♪♪ good day, i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. it was a steady diet of russian lies from a man the feds thought they could trust. new revelations about alexander smirnov, the former fbi informant whose claims about the bidens are now at the heart of the president's impeachment inquiry.

but now that the fbi says russia was actually behind the fabricated stories, why are republicans still buying it? plus, even as we're learning new details about russia's attempts to meddle in the november elections, donald trump is staying silent on vladimir putin's misdeeds, instead he's criticizing his own country for going communist. will the presidential race turn into a referendum about where the two candidates stand when it comes to the kremlin? and according to the old adage, cash is king, especially in politics, but does this still hold true this year? maybe not for trump. new numbers show the former president spending more than he raised last month, but he's still running away with the nomination. so what gives? a lot to get to. we start with former fbi informant, alexander smirnov with a sensational claim that the lies he told about a fake biden bribery scheme came straight from russian

intelligence. smirnov, who worked with the fbi for 14 years has already been indicted for lying to his handler about the bidens and their connection to burisma. allegations central to house republicans' impeachment inquiry into the president. but the link between the biden allegations and russian intelligence, that part is new and the feds are clearly worried about what that means for the country going forward. the tuesday court filing claims smirnov is actively peddling new lies that could impact u.s. elections after meeting with russian intelligence officials in november. u.s. officials are so concerned he could be a flight risk that filed a 28-page argument trying to convince a judge to keep him behind bars pending trial. the judge disagreed. i want to bring in nbc's ryan reilly who has been digging into all of this. tim miller is writer at large for the bulwark and msnbc political analyst. paul butler is a former federal prosecutor. georgetown law professor and

msnbc legal analyst. okay, ryan, what's going on here? what do we know about this guy and the claim he's been making? >> yeah, i think the hall of mirrors is the way that the "new york times" described him, and i think that's a really good way to sort of put it here because we don't know really what was true and what wasn't. this guy worked for the fbi, worked with the fbi as a confidential human source for a very long time, since 2010. he would have been roughly 30 when he joined up and signed the paperwork. every year as a confidential human source, you've got to sign this paperwork and say, hey, you know, here's the rules that i'm agreeing to. you know, and obviously truth is really essential to this entire endeavor, so him lying about the specific material about the bidens is really important, so you've got to wonder since this lie was in 2020, how lucrative this was for him, you know, monetarily because, you know, some confidential human sources are paid. there's indications he was and

he had $6 million in assets. was this something that he just wanted to sort of keep this all going? he apparently had a trip already organized overseas where he was purporting to meet with intelligence officials. this was really at the center of that entire endeavor that house republicans are launching the inquiry -- the ongoing inquiry into president joe biden, chris. >> yeah, in some ways as i was going through all this, i thought this reads like a bad spy novel, not even a good spy movie. so look, paul, smirnov is pushing all these false claims all the way up until last fall. how dangerous do you think it is that he's still out there? >> prosecutors wanted him to be held pending his trial. they say he's a flight risk and a danger to national security and they say that he's peddling new lies that could impact the upcoming election. the judge thought that it's okay if he's at home before the trial, but the judge did impose

some strict limitations to surrender his israeli and u.s. passport, and he's subject to gps monitoring. >> so tim, despite these new allegations, house judiciary chairman jim jordan went on tv this morning. he tried to defend the biden impeachment inquiry, which is based largely on those lies. here it is. >> the smirnov doesn't change four fundamental facts. hunter biden gets put on the board paid a lot of o'money. a million dollars a year. fact two, hunter biden is not qualified to be on the board, he said it himself when he was doing an interview with abc news. fact three, the executives at burisma, joe biden impose to key and fires the prosecutor and he does so by leveraging conditioning on the release of our tax money to the company his son sat on the board of and made a million dollars a year from. those are facts that do not change. >> those two last facts for sure

are not true. they have been debunked. so is there nothing that is going to stop this impeachment train, even the revelation the fbi saying all of it's made up? >> yeah, and you would think that being a dupe for russian intelligence while vladimir putin is invading other countries would have been a wake-up call to some of these guys, that maybe they shouldn't be such useful idiots and they shouldn't be spreading obviously false information. obviously smirnov was an fbi informant for 13 years, there's some things that he must have done that are true or skilled, but this lie, this absurd lie that joe biden took $5 million and that there was some bank accounts that would take ten years to unravel in order to uncover the money, and it was farcical on its face that this happened, and the republicans bought it all hook, line, and sinker. there's evidence now from this indictment that the russians had their fingerprints on that.

here they are spreading fake russian information about the sitting president. that is absolutely shameful. it's historic. it's horrendous, and yet, they're all back out there today peddling, just kind of trying to change the story a little bit. elise stefanik, who was in leadership and went to harvard said this would be the biggest corruption story in 100 years. it was totally fake, not true at all, planted by the russians. >> there is two parts to this, tim, one, that was laid out so incredibly well is that for a lot of years, the fbi didn't know what was going on, right? they didn't know that -- who this guy was or what he was doing, but there also is that republicans seem intent on perpetuating these things that are admitted lies. what -- i mean, i guess the easy answer is trump, but what really happened to a party that when

you were running a campaign would never ever, ever have done anything but stand up to russia? >> you know, i mean, yes, these answers trump, but then downstream from that is this psychological need, right? like at some level, these people know that trump is corrupt, right? that they know that trump has at minimum advanced russian propaganda and russian interests in his rhetoric, and so, you know, that is indefensible. right? so the only way to defend that is to try to point their finger at joe biden and say these guys are bad too. that's how i can sleep at night, that's how i can feel good about continuing to support trump. that's what made them such easy targets for advancing this disinformation. >> paul, i want to read a little bit more from that court filing. it said, quote, smirnov claims to have contacts with multiple foreign intelligence agencies, and had plans to leave the united states two days after he

was arrested last week for a months' long multicountry foreign trip. during this trip, the defendant claimed to be meeting with foreign intelligence contacts, but the judge made a decision that this was not a risk, as we said, he declined to continue to hold him. so what happens next, paul? >> so smirnov proceeds to first enter a plea. so far he hasn't said whether he's going to plead guilty or not guilty. we should expect that he will plead not guilty. he claims that he was in contact with these four different top officials in russia. i think his defense will be even if they were feeding him lies, he thought that his sources were legit. i don't think the fbi believes that. now the fbi is now saying that smirnov is a serial liar. for example, smirnov told the fbi in september '23, that hunter biden had been reported making phone calls at this hotel

in kyiv. and he said that those calls were wired and that the russians were controlling all of this. the fbi knew that was a lie, chris, because hunter biden has never traveled to ukraine. >> so ryan, i guess to bring this full circle, what's going on at the fbi to figure out how this happened, how it got to this point? >> that's a really good question because, you know, i don't think we realized until these court paperwork was filed yesterday just how incredibly recently this was. there wasn't like a stop point on this, and the fbi was over the summer telling republicans, according to their own accounts that this was a trusted source, and those accounts by republicans i would deem probably credible now because, you know, this was someone who was actively being used by the fbi up until extremely recently and was in communication with them. when you get one of these fbi -- when you get one of these sources at the fbi, it can be really valuable for your career. it can be something that can really, you know, cause you to

advance. confidential human sources are a big deal within the bureau, but you know, it's tough because you've got to sort of weigh what other motivations those individuals might have, and in this case, obviously it seems like, you know, potentially monetary benefits would be something that he was interested in, but also perhaps other reasons as well, perhaps support for russia overall. he's obviously very anti-biden. that's what's sort of laid out in these documents here. that's why he was feeding this information back in 2020. he wanted to have that impact on presidential election. that's why i think back over the summer, even though the fbi was saying this is a person who's a really good source, they were saying we shouldn't put out this raw material because this isn't something that was verified by the bureau. republicans really did make this the center piece. they threatened to hold the fbi director in contempt. it was only then the fbi showed it. it was something like a redoing of 2026 where this republican pressure from the house is causing the fbi to do things that are really outside of their

policies and outside of their scope to create these sort of headlines against the bidens. >> i have to say just reading this filing, my jaw was dropping. maybe i'll be wrong. maybe it will be turned into a good spy movie. we shall see. but in the meantime, some serious stuff that is going to be seen going forward. ryan reilly, thank you always for your reporting, and paul butler appreciate you. tim, you're coming back in a bit. in 60 seconds the political back and forth about putin, what the growing divide means for u.s. diplomacy and potential new sanctions against the kremlin. everywhere but the seat. the seat is leather. alan, we get it. you love your bike. we do, too. that's why we're america's number-one motorcycle insurer. but do you have to wedge it into everything? what? i don't do that. this reminds me of my bike. the wolf was about the size of my new motorcycle. have you seen it, by the way? happy birthday, grandma! really? look how the brushstrokes follow the line of the gas tank.

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death of his top critic, alexei navalny. >> trump said navalny's death made him realize how bad america is. why does trump always blame america? putin is responsible for navalny's death. why can't trump just say that? >> in fact, once again, former president trump is comparing his own legal woes to navalny's death in prison. >> well, navalny is a very sad situation, and he's very brave, he was a very brave guy because he went back. he could have stayed away is and frankly probably would have been better off staying away and talking from outside the country. people thought that could happen and it did happen, and it's a horrible thing. but it's happening in our country too. we are turning into a communist country in many ways, and if you look at it, i'm the leading candidate, i get indicted -- i never heard of being indicted before. >> nbc's kelly o'donnell is reporting for us from outside the white house. also here with us diplomatic

correspondent for "the new york times," michael crowley. i want to talk a little bit about what we just heard from donald trump. i mean, first it seems to sound like he's blaming navalny for his own death. he didn't have to go back, but he did. not putin, not blaming putin, but second, would you like to define for donald trump what a communist country actually is or what that word means? >> yeah, chris, thanks for having me. it was a pretty strange reaction. i agree with you that it sounds on some level like he's blaming navalny for choosing to go back to russia. i guess, you know, he does give him credit for being brave. that's something. but it really seems like a misplaced focus here, and it's one of -- we could probably come up with about a dozen examples of instances where donald trump has been presented with evidence of something that vladimir putin has done or is clearly very

responsible for and just refuses to acknowledge that responsibility or cast any blame on him. so it's a bewildering pattern that goes back several years now. it's one thing to say that the united states should have better diplomatic ties with russia. some people argue that. they say it's too dangerous and counterproductive for us not to have relations. it's another to make excuses for vladimir putin and quickly, before i finish, russia's not a communist country. communism is long in russia's past. it's a completely different system. in fact, russia has massive concentrations of wealth, so i don't know where he's getting that from. >> so kelly, president biden is leaning heavily into the polar opposites, right, between him and donald trump on this and their responses obviously to -and-a-half -- navalny's death. what does he want to communicate to voters here? >> well, he wants to make the difference very stark, and as

you've already discussed, there are plenty of reasons for that, that the views of the former president are not in step with the long policies of the united states, and this is an opportunity for the president who in many ways is building on what he initially said after the death of navalny and did so with reporters and then they created this video, and of course when he goes and speaks to donor audiences, he's building on those principles and reacting in sort of realtime to the lack of a comment in line with normal u.s. policy from donald trump. donald trump who is so quick to lash out at any perceived grievance, and yet, never when it involves vladimir putin. so for joe biden, this is about that stark difference between what he believes is his stewardship and his leadership with allies and what a donald trump presidency was in the past and what it could look like in the future when these issues come up.

and so he's trying to make that case to voters and by using the videos and going to donors, expect to hear more of that, and this is a very vivid example where what the former president is saying or maybe more importantly what he's not saying, gives an opening to president biden to try to make those differences highlighted and understandable. >> the rubber hits the road, right when those sanctions that biden promised are unveiled on friday. what would hurt vladimir putin at this point? there have been plenty of sanctions before. >> well, there are two big areas. one is, you know, the u.s. has cut off important imports into russia, particularly high-technology materials that could especially help modernize russia's military. russia has found ways to get around those sanctions, particularly by getting friendly countries in its region to import these parts and send them

on to russia. there's a kind of thriving black market. the u.s. could try a lot harder to crack down. it would mean picking fights with some countries we're friendly with, including particularly turkey. so there is a diplomatic cost, and that's one reasozi we've no seen more of it. and in the same vein of needing to pick fights, russia is still exporting a tremendous amount of oil. it's seeing a surge in china, india and brazil. the united states could threaten to sanction countries that are buying russian oil. we have this price cap that has lowered the price somewhat of russian oil, but russia's still making billions of dollars off of its energy exports, and the u.s. could crack down harder on that. that would really require, again, picking fights with countries like brazil or india or breaking a kind of a thaw we've had in relations with china to say if you keep buying russian oil, you're going to face consequences from us. there's a real price to the u.s. doing that. it will be interesting to see whether president biden makes moves in that direction.

>> i should mention that all of this is unfolding as leaders are meeting at the g20 in brazil. just in the last hour, we only just got these pictures in, for the first time in almost a year, u.s. secretary of state antony blinken and russia's foreign minister, sergey lavrov were sitting across from each other, face to face. a lot has happened since they last saw each other. how do you expect blinken to navigate this? >> well, it's an interesting question. the state department did not say before this trip that blinken had any plans to speak to lavrov for the first time in about a year, nor did they rule out the possibility. i think a lot of it depends on what lavrov wants to do. i think in general the u.s. wants to have communication with russia. among other things, we're trying to get two americans who have been declared wrongfully detained out of russia, and the u.s. is trying to get russia to accept a deal. maybe some kind of a prisoner trade like we've seen before, or at least to negotiate, letñi us

know what they're thinking. i don't think there's a good line of communication right now. i think blinken probably would be willing to talk to lavrov, depends on what the russian wants to do. >> we shall see. high drama there, kelly o'donnell and michael crowley, thank you both so much. campaign cash, the newest numbers and what they mean in this already extraordinary, unprecedented, sometimes just plain weird presidential election. you're watching "chris jansing reports" only on msnbc. my life is full of questions... mom, is yellow a light or a dark? how do i clean an aioli stain? thankfully, tide's the answer to almost all of them. why do we even buy napkins? use tide. can cold water clean white socks? it can with tide. do i need to pretreat guacamole? not with tide. this is chocolate, right? -just use... -tide...yeah. no matter who's doing it, on what cycle, or in what temperature, tide works. so i can focus on all the other questions. do crabs have eyebrows? ahh... for all of life's laundry questions, it's got to be tide.

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in this most unorthodox and unprecedented presidential race, there is one traditional bench mark that holds true, even in 2024, money. and the latest fund-raising numbers revealed some important headlines. joe biden is raising more money than donald trump, whose legal bills continue to weigh him down. both trump and nikki haley burned through a lot of cash in january. and in spite of conventional wisdom that she doesn't have a chance, haley continues to attract donors, including 2020 biden donors. okay, but back to this being an unorthodox year, money will only get you so far. in south carolina where republicans vote this weekend, haley has spent $8.4 million on tv ads, trump zero. and he's still 28 points ahead in the polls. nbc's l ali vitali is covering

nikki haley. what do fund-raising numbers tell us really? >> i think there's some concerns for donald trump in the general election. i think there are some low info voters that he's going to have to try to activate that joe biden's going to have the funds to reach. the fund-raising that he does have, he's funneling a lot of it to his court cases. i think that's a problem for tomorrow. for the primary it doesn't matter at all, and frankly, he probably should have spent less money on the primary. i've always had the contrarian view that money does not matter at all in this republican primary. the voters really love trump. imagine, think about the thing that you like the most. you know, for me denver nuggets basketball. somebody runs a 30 second tv ad that says the nuggets stink, you should be a lakers fan. these voters don't need to be

persuaded. they know donald trump, they've chosen him, and they like him in the republican primary. i don't know how much the money is doing for nikki besides keeping her campaign afloat. this might hurt him with swing voters come the fall. >> let's talk about the general in a way, lisa, because as he continues to burn through cash for legal fees, i'm wondering with the four criminal trials not starting yet, obviously they're working on them, but the actual trials haven't started, has he already paid large retainers upfront so most of the money he's going to spend he's already spent or are his cash demands going to grow? >> he has already paid large retainers to certain of his lawyers, for example chris kise and tom blanch required big retainers when they left their big law practices to represent donald trump and go out essentially to be solo practitioners on their own. >> they weren't going to get stiffed. >> they're not drawing down on those retainers and the filing

that save america pac, donald trump's legal pac from when he's been paying most of these legal fees filed yesterday shows he's continuing to place tom blanch, chris kise, alina habba and john saur who will argue to the supreme court if it gets that far, those are people he's paying big sums of money to. todd blanche's firm almost $400,000, john lauro, more than $500,000. >> in what period of time? >> just in january. that could be reflective of invoices that have accumulated for some period of time before then, and we'd have to compare them to his year end filing for 2023 to see, but the bottom line is that save america has about $4.3 million in cash on hand right now and blew through over $60 million last year, 50 million of which was on legal fees alone. he has shouldered the legal burden for tons of other people

in addition to his himself. witnesses, co-defendants, for example, like walt nauta and carlos de oliveira, and the case before judge cannon. it's all very dizzying. if you're to take away one thing from this, it's that his legal bills are only mounting and the pile of cash for from which he has to draw upon is dwindling. >> a matter of curiosity, top level lawyer, how much do they make an hour on a case like this? >> it really depends on his lawyers. some of his lawyers make in excess of a thousand dollars an hour. some of them not so much, and that might be why he's chosen some of them. he is not drawing lawyers from america's marquee firms. however, he does have a handful of lawyers who came from those places and have the kind of experience you would want in a case like this, former federal prosecutors or in chris kise's case, the former solicitor general of florida. whether or not those translate to success is probably more determined by the facts as they found them than their legal skill to their great disappointment. >> as tim pointed out, ali,

we're jumping ahead kind of to the general, and we still have a primary election that's going on. so if money isn't helping nikki haley in the polls in south carolina, i guess she's narrowed the gap a little bit, but she's still really far behind, it raises the question why are big donors keeping her afloat and trump has his own idea. let me play that. >> reporter: there's a lot of money behind her. >> they're trying to hurt me for the general election. so the democrats are giving her money and she's playing into the game, and i think she just can't get -- she just can't get herself to get out. >> so not in his opinion for her but against him. but what do you know about why donors are sticking with her at this point? >> reporter: there might be some truth to what the former president is saying there, which is that donors might be attracted to haley because she's not trump. that's not all of it, but it's certainly part of it, and it's why haley is pitching herself as the trump alternative in this

race. just as ron desantis was, as tim scott was when donors have a choice, they choose the candidate that they most want to support. the fact that a lot of these donors are donors that do not want to support donald trump innately leads them to continue supporting nikki haley. i think that that's always been the larger question of this primary, and frankly, chris when we saw all of these other contenders jump in and try to mount a challenge to the former president, that was the entire point was would the electorate respond to what donors were responding to which is taking the party, if not in another ideological direction, then at least in a different direction in terms of who the standard bearer actually was. all of those other contenders have dropped out. nikki haley has reiterated time and again yesterday, but also with me just in the last few minutes as i sat down with her, she is staying in this race to continue providing an alternative to voters. she has the money. i know that money might not be closing the gap as you mentioned. it's helping her stay on tv in places like south carolina. they just put an ad buy up in a

michigan. all of that is meant to provide air support, but in terms of just allowing her campaign to continue to function, allowing them to put gas in the bus behind me, they've got the cash to do that, and the candidate wants to keep doing it, at least through super tuesday. >> well, i mean, she has been tougher on trump. that may be part of the equation, right? why she's closing the gap, maybe with independents, but is she willing to say would she support donald trump if he is indeed the nominee? >> she's not yet been willing to say she wouldn't support trump if he's the nominee, and this is a stark contrast because at the beginning of the primary, all of the republican candidates had to sign that so-called loyalty pledge to get on the stage with the republican national committee to even do the debate. she signed that pledge as did most of the rest of the field. now haley is not saying that she will certainly vote for the nominee, but she's not saying she won't either: even when i asked her just in the last few

minutes, what if that would be nominee ends up being a convicted felon. watch. >> could you vote for a convicted felon? >> i mean, it's not even -- to me those are hypotheticals. we don't know that that's even going to be the situation. >> but 91 counts. >> do you think he'd stay in at this point? >> don't you? >> i think the problem is we don't know. no one knows what's going to happen. >> so haley there casting that cloud of uncertainty over the primary. voters, though -- and we've seen this in entrance polls and exit polls, chris, they are aware of the fact that trump is facing multiple legal troubles, that he could be in a position of at least being this court actively defending himself, let alone facing possible convictions by the time he is the nominee. that doesn't seem to be phasing them, but what haley said to me here and the last few days is the importance of these trials should not be minimized and that voters need to be aware it does cast a cloud of uncertainty over

the field and over trump's electability in a general election. that's always been a central part of the nikki haley argument. but i do think it's striking to hear her in that interview that we just did with her not be able to say whether or not she would vote for someone who is a convicted felon. again, she is right that it's hypothetical, but you're looking at these more than 90 counts. i mean, everyone on our panel, we talk about them almost every day on our air. this is not some farfetched question to have to grapple with. if haley's not the nominee, she would be a voter like everyone else. that's one of the key things that stuck out to me. i want to tell you the other piece of news she's made. we've seen in alabama that supreme court ruling regarding frozen embryos and them being treated as unborn lives. one of the questions that i asked haley who herself used ivf treatment to have one of her children, i asked her if she agreed with ruling, she said embryos are babies while highlighting the importance of

women being able to have active conversations with their doctors to figure out what their options are as they're going through fertility treatment. a lot of o'news with nikki haley in the last few minute sfls tremendous amount of news, but also shows you the difficult situation and she every republican who dropped out before her finds themselves in when they're up against donald trump. ali vitali, great interview. lisa rubin, great research. tim miller, we love having you on always. appreciate you. >> coming up, we are live outside the courthouse in london where wikileaks founder julian assange is fighting his extradition to the u.s., assessing the damage the leaked documents did to the u.s. and what his wife is saying today. we'll explain it all on "chris jansing reports" here on msnbc. jansing reports" here on msnbc covid-19? i'm not waiting. if it's covid, paxlovid. paxlovid is an oral treatment for adults with mild-to-moderate covid-19 and a high-risk factor for it becoming severe. it does not prevent covid-19. my symptoms are mild now, but i'm not risking it.

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>> i have to admit that what they're doing is criminalizing journalism. it's criminalizing the truth. they are liars, they are criminals, and they're persecuting the journalists who expose them. >> nbc's josh lederman is reporting from the courthouse in london. also with us jamil jaffer, founder and executive director for the national security institute. great to have both of you here. josh, if the judges rule against him, assange will have exhausted his options for appeal in the uk. so tell us what happened in court today and what we're expecting next. >> reporter: chris, the hearing has now wrapped up, and the judges could have issued their ruling on the spot, but instead they said they're going to take some time before making their decision about whether assange will be extradited immediately or get a full appeal. but you know, it was so interesting in court today, you mentioned those 17 espionage charges and one computer hacking

charge against assange. the lawyers for the u.s. made clear in court today they plan to focus on the latter, on the computer hacking because assange's legal team has tried to argue that what he did in exposing alleged wrongdoing by the u.s. government is legitimate journalism. the u.s. attorneys plan to make the case and have been making the case that the tactics that he used to do it in hacking into computers, trying to crack passwords of people who didn't have access to the information they obtained, stealing massive troves of classified documents is totally different than what legitimate journalists do every day, and so you see the legal team for the u.s. trying to convince the court that this is not about the content of what assange stole and exposed. it is about the tactics that he used and hope that will be viewed by the court here in london as clear cut evidence of criminality justifying his extradition.

now, the judges made clear that they are going to give the parties in this case up until march 4th to make any additional written submissions to the court. so at that point, that is the earliest we could see a decision about whether or not assange will be immediately put on a plane to face those 18 counts in the u.s. or have one more chance to try to appeal that extradition here in the united kingdom, chris. >> thank you, josh, we appreciate it. you're both a national security expert and an attorney, how compelling do you find this case for extradition? >> well, look, i think josh is exactly right. the argument that julian assange is going to make is that he was a journalist. but the fact of the matter is that julian assange is no journalists. he doesn't take steps to protect sources and methods and the like. in particular, the revelations that he put out there without taking any precautions put other journalists, legitimate journalists and human rights activists at significant risk in afghanistan and around the globe. this idea that somehow julian assange is anything more than a

hacker and a leaker is not true. he's not a journalist. the u.s. government has good strong arguments and the court's likely to agree and he'll be coming to the united states here in the near future to face justice. >> his wife and his lawyers have been comparing him to alexei navalny, they say like navalny imprisoned for telling the truth. facing the possibility of death because of it. his wife says she fears he will die if he's extradited. what do you make of that comparison? >> given that julian assange is essentially a shell for the russian government. it's the opposite of being like alexei navalny. no doubt that julian assange's supporters are going to make the argument, he revealed embarrassing information about the afghanistan war. that is true. he also revealed tremendous -- that have nothing to do with legitimate issues in the media, sources and methods of intelligence collection and the like, and in particular p under the -- put thousands of people os lives at risk in afghanistan

and elsewhere. this idea that julian assange a whistle-blower or anything more than what he is, which is an individual who suborns other people, encouraging people to hack into systems and knowingly publishes it, that's not who he is unfortunately. >> assuming you're right and a lot of people agree with you and he is extradited to the united states, then what? >> well, then he gets a trial before a federal judge and a federal jury. he'll get a trial before his peers. his lawyers will certainly argue that his actions were protected by the first amendment and the like, open question whether a -- they'll almost certainly go to the courts of appeal. at the end of the day i think he's likely not to prevail and will face justice in a u.s. court and maybe in a u.s. prison. the australians have argued he should serve his prison sentence if given one in australia. we'll see how that plays out as well. >> jamil jaffer, thank you so much. after the bank, alabama's ruling on frozen embryos and

what it means for doctors and patients that are now concerned about being caught in limbo. but first, devastating new images, these are coming to us from rafah where some of the youngest gazans are protesting this brutal war. you can see them holding signs. one addressing biden directly. another with this heartbreaking message to the world. you should be ashamed. your children of dying of hunger the sign says. and one young girl puts the gravity of what she has lost like this. quote, war has robbed us of everything. everything was robbed of us, it robbed us of our friends, our houses, our schools, everything. we'll be right back. be right ba. when i was diagnosed with h-i-v, i didn't know who i would be. but here i am... being me. keep being you... and ask your healthcare provider about the number one prescribed h-i-v treatment, biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in many people whether you're 18 or 80. with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v

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doctors and patients seeking fertility treatments are now in a state of uncertainty over how to navigate this deeply emotional and personal process of ivf. ivf is performed an estimated 2 1/2 million times a year in the u.s., and more than 10 million babies have been born through it, according to the national institutes of health. but now the future of a procedure that has helped create so many american families is in question. an alabama supreme court ruling says embryos can be considered children. nbc's dasha burns is following

this for us. so what could this mean for the future of fertility treatments, not just in alabama but a lot of folks are saying around the country. >> this is already having an immediate impact. just today the university of alabama at birmingham announced that it is pausing ivf treatments in the wake of this ruling. clinics and patients are all trying to figure out what this means, for what they could be held liable. and that means that some patients are going to have disruptions to their care. the doctors that i've spoken with are extremely concerned about what this could mean, especially in alabama right now. doctors are wondering are they going to have to move their clinics out of state. patients are wondering, are they going to want to move their embryos out of the state. i spoke to one patient who was telling me she called her doctor and was told that right now it's a day by day game, and she's in the middle of her treatments right now. take a listen to what she told

me. >> we're this very traditional family that just wants to have a kid. i didn't realize ever that this was going to be a question of morality. and that embryos would be considered life and that would disrupt my treatment in any way. >> this came as a surprise to not just patients but even some of the doctors that i spoke with. they just felt blind sided by this decision. and you're right, it's not isolated to alabama. there are multiple states right now that have bills in progress that could potentially give person hood to embryos, so this is, by no means, the end of the story, in terms of this decision. it's possible it will get appealed to the supreme court. there's no guarantee that the supreme court could take it up, and if it remains with the alabama state supreme court, that is the law of the land in alabama. but, chris, what's fascinating politically about this right now is ivf, it is not a democratic

or a republican procedure, right? there's some 42% according to a survey of americans say they know someone who has used ivf. as republicans are trying to figure out their messaging on reproductive rights, this is certainly something that is validating the fears of a lot of people who were worried about the snowball effects of roe v. wade falling. this is something that is concerning a lot of patients and the lot of people that might consider using this procedure in the future. >> these are people who desperately want to have a family, but the normal procedures, for example, determining whether or not an embryo might have genetic abnormalities, all of that changes now. we're going to continue to follow this story. dasha burns, thank you. health officials are warning of a troubling surge of measles across the country. as of february 15th, 20 cases were reported in 11 states. that's according to the cdc. that doesn't even include a recently outbreak in broward

county, florida, where six more cases have now been confirmed in a single elementary school. the school board is expected to meet about this in the next hour. just to give you a sense of why this is so concerning, every measles patient infects on average 12 to 18 other people who lack immunity from vaccines or natural infection. in our next hour of "chris jansing reports," what do you see when you look at this picture? well, prosecutors who charged hunter biden say those lines, they're cocaine. his lawyers say that's a huge mistake. what they say the photo actually shows, ahead. o actually shows, ahead

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♪♪ welcome back to another hour of "chris jansing reports." ahead for us behind closed doors, president biden's younger brother facing questions from