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Hey, everybody, and welcome to here's the
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scoop from NBC News.
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I'm Yazan Vesugian. On the show today, we mark four years of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and we hear about the diplomatic
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solutions that are still on the table.
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Plus which companies are suing the Trump administration over tariffs and why bird watching is actually brain gymnastics. Upper. So now that the Olympics are over, you probably thought you were done watching female feats of strength and endurance. Not so fast, though. The president is set to give his State of the Union to a joint session of Congress this evening, and he's
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already warning that it's going to go
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long, which is actually saying something, by the way. When he addressed the body last year, President Trump spoke for a record one hour and 39 minutes. Obviously, there is a lot to talk about here, from the economy to immigration, not to mention the president's agenda abroad. So to get a preview of it all, I've got senior White House correspondent Garrett Hake. Hey, Garrett.
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Hey. How's it going?
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What is the mood like right now at the White House? Is the president's team kind of cramming for their final exam, really ahead of the midterm elections?
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There's definitely some nervous energy, I think, here at the White House, but it's mostly excited. The State of the Union is an opportunity to brag about your accomplishments, to boast about what you've done just as much as it is about laying out what you want to do in the future. And I don't say this to be a smart alec, but this White House loves to brag about what they've accomplished. And so, you know, they are running a big countdown all the way up till the speech gets started tonight. They have some of the news anchors here this afternoon having their lunch with the president beforehand where he gets to kind of preview and schmooze. That's all the kind of energy that they like around a big event. This is not the kind of big news event that they can't control. It's their show and they're eager to put it on.
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So let's talk about what's going to be front and center on this show, which is likely, it seems, the economy, I mean, you and I were texting about this earlier as well. The president does have an affordability issue. And what I mean by that is he's not polling well when it comes to affordability and the handling of this economy right now amongst the American electorate. How does the president address the economy tonight in the State of the Union?
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Yeah, I mean, I think there are a couple of parts to this. Number one, it's going to be to sort of talk about what he's already done and talk about the steps that he's already taken. The president likes to create this contrast. He's probably going to talk about the inflation, inflation picture as he inherited it from President Biden and talk about the way in which they've been able to bring those numbers down, talk about the manner in which the stock market has gone up. Kind of two of the President's favorite metrics for the economy. The White House has also indicated that he's gonna roll out at least some new policies to help people with cost of living. The only one that they've previewed is this idea where you'd have tech companies pay for some of the cost of the electricity that they're using at these data centers, which would, in theory lower home energy costs for people, which have gone way up over the. Curious to see what else the President has up his sleeve. There's just not a lot of like low hanging fruit left on cost of living. The other big question to me is whether he does any of this sort of I feel your pain language and rhetoric that we expect to hear from presidents. But I think that's something that, you know, the Biden administration learned the hard way was that people wanted to hear. They didn't want to be told the economy's better than they think it is. People, in hindsight, they realized, wanted to be empathized with in addition to being provided with hopefully some solutions. Whether President Trump can walk that tightrope or not I think is an open question.
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So Caroline Levitt this morning was asked to preview what the President's gonna be talking about. She mentioned the economy. She also mentioned likely the President touting the strikes in Iran over the summer, the 12 day war between Iran and Israel. And then amidst all this, as you well know, right, there's been this massive buildup of American forces around Iran in the waters, I should say around Iran. Do we expect him to make a case for strikes on Iran in this state of the union?
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C
You know, it's funny, those were my questions to Caroline Levitt this morning on the White House driveway. I've been obsessed with this because, Yasmin, you and I are old enough to remember the lead up to the war in Iraq and the sales pitch that happened from the White House and really from every lever of kind of government power before that began. Now, I'm not saying we're talking about, even theoretically, the same kind of ground invasion, full scale war that we had with Iran. But the White House has done almost nothing to publicly make the case for why the kind of buildup that they're putting in the waters around Iran would actually be necessary, why it's useful to the American people, why it's worth risking American lives to do some kind of kinetic military action in Iran. Even this morning, Caroline Levitt would not go so far as to say that President Trump will make that case tonight. And so what that tells me is one of two things. Either they just fundamentally don't think it's necessary to make that sales pitch to the American people, or number two, that they're not that close to making that decision yet.
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I want to talk more about foreign entanglements because this just so happens to be taking place on the fourth anniversary of the Russia, Ukraine war. That is a war that this president said he would end on day one in office.
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Yeah, we're on day 400 something now, and the war is very much not ended. I think what you'll see from the president is a bit of a stall on Ukraine. I think he'll say probably two things because this is what he typically says in his remarks. He will say that this was Joe Biden's war and that would never have started if he were president. I think that's an open question, but it's one that he likes to fall back on as essentially saying, this isn't, you know, it shouldn't be my problem. And I think he'll point to the steps that the United States has taken to disentangle itself from Ukraine while still supporting them. And by that I mean not spending American tax dollars to fund and arm Ukraine, but instead turning around and selling those weapons to NATO allies who then provide them to Ukraine as a way to distance the US from the war. But on the fundamental promise of ending the war on day one, I mean, that's just not a promise kept. And there's no good answer for that on the president's part, except that it turns out this stuff is a lot harder than campaign candidate Donald Trump let on.
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We talked about foreign entanglements.
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We have talked about the economy.
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His approval rating right now is, it seems, declining. Right. High 30s, low 40s. Immigration is huge for him. Obviously, we have been tracking what's been taking place in Minneapolis, the death of two American citizens, Renee Nicole Goode and Alex Preddy. How do we expect to see the president reframe immigration?
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I think you'll see it kind of like this event that we had Here at the White House yesterday with these angel families. These are families of people who were killed by undocumented immigrants as a largely successful effort to seal the border, which is undeniably true. Border crossings are way, way down. And touting that as a success and approaching it through the lens of crime, where the numbers nationally are also painting a very positive story that crime is now, I think there's a lot of reason to question or dispute the link between immigration and crime, but this is a White House that sees those things as interrelated. And so what I think you'll see is a focus on those successes and less of a focus on the kind of dramatic interior enforcement that has led to those deaths.
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So you talked about guests, angel families. As you mentioned, Democrats are inviting Epstein survivors to the speech. Republicans are bringing, it seems, YouTube rabble rousers. Who else is going to be in the room? And how do we look at that when it comes to what the next eight, nine months are going to look like with regards to what lawmakers are going to be fighting for in the lead up to the midterms?
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Yeah, it's an interesting question. I mean, those Epstein survivors, I think, are a tell from Democrats about an issue they want to continue to highlight. We confirmed a little while ago that the White House is going to be inviting Erica Kirk as a State of the Union guest. I think that's interesting from a purely political lens. The White House's efforts to continue to stay super aligned with Turning Point, that activist organization that her late husband founded, which has been extraordinarily useful as a turnout machine for Republicans. And look, the other guests that everybody's talking about will be some of these hockey players from the gold medal winning men's Olympic hockey team. The president, I think, would love to draft off their success and the kind of wave of patriotism that their big win this past weekend created.
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He did, though, get a lot of flack for that phone call.
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He did, but not from the people who are probably inclined to or perhaps open to supporting him anyway.
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You know, I'm interested in the Supreme Court justices because they're always at these State of the Unions, but they just delivered this decision to the president on tariffs. If the president is gonna point them out directly in the State of the Union address, as they are in the
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room, yeah, I think that's a pretty good chance. I've always been fascinated by the fact that the justices go. It's not compulso taking attendance. They're not required to be there. And in fact, they usually go And I've covered the speech from inside the chamber, and they take great pains to sit there and look apolitical and kind of disinterested. I do think it could be a very awkward moment. And I think there'll be an even more pronounced exercise in not reacting if the president goes after a John Roberts, who's the chief justice is very likely to attend and very likely to get ripped by the president who treats this tariff issue in particular as not just a defeat politically, but as kind of a personal affront to his entire style of governing.
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All right, a quick round robin. Is he gonna stay on speech or go off speech?
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Off speech. I've covered hundreds of presidential speeches for President Trump by this point, I cannot think of a single one that was 100% on prompter.
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What will be the moment of mutual applause when both Republicans and Democrats stand up together?
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Oh, great question. Maybe saluting the Olympians. I think that's probably your safest for
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bipartisan support over under an hour and 39 minutes.
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Man, I don't want to bet against myself. As somebody who's got to stay up to write the story for the next morning, I think this could go long.
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Yeah, I do, too. Garrett Hake. Get some sleep tonight.
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I'll try.
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Coming up, after four years of war in Ukraine, what are the prospects for peace? A former ambassador joins me from Kyiv. Stay with us.
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A KFC tale in the pursuit of flavor. The greatest insult the colonel ever suffered was being served a wrap that was just a snack by a friend. So he took two crispy tenders, lettuce, tomatoes and pepper mayo and wrapped them in a soft tortilla. It wasn't a snack, it was a meal. He called it a twister and never called that friend again. The colonel lived so we could chicken the twister. Now back at KFC Classic or with bacon. Also try it spicy. It's finger licking. Good.
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Prices and participation may vary.
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And we are back with here's the
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scoop from NBC News. When Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine, the consensus seemed to be that Ukraine wouldn't be able to hold Moscow off for more than a few weeks or even a few months at best. That was four years ago. Ukrainian President Zelensky addressing his war torn nation Monday night remained defiant, telling the
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world that Putin, quote, has not broken
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Ukrainians, but Moscow is still very much in the fight and they're warning Kiev that its, quote, goals have not yet been achieved. Meanwhile, the death toll has been immense. Nearly half a million have died in combat and another one and a half million are wounded or missing. And that doesn't take civilian casualties into account. That is according to a study presented last month by the center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. So after four years of fighting and months of ongoing talks, is there any peace in sight? For this I want to bring in former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, who's in Kyiv. Welcome, Ambassador.
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H
Thank you, Yasmin. Good to be here.
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Great to have you. So how are Ukrainians marking this anniversary?
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H
Ukrainians are marking this anniversary with sadness, with exhaustion, Yasmin, but with determination. They have held off the Russians, as you just indicated, longer than anyone thought. And they've held them off due to their own bravery, their own ingenuity, with a lot of support from the Europeans and the Americans, but they've held off the Russians and they will continue to do that.
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We talked about the casualties so far. The numbers are not exact. As we well know. The power grid has also repeatedly been attacked by the Russian military. So you have entire towns that are going at times without power. And the winter has been particularly hard. Paint a picture, Ambassador Taylor, for us as to what life is like right now for Ukrainians there.
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So in the last day, the weather has started to turn and the Ukrainians are so eager to see the end of this horrible winter. This winter has been harsh. Ukrainians I talked to say it's the worst that they can remember, certainly in 20 years. It's very, very cold. And as you said, Yasmin, the Russians bombed the electricity generation system so that people were out of heat, out of light. What that means is the electricity runs. The water pumps, they're out of water. One of my good friends lives on the 17th floor. She has to go up and down the stairs, sometimes carrying water, she and her 12 year old daughter. It is just Grim, Yasmin. And makes them, it makes the Ukrainians angry.
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And amidst all of this are these ongoing talks to end this war. And we know this is all coming down to territory, right? Russia already has control of 20% of the territory. They want the entirety of the Donbas region. That seems to be a non starter for the Ukrainians who are backed by, supported by, in this peace process, the European Union. Where do the talks stand right now between Ukraine and Russia?
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H
It is widely understood that Putin does not want an agreement. It is widely understood that he doesn't want to get on the wrong side of President Trump. So he's going through the motions. He sends his delegates, his representatives to Abu Dhabi, to Mar a Lago, to Geneva. They make no progress because the two demands are incompatible. Jasmine. The Ukrainians want to live a normal life. They don't want to live under Russia. The Russians now, as you say, control 19% of Ukrainian territory. 81% is not controlled by the Russians. And in that 81% they do not want to go under the Russian dictator. So the talks, the Ukrainians have been willing to make compromises, the willingness to say yes to proposals from the Americans. And every time it's the Russians who say no. And the American delegation goes back and tries again. But there's not much optimism here in Kyiv that these talks will result in peace.
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We have a president who is addressing the nation this evening in his State of the Union address. This is a president who, when elected, said he could end this war on his first day in office, in part because of his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has proven to be unsuccessful. But is there any sense of a possible compromise when it comes to these ongoing talks of ending this war under this administration?
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H
There is. There is, Yasmin. There is a sense that it can be done. And the sense is that there's real leverage that President Trump has over Putin to make him stop the war, to make him agree to a ceasefire. And President Putin knows that President Trump has that leverage.
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What is that leverage from the Ukrainians perspective that President Trump has, that he could wield when it comes to ongoing peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine that could feasibly end this war.
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Putin has to be convinced he cannot win. So the first is military and the second is economic. And on the military side, President Trump has thought about providing the Ukrainians with these long range cruise missiles called Tomahawks. He considered doing that last fall. President Putin was so worried that President Trump might give Tomahawks to the Ukrainians that President Putin Got on the phone with President Trump and talked President Trump out of it. But President Trump knows how important those tomahawks are to the Ukrainians, and he knows how much Putin fears them. Second, President Trump has put secondary tariffs on India for buying Russian oil. Last summer, when he did that, Putin panicked again. He knows that the way he is funding this war. Putin is funding this war by selling oil on the world market, by exporting oil. The two biggest purchasers of that oil are India and China. And when President Trump put tariffs on China, on India for buying that oil, Putin was very worried again. He panicked again that President Trump might do that on China. That would choke off the funds going into the Russian military, which is funding that war. The third one, by the way, is the funds, the dollars and euros coming from the Europeans. And the Europeans are now in the final process of getting $100 billion of a loan, no interest loan, probably a grant to the Ukrainians so that they can buy weapons from the Americans. So the Europeans, again, when they demonstrate to Putin that they're willing to put up $100 billion of their own money borrowed in their own markets, that tells Putin that he's in trouble and he needs to come to the table.
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A
I also want to talk about aid, though, because over the last four years or so, almost $200 billion in aid has been made available by Congress and has subsequently, it seems, for the most part, been dispersed. Since President Trump has taken office, there's really been no significant legislation and or aid allocated towards the Ukrainians. You talk about the way of life there, the sense of a reality living inside of a war. Is there an anger that they are not getting the aid that they desperately need within this war?
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H
Not an anger, Yasmin. There's not an anger because it turns out that the Europeans have stepped up, and to their credit, they are also talking about giving security guarantees to the Ukrainians so that if a ceasefire comes, if President Trump puts pressure on Putin to get into a ceasefire, if they get to a ceasefire, then to be sure that Putin doesn't invade again, the Europeans are talking about putting troops on the ground in Ukraine. The Europeans are stepping up on this issue.
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Ambassador Bill Taylor. Thank you, sir.
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H
Thank you, Yasmin. Good to be here.
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All right, we're going to take a very quick break, and when we are back, Savannah Guthrie's emotional plea and new reward for information leading to her mom Nancy's recovery. Stay with us for the headlines.
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And we are back with here's the scoop from NBC News. Let's get to some headlines. The family of TODAY co anchor Savannah Guthrie is offering a million dollar reward for information leading to the recovery of her 84 year old mother, Nancy Guthrie, who disappeared more than three weeks ago. In an emotional video, Guthrie urged the public for help.
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Someone out there knows something that can bring her home. Somebody knows. We are begging you to please come forward now.
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The family also plans to donate $500,000 to the national center for Missing and Exploited Children. Anyone with information of Nancy Guthrie's whereabouts should contact the FBI tip line at 1-800- call FBI. FedEx is suing the Trump administration for a full refund of tariffs paid under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
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The suit marks the first major corpor
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claim after last week's Supreme Court ruling that President Trump exceeded his authority in imposing global duties. Other corporations, including Costco, Revlon and Bumblebee Foods had already filed similar suits. Ahead of the ruling, FedEx moves 17 million packages a day through hundreds of countries. The company had previously warned investors that tariffs could hit earnings by $1 billion in fiscal year 2026. At least two people died in the Northeast and one was critically injured after Monday's brutal blizzard. Nearly 300,000 customers are still without power. The record breaking storm, meteorologists are calling it the strongest in a decade, dumped more than 2ft of snow across the area. Some places are digging out from under more than three feet. Warwick, Rhode Island. We're looking at you. And if you live on the east coast, don't put those boots away just yet. The National Weather Service says another storm is scheduled to hit later this week, although areas hardest hit by the blizzard are likely to just get a dusting up to 3 inches possible. So you know that friend that drags you on the hike and then spends the entire time whispering, oh, a red tailed hawk. Look at that. While you're trying not to die on the hike itself. Well, do not judge them so fast. It turns out that birding is essentially this full brain workout combining visual search and pattern detection. A new Canadian study finds that expert birdwatchers have denser tissue in the part of the brain tied to attention, memory and spatial awareness. The brain boost showed up in older adults as well, hinting that birding could help support cognitive health as we are aging. So the next time your friend stops it on a trail and points to a yellow rumped warbler, seriously, what is that? Just let them have it. Their brain is apparently thriving while I'm just trying to find the parking lot and listen to the podcast. All right, that is gonna do it for us. Here's the Scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasin Vasugin. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. And if you like what you heard, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And you can also subscribe to our daily newsletter, the Inside Scoop. It is a deeper dive on the main stories of the day that comes out every weeknight straight to your inbox. You can sign up for the Inside Scoop as part of our paid subscription@nbcnews.com we'll see you tomorrow.
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