After first declining to take the call, Senator Tuberville apparently found some time to

talk to the Secretary of Defense today, the lead starts right now.

Might there be a breakthrough after months of Tuberville blocking military promotions,

a conversation happened today between the Republican Senator and the Secretary of Defense

as the Secretary tells CNN in an exclusive interview, this blockade by Tuberville has become

a threat to national security, and major questions for the Secret Service today as the agency

says it's closing its case and that they could not figure out who dropped a baggy of cocaine

inside the White House.

Plus, one of California's premier hospitals facing a new federal civil rights investigation

into its alleged treatment of pregnant black women.

Welcome to the lead, I'm Jake Tapper, we're going to start with our world lead, President

Biden today made quite the bold statement about Putin's bloody war against Ukraine.

Putin has already lost the war, Putin has a real problem.

How does he move from here?

What does he do?

There is no possibility of him winning the war in Ukraine.

He's already lost the war, that stunning assertion from Biden at a news conference in

Helsinki, hot off the summit with NATO leaders, and as he reiterated Ukraine's inevitable

accession to the military alliance, Biden also declared that there's really no, quote,

real prospect of Putin ever using nuclear weapons.

The President also weighed in on a pressing national security debate here in DC, as I mentioned,

specifically Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville's one man hold on hundreds of military promotions

...