus, the view from the white house on the state of the economy overall. we've got a cabinet member, president biden's labor secretary, joining us after the break. s labor secretary, joingni us after the break. >> tech: when you have auto glass damage, trust safelite. this dad and daughter were driving when they got a crack in their windshield. 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i'm not going to allow anyone to take away women's rights here at home. abortion is effectively banned in texas, and at least seven other states only have a single abortion provider. we need leaders in congress who will stand up to extremist politicians, and protect our right to choose everywhere. and i will fight for pay equity, too. i'm emily beach, and i approve this message because nothing is more important than standing up for- - [all] our rights. right now. we're going to check on the breaking news from wall street with the big sell off. a bunch of gains yesterday, gone. take a look at the numbers. gone and then some. tech stocks bringing down the market here. you can see the nasdaq is down 750 points. s&p is down. the dow down 1300 points. what is going on? let's bring in our business and tech correspondent. 24 hours ago, we heard from jay powell. you were with us on msnbc as this was developing. when they announced this rate hike. seemed to have been baked into the market. now this crash. i shouldn't say crash. it is sinking, we see in the numbers. explain the dynamics here. >> yeah, this is the worst day of the year for stocks so far and basically what we're seeing is this giant u-turn and billions of dollars of market value wiped out. we said the nasdaq also headed towards its worst fall since june of 2020. the very height of the pandemic and basically, you see big tech getting hit really hard right now. investors are looking for some safer stockings. tech has been really overvalued for quite some time and also we know that we're heading into a new chapter of covid now so some of those big pandemic stocks like zoom and netflix and peloton have been down and etsy and ebay also had earnings. so they're down 15 and 8% respectively. but the idea here is that there's a concern about consumer spending and inflation consumer confidence. so when you saw the rally yesterday, that was built upon the fact that fed chair powell said we're not going to raise interest rates by three quarters of a point. we're going to stick with half a point going forward. investors liked that then woke up this morning thinking, okay, there's still a lot of questions about how people are going to be spending and that's being reflected in some of these earnings reports. amazon and meta are down. meta, the parent company of facebook. down by 7%-ish. apple, alphabet, microsoft, all down by about 7%. so a really rough day as the market is digesting what does inflation look like as we go into this summer. >> live for us with that. thank you. still ahead, the new office opening up the department of justice and what it means in the life or death fight for environmental justice. but first, the house democrat on defense today over his antiabortion stance. what he's exclusively telling our team on the ground. our garrett haake in texas. coming up. r garrett haake in tes coming up. i have to use a lot of heat new dove hair therapy shampoo & conditioner with ceramide & peptide. 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that will federally protect the right to abortion for wednesday. probably going to fail, but it will force every senator to go on the record with where they are. virtually every lawmaker is getting asked about this, including ones running for office. nbc news has reporting on how republicans are coaching senate candidates to talk about abortion. we got ahold of polling saying that restricting late term abortions polls better than banning them all together and directs gop candidates to be, in their words, compassionate, and target democrats for having a quote, their words, obsession with abortion rights. that party is being forced to answer questions about a member of their own party. democrats are. he's now in this tight run off election for his seat in texas. his opponent was on our air earlier today. here's what she said. >> in this moment, we are watching the fall of roe and the erosion of our fundamental rights. this race truly goes beyond south texas. the last thing we want is to hold on to a slim democratic majority and have someone like henry who's going to keep siding with republicans. >> joining us now is garrett haake in austin, and sal. let me talk about a couple of texas pieces here. you've be there all week. texas is really at the center of these states with these abortion fights. the most restrictive law on the books now. it's probably going to be one of the first states to ban abortions. the closest state women will be able to go to is kansas and new mexico. something like 500 plus miles for a texas woman to have access to this. tell me what you're hearing as you've been on the ground? >> well, look, the polling on this issue is upside down. texans by a huge margin do not support banning abortion outright. it's something like 15% of texans saying they're in favor of these bans. this issue got a lot of attention when the current abortion law was passed last year then the debate kind of faded a bit into the background and now the women i've been talking to about this issue, granted i've been in austin and san antonio the past few days. more blue than the rest of the state. there's a creeping sense of acknowledgment that this is getting real. there won't be a safety net. the possibility that abbott and the legislation could go further in restricting abortion is a real concern and that something has to be done about it politically. the something is really quite limited at this stage. the new map makes it very difficult to flip either house of the legislature so that is putting a lot of political spotlight and pressure on beto o'rourke, running for the governor's office, as maybe the one lever for democrats to try to get some voice again in a debate where the state's policies are far to the right of the majority of the state's voters. >> what is interesting, garrett, is you have been talking to people there and i've been following your reporting on this. i spoke with barbara lee on this show 24 hours ago who runs the democratic pro-choice caucus. is there room in the party for democrats like him? she said, yeah. wouldn't take a position on the call for democratic leadership to pull their support for him. can you tell me a little bit. you had a chance to talk to him. tell me what he's saying here. >> i did. this is a fascinating race. >> i agree. >> we have seen sis ners try to elevate the issue to one of the key issues in this race. she has tried to nationalize this saying queue yar could be the vote. the joe manchin of the house. the vote that prevents the house from passing legislation. he's running a district-based campaign. he is a political legend in laredo where he's from. i was at his rally last night. he was tightly focused on district issues. he's had the backing of leadership. he was with congressman clyburn who told me he doesn't even agree with his stance on abortion, but thinks it's important to see him re-elected. he describes where he fits within the party and how he's approaching this issue like this. listen to what he told me. >> that's only one issue and again, i got two girls and i voted for planned parenthood funding even though they say i haven't, and i've supported women's health. sometimes we might have differences for religious believes, but that's one issue. you see the kind of narrow path here that the congressman is trying to walk. on the one hand, conservative voters who have been part of his political base in that san antonio to laredo district. he's going to have a difficult time threading that needle here in the few weeks that are left in this race. >> thanks. let me go to you because garrett's giving us the lay of the land. there's new reporting that you and the team on the hill have released about senate republicans talking about future abortion restrictions. talk us through this. >> that's right, hallie. everyone on capitol hill is anticipating the fall of roe v. wade, which by the way is going to fail, republicans are already talking about doing the exact opposite. using the fact that this likely ruling from the supreme court will kick the decision to state legislatures as well as congress. republicans are already discussing whether to impose new restrictions nationwide on abortion. they have discussed banning it after 20 weeks. several republican leaders say there's discussion in the caucus about pursuing that further. senator ernst is one of them. she said they're having the debate and will continue to have the debate. senator cruz has noted he's supported numerous pieces of legislation that would support legislation. senator kevin cramer had an interesting point. he's from north dakota. he said he doesn't want to live in a world where someone from fargo, north dakota is all but illegal, someone could cross the border into minnesota and have an abortion there. the push is going to come. the question is how aggressive it's going to be, if they're going to have the votes and if republicans are going to do something about the 60-vote threshold to get abortion rights through. so far, highly unclear that it succeeds. >> thanks. appreciate it. this afternoon, we saw the attorney general and the epa administrator announcing new doj initiatives. three big policies including an office of environmental justice. listen to this. >> although violations of our environmental laws can happen anywhere, communities of color, indigenous communities and low income communities often bear the brunt of the harm caused by environmental crime, pollution, and climate change. and for far too long, these communities have faced barriers to accessing the justice they deserve. >> i want to bring in nbc news washington correspondent. on this show, we've featured your great reporting on what environmental crime means and what kind of impact it has on people in this country. you reported on the raw sewage issue in alabama. speaking with an activist who says it's america's dirty secret because of where it is. in rural and poor communities. tell us about what this newly created office could mean. >> this new office of environmental justice housed within the department of justice really makes environmental justice a law enforcement issue. this is the biden administration prioritizing what i saw in alabama where the doj has opened its first and only right now environmental justice investigation. it's essential saying that justice department is going to possibly open more investigations like the one we covered on this show in alabama, looking at whether or not people are having their basic rights met. that's tied directly to environmental justice. i'm also really struck by the fact that in that press conference, that announcement, i was sitting there and the epa administrator said at one point when he was touring parts of this country, he had to remind himself he was in the united states. i want to read from a resident who spoke to me when i was in alabama talking about sort of what that community is facing. she said, quote, to me, it's not necessary for this to be going on in 2022. it shouldn't be in the united states. this is the wealthiest country and sewage systems should be a right and now you have the department of justice essentially saying yes, a sewage system should be a requirement. environmental justice should be a right and this is going to be an office that despite whatever resources they might have, they're going to look into these investigations. interesting development, an important one. we'll have to see what cynthia ferguson, the acting director of that office will do. but it is in some ways a critical development today. >> thank you so much. next up, breaking news out of israel. i think we're about to show it to you. the scene where three people were just killed. we'll talk about what we know and what we don't know yet. coming up after the break. we dt coming up after the break. in thl drink you choose. try boost glucose control®. it's clinically shown to help manage blood 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labor secretary. what is your level of concern about the impact of inflation on the job market? >> certainly we're working on this every single day. when you look at the dow over the last few months here, it's been consistently up for the most part, but we have some of these ups and downs. what i'm focused on quite honestly is to continue to get people workforce development training. we're doing everything on supply chain. the president has given us directive to work together to do everything we can to bring down the cost at the kitchen table. certainly we're seeing these bigger numbers, numbers higher than we wanted to see. but we have to continue to stay focused on working to bring these costs down and we can't lose sight of the fact that we're, not blaming, but the reality of the situation is for the last two year, we've been living within a pandemic time that's brought a lot of uncertainty to the country and the world. >> as we start to emerge from some of those pandemic era lows, if you will, you look at the weekly jobless numbers. higher than exists predicted. this is happening a day before, tomorrow is april jobs report. after we saw pandemic low of 3.6% last month in march, i should say. when you're looking at these numbers and see these weekly numbers, does that, are you still hopeful that the downward trend will continue when it comes to these figures? >> there's no question, but you can't govern on a day by day basis. we have to continue to think about the policies we put in place and what the benefits of those policies are or the numbers of those. a quick example, president biden took office about a year ago january. employed the american rescue plan. it was to get people back to work from that day until day not including tomorrow, we'll see what those numbers are. we've seen better wage growth than other places. with that, we have concerns around inflation and we're looking at the inflationary causes here. so again, it's not, we can't turn this around in a day. there's a lot of ramifications from the policies of the past administration. can't blame the past administration. what we have to do is own what's in front of us and do everything we can to bring the cost of goods and services down to people and we want to continue to see people getting better paying jobs and better opportunities for the middle class. >> i want to get to the meeting you had with union folks today, but before i do, there's this new labor department report out today. found that worker productivity dropped 7.5 in the first quarter, which is the biggest decline in 75 years. what happened? >> i haven't seen the report so i really can't comment on the report. i'm not dodging the question. i apologize. i'd have to look at the details around that report to see exactly what the parameters are. i'm not sure. i know what job production mean, but i'd be willing to bet in a lot of people have left their jobs going to better paying jobs. i'm not sure if that's what you mean by that. >> okay. you'll take that question and get back to us. >> i didn't see it today and probably because the last three days i've been in oklahoma, baltimore, and virginia. >> i know you've been doing a lot of work with union organizers. you and the vice president were there. i think the president popped in, too, according to chris smalls. he of course as you know is the guy who kind of led that whole union effort at the staten island warehouse. amazon has been a recipient of big contracts. for a white house that says they back unions and are pro unions, should you be awarding federal money to a company that is perceived as anti youn on? >> i think we need to encourage starbucks that workers have taken a vote to organize and ask them to come to the table and sit down and work out an agreement. these are workers that work in an amazon warehouse, starbucks and some other industries that were in my office today. their employees have decided they want to join the union and they should respect the right of their employees and what they should do now instead of trying to right the union is sit down with these workers and try to come up with an agreement to move forward. i would encourage these companies to do that because we're not at the point right now where we need to take any other action. it's really encouraging for both sides to sit down. >> i hear you when you say you're not at the point where you want to cut off federal contracts. let me ask you about the question that's been raised on the draft on abortion rights leaking from the supreme court this week. if the court does overturn roe, there's research that shows workers may be less inclined to apply for a job in states that look ready to ban abortions. as the labor secretary, what kind of affect do you see this happening on how competitive our labor force can be? >> first of all, i think it's appalling that opponent rs trying to take away roe and tell women how to be able to what they want to do with their bodies and the choices they want to make. it's completely wrong. we're seeing republican legislatures doing the same thing. again, the supreme court hasn't ruled. this law has been in place for nearly 50 years and it's appalling to me to think about where we're going as a country and the potential ramifications this has, number one. and number two, i mean, listen. if women don't go back to work because of this, then that's going to be their choice. and it's really, you know, it's just amazing. i don't want to speculate too far down the road here. supreme court has not made a ruling yet, but the fact people are talking openly about taking the rights away from women in this country where do we start? it's really unbelievable we're having this conversation in 2022. >> thank you for your time. love to have you back on. we're following breaking news in israel where we understand at least three people have been killed in an attack near tel aviv. you're looking at the video that is in to us from the scene. raf, bring us up to speed on what we should know here? >> yeah, this is a very fast moving situation but authorities in israel saying three men are dead. another four are wounded in this attack. police say a man hunt is underway for at least one attacker, but possibly more than that. you and i have covered mass shootings. you know in the confusion, immediately after these things there's often reports of multiple attackers. it sometimes ends up there is just one, but right now, reports from israel there may be multiple attackers here. unconfirmed reports from the ground that this was a combination of shooting and with an ax. some of these people may have been injured with an ax. now this took place in a city just east of tel aviv. very religious city. about 50,000 people. has a largely ultra orthodox jewish population. this is inside israel i should stress. not a settlement in the occupied west bank. this is inside israel. this is not just any thursday night in israel. this is the country's independence day. their equivalent of july 4th. a huge holiday. people get the day off. they spend the day after barbecues, going to the beach. there's a big air show in tel aviv. this is normally a very happy, joyous occasion in israel marking this year 74 years of israel's independence, but this evening, chaos and violence in this city east of tel aviv. now this is coming after weeks of tension in jerusalem. we've been reporting about these confrontations happening at the mosque, the temple mount. the third holiest site in islam. this attack happening some kind of 50 miles west of gentlemen jerusalem, but often we see the tension that starts there doesn't stay there. now, there were a string of shooting attacks in late march, early april in israel. some of those attacks were blamed on isis. isis inspired attacks, which is pretty unusual for israel. you don't see that happening that often. it is not clear right now at this early stage if there is any link to isis. but hallie, the headline, three people dead. another four wounded. and a man hunt underway in tel aviv at this hour. >> thank you for that update. we'll bring folks who are watching and listening any further developments as we get them. thank you. want to get to breaking news out of the white house this on staffing changes that you may want to know about. if you watched some of these press conferences, briefings live on msnbc here from the white house. a new face will be taking the microphone starting really in just a matter of days from now. karine jean-pierre. president biden just made this announcement. frankly, peter, this historic pick by biden, a former nbc news and msnbc political analyst. >> yeah, that's right. so let's do this in order. the news came a matter of moments ago chlgt the president making the announcement that karine jean-pierre is the next pick to be his press secretary. she will begin the middle of this month. we're told jen psaki will have her last day on the podium may 13th. karine has been her principle secretary over the course of the last year as such. we have heard from jen psaki from the beginning that she would be staying for about a year. the expectation is that time was about to expire amid some conversations, though none confirmed, that she will be heading to a media channel. it's been reported she will be heading to the nbc networks, msnbc. she said nothing publicly about that. here's what the president first said about it. he said i'm proud to announce that karine jean-pierre will serve as the next press secretary. she will continue to lead the way about communicating about the work of the biden harris administration on the work of the american people. jill and i have known her for a long time and she'll be a strong voice speaking for me and the administration. as for jen psaki, who has become very popular among many democrats in the united states who have watched closely as she has handled herself in the briefing room, she has been able to fend off tough questions and she's certainly been criticized by many of the president's critics as well, but she always came prepared and was able to answer our questions as best possible. sometimes to our frustration when she didn't answer them with the fullness that we were looking for. but that's part of the back and forth that exists here at the white house. about jen, the president says, jen psaki has set the standard for returning decency, respect, and decorum to the white house briefing room. he says i want to say thank you to jen for raising the bar, communicating directly and truthfully to the american people and keeping her sense of humor while doing so. i thank jen for her service to the country and wish her the very best as she moves forward. i was just -- that's the area right outside jen's office moments ago. we heard cheering in that room behind closed doors. the door briefly cracked open. you saw all of her staff. >> we sort of frame this, too, as this historic pick. she would be the first black woman to serve in this role. the first lgbtq plus person. >> it is an historic pick and this is an administration that's put a heavy focus on equity. on trying to have this administration, this cabinet look more like america and the selection of a black woman, the woman from the lgbtq community, and that post is a significant one. she's one that knows the members of the press who work here day in and day out. myself included. very well. she is someone with whom we communicate with on a daily basis. as a limited number of others. from the beginning, the indications we got is that the president was focused on her for this post. i was told that as of last night, he had not made or at least not shared his final decision but clearly, the president went with the pick many anticipated from the very start. not just familiar at the podium, but on television as you know having served as a contributor to msnbc. she has answered tough questions before, but they're about to get a lot tougher when she begins taking the podium in the middle of this month. >> there's another name, anita returning as senior adviser to president biden. >> anita dunn is one of the president's most trusted advisers. she left only a matter of months ago and was heavily involved even from outside advising the president and his aides from there and it's significant for a variety of reasons most notably because she comes in as this white house is now gearing up for the midterms to take place in november with democrats fearing that they may lose control of the house and the senate and the president looking to bring in some of his most trusted names to help him with the messaging and with the communication strategy going forward. anita dunn is one who works in that press and communications office, but has direct access to the president as does the communications director kate benningfield and has jen psaki in the past. as we heard from the president yesterday as he was speaking, criticizing the maga movement as it relates to the abortion rights debate that we're having in this country right now. the president seemed to be sort of test driving some of his messaging going forward, describing the maga crowd, as he said is one of the most extreme, political organizations in our country's recent history. it sounded like the kind of language that you might see the president and some of his allies and those in congress and others taking on the road over the course of the next several months and anita dunn will be heavily involved in the effort to sharpen the language and try to demonstrate the real progress this white house is focused on demonstrating that it has made from covid, obviously, as we commemorate 1 million lives lost and clearly the country is in a better place now as it relates in the pandemic and the economy has grown at a record pace and they still face challenges that they'll have to face off from crime and immigration from rising inflation that's affectsing every pocketbook. >> peter alexander on the white house north lawn with the developing news. i imagine we'll hear about press secretary jen psaki when she comes out and chats with you. 4:45. thanks,allie. >> new polling out today is saying what a lot of us already know that the pandemic is draining especially on parents. two-thirds of parents experienced burnout after the pandemic and most of those parents were moms, working moms, parents with multiple kids or parents that had adhd or anxiety. it comes as the country is waiting to approve covid vaccines for the last americans, kids under the age of 5. right now they're not protected against the virus and that affects more than just their kids and their families, of course. some of whom are taking real precautions here and maybe not traveling and socializing and not going to busy places and worried their kids can get covid. some of them feel left behind from the shift from the rest of the country to return to a new normal. i want to share some of that conversation with you. >> scarlett prince miller turns 5 this weekend and she's been counting down the days for months. >> she knows that once she gets the shot from the virus she might be able to get on a plane and go visit her auntie em in philadelphia. life is looking limited, no planes and indoor dining so she feels abandoned by talk of a new normal. >> there is absolutely no normal for a family who wants to get their child vaccinated who wants to. it is very, very real for us. at this point we are being left behind in the pandemic. >> kids under 5 are not eligible to be vaccinated right now and won't be probably until june at the earliest. cdc statistics show they're at lower risks than other age groups. people under 75 make up 7% of the population, but account for more than half of covid deaths. kids under 5, 6% of the population and one-tenth of 1% of deaths. the risk/benefit calculation looks different for different families including 3-year-old nico are starting to open up their lives cautiously. >> he looks at me and says mommy, is it safe. can i do it? it breaks my heart a little bit so that makes me not want to be as risk averse. >> do you feel like the cdc and the administration are making decisions about returning to normal? have parents like you in mind? >> it's been very confusing, quite honestly. that confusion is why some parents turn to outside experts like emily oster an economist on parenting and covid data. >> this risk is small even though it is sal yebts and that's a hard thing to navigate. >> what do you say to parents to kids under 5. they would say i'm not ready yet and i would encourage them to say what are you waiting for. what are the kind of next steps that you see that would let you move forward? >> for some, it's the vaccine, even though only one in five parents of young kids say they'll get the shot as soon as it's approved. >> look at you. >> prince miller will and has no regrets about the precautions she's taken so far. >> if you have to put on my grave stone she was overly cautious during the pandemic with regard to the health of her two small children i'm okay with that. >> when do you think you'll get back to a new state of normal. >> part of me hopes it's sooner rather than later because i don't want my child to live in fear and have anxiety over things, but i think it's going to take time for everyone just to get comfortable. the new normal for some parents, anything but. >> think, a lot of parents are looking to see when the fda will, in fact, approve the moderna vaccine which was asked for the kids that are the littlest in this country. the expectation is it could be approved as early as june with shots in arms over the summer. >> out of northern virginia in testimony today, in a break, as we speak over the tumultuous and violent relationship with johnny depp and amber herd. herd is on the stand for the second time. at times when you can see her getting emotional as she recounted fights between her and her ex-husband. depp is suing her for $50 million for defamation after she wrote an essay for "the washington post" which depp's lawyers made veiled accusations. i want to bring in maggie vespa who has been following this for us. we heard from depp. he's been on the stand and he was on for a couple of days to tell his side of the story. herd is coming out with her side. these are disturbing stories. what we're hearing is incredibly intense and incredibly emotional. >> absolutely. yesterday was emotional and it was graphic. it was gutting at times. i think today has frankly been even more so and that's a high bar. her team today started gradually painting a picture of depp's cycle of addiction and abuse. they even showed photos that herd testified she took in 2013 of depp passed out in different locations in places like tokyo, l.a., the bahamas and then they cut to a 2014 story shortly after that. at the time herd was starring in a movie "the adderall diaries" and depp, her then fiance accused her of being with frank owe and cut to the private plane with depp's staff and that was the first time she said he kicked and slapped her and doing that in front of people. here's that moment. >> my back was turned to him and i feel this boot in my back. he just kicked me in the back. i thought to myself i don't know what to do. i can't believe he just -- did he just kick me? no one said anything. no one did anything. it was, like, you could hear a pin drop on that plane. >> the day got far darker from there. herd just moments ago testifying about a graphic sexual assault that she said happened in australia in 2015 and depp denying that entire thing in his testimony prior, but hallie, suffice it to say another dark, disturbing day in this defamation trial. >> maggie vespa live for us. thank you. appreciate it. >> new polling out today shows a dead heat between top two republican contenders, dr. mehmet oz. the candidates have been using this line of attack that you're not pro-life, pro-gun or anti-china enough for us. how do you see this plague out over the next couple of weeks and having former president donald trump showing up for a rally for dr. oz. >> i think we know what we've known for months is that there is no clear front-runner in this case. you have oz and mccormack throwing millions and millions of dollars at ads attacking each other and at least in the polling we have so far since the endorsement, it certainly hasn't given oz a huge bump, but it's also kept him very tight with mccormack. i think the rally will be interesting and the images offed on and trump on stage will become ads that are broadcast across pennsylvania. we'll have to see. the poll shows a lot of undecided voters that get to decide, 3 and 5 who said they might still change their mind even if they named a candidate. >> that was fascinating, too. julia, thank you. we're glad to have you on the show. appreciate you all watching this hour of msnbc. "deadline: white house" starts right now. ♪♪ ♪♪ >> hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york where markets have just closed with stocks suffering one of the worst days of the year so far. the dow falling 1,000 points and that's more than three percentage points after it made big gains yesterday, but we begin this hour with major news in the justice department's investigation into the deadly january 6th attack. a stunning allegation and a high-profile january 6th case brings one of the most violent extremist groups involved in the capitol insurrection closer than ever before to donald trump and his allies.