>> it's harder for biden. i mean, nikki haley just turned 52. joe biden is 81, so it's harder, i think, for him to level attacks against trump on this issue. on the other hand, both men have a history of making kind of flummoxing misstatements. >> susan page, phil rucker, the day after, and it's on to south carolina and on after that. thank you all very much. and that does it for this post-election edition of "andrea mitchell reports," new hampshire behind us. we now go forward. follow us on social media @mitchellreports and you can rewatch the best parts of our show anytime on youtube. just go to msnbc.com/andrea. "chris jansing reports" starts right now. ♪♪ good afternoon, i'm chris jansing reporting live from msnbc headquarters in new york

city. nikki haley is making it clear no stopping now, defiant against calls she get out and in it for her home state of south carolina, despite her loss to donald trump in new hampshire. with one month to make a move up, what's her plan? and moments from now, president biden is expected to speak at the uaw conference with a potential endorsement from key union allies for 2024, all as two top staffers jump from the administration to his campaign. plus, the shocking new audio upending the arizona gop, what appears to be the voice of the state's party chair. is this him offering a bribe to republican kari lake to get out of the senate race? >> i actually wish you'd just give me a counter offer that was big. give me a counter. >> i can't be bought. >> come on. >> what lake told nbc news about that bombshell call coming up. but we begin with the

critical next 31 days for nikki haley as she tries to close the gap with donald trump, she's already back in her home state of south carolina. yet, as nbc's political unit points out, her path gets harder, not easier, after the 11 point loss in new hampshire and her opponent none too happy she's staying in the race. >> now, you've all heard the chatter among the political class. they're falling all over themselves saying this race is over. well, i have news for all of them. new hampshire is first in the nation. it is not the last in the nation. [ cheers and applause ] this race is far from over. there are dozens of states left to go. >> this is not your typical victory speech, but let's not have somebody take a victory when she had a very bad night.

i felt i should do this because i find in life you can't let people get away with [ bleep ], okay? you can't. you just can't do that. and when i watched her in the fancy dress, that probably wasn't so fancy, come up, i said what's she doing? we won. >> haley's team responding if trump is in such good shape, why is he so angry? nbc's garrett haake is reporting from new hampshire, nbc's ali vitali covering the haley campaign on the ground in charleston. she made that late night or early morning flight, and chief strategist for the romney 2012 campaign stuart stevens. all right, ali, as if to punctuate her plan to keep fighting, haley has released two new ads this morning. what's her overall strategy? >> reporter: the overall strategy, chris, seems to be just stay in and keep slugging it out. that's of course what we're in for here. garrett knows this well from his reporting overnight, and we all

know this from covering trump for so many years, when he has one target in mind, he is singularly focussed and he pulls no punches. the haley campaign clearly ready for that. but what they're saying in south carolina is that this is a state that knows what it's like to see nikki haley in a leadership position. she's a two-time elected governor of this state. they know her record, and they are seeking to remind voters of that despite the fact that this electorate has changed a lot since the last time she was on the ballot. still, they're running ads like this one in hopes that people will remember. watch. >> have you heard about this, the unemployment rate has dropped again. >> nikki haley delivered thousands of jobs, lower taxes, tough immigration laws. >> there's a better choice for a better america. her story started right here, america's youngest governor, a conservative republican, and boy, did she deliver. >> it's a great day in south carolina! >> nikki haley will cut taxes, close the border, and defeat the chinese communist threat.

america's new chapter. >> reporter: so you see there, haley playing up her hometown and home state credentials. that's going to be played up to the tune of $4 million in ads, that paired with another one that the haley campaign dropped northern, it's going to be blanketing the air waves here. she's going to get more air cover from one of the key superpacs supporting her, the fund is going to be up with their multimillion dollar ad buy. they told us this morning on a call, all of these groups saying they're in it through the home stretch, not just through south carolina but through super tuesday targeting key states like michigan, texas, and virginia, all of those have semiopen or open primaries that make the demographic of that voting base look a little bit more like new hampshire and the groups of independents that came to haley's call, but make no mistake here, chris, there is an awareness that haley is going to have to really run up her margins and do much better among key republican groups of voters. that's the makeup here in south carolina, and that's who she's

going to be targeting with ads like that as well as events like the one she's doing here tonight and of course over the weekend as well. throughout south carolina, 31 days, though, that's a really long time, even longer if you're talking about how much a month is in politics, and she's going to have to sell her donors on that too, that she's going to stay in this race for however long it takes. >> that's the key, right, convincing donors to keep funding the campaign t. is interesting when i watch that ad. a lot of the correspondents who talk to voters in new hampshire over the last several days and those who had considered her but ultimately decided on trump, one of the thing they said is they didn't know what she stood for. they knew she was against trump, she was an anti-trump, but what was she going to do, she said she was going to cut taxes, close the border, stand up to china. is that a strategy? do you see a strategy here for her, a path forward? >> the short answer is no. saying that you agree with your opponent is not a strategy, and that's all she's doing. the only way you can beat

somebody in politics when it's one-on-one is to attack that person, and she's not doing that, and she doesn't really have a rationale for that attack once she's advocated her strongest position, which is donald trump isn't qualified to be president. she said that's okay with her when she raised her hand and said she'd support him if he was convicted. i think two candidates had a really bad night last night. donald trump and nikki haley had bad nights. donald trump is proving that his range of support doesn't extend beyond these people who think that the election was stolen, hardcore republicans, and nikki haley had a bad night because she doesn't really have a base in the republican party, and she's running for the republican party nomination. i thought it was a really good night for joe biden last night. this is a path forward that shows how joe biden can win this race i think decisively. >> we're going to go on to that in just a minute, but i think there are some clues about what haley needs potentially in the

numbers from last night, so let's go to nbc's steve kornacki who is at the big board for us. what do those numbers tell us, steve? >> yeah, chris, you could just see on the map here, new hampshire, you could look at it this way, where was haley's strength? this was very similar to what we saw in iowa, the population centers, the places where you have higher incomes, higher concentrations of college degrees, more politically moderate, a lot of independents, you see around the state capital in concord, that's sort of a blue city there, along portsmouth here along the coast. those are areas higher income, higher college degree cons traks. she did well there, in smaller towns, more working class, a lower median income, she really struggled in those places. that's just a continuation of the pattern we saw in iowa, just the big difference between iowa and new hampshire was just simply that there were far more non-republicans participating. look at this, half of the republican primary electorate was non-republican and you got haley -- you got trump winning

by 49 among republicans, and you got haley winning here by almost 20 among independents. that gap between trump's strength with republicans and haley with independents, that's a wider gap than we've seen ever in a new hampshire primary before and the simple challenge for haley going forward starting with her home state is if you're only winning 25% of self-described republicans, i struggle to think of a state -- she could win the district of columbia, i think potentially she could win vermont, but with that mix of support, you're going to run into a wall real fast. what she has to do to have any chance is expand her support with self-described republicans. again, 25% in new hampshire realistically she's got to be getting that across the board up to at least 40%, in some places higher because that's the other challenge she faces, as we get to south carolina and beyond, the delegate rules on the republican side are structured in a way that is designed to

produce a nominee early, quickly and decisively, which is to say there are winner take all delegate states and there are states that are for all intents and purposes winner take all or winner take the vast majority. so haley coming close in states on super tuesday might get her nothing at all. she's got to be winning states. she's got to be winning state where is it's going to take a lot more than 25% of republicans. >> yeah, and i think kind of to stewart's point, it's one thing to say she needs to win more of the republican base, but conversely, donald trump needs to figure out in the general how he's going to win more moderates, how he's going to win these undecided voters, and so -- but that didn't seem to be his focus last night. his focus seemed to be turning up the pressure on haley to get out, if she lost and she did lose by double-digits in iowa and new hampshire, why is he so worked up about it? >> yeah, winning back those independents and undeclareds

seems to be a problem for another day for the trump campaign, and i think the trump campaign would agree with stuart here, and i covered the last campaign stuart ran here in new hampshire on that attack, attack, attack strategy. that's what they're going to do to nikki haley over the next month. they are going to try to just go through her to get to the nomination. i was told they had no realistic expectation she would get out of the race last night, but they do think they can push her out of this race eventually by basically making her life miserable and staying on the attack over the next month and kind of making this point about how isolated she is, even within the south carolina electorate. you could really tell when donald trump took the stage last night that there was something about nikki haley's speech last night in particular that had gotten under his skin. here's a little bit of what he said last night. we'll talk about it on the other side. >> who the hell was the imposter that went up on the stage before and like claimed a victory. she did very poorly actually, she had to win. the governor said she's going to win, she's going to win, she's

going to win. then she failed badly. >> reporter: there is obviously tremendous irony here in donald trump complaining about someone who lost an election coming out and claiming that they won that election. but here you have it, i think a candidate who's very upset to be in this moment still not having the clear path to the nomination yet, despite everything everyone has laid out about how challenging this would be for nikki haley, it does force them to stay in primary mode. >> patience has never been donald trump's virtues. so yeah, he wants her out yesterday. to your point of having a bad night, i wonder if the reality on the ground is that the reason he needs potentially nikki haley to get out of this race is because she's only essentially serving as a surrogate for joe biden. she's attacking his age. she's attacking his competency. she's using all of the same arguments that joe biden and his campaign thinks can help them

win. >> yeah, if i was running the trump campaign god help me, i would say ignore nikki haley at this point. they should get about the business of running against joe biden now. and the strongest way to consolidate support in a primary is to attack the person that most of the primary voters are trying to get most oppose, and that's joe biden. so i think if they spend the next 31 days ripping the bark off of nikki haley with these misogynist attacks that he can't resist, a woman in power drives him crazy, i think it's going to be really, really bad for donald trump, which, you know, that's okay with me because i think donald trump ought to lose this race, and i think it will help joe biden. but it's not what the smart political strategy is. >> you've been inside these rooms, though, and look, it's not easy when you've been in the middle of it and you've been working so hard to say it's over, right? having said that, i mean, do you think she has or wants a political future?

does it make sense for her to go to her home state when the odds are and the polls would suggest it's so unlikely she's going to do anything but get shellacked in this state where she made her name and reputation as the youngest governor ever? >> yeah, i think she put herself in a terrible position when she said she would support donald trump even if he was convicted of a felony. i think she lost any kind of credibility in this race. this in a way is a lot about '28, not anything else. nikki haley is not going to win a '28 race as the person who lost her home state against donald trump, so you know, i think it probably feels good for them to start out with eight, nine people in the race and she's the only one standing, but what does that really get her? i don't see that it gets her much. i think the smarter move in the political sense is what ron desantis did. nikki haley wants the clock to go back to what the republican

party used to be, but the republican party that used to be wouldn't have nominated or elected donald trump. so it's a fantasy, and there's so many donors who are responding to that. oh, if only we could turn the clock back and nikki haley would be this person who can get up there and she knows which fork to pick up, and she's not going to embarrass us, and she doesn't go out in public and talk about dating her daughter like donald trump, but that party's not there. and trump owns this party in every sense of the word. he's winning because he's giving republican voters most of what they want. and that's just an impossible situation for nikki haley. >> stuart stevens, ali vitali, garrett haake, thank you all so much. in 60 seconds, president biden's campaign is ramping up, and here's a look at a podium where he'll be standing because he may be about to get a major new endorsement. we'll explain. ajor new endorsement. we'll explain.

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president biden is making some major moves today in what could be one of the longest general election seasons ever, a potential 2023 rematch with donald trump. for starters he'll be speaking shortly at the united autoworkers conference in washington, d.c. nbc news has learned he's expecting the union's endorsement as early as today according to three people familiar with the decision. almost four months ago you might recall, president biden joined the picket line in support of those striking workers. and in another sign that president biden is shifting into general election mode, two top advisers will soon leave the white house and move over to the campaign headquarters in wilmington, delaware. nbc's monica alba is reporting in washington, d.c. also with us, adrienne elrod, former senior aide on the biden/harris campaign, director of external affairs for the commerce department chips program, and democratic strategist. good to see all of you. how important could that uaw

endorsement be, and what do we expect to hear from president biden today? >> reporter: well, it is significant, chris, especially for these union workers who are gathered here today who, of course, can become critical voters and very influential in some key battleground states like michigan and wisconsin, something of course that the biden campaign is keenly aware of, and they had been hoping for this endorsement for months. this is something that we know that the union endorsed candidate biden in 2020. we know that certainly he likes to tout himself as the most pro-union president in american history. this is something that he was very vocal about when he did go and join the picket line with those autoworkers last fall, so all of this has been really leading to this culmination of this endorsement, because it is clear, as you pointed out, chris, that the campaign is gearing up for this more general election mode and with that

comes trying to really woo some of these really key blue collar voters. so expect the president to come here, tout his record on labor, continue to make that push, and also to talk about why this support is very important to him in the ten months ahead. but it does come as you point out the, chris, that that the strategic and sort of campaign leadership decisions are shifting a little bit with those top aides who are moving from the white house to the campaign, and they are certainly juggling these kinds of questions. and the reason we know that happened is this acceleration of former president trump's consolidation of the republican party and similarly, why we are here today for this endorsement that is coming earlier than it has in past election cycles, and that is really because we are facing down this incredibly long general election it looks like, and the biden campaign and the entirety of the reelect effort knows they need to get out ahead of it. this key voting block is a real priority for the president, and

that's why he wanted to come here today, to speak to them directly, chris. >> adrienne, you know these folks, jennifer o'malley dylan, she's going to focus on electoral vote strategy. mike don lan will focus on messaging. you and i talked about this last week. this is something a lot of donors and democrats in general have been pushing for. they just were really worried about folks in the white house splitting their time. is this an acknowledgment that this is going to be a long and difficult campaign, and frankly, his approval numbers are still very low. >> yeah, look, chris, it's an acknowledgment that democracy is on the line. we are truly in the fight of our lives for democracy. we are in that fight in 2020. we're going for it again in 2024, and we need an all hands on deck approach, which is why you see jen, mike don lan leaving the white house. they've been focused on the campaign, working with julie

rodriguez who is incredible and has been the campaign manager of course. they've been working with julie and the rest of the senior leadership team on the campaign for a long time. there needs to be an all hands on deck approach. that is the way this white house is looking at this, they are untethered, they can focus fully on the campaign, and their full-time resources will be focused on, you know, taking on donald trump. as monica just mentioned and you mentioned, we are moving into the general election. the campaign put out an email last night, the biden campaign basically saying donald trump is who we are going to be running against. we are entering the general election campaign today, tonight. so they're starting to mobilize resources. and again, there's a lot of strong taent in the west wing who worked on the 2020 campaign to save democracy. they will still be there working with the campaign, but to have jenna, mike fully focused on the campaign is going to be a big asset to the biden/harris reelect. >> one of the i think more effective some people might

argue, complaints against president biden has been his age, and you know, we've talked about the fact there's nothing he can do about his age, but we've seen donald trump take advantage of it. in fact, in his victory speech in new hampshire he lobbed some more attacks against president biden. let me play a little clip. >> we have beaten biden -- you could almost say who can't. who the hell can't? the man can't put two sentences together. he can't find the stairs off the stage. >> so he didn't beat biden, even though half of the electorate in new hampshire suggested that he did. when he was asked -- there was a white house call today -- not a white house call, a campaign call, and they were asked about how he's going to handle the age issue. they didn't really answer it. there's a little bit of conundrum. do you lob attacks at trump when

it calls attention to something that's been effective against you? how is this age issue going to play out? what's the strategy here? >> well, i think the biden campaign has handled this effectively so far, and president biden has actually gone out on the stump and said, yeah, you know, age is actually an asset. i've got a lot of experience. identify been -- i was in the united states senate at age 27 years old. i've dedicated my entire life to public service. that is an asset to the american people. i think they really leaned into that in a positive way, and look, last i checked, chris, trump is no spring chicken. he's pretty old himself. he just confused nikki haley with nancy pelosi. he's made a lot of gaffes in the last few weeks let alone the last few years. so i think for trump to try to use this as a negative is not going to work, and i think a lot of american people, especially those independents, which by the way, trump did horribly with in new hampshire, moderate republicans, independents, this argument is not going to work for them. in fact, if anything, i think

they look at age and wisdom and experience as an asset, not a detriment. >> we also just got new reporting, adrienne that the bidens have invited kate cox to the state of the union. she's the texas woman who couldn't get an abortion in spite of the fact that she had a pregnancy where they knew that the fetus was not going to survive. there was concern about what it might mean for her own health. so anyway, she's going to be there in the audience when the president delivers the state of the union. talk about the overall strategy. we've heard about the threat to democracy. we've heard about abortion. we've heard about him trying to tout the economy, but if there was going to be one focus or is there going to be one focus, what's going to turn this campaign, which it's early, national polls people will tell you don't mean anything, but one where joe biden does seem to be struggling. >> well, chris, again, i think the american people are starting to tune in because we have not had a general election yet,

right? there's been -- all the focus has been on the gop primary. those days seem to be over, even though nikki haley is staying in the race. i think you just laid out the three major pillars of this election. number one, the economy, inflation is going down, biden has passed four major economic bills. i think you're going to continue to hear the administration talk about the successes of the economy under president biden while acknowledging that not everyone is feeling it and coming forward with a plan. you're going to hear this administration talk about saving women's reproductive health with kate cox being a prime example, whose story touched a lot of americans, including a lot of americans who are not always tuned in to politics. her story really resonated with them. you know, those are two of the major issues you're going to hear. the icing on top is going to be saving democracy. those are the three pillars that you're going to be hearing a lot about from this campaign x president biden, there's no better surrogate than him taking those arguments straight to donald trump. >> adrienne elrod, always good to see you, monica elba, thank

you for your reporting. appreciate it. right after the break, the u.s. striking back in the middle east after a rocket attack on an american base, all while fighting between israel and hamas is ramping up in southern gaza. reports from the region right after this. ports from the regio after this nothing like a sidekick that steps up in crunch time. [laughing] not cool man. every epic footlong deserves the perfect sidekick. (bridget) with thyroid eye disease i hid from the camera. every epic footlong and i wanted to hide from the world. for years, i thought my t.e.d. was beyond help... but then i asked my doctor about tepezza. (vo) tepezza is the only medicine that treats t.e.d. at the source not just the symptoms. in a clinical study more than 8 out of 10 patients taking tepezza had less eye bulging. tepezza is an infusion and may cause infusion reactions. tell your doctor right away if you experience high blood pressure, fast heartbeat, shortness of breath or muscle pain.

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missiles at american ships today. it comes as the u.s. ramps up its military response to those attacks striking iran-backed militias in yemen and iraq overnight. the iraq strike is retaliation for an attack on a u.s. air base on saturday that injured a number of american personnel. nbc's matt bradley is reporting from the region. what more do we know about these strikes, matt? >> just in the past couple of hours, the houthis, which is the rebel group in yemen that has been harassing shipping through the gulf of mexico of aden and the red sea for the past several months has fired yet again. they fired three anti-ship missiles this according to the united states are central command. one of them was fired and hit the water near a u.s.-owned, operated and flagged containership, and two of them were engaged by the u.s.s. gravelly and shot down. this was part of a continuing pattern that we've been seeing of the houthis attacking

shipping in the gulf of aden and the red sea. we say very early right after midnight that the u.s. military attacked houthi targets and also targets in iraq, both of these groups, of heollah and iraq and the houthis in the gaza strip are back bid iran which has an axis of resistance or proxies throughout the entire region who have been acting in concert firing against american and israeli targets ever since the hostilities broke out on october 7th. now, iran and some of these other proxy groups are demanding that israel stop their deadly incursion into the gaza strip and only then will they stop firing at u.s. installations or in the case of houthis in yemen at commercial shipping. so this is an intractable problem and one that could exacerbate region wide tensions and could cause the region to spill over into open war. this is a very threatening

prospect and one that american and european diplomats have been furiously working to try to prevent, but with continuing hostilities from all sides, it looks as though this pattern of violence is set to continue. >> matt bradley, thank you. turning now to gaza where the israeli military and hamas are engaged in brutal fighting around khan yunis. thousands of civilians have been forced to flee the area, but many are still trapped there, including 850 patients in the city's main hospital. doctors without borders telling nbc news that their staff and those patients are unable to escape because the roads are either blocked or too dangerous. nbc's raf sanchez joins us from tel aviv, what more can you tell us, raf? >> so chris, this is the most intense fighting we've seen in weeks. it's happening in the south of gaza where hundreds of thousands of civilians from the north had fled to seeking safety, seeking shelter, around 800 of them were

sheltering in a u.n. facility in the city of khan yunis which it was hit by israeli tank shells earlier today, that's according to the united nations. they're saying nine people were killed, 75 more injured in that attack, and the u.n. is saying when its team tried to reach that facility, they were blocked by israeli earth works. now we have asked the israeli military about that incident. they say they are looking into it. but there is also grave international concern about nassar hospital, the last major hospital still functioning in the south of gaza. we spoke to the head of doctors without borders team for gaza. he had just come out of the gaza strip. he was in egypt when we spoke to him, and he said patients and medical staff are terrified to leave the hospital because of the fighting and people are terrified to come, even if they need urgent treatment. take a listen to what he had to say. >> the hospital itself is not being targeted but all around is

being targeted and now the patient, the health care worker, it cannot function. >> reporter: and one of the big concerns, chris, is that we are going to see a repeat at al nasar hospital in the south, which is israeli forces circling it and eventually going inside. when we were in gaza with the israeli military last week, i asked their chief spokesman, are you planning to storm this hospital, he wouldn't rule it out. chris. >> raf sanchez, thank you. just when you thought boeing had maxed out on scary mishaps, one of its planes lost a wheel while taking off. we'll take you to capitol hill where the ceo was spotted just this morning. later, more on that bombshell leak, accusations of bribery, what we know about possible efforts to get a key trump ally off the ballot in arizona. a key trump ally off the ballot in arizona. it's the only migraine medication

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shake up the senate - with democrat katie porter. i'm katie porter and i approve this message. another day, another bad headline for boeing, this time the nose wheel of a 757 jet fell off and rolled away just moments before the plane was about to take off from atlanta on a flight to bogota, colombia. there were 178 people on board and the plane had to be towed away. this comes, of course, after alaska airlines says it found more loose bolts on boeing jets like what may have caused a door

plug to blow off on another plane mid flight. today the ceo of boeing was called to capitol hill to talk airline safety with concerned senators. nbc's tom costello has more on this for us. tom. >> reporter: good day, alaska's ceo says he is angry, angry with boeing for its breakdown in quality control that put his passenger's lives at stake. we can tell you that nearly a third of alaska's fleet is grounded because the max 9 is grounded. hundreds of flights canceled every day. united also canceling hundreds of flights and boeing under investigation is feeling the heat. within hours of a midair emergency on flight 1282 alaska airline's ceo grounded all 65 of his max 9's. as an engineer he immediately suspected the problem was bigger than just one plane. >> there's no doubt that alaska received an airplane off the production line with a faulty door. >> and it could have cost your

passengers their lives. >> exactly. >> reporter: he us inside one of the grounded max 9's to see the door plug being inspected on every max 9, a series of bolts hold it in place. the ntsb investigating whether the door plug was ever bolt instead place on the assembly line. >> boeing is better than this. flight 1282 should have nevada have happened. >> reporter: already both united and alaska have found problems while inspecting their max 9's. >> we found discrepancies on many of our airplanes. >> meaning loose bolts. >> loose bolts, it could be a missing cotter pin. >> have you conveyed your disappointment, your anger to boeing's top leadership about this? >> i'm more than frustrated and disappointed. i am angry. this happened to alaska airlines. it happened to our guests, it happened to our people. >> reporter: its reputation now seriously damaged, boeing has ordered a safety standdown for thursday. in a statement, boeing says we have let down our airline customers and are deeply sorry

for the significant disruption to them, their employees, and their passengers. it was five years ago that two max 8 crashes overseas killed 346 people. boeing promised then it would double down on quality control. now united's ceo says he'll consider buying air bus planes rather than boeing's. >> the max 9 grounding is probably the straw that broke the camel's back for us. >> reporter: alaska meanwhile is sending its own inspectors into boeing's plants to double check boeing's work. it was pure luck that no one was sitting next to the plug when it exploded. >> looking at that video and those photos, did you think, my god, what if somebody were sitting there? >> there were only seven open seats. we had a guardian angel, honestly, on that airplane. >> with the max 9 grounded, the faa not providing any time line for when it might fly again or when the next stage of inspections might begin. in the meantime, with hundreds of flights canceled every day, hundreds of thousands of

passengers affected, both united and alaska had demanding answers and senators on capitol hill today demanding answers from boeing's ceo. back it you. >> tom, thank you for that. let's go to nbc's ryan nobles with the latest on boeing ceo dave calhoun's meetings on capitol hill. what do we know? >> reporter: well, we know that they're still ongoing, chris. we've seen the ceo come in and out of a number of senators' offices. we know that he's meeting with a virginia delegation of mark warner and tim kaine because their headquarters, of course, is located just not far from where i'm standing in northern virginia. he's also meeting with members of the commerce committee including maria cantwell of washington state and ted cruz of texas, and he's also meeting with the senators from alaska, dan sullivan in particular who we talked to about his meeting, alaska of course uniquely impacted by the fact that so many of these planes are grounded. and i pressed david calhoun directly as he was walking into one of these meetings about what he would say to passengers that might be concerned about

boarding a boeing-built plane. listen to what he said. >> we fly safe planes, we don't put airplanes in the air that we don't have 100% confidence in. i'm here today in the spirit of transparency. >> any comment on the meeting? >> constructive, shared everything i could, understands the gravity of the situation, and we're going to make sure that we convey our message and all the work that we're doing in our faith, in our people and our airplanes. >> so calhoun's big message today was that he was going to be as transparent as possible as he can with these members of congress, and one of the things that dan sullivan of alaska told us after his meeting is that he impressed upon boeing the need to be proactive and not reactive, and he has that same message for members of congress. he said they don't want to be legislating airline safety after a big crash. they got lucky this time around. they may not get lucky the next time, chris. >> ryan n thank you for that. right after the break, the

arizona senate race rocked by leaked phone call and accusations the republican party tried to bribe a candidate to get out. >> did you think you would come in here and that i would be bought? >> it's not being bought. >> yes, it is. >> it's -- i think -- what i think -- >> it is being bought. they are trying to buy me out of running. g to buy me out of running. ng a book... but i didn't wait. they told their doctors. and found out they had... atrial fibrillation. a condition which makes it about five times more likely to have a stroke. if you have one or more of these symptoms irregular heartbeat, heart racing, chest pain, shortness of breath, fatigue or lightheadedness, contact your doctor. this is no time to wait. gwen: hi, we've both got a big birthday coming up. contact your doctor. so we have a lot of questions about medicare plans. anne: we've got a lot of answers. how can i help? fran: well for starters, do you include hearing benefits? anne: how about a plan with dental, vision and hearing benefits? gwen: i sure like the sound of that! anne: then how does a zero dollar monthly plan premium sound?

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start your day with nature made. the #1 pharmacist recommended vitamin and supplement brand. now to the story that is sending shock waves through the arizona republican party and kari lake's senate campaign. nbc news has obtained new audio where we hear the apparent voice

of the state party chair offering a bribe to lak to bow out of theace. >> there are powerful people that want to keep you out. but they're willing to put their money whereou is in a big way. >> there a number at wch -- >> i can be bought? >> not be bought. >> that's what it'about. >> to take a pause for a cple of years. >> no. >> and then go rightack to what you're >> 10 million, 20 million, a billion, no. this is not about money. this is about our country. >> nbc's vaughn hillyard is on his way obviously in the car back from covering the new hampshire primary. vaughn, what more can you tell us about this audio, and what more are we hearing from kari lake? >> the audio over the course of this ten minutes is stunning to listen to in which jeff dewitt,

the gop arizona chairman, to note, the one time state treasurer of the state of arizona, as well as the 2016 trump campaign's chief financial officer, he is this this recording saying that there are very powerful people from the east coast, he even suggests that there are potential job opportunities on the line and says name and number to kari lake, to which she repeatedly rejects said offer and says she's all but going forward with the u.s. senate run, and that is where the dynamics are at play. she's the clear front runner for the senate seat in arizona, but you hear the suggest suggestion those powerful people are looking for new faces to run. kari lake contends this was an effort to get rid of somebody who would not be beholden to the big powerful people in the east coast and that this was an effort to get rid of donald trump and his allies.

i want to let you listen to my question to kari lake who was in new hampshire last night at donald trump's victory party when i asked her what about the future of jeff dewitt. take a listen. >> he's got to resign. we can't have somebody who's corrupt and compromised running the republican party. i want corruption rooted out of our government, i don't care whether it's on the democratic side or the republican side. >> reporter: there are a lot of questions whether kari lake would be the senate candidate to take on kyrsten sinema. she is the dominant figure and polling suggests she'll be the gop nominee, all before this saturday, the republican party holds its annual major mandatory meeting here and there are serious questions about the future of the chair of the republican party. jeff dewitt after the release of the reporting. chris. >> vaughn hillyard, thank you

for that. 3,800 flights are canceled, amid warnings of flash flooding from the plains to the tennessee valley. we're seeing high water in texas where this road flooded overnight. in one louisiana district, schools are closed and a boil water advisory is in effect indefinitely after storms contributed to a major water main break. it was so cold this week that in north carolina, more than 200 turtles washed up on its shores, stunned stiff and on the brink of death because of frozen waters. scientists at unc say there's a low survival rate. as you can see, some of them, they did manage to revive. >> and police in michigan shared these photos of a community assisted rescue. neighbors helping officers after a 12-year-old boy fell through ice into a lake. nbc's morgan chesky is in houston for us. morgan, what's it like where you are? >> chris, i got to tell you, a lot of people breathing a big sigh of relief because a flood

watch was in effect early this morning. after about 48 hours of a slow, steady rain really saturated this part of texas and well inland. we saw multiple reports of flash flooding in san antonio, and in some cases in austin over the last 24 hours or so. here in houston, the bayou behind me did rise somewhat. but certainly not to a level where there was a significant amount of concern for flooding here. the threat now is making its way eastward to louisiana, to mississippi, where as you mentioned, more flooding could continue. i think at last check, about 30 million americans facing some sort of flood watch from here in texas all the way up to rhode island. as they are watching the storm move towards them, we know that in san diego, they are facing a massive clean up as to what took place yesterday when they received months of rain in just a few hours. stunning scenes coming out of that city, chris, with some

residents unable to wait for rescues, so they were wading through chest high water to get to higher ground after streets were flooded there. the damage still being estimated at this hour. but right now, we are looking at another 24 hours of these significant winter systems, proving to be problems. and if it's not rain, it's still proving to be icy elsewhere as well. we know that in arkansas, as you mentioned that dramatic video of that police officer rescuing that young child, farther north, until the temperature returns above freezing, which it should do so here within the next 24 hours or so, that icy threat absolutely remains. some good news to report in tennessee, the water infrastructure in the city of memphis was compromised due to sub freezing temperatures, but we do know that a boil water notice that had been issued has been lifted. but all told, chris, over the last couple of weeks, this

series of winter storms claimed at least 75 lives so far. chris? >> absolute nightmare. morgan chesky, thank you. in the next hour of "chris jansing reports," what we know about the deadly plane crash in russia that was carrying ukrainian prisoners. stay with us. new science shows listerine is 5x more effective than floss at reducing plaque above the gumline. for a cleaner, healthier mouth. ahhhhh. listerine. feel the whoa! ♪everything i do that's for my health is an accomplishment.♪ ♪concerns of getting screened faded away♪ ♪to my astonishment.♪ ♪my doc gave me a script i got it done without a delay.♪ ♪i screened with cologuard and did it my way.♪ cologuard is a one-of-a-kind way to screen for colon cancer that's effective and non-invasive. it's for people 45 plus at average risk, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider for cologuard. ♪i did it my way!♪

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