hello. welcome to "inside politics". i'm john king. thank you for sharing you day with us. today an escape from hell on earth. ukrainians are finally finding a way out of a steel plant. able to ferry people away from the site of ukraine's land stand in the city of mariupol. listen to one of the women who made it out. a mixture of joy and disbelief. >> translator: i can't believe it. two months of darkness. we did not see any sunlight.

we were scared. >> the trek out of captivity comes after another turbulent restless night. a ukrainian commander inside says constant shelling resumed the instant evacuations were done for the day. on the battle field, the new british estimate says losses are staggering. 25% of the combat effective. pelosi is in poland. that follows a visit to kyiv and a meeting with ukraine's president. when she returns to congress, congress will take up a massive request for $33 billion in new money to help ukraine. moscow's military barrage continues. and off the coast of snake island, look at this. a drone's eye view of a key strike. ukraine says the unmanned aircraft took out two russian raptor patrol boats. cnn on the frontlines of this story across the globe. we begin the coverage this hour in lviv in western ukraine.

scott is there for us. scott, what's the latest? >> reporter: john, it is good news the people are getting out of that steel plant as you mentioned. but the evacuations more broadly in the city are happening very slowly. so there are two ways to get out of the city. number one is to go to the northwest corner of the city where you can go to a wall where supposedly a humanitarian corridor convoy is leaving the city. but the last word that we heard from that is that the buses to get people hadn't even arrived yet. it's not looking real likely that people will be able to get out of that area today or at least in the next couple hours. and then the second type is the u.n./red cross evacuation effort that is happening at the steel plant. we know that 100 people according to the ukrainians, were able to get out and evacuate toward zaporizhzhia on ukrainian-held territory. the difficulty is the mayor says it is very slow going to get people out, and the reason why is, of course, there is a lot of debris. there's a lot of roadblocks on

the road. that's to be expected. what was not calculated into the equation here is that the russians are making these new evacuees go through the so-called filtration process where they are searched and they are questioned before they are allowed to travel onto ukrainian-held territory. the mariupol mayor says on average this process can take a month. it's difficult to believe that being true. in this case because the u.n. is there. the red cross is there as well. the sort of shepard people through the area. now, some people have also chose ton go to russian-held territory according to the russians. 21 people went in that direction, and arrived in russian-held territory yesterday. what's not clear is what's going to happen to all the rest of the civilians who are trapped still underneath that steel plant. there could be 200 or 300 more. mostly women, children, elderly people as well. and of course the soldiers will still be there as well.

the ukrainians say there are some 500, 600 wounded soldiers, various degrees of wounds, and then there are the soldiers who are still fit to fight. they would also like to get evacuated but all of this, the ukrainians say is being negotiated at a high level. >> uncertainty. more uncertainty as we open this week. scott mclain for us live in lviv. thank you for that important reporting. let's get more on the battlefield from matt rivers. matt? >> yeah. john, what we're seeing in the east is this continued russian offensive that really is not making the broad gains that i think we would have expected the russians to have hoped they would have made by now. very incremental progress as they continue their march toward the eastern city. a lot of troops centered around a town as they try to push down from the north into the east up from the south to complete their takeover of the donbas region to ensirk it will ukrainian troops fighting back in the region. they have largely held their grounld, the ukrainians.

there has been incremental progress. and british intelligence saying in the beginning of the war they believe russia committed some of 5 -- 65% of their overall combat force to this conflict. they say approximately a quarter of the units have been rendered combat ineffective, including some of russia's most elite units. they say those units have suffered some of the highest levels of attrition, and that it could take years to reconstitute those forces. fascinating stuff. it goes to show you the fight the ukrainians are putting up. and we can show you video the ukrainians put out that say they show ukrainian drones taking out two russian patrol boats in the black sea. they say it shows ukraine has the ability to strike russian naval units in the black sea which is something we know they can do based on the fact that cruise missiles took out the russian flag ship just a few weeks ago now. and finally, here in kyiv, woshd

from the americans, they do believe or at least aiming for the reopening of the american embassy here in kyiv which, of course, was shuttered toward the beginning of the war. they believe they can reopen it by the end of may. >> matt rivers live for us in the capital, kyiv. grateful for the reporting. let's get more from general marks. you hear matt rivers make the case that the russian progress in this part of the country is slow and incremental. but you still see it as significant, and you see putin as a plan. i want to blank this so you can come in yourself. to partition this? >> yes. absolutely, the plan is clearly they are making progress there, and at some point putin is going to declare victory that that has already taken place. and that ultimately what you're going to end up is something like what you drew but more importantly, i think over the course of time, the pace of these operations will decrease. this tempo can't be sustained. the russians don't have the

forces. it was just described that many of them will take years to replenish and to rebuild. the ukrainians have the support from the west, but that is going -- it's not going to die down. but clearly what needs to take place is that the ukrainians have to pick up the pace, and we've seen that. even the strike against the two ships here. that's a deep -- >> we'll show you that here. >> that's a deep strike. the ukrainians need to increase their deep strikes into sanctuary. the russians see the black sea as sanctuary and russia. they need to get out there, and that causes the russians to decrease the amount of forces they can bring forward. i think ultimately what is going to happen is you're going to see a division of ukraine that's going to look like that. it will be achieved over time, and then odesa becomes a key to close this off. clearly russia could take forces from here and over here. that will take probably weeks to a month or so. but odesa is a target.

it's going to be hard for the russians to take. >> you don't see any way for putin -- how long do they try to kick him out? you don't see him any way from stopping him from getting that? >> i don't see anything other than a divided ukraine at this point. zelenskyy would never sign up to this, but i think that will be achieved over the course of time. i think we're into this for years. the pace will decrease over the course of the next few months, and this will look like very much like what the soviets had in afghanistan. in terms of the media attention, it's going to be below the radar. and there will be a -- and russia will be punished by an insurgency, and at some point russia and ukraine will make a decision what it looks like. >> their evacuation at the steel plant in mariupol, this is the before. you see? >> unbelievable. >> the industrial area. and here you see it simply destroyed. now, if it were just a war target, and there were no people there, again, i'm not justifying

war, but you would understand that. an attack on a very important piece of economic infrastructure. the russians know there are people there. yes, some ukrainian fighters but also civilians. when you look at the pictures, what comes to mind? >> clearly the devastation that's taking place, the lack of the rules of land war fair are not being adhered to at all by the russians. they simply do not care. their objective is to wear down to morale of the ukrainian people, and to create a wasteland. putin has no desire to leave ukraine and he has no desire to try to rebuild it. this produces for him in addition to a desired buffer zone. >> there are a lot of people watching who probably want to push back on the point you made. that you think inevitably, at least for a short period of time, some period of time, we get a divided ukraine. i want to illustrate the point to show this. this is where we were on march 5th th. the russians were coming. they wanted to take kyiv and take the country. that did not happen. so what happened instead? the russians begin to build up.

then they get pushed out and you see more russian resources here. now, in this part of the country, you believe this is going to continue and that if the west is going to get more tanks, more anti-aircraft, what's the timeline to get it in there quickly if there's any way to prevent what you just laid out from happening? >> it's ongoing right now. the process is taking place. the handoff is taking place here. ukrainian forces are coming across. designated units. they're starting to move this kit. they're not starting. they're continuing to move this kit at a rapid pace. the support by nato, the support by the united states is amazingly impressive. the numbers exist right here for russia to continue to pour into this area. ukrainians are magnificent in the tactical fight. what is required is to set operational objectives which means a trip to russians in sanctuary. go after the targets in russia. don't be hesitant about that. make the russians suffer in sanctuary so you can achieve,

you can see the operational conditions that allow you to push harder. i don't see that yet. it needs to continue. but i think ultimately there would be some form of a divided ukraine. i hope i'm wrong, but i think there would be some form of a division that would take place. >> grateful as always. we'll continue the conversations. coming up for us, important breaking news. the house committee investigating the capitol insurrection asking three more republicans to cooperate with the probe. the details and why next. in gre. and also eacach other. digital tools so impressive, you just can't stop. what would you like the power to do? the sleep number 360 smart bed is on sale now. why choose proven quality sleep from sleep number? because the sleep number 360 smart bed really smart. it senseyour movement and automatically adjusts to help keep you both comftable all night. it's also temperature balancing, so you stay cl. it's so smart it knows exactly how long, how well, and whenou slept.

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into the capitol insurrection. let's get to capitol hill at cnn's ryan nobles. tell us more. >> reporter: yeah. this doubles the number of republican members the january 6th select committee is interested in talking to about what they knew about the events leading up to january 6th and the day itself. among them, representative andy biggs of arizona. he the former chair of the freedom caucus. m mo brooks of alabama and ron ny jackson of texas. they believe biggs was part of a meeting on december 21st designed to talk about getting vice president pence to refuse to certify the election results. they want to know more information about that. mo brooks has said openly and publicly well after the inauguration, even as late as september of 21, the former president was still encouraging him to try to find a way to rescind the election results. ronny jackson is a strong

supporter of president trump, but his name just popped up in the case involving mark meadows where there are members of the oath keepers texting about finding ronny jackson and offering him security and support on january 6th. the other committee committee members are kevin mccarthy, scott perry of pennsylvania who we talked at in an exclusive report last week texting meadow about conspiracy theories related to the election, and jim jordan who was in the group of the text messages from meadows. again, this gets back to the question, the committee can ask for this, but so far the republican members have stood in the way of any type of cooperation with the committee. it begs the question, what does the committee do next? last week the chairman told me they have not ruled out subpoenas. that would be a complicated process. the other part of this is that this may not be the end of

invitations like this. the chairman telling us last week that they're also interested in talking to some members of the united states senate as well. so this could just be the beginning of an offensive here by the january 6th select committee to find out just how involved members of congress were in the events leading up to january 6th. >> important breaking news. ryan nobles on capitol hill. appreciate the update. let's bring the conversation in the room. with me to share the reporting and insights, malika henderson, and lauren fox. i'm look agent the letters here, lauren. you roam the halls on capitol hill. they're talking about encrypted conversations, three text messages involving ronny jackson, the former white house physician, a congressman from texas. he needs oath keeper help. anyone inside? next messenger, hope they can help dr. jackson. dr. jackson on the move, needs protection if anyone inside. he has critical data to protect. every week we're learning

raising new questions and now the question is do we get the answer. >> the other question is do they cooperate? does the select committee actually issue a subpoena? is there a court fight over that subpoena, and at the end of the day, are some of these messages actually part of encrypted messaging systems in which the select committee would never be able to get ahold of them in the traditional way they've been able to get some of these text messages? so that is all part of the challenge for the select committee. they are trying to tell the story of that day. they are trying to explain to the american people what happened. who was involved, and they've been selective about who they actually ask for information from. it's not just anyone, but it's people who they believe have information they can't gain from anyone else that they've already interviewed. >> and just to hit on that point, so the public hearings are going to come sometime in june. the focus has been on what did the president know? what did the campaign people know? increasingly, it's what did other elected republicans know?

you look at andy biggs and mo brooks and ronny jackson, three trump loyalists. the american people one would hope, want to know the answers. these people put their hands on a bible, swore an oath to the skus. they were part of ongoing conversations on election day. in the case of congressman brooks, well past the biden inauguration. >> that's right. and a lot of the information the committee has gotten whether it's through testimony of other people or text messages suggested a lot of folks were intimately involved, trying to install people, the doj, for instance. if you think about somebody like scott perry. so far these people have essentially said no, they're not going to cooperate with this committee. unlikely they would be subpoenaed. that's sort of something that congress folks don't like to do to other congress folks. that's unlikely. even if they were subpoenaed, you imagine this to be a long, drawn out fight between these members in the committee.

but listen, this committee has made some great progress in terms of the folks who have come before them. high profile people like ivanka trump. other trump children as well. and so we'll see going forward what the hearings reveal as well, and how far they're going to be able to get in telling a complete story about what happened. >> that's why these coordinators are interesting. this strikes me as the committee saying once again, we know things. we know things the have not made public. we're going to have public hearings. this is your chance. we are going to lay this out in the public hearings. we would like your side. come tell us or at least you had your chance. >> yeah. and i'll be interested to hear what brooks has to say. especially after losing trump's endorsement, coming out publicly and saying that he had been pressured. he has signalled that he's open to talking to the panel if he was approached. so it will be interesting. the issue is will that political spat spill over into the

committee's quest to tell this story? and will it undermine the credibility as they 150ek seek to make this as less politicized as they can? >> they're trying. more information. every day of the recent weeks we've learned more. up next, speaker pelosi leads a delegation into the war zone, and why. why is russia's top diplomat comparing president zelenskyy to adolph hitler?

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today a new objective in kyiv. the united states wants the embassy personnel in the capital by the end of this month. it's another sign of shift in american thinking about vladimir putin's war. today speaker nancy pelosi is in poland, a day after becoming the highest ranking american official to visit ukraine since the start of this invasion. joining our conversation, white house national security correspondent for the new york times, david. david, grateful for your time. you see the speaker in kyiv with a number of high profile democrats in the congress. the embassy, the state department wants to reopen by the end of the month. on the one hand, that's a sign to putin that we think you're losing. we're going to raise the flag again in kyiv. but there's another piece of the strategy shift in that the white house would tell you they also believe we're in a months and months and months long slog in the east and south. >> that's right. so the concept here is we've now

seen two significant senior delegations from the united states coming on two successive weekends. first secretary of state blinken and secretary of defense austin. they came last weekend. this weekend, of course, you have nancy pelosi, number three in line for the presidency. you know what that leaves. there's going to be a moment where they're going to bring president biden in here at some time. that may be a while, but what they're trying to establish is okay, we've got a real operating ukrainian government. we're putting our embassy back. the europeans are putting our embassy back. you russians are gone, and don't mind the occasional missiles that come in and take out whole buildings and so forth. their problem is that what they've got, essentially, is two-thirds to three quarters of the country and a much more active war going on down in the south. and they think that there is a chance in the next few weeks that they could make life miserable enough for the

russians that they would pull back in the south. that's going to be hard, because the russians are quite good at this kind of standoff war you were discussing at the top of the show. >> and so one of the conversations, one of the calculations, one of the worries as you write smartly in the times about is if you're thinking about pushing putin, how hard do you push? because this war, you write about the worries that it would become more into nato territory, outside of the borders of ukraine. number two, listen to the ranking reason and the house foreign affairs committee having conversations we never thought we would have once the berlin wall fell. >> what would happen if a chemical weapon was dropped in ukraine and/or a short-range tactical nuke? the question there is would the world idly sit back and watch that happen without doing anything? in my judgment, that's beyond the pale. that crosses a red line, and i think if that happens, we would have to respond in kind. >> take us inside this.

the conversations happen. let's get more tanks and ammunition. let's get more drones. okay. but then at the same time, what happened if putin crosses the line? >> this is the fascinating question is white house has been gaming out, the pentagon has been gaming out. i agree with congressman that it would certainly cross a line, a red line. we have not seen nuclear use since -- of a nuclear weapon being used in anger since august of 1945, and that was the second attack, the one on nagasaki. that said, i think the place where the biden administration might separate itself from what you just heard was that respond in kind. so let's just gain this out for a moment. supposing that putin launches a tactical nuclear weapon either on ukrainian territory or over the black sea, or supposing he conducts an atmospheric nuclear tests which were banned in the 60s and says this is a reminder

for you to stay out of the way. my guess is that president biden does not respond by launching a nuclear weapon. first, what are you going to launch? you're not going to drop it on ukraine, and you're probably not going to launch it on russian territory. what you probably would try to do is use that to sort of further the economic isolation and say he's going in a place that none of the rest of us will. >> help me if you can. this is a riddle. it's been a riddle for some time. understand sergey lavrov who over the weekend says to justify this quote, unquote nazi reference to the ukrainians saying adolph hitler had jewish blood and that's why they're going after zelenskyy. do they have to gin up world war ii again or is it lavrov angering the world? >> well, mr. lavrov has been known to say things like this in the past. he's been around for 20 years as foreign minister. i think the most important we've

learned about sergey lavrov is he was give an few hours' notice the invasion was even going to happen after spending weeks telling the world it would not happen. but yes, i think this is mostly for domestic consumption. they have to somehow make the connection that this -- they can denazi if iing ukraine. it seems crazy on its face, but he was playing to both russian and i think some ukrainian undercurrents of anti-semitism. you heard the israelis come after him hard. >> after staying largely on the sidelines. watch how that plays out in fact grateful for your insights. up next, the midterm mood and the early warnings of the president's pollster. y check inh your team on ringcentral. oh hi caesar. we were just talking about you. yeah, you should probably get out of here.e. ♪ ringcentral ♪ check out this vrbo. come on.

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in every neighborhood through zero emissions fleets. best of all, prop a won't raise your taxes. vote yes on prop a for fast, safe, reliable transit. the midterm elections are six months, i wish they were six weeks from tomorrow, but they're six months from tomorrow. at this moment things look bleak for president biden and his fellow democrats. republicans have an edge when voters are asked about the economy and inflation. we know the president will not be able to say he was not warned today. private memos obtained by the new york times show a biden pollster writing this to the white house last year. the economy and inflation continue to dominate what is on the minds of voters, and their attitudes keep getting worse

which continues to impact the president's job rating on the economy negatively. immigr immigration is a growing vulnerability for the president. voters do not feel he has a plan to address the situation on the border. there's no way they can say they were not warned. the memos were late last year. the question is have they figured out the internal debates to try to convince voters they're on top of inflation? >> we've seen them try. this is an issue that i think if you even talk to folks who were on the transition team, they were sending up signals about immigration very early on. but the focus was the pandemic. it was the economy. getting that under control. but in some regard, this just underscores how much they've had their head in the sand about immigration. you know, debate about how long to keep some of the trump policies in place. we did see that the department

of homeland security issued this memo about how they're going to replace title 42 kwlrks but i don't think it's done much to move the needle, and certainly, it hasn't gone beyond anything they've said before. so the question is how do they move forward? what do vulnerable democrats campaign on, and there doesn't seem to be a plan in place at the moment. >> the presidents, they say he's going to start traveling and focus on the american rescue plan, the bipartisan infrastructure plan. if you look at the president's handling of the economy, when you're at 57% disapprove on the economy, it's tough for the president and his party. you have the normal midterm dynamics anyway. and then you look at the job approval rating, 42 % in the average. 42 % approval. 52% disapproval. that's a slight up tick that the president. to we're going to do this every week over the next six months. if you're the democrats, you

have to hope that's at least stabilizing and maybe turning in the right direction. >> 42 % is decent. it's been much lower than that in the high 30s for a while. listen, i think if you're the biden administration, you're looking at a lot of time they wasted on trying to get big ticket items like build back better which they thought would be a silver bullet around the economy. recently they were talking about reviving parts of it, and that doesn't look like it's going to happen. going forward, they have a problem. a lot of the feelings about the economy are baked in for months and months. the pollster was telling them this is how americans were feeling uneasy about the economy. so listen, we'll see if any of this sort of barn storming of the country and going to local markets actually helps. the fact is people are still going to go to the gas pump, and sometimes pay $6 for a gallon. $5, 4, and then sometimes go to target and see empty shelves because of the supply chain issues as well. >> you look now and the numbers are bleak. the question is can the democrats make the case by

september or october into the november elections that things are getting better after a tough time? that washington post abc poll you see if the elections were held today for the united states house, who would you vote for. democrats polling essentially into a tie with republicans. that's an improvement. that's an improvement from horrible to terrible. but do democrats on capitol hill have any sense that things are getting at least stable and then hopefully build to better or is it pan snick. >> last week when i talked to them, there's panic about the message. what are they supposed to talk about, and they've been looking to the white house and leadership for so long, the democratic party is really kind of had a top down strategy when it comes to what the priorities are. and right now they don't feel like there is a cohesive message, and i know messaging may seem like a distraction from the overall issues, but when you have a party as diverse as the democrats. t getting everyone on the same

page and making sure progressives maybe take a backseat to front liners running for reelection, that's a challenge. >> that's a recurring democratic theme. up next, there are two parties in america. ohio tomorrow kicks off a month of important midterm primaries. the republican senate primary there a giant test of donald trump's influence. just don't ask him to name his candidate. thanks, dad. thatat's right, robert. and it's n never too early to learn you u could save with americas number one motorcycle insurere. that's right, jamie. but it's not just about savings. it's about the friends we make along the way. you said it, flo. and don't forget to floss before you brush. your gums will thank you. -that's right, dr. gary. -jamie? sorry, i had another thought so i got back in line. what was it? [ sighs ] i can't remember. “few of us will ever dive so deep into our cars,

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voters in ohio tomorrow kick off a month that will begin to answer a giant question in american politics. how strong is donald trump's grip on grass roots republicans? the republican senate primary in ohio is the big trump test. j.d. vance has the trump endorsement in a five-candidate race. by months' end we'll have a half dozen races to help us assess the power or lack thereof of a trump endorsement. my panel of reporters back with me. it would help, it would help, and we could show you the live picture right you, this is j.d. vance, also a conservative. he's campaigning in dublin, ohio c trying to turn out republican voters. donald trump was with another candidate in nebraska just yesterday.

he brought up this year's campaigns. that's j.d. vance. j.d. vance. you're looking at him live on your screen. here's donald trump talking about him yesterday. >>. >> we've endorsed dr. oz. we've endorsed j.p. -- right? j.d. mandell, and he's doing great. they're all doing good. >> oh, boy. yeah. you know, i mean, you feel like this could be a campaign ad. the mandel campaign and many trump supporters, people like ted cruz and other folks in the trump orbit are saying he should never endorse j.d. vance. j.d. vance is sort of a johnny come lately to the trump band wagon. has said derisive things about republican voters. maybe this will help josh mandel in the primary fight. so far you've seen vance get a boost from this. i think he's at 32% in the

crowded field. that's good in a crowded field. you've seen him have a little bit of search. we'll see what happens tomorrow. >> you see the number this. that's what happened. j.d. vance around 11% or 12 %. in a crowded five-way primary, 23% or 25% might be enough to get you in. you look at the giant question mark. that's 25 % undecided. one of the questions we do not do this on one race. by the end of the month, we might have a much better sense of the donald trump endorsement. what does it get you? does it get you to 50%? >> or is it depending on which race he actually endorses? and are the dynamics of individual states outweighing the trump dynamic? i think that we don't have the answer yet. and anyone who says that they clearly think that donald trump is still the rainmaker in this entire conference or republican party, i mean, they have to give this a little time to play out. i will say that folks on the hill who are running for reelection, they still want trump in their corner, and they

still want to have conversations with him at mar-a-lago. i think it's an open question whether or not it gets you the victory and i think it's an open question whether or not people looking at trump endorsements say this guy is unbeatable in the next election. or maybe not. >> right. it is an important point. a number of these candidates who do not have trump's endorsement are not poking trump. some people are saying donald trump is bad for the party, but most, listen, this is josh mandel. he did not get trump's endorsement. he didn't get it this. this is him earlier today saying that's okay. >> i'm going to win tomorrow and work with president trump in the general election. we've going to be working together to beat tim ryan, beat the democrats. more importantly, we're going to work together to advance the america first agenda. >> so for most republicans, it's a pretty fine line, even if you're mad at trump because he didn't endorse you, you don't want to poke the bear. >> yeah. you could look back to virginia and youngkin and how much he sort of distanced himself from

trump and managed to succeed there. and using that model. so no matter what, republicans are going to line up behind whoever wins this primary. it's just a matter of how much trump's influence matters and when. i mean, he didn't clear the field when he came in at the end to endorse vance. >> right. and you mentioned the evolution, a lot of conservatives saying you shouldn't trust j.d. vance. he was in 2016, he said donald trump was horrible for the republican party. he said he was not a true conservative. this weekend we see him campaigning with marjorie taylor greene and matt gaetz. if you need any evidence where j.d. vance -- it's an important distinction. republicans you want to turn out for you in a primary, that picture speaks volumes in. >> that's right. i think one thing to keep in mind is this is rob portman's state. rob portman is not a trump enthusiast. it doesn't mean that he didn't vote or help the president when

he was in office. but he's not going out there campaigning, saying donald trump or the highway. and i think that that is such a strong point of remembering where the republican party has evolved. this is rob portman's seat. >> they are all trumpers. they might not get trump's endorsement, but they have certainly most of the folks in this field, fully endorsed trumpism. >> right, and you also see, we'll show you the pictures, ted cruz who ran against trump in 2016. that did not go well. he's campaigning for mn mandel over the weekend. are the primaries settled or do we have fractures in the republican party that will play out and carry over to 2024? >> yeah. i certainly think everybody is watching. you could even say the white house is watching as they're trying to set up this as a contrast between republicans and the biden administration instead of this being a referendum on the biden administration. we heard the president say multiple times, this is not your father's republican party.

and that's something that they're hoping to see play out within the republican party. >> back to your point, i think rob portman would say in ohio, this is not the republican party i remember either. just in for us, a garage being selected, has been selected to decide if donald trump or his allies broke the law when they tried to change georgia's vote count in 2020. we're live to georgia next. ♪ pop rock music ♪ >> tech: ...we can replace your windshield and recalibrate your advancnced safety system. >> dad: looks great.t. thanks. >> tech: stay safe with safelitete. schedule now. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair,, safelite replace. ♪ what do you think healthier looks like? cvs can help you support your nutrition, sleep, immune system, energy ...even skin. so healthier can look lot like...you. cvs. healthi happens together. i had been giving koli kibble. it never looked like real food. with the farmer's dog you can see the pieces of turkey. it smells like actual food. as he's aged, he's still quite energetic and youthful. i really attribute that to diet.

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♪ this just in to cnn. a special grand jury has been

selected in georgia to hear evidence about then president n state. the fulton county district attorney is leading this investigation. and the evidence includes phone calls from then president trump to top georgia officials urging them to help him, quote, find votes. and to reverse joe biden's win. sara is right there in fulton county live with the details. sara, tell us more. >> the judge and the district attorney made quick work of it whittling a pool of roughly 200 potential jurors down to 26 including three alternates. it's a diverse group as you would expect to see here in atlanta. this is the case of the district attorney working on for over a year. ever since that infamous call between donald trump and brad roethlisberger leaked. here's a portion of the call. >> what are we going to do here, attacks? i only need 11,000 votes. fellas, i need 11,000 votes. give me a break. we have that in spades already.

>> reporter: now, trump was insistent wrongfully in that call that he won the state of georgia after the district attorney dug into these. she's d plans to subpoena 30 mo. this is not a panel that can bring an indictment, but they can subpoena witness testimony. they can subpoena documents. they can subpoena phone records and they'll make a recommendation to the district attorney about whether they think she should bring charges against donald trump or any of his allies. >> sara, an important criminal investigation. it also happens to be playing out the grand jury would be getting the work a couple weeks away from the republican primary in georgia. how does that factor into this? >> well, it's a pretty uncomfortable time, i would say right now for some of the potential witnesses. you know, georgia secretary of state, the georgia governor are both locked in difficult primaries. they're running against election deniers backed by donald trump.

the district attorney said she's not going to plan on calling any witnesses until after that primary is over. she says they wouldn't be able to -- >> sara, thank you so much. appreciate your time. ana cabrera picks occupy our coverage right now. hello. thanks for being with us. i'm ana cabrera in new york. today in ukraine we're following a race toe vac knit a. push to get american diplomats back in kyiv as russian strikes intensify. in mariupol roughly 100 civilians were evacuated over the weekend, but hundreds more including children are still trapped. still hunkering down inside this steel plant that officials say is still enduring relentless missile strikes and bombings. new satellite images show just how decimated that plan