classrooms. many are questioning why. welcome to the lead. i m jake tapper. we start today with our politics lead and that major announcement by president biden about who will succeed supreme court justice stephen breyer when breyer retires at the end of this term. the person i will nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity. that person will be the first black woman ever nominated to the united states supreme court. now, biden says he has not yet made a decision on just who that person will be, but he is going to invite senators from both parties to hear their opinions, their points of view. biden says he expects to choose a nominee before the end of february. as cnn s m.j. lee reports, some have been lobbying the president on just who that nominee should be since back in february, 2021. this is sort of a bittersweet day for me. justice breyer and i go back a long way. reporter: a momentous day for the joe bide
big day out on the town. plus, we will attempt to, you know, cancel snow white? what? that can t be happening. seen and unseen has answers. but first, rubber-stamp justice, that s the focus of tonight angle. i want all of you out there to understand that there is no point in our wasting any time debating the philosophy of any of biden s potential supreme court picks. it really doesn t matter whom he chooses to replace just a stephen breyer because we already know how he ll vote in any important case. oh wait, did i say he? hoops. president biden: i committed that if i m elected president of have an opportunity to appoint so much of the courts, i will appoint first black woman to the courts, it s required that they have representation now. it s long overdue. laura: the democrats media proxy suffering through, let s face it, what s been a very rough year for biden, are giddily prattling on in anticipation for another first. it s going to be a black woman, joe biden has
qualifications, character, experience and integrity, and that that person will be a black woman. we are reporting on who the likely front runners are. but right now, though, under an hour after that major event, the president is on a major call, speaking with the president of ukraine as the russian collar around ukraine tightens, vladimir putin s army conducted combat drills earlier today, live fire exercises with troops and tanks along the eastern border of ukraine. if the u.s. and nato were looking for signs of deescalation, this was not it. those drills happening just 24 hours after the u.s. hand delivered a letter to moscow yesterday addressing putin s demands. we don t know the contents of that letter, but russian morn minister sergey lavrov told reporters it failed to address nato expansion. the kremlin now warning that when it comes to diplomacy there is, quote, not much cause for optimism. putin himself has been largely silent on the matter, but he was seen in public
the fed announcement which could make buying a house or car more expensive soon. welcome to the lead. i m pamela brown in for jake tapper. we start with breaking news in our politics lead. the supreme court justice stephen breyer, we re expecting him to announce his retirement as early as tomorrow. the 83-year-old who has served nearly three decades on the court plans to stay on until a replacement is confirmed. that replacement is now in president joe biden s hands. his first chance to nominate someone to the highest court in the land. today he refused to answer questions about breyer s retirement. kaitlan collins suggests, he is ready to fulfill a campaign promise on who he ll pick. reporter: with justice stephen breyer set to retire, president biden now has his first chaks to nominate a new justice to the supreme court. there has been no announcement from justice breyer. let him make whatever statement he ll make and i ll be happy to talk about it later. reporter:
out there standing around and i told them i think they re downstairs. so when i went down there and, i get confronted, i think, oh they re actually in the building. i deny honestly didn t know they were that far in the building. they locked arms on me right away and see [inaudible] it was not a matter of leaving them alone. i think they would ve followed me anyway. i ve heard of stories of people being armed. i don t know for fact. i heard that they were actually officers that were a part of this ride group who were emailing them and, they themselves you just never know. it could ve went it could ve easily been a bloodbath. so kudos to everybody who showed a measure of restraint in regards to deadly force because they could ve been bad. really bad. yeah. officer goodman returned to work after the riot. he remains a u.s. capitol police officer. the slow drip of new information coming from investigations into that riot continue today. once significant development concer