Starts right now. Today was the deadline for Donald Trumps legal team to file their brief with the senate for trumps upcoming Impeachment Trial. And it looks like trumps lawyers will be arguing that the trial is unconstitutional because trump is no longer president. Im going to use this. Im going to use this next time a cop pulls me over. Im going to be like, well, im no longer speeding. I was. I was. Im not now. Therefore this ticket is unconstitutional. Good morning. And welcome to morning joe. It is wednesday, february 3rd, along with joe, will li and me, we have White House Reporter for the Associated Press, jonathan lemire, former u. S. Senator now an nbc news and msnbc political analyst Claire Mccaskill and politics and Journalism Professor at Morgan State University and msnbc political contributor Jason Johnson is with us. So Donald Trumps second Impeachment Trial kicks off next week. And according to the case against him, the former president s role in the capitol hill riot is,
Ukraines counteroffensive and sobering new assessment. And now it is time to set the rule of the road as they head to the trial, and trumps team is saying that the prosecutors are going after his First Amendment rights now. And 40 Million People are under severe threats today after the extreme storms have battered the United States over night. Im omar jimenez with kate bolduan and john berman. This is cnn news central. We have brandnew reporting this morning on ukraines counteroffensive in russia. Weeks into the fight, the reports from the battlefield are increasingly sobering. Specifically, concerns of the ability to retake specific territory. The National Security correspondent and the awardwinning author jim sciutto broke this reporting, and now he heard the reporting, and this is a marked change in weeks to folks in the u. S. And europe and the military and diplomacy and also lawmakers and there is a consistent read of the intelligence assessments here, and that is the counter offe
advanced knowledge of yevgeny prigozhin s plans to revolt. he is suspected of helping plan the events of last weekend. officials say there are also signs of other russian generals may have supported the rebellion which raises questions about putin s support inside the top ranks. meanwhile vladimir putin is attempting to portray himself as retaining popular support. you can see him there greeting crowds in a rare public appearance wednesday. he flew to the majority muslim city to mark the holiday where he took a tour, kissed fans and posed for selfies. he is also expected to deliver remarks in about an hour. clare sebastian is live in london with more for us. reporter: this is sort of a pr tour. kremlin trying to reassert his authority. he made public remarks, he commemorated the air force pilots killed in prigozhin s armed rebellion. and today speaking at a tech digital conference. but the visit really unusual. this is un-putin-like behavior. having actual human contact, a
tonight. a foreign policy stumble. the biden administration sending two senior officials to china yesterday the exact day the tin men square anniversary. we don t know to this day how many people were killed. recognizing that atrocity still forbidden in china. tom cotton says this official visit sends exactly the wrong message. biden administration officials should stop chasing after the chinese communist counterparts like love struck teenagers. it is embarrassing and pathetic. it projects weakness to china and encourages them to do things like buzz our aircraft or come within a few hundred yards of our ships and encourages them to send spy balloons all over america. john: there has been 0 direct communication between biden and xi since the u.s. shot down the china aircraft in our airspace earlier this year. jake sullivan down playing tensions. the desire on both parts to put a floor under the relationship, to manage the competition responsibly and insure competition do