laughing and i mean it and it's joyful. and i hope we all have that. >> america, if i have one wish for us, it's that one bag of groceries doesn't cost $3,000. >> i know it's kind of pie in the sky but if we work together as a nation we could truly, truly achieve great things. great things that we never thought were possible. we've done it before. >> on behalf of everyone at "anderson cooper 360" and the entire cnn team worldwide, thank you for watching and being with us through it all. i'm tom foreman and my wish for you and yours, how about all of the best and none of the worst in 2023. good evening everyone. this is cnn tonight. we have news tonight on the

congressman-elect who keeps getting caught in flagrant lies. he may be in more hot water. you'll recall george santos admitted to lying about key parts of his biography from his wealth to his education to his resume to his family to his religion. now the u.s. attorney's office in the eastern district of new york is looking into some of his dubious finances. the nassau county district attorney has announced she is looking into his, quote, numerous fabrications and inconsistencies. we have new lies he has just been caught in. also, the southwest airlines meltdown continues. the airline is still canceling thousands of flights. passengers are still outraged. we've learned that southwest airlines got a $7 billion bail out during the pandemic. what did they use all that money for? let's begin with george santos and more of his lies getting exposed. the republican congressman-elect just cannot seem to get his own story straight. he lied about going to college.

he lied about graduating from college. he lied about who he worked for. he lied about being jewish. cnn's k file just dug up new lies we'll bring you if a moment. now federal prosecutors are looking into his dubious finances. a source tells cnn they're investigating the congressman-elect's financial situation that seems to rapidly swing from being too broke to pay rent to being a multi-millionaire. the district attorney of nassau county new york also says she has santos on her radar. but, wait, there's more. cnn has confirmed that santos was charged with embezzlement in brazil. let's go to cnn's evan mccann with more. >> let's narrow it down and start with the federal investigation now into george santos. who are prosecutors looking at there and is that different than with the nassau county da is looking at? >> reporter: federal prosecutors in new york are investigating santos' finances. that is what a source familiar with the matter is telling us

tonight. this is the u.s. attorney's office in the eastern district of new york. santos has faced questions over his wealth and loans totaling more than $700,000 that he made to his winning 2022 campaign. we don't know yet about the scope of the investigation but like much of this story, it is likely more will come into focus in the days ahead. >> eva, we also have new reporting from cnn's k file, our investigative unit. what did they uncover? >> this is really remarkable. from k file, santos said that he attended horace mann prep school in the bronx. i actually grew up in new york city so i'm calling my friends who went there as well today asking them hey do you know this guy? they said we don't know this guy. k file called horace mann and they said he never attended the school but he gave sort of this sad story about his family falling on hard times and him being four months shy of graduation and not being able to

graduate from this esteemed school. well, it turns out this entire episode is not true. he also claimed that he stood up at this conference and criticized goldman sachs when he was working there at the salt private equity conference. of course we know santos never worked for goldman sachs. we spoke to anthony carmouchy who many folks are familiar with who runs that conference. they say not only did santos not speak on a panel, he didn't even attend. >> okay. how about these criminal charges against santos in brazil? what do we know about that? >> cnn can now confirm reports santos was charged with embezzlement in a brazilian court. according to case records from the rio de janeiro court of justice. this dates back to 2008, a charge of embezzlement. court records show from 2013 that the charge was archived after the court was unable to locate santos. >> okay. thank you very much for all of

that reporting. as we've said this is not going away, this story. so much to unpack tonight. we're joined by former nixon white house counsel john dean, cnn political commentator errol lewis, nina turner cochair of bernie sanders '2020 presidential campaign and the former governor of south carolina mark sanford. great to have you all here. just to recap for everybody i want to put up on the screen some of the lies george santos has been caught in. they are wide ranging. he never worked for citigroup or goldman sachs. he didn't graduate from baruch college or go to nyu. he didn't go to college at all. his parents are not holocaust survivors, he is not jush. he never ran an annimal nonprofit. he did not leave horace mann because he never went there to begin with. he was charged with embezzlement in brazil as cnn learned for forging an elderly man's

signature on checks that were not his. i think you wouldn't want this person to be a lawmaker in your country's capitol but he is going to be, so now what? >> well, now what? there are a couple different possibilities. one is that he does get seated and he serves and if the law catches up with him then and possibly only then would his fellow members of congress decide to take action against him. the last member of congress to be kicked out was after he was convicted on ten federal fraud charges. you can be under quite a cloud and still exist in congress. ask matt gaetz about that. any number of members are being investigated at any time facing very serious charges. that is one distinct possibility, that the lies that this man has told and the investigations of those lies are likely to have some

consequences. while it is very attractive to look at the embellishment and people can kind of understand that on an emotional level, fake it till you make it, the ones, the charges and the lies that involve money are going to get him in a lot of trouble. when you raise money for animal rescue and none of the money makes its way to where it is supposed to be that's when you get into real trouble. those are the kind of charges the prosecutors will look at most closely. >> governor, why haven't we heard anything from republican leader mccarthy? he okay with all of this? why isn't he saying anything? >> clearly he is not. i'm sure of that. the reality is ability to become speaker hinges on one vote. it is very tight given the hold outs on sort of the right flank of the republican conference. so as a consequence in terms of self-preservation he is quiet.

i think it is a real mistake and where leadership is absolutely essential in stepping out, condemning wrong, and saying, this does not fly. we do not want him as part of our caucus. he'll be a drain and distraction and he shouldn't join us. there ought to be that kind of forceful comment. i doubt we'll see that in mccarthy though. >> nina, it is sort of fascinating to listen to george santos in these lies because he is unabashed when he does it and when he is caught. here is a moment where he is talking about going to that new york city prep school and the sad story about how he had to withdraw because his parents, you know, fell on hard times. i just want viewers to hear him in his own words. >> they sent me to a good prep school which was horace mann prep in the bronx. my senior year of prep school unfortunately my parents fell on hard times so, anyway. i left school four months to

graduation am. >> apparently none of that was true. what's going to happen? >> the man is a pathological liar. you look up pathological liar he is at the top of the list right now. if the governor's contention is correct that for self-preservation mccarthy is just going to let this go on without speaking out and up against this and saying we don't want this man here, then that is a very sad commentary, condemnation on the gop leadership itself. the people who are going to lose out the most are the voters who voted for this fraud because they did not know he was a fraud. now that the truth is out, the republicans should be calling for this man to have some decency and step down. i mean, there are lies and then there are damn lies. this man has told lies. >> john, there are three republicans so far who have spoken out, not in leadership

but new republicans to congress. congressman elect nick lolota, and two others. basically what he has said is he believes a full investigation by the house ethics committee is necessary. your thoughts? >> i think that's absolutely correct. it's very difficult to remove an elected member. it takes a two-thirds vote of the house. there is no way the republicans will go for an ejection of this man even after he is sworn in and seated. he is going to wrap himself around his patriotism, his seat in congress, and claim they're coming after him as something of a defense and it might work a little bit for him. but he's got both the federal and state governments now investigating. he is in a heap of trouble. he may well have committed wire fraud by putting up false

advertising to entice donors. that is a serious offense. he may -- there are endless potentials in new york election laws he might have violated. i don't think he is going to survive but i think speaker would be mccarthy is going to get his vote. >> errol, it is incredible there is no process for getting rid of someone who has this flagrantly violated public trust. i saw today a petition going around among i think voters in his district i guess trying to write him out of the position. i don't even know if that is possible. >> yeah. we don't have any legal provisions for this. this is a highly unusual situation. frankly, the timing is unusual. for this to all come out after the election but before he's been sworn in i think is probably the most unusual thing about it. you know, plenty of politicians get caught lying after the fact but in this case he is not quite

a politician until he takes the oath of office. once he does john is exactly right. he'll be in ensconced and have a couple new privileges that he won't be able, we won't be able to sort of pass through or crack through. he even has a relative immunity speaking privilege as long as the statements are made on the floor of the house. so he can spin all kinds of stories and have relative immunity as a member of congress. we are in a very tough position. this is intended to be self-correcting. the system is intended to be self-correcting. i wouldn't like george santos' chances for re-election or for example if the seat were vacated and he tried to run again. i don't think he'd get very far. ultimately that is the way the system works. >> governor, what committee is he fit to sit on in congress? >> none. that is something mccarthy could do is not seat him on a committee. that is ultimately a leadership

prerogative and something i would encourage leadership to exercise. we will see. but again, i think the bigger cone cone -- conundrum we're all dealing with is somehow trump reset the bar on the value and significance of truth in the political process. we see and hear in its aftermath effects like this that i think going back to john dean's time and others where people would just say, the uprise has to end, you'd see a much stronger pushback at the local level and maybe that will come next and much stronger pushback at the leadership level. tragically we've not seen that thus far. >> nina, what about that? has integrity sort of lost its way now? >> this is outrageous. that leadership does not have to follow the path of president donald trump. but mccarthy, all he cares about right now is getting that one vote and basically -- of the

third district in new york. that is the problem. trump is not the problem though i am not disagreeing with the governor in terms of resetting the bar but mccarthy can do something different and put the pressure on this man. he needs to have some decency and the gop needs some decency to say, look. we don't want you here. go. put the pressure on him. tell him to stand down. but he's not going to do that because all he cares about is being the next speaker of the house. >> maybe he'll do it right after george santos votes for him. can he get rid of him then? >> as i say, it is very difficult to expel somebody from the house. what they can do is not give him a seat on a -- any decent committee. they can put him in charge of janitorial services or something like that. but i think we have a republican party today that trump somehow convinced should have no shame.

and they don't. it is not the republican party i was once a member or the governor. so it's a different time. and this man seems to get out there and say anything he wants to and no repercussions and no personal anxiety about his behavior. so it is really quite striking. and the system isn't built for these kind of people. >> yeah. i made a prediction last night and it has come true which is this story is not going away. so i predict there may be even more chapters with george santos. thank you all very much for the insight on that. next we have more revelations from the january 6th committee. testimony about how donald trump suggested a blanket pardon for some of the rioters at the capitol.

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chairman bennie thompson wrote in part, quote, in light of the imminent end of our investigation the select committee can no longer pursue the specific information covered by the subpoena. therefore through this letter i hereby formally withdraw the subpoena issued to former president trump and notify you he is no longer obligated to comply or produce records in response to said subpoena. john dean, mark sanford are back with us. also cnn political analyst alex burns joins the conversation. so, john, as predicted former president trump ran out the clock. this is what our legal experts thought was going to happen. he successfully ran out the clock on the subpoena. >> yes he did and that is his standard playbook. there is little the committee can do and they are a select committee so only alive as long as congress is alive. we are going into a new congress and the republicans are certainly not going to revive this select committee. so trump, this was the right thing for the chairman to do.

it kind of tidies things up. it is actually meaningless. they knew long ago they weren't going to fight him, take him to court, hold him in contempt. trump's playbook worked in this instance. >> alex, let's talk about some of the new things we're learning from the transcripts the committee is releasing. there had been reporting that president trump was considering pardoning the rioters. here it is now in johnny mcatee's words the director of personnel from march 28. he is basically describing what happened in the oval office. one day when we walked into the oval i remember it was being discussed and i remember the president saying, well, what if i pardoned the people that were not violent that just walked into the building? i think the white house counsel gave him some pushback. it is interesting to hear how the nosh jagrs were going on behind closed doors and

president trump thought that would be a good idea. >> interesting is a really good euphemism for what that scene is, and look. i think this is an important contribution to the historical record. i think for the matter, you know, as far as the politics of the moment go, we have now had donald trump go to rallies and talk publicly about pardoning the demonstrators and rioters and people who ransacked the capitol on january 6th. it is not some sort of bombshell in a political sense. that is basically a stated position of the trump 2024 campaign. it is certainly a potential legal matter and certainly as a matter for just our understanding of this moment in history is a really important thing to have preserved in the record like this that within days of this historic assault on the capitol the sitting president of the united states was thinking about potentially issuing essentially an amnesty for the people involved in that. and i think it helps sort of set the stakes for everything else that we have learned in these

transcripts that this was the president's frame of mind when people in his cabinet may or may not have been talking about the 25th amendment or were talking with each other about how alarming it was that he was still on the job. it shows us that was not just sort of wild speculation that he was a guy who was really out of control. >> absolutely. nina, let's talk about that, the 25th amendment. i totally agree with alex. i can't get enough of these transcripts. just seeing it in people's own words, for positive tert, history, to set the record straight. one portion about the 25th amendment conversation, from the white house press secretary. he says the conversations shifted from debating the certification of arizona and establishing a commission to audit arizona to impeachment, talk of the 25th amendment, and the senators thought that any effort to mount a sustained objection to any state had ended. so basically it did come up and people were debating the 25th

amendment as, you know, we suspected. >> yeah, what is coming out of this committee is quite incredible. not just for history's sake but right here in this moment that in the 21st century president trump and his allies even having congress members like gaetz and others who wanted that blanket pardon. this president, what happened on january 6th falls clearly at his feet. that is what the committee is showing. that he had people so amped up and ready to do whatever they wanted to do to disqualify the election results and, also, i mean, they didn't care that seven people i think died. that's not even to name all the people who got hurt but seven people lost their lives including -- >> nina, sorry. we are having a little problem with your audio. i hear you. more than 140 police officers were injured, some of them

obviously gravely. john, how about the cassidy hutchinson testimony that she saw mark meadows burning dozens of documents in his fire place. here is a little bit more color on that. this is the actual testimony. quote, so throughout the day he would put more logs on the fire place to keep it burning throughout the day. i recall roughly a dozen times when he would take the, i don't know the formal name for what it's called that covers the fire place but take that off and then throw a few more pieces of paper in with it when he had put more logs on the fire place. we've heard about president trump flushing documents down the toilet. now mark meadows is burning them in the fire place. this is incredible. >> it is incredible. i know that fire place, too, in the chief of staff's office. it works well. i'm sure he had no trouble disposing of papers and records he didn't want to ever be seen by anybody.

i think this is an indication of his intent, his consciousness of guilt. if he is not cooperating and there are some who suspect he is, this is the sort of thing that will come up and he'd be quizd on in a grand jury at some length to explain this. he'll probably deny it. i think cassidy hutchinson is a good witness and others who cleaned out the fire place may have further evidence on it. >> governor, what jumps out at you from everything we've seen now from these transcripts? >> i guess two things. one if you start with crazy you end with crazy. it is just remarkable given the entire tone and tenure of the trump white house some of the ways spilled out into people who frankly i thought to be good folk. i served with mark meadows. he was a decent guy and yet you get in the wrong environment and things start being condoned that aren't right. you start getting pressures in the wrong places and good

people, what i perceived to be good people, end up doing horrific things. this is a good example of how leadership from the top sets the tone and the bar and a lot of people end up following in very strange directions. burning stuff in the fire place is crazy and nothing i would have imagined out of mark meadows. >> yeah. i think that is such an interesting point. absolute power corrupts absolutely. let's talk very quickly about donald trump's taxes which are going to be released on friday. alex, the house ways and means committee is releasing them. what is the point? he is no longer in office. what is the point now of releasing his taxes? as you know there are some critics who say, well this shows congress could do this to any individual. is this troubling that they're going to release his taxes? >> first of all t. does show congress can do it to any individual because congress can do it to any individual. that is not something that is new. thao was already the case. that was already the case.

what the committee has done, chairman richard neil and the staff of committee have done is show really the law does apply to the president and his relationship with the house at this point. they show they had a legitimate legislative purpose to see if the president was properly audited as presidents are meant to be and i do think we started this segment talking about a point, a way in which donald trump managed to sort of run out the clock on the subpoena from the january 6th committee. this was a request for his tax returns from the ways and means committee that did happen while he was the president of the united states when he was not a private citizen and ran out the clock and ran out the clock and, man. he almost got away with it on this one too. weeks away from the committee changing hands when they got the taxes. >> why do they have to release them publicly? they got their hands on them and wanted to show the irs clearly had not audited properly but why release them publicly? >> that is a question the committee has to defend in the coming days. i am certainly not going to do

their job for them in building a rationale for it. i will say as a reporter and citizen, we've seen the tax returns of other presidents. we've not seen the tax returns of donald trump during a comparable phase in his life and presidency. i for one look forward to seeing what's in them. i think this is one of these areas where sun light really is an important part of the democratic process and important part of our political system. >> as a journalist i am very interested in seeing them but as an american, nina, is there a reason to release them publicly? >> yeah. the reason is all politics. he's running again. this may come in handy for his upcoming bid. otherwise i think what you are getting at is what is the purpose in this moment to release those things? it doesn't make any sense -- the election bid. >> yeah. >> if i could just jump in. >> yeah, quickly. >> the reason to do it now is because they can't in two weeks because then the committee changes hands at that point.

i believe we should sort of lower our expectations there is going to be some nuclear bombshell in this. i think we know a lot about what is in his tax returns and now we get to look under the hood. >> go ahead, governor. >> there are two reasons to release them. one is this exactly what he said he'd do as a candidate and straight into the santos story on truth mattering and what we say as candidates ought to be something that plays out when we're in elected office. so one it is something he said he'd do. two. it is a 50-year tradition upheld by democratic presidential nominees on both the republican and democratic side for 50 years. the idea we take a walk from that i think is a mistake. you know, i released my tax returns twice as the gubernatorial nominee in south carolina. i think it is a good tradition. i don't think it is wise to walk back. i think this is a tradition we've had for 50 years. it is a good idea to keep it out and in place and in public. >> john, the last word. this is just a tradition the house ways and means committee

feels strongly about preserving or is this retribution or political maneuver on some level? >> i think they could not do it but they also have a technical reason to do it. they are turning them over to the house. they'll be printed on friday in the congressional record. so they are in essence public when they follow their own rules. >> thank you very much. great to get your perspectives. now to this. thousands of southwest flights canceled again and thousands of passengers with lost luggage still. coming up we'll introduce you to one passenger we're calling the luggage ferry. you'll see why. may i? we'r're definitely not lit. i mean seriously, we named ourselves bookingng.cm which is kind of lit if we are talking... literal... ha ha. it's why we're planet earth's number one site for booking accommodation. we love booking stuff! and we're just here to help you make the best of your vacation.

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now to the southwest airlines meltdown. southwest has canceled more than 2300 flights for tomorrow. in just the past week southwest canceled nearly 16,000 flights. the airline's ceo says they'll be back on track before next week but another big question tonight is why did the systems fail so spectacularly when southwest got more than $7 billion from taxpayers during the pandemic? let's bring in our cnn economics and political commentator and "the washington post" opinion columnist. great to see you. they had this huge systems failure. their phone system sounds woefully antiquated. even the flight attendants couldn't get through. then they had all of these other technological failures. they got $7 billion. so during the pandemic this was the ppp relief funds that airlines got. american got $18 billion. delta got $12 billion.

united got close to $11 billion. southwest got more than $7 billion. could they have used any of that money to upgrade their systems? >> the pandemic relief funds were really intended to keep people on their payrolls. to prevent lay-offs, pay for wages, and salaries and benefits. >> so they couldn't have used any of that. >> money is fungible. right? like in theory they could have made some investments to upgrade their systems and the pilots union for example has been calling for them to upgrade their systems for a very long time but that was not the intended use of those dollars. it doesn't excuse the fact the whole sis tep went under of course. >> yeah. as you say the flight attendants have been calling for them to upgrade for a long time also. now they're in this mess and so many passengers, we've heard all of their sob stories. they missed christmas with their families. they had to shell out their own money for either uber or other flights or hotels or meals. they got stranded for days. what is the price tag for how

they will compensate passengers and will they? >> southwest has said they will review these requests on a case by case basis. it is unclear exactly how, what methodology they'll use to decide who gets reimbursed for what. i think the financial costs of this are going to be enormous. because you think about not just the flights canceled and the refunds issued but as you point oud reimbursements for alternative travel arrangements, hotels, driving a rental car 19 hours across the country or what have you. for lost baggage, they're going to have to reimburse people for that because baggage ended up in completely different cities from where the passengers were supposed to land. there are going to be huge costs in the near term. and then there are the reputational costs because southwest has this reputation as being a very consumer friendly airline. people have been loyal customers because they're known for treating consumers, their passengers very, very well. and all of that has gone up in

smoke. >> are they obligated to reimburse their passengers? >> for some things. but not for everything. if they lose your bag there are some requirements that they have to repay you but i think it is capped the amount of money per bag is capped. for a lot of the other expenses it is discretionary. >> transportation secretary pete buttigieg has said they'll be held accountable. how? >> you know, that is an excellent question. i don't think there is any way the department of transportation could fine southwest into upgrading its i.t. system today or even next week. i do think they should be held accountable to figure out if they have breached any contract with passengers for example if they haven't reimbursed people for expenses, that they told customers they would reimburse them for. it is hard to imagine that any punitive arrangements that the government would make would be more damaging than what southwest has already done to itself at this point given all

of those costs. >> right. thank you very much. you'll want to stick around for this next story. speaking of tons of lost baggage that is what this is about. you've seen all of that sea of luggage stranded at airports this week. at the tampa airport one southwest passenger took action. she decided to take it into her own hands to help other flyers track down their bags. she was delayed and while her flight was delayed she pulled out her phone and started taking pictures of these bags here and any that had phone numbers attached to the handles she started texting people i think i found your bag. do you know where your bag is. we call her affectionately the luggage fairy. how are you? >> i am doing well. how are you? >> i'm doing well. i understand that you were trying to go from tampa to tucson and your flight was delayed like perma delayed. >> yes.

>> why did you decide to just start wading through the sea of luggage and texting people? >> so we were upstairs in the terminal and then we waited in line for a long time and there was long lines upstairs because everyone was trying to rebook flights or get their bags off the planes or something like that. and then we got to the front of the line after waiting over an hour. they said no you need to go down to baggage so we got in that cue which was over an hour, well over an hour in that queue. my husband was standing in that line. i was like we don't need both of us to stand here. i started walking around thinking maybe i would find our luggage. maybe it was already in the piles. i've never seen anything like this. just hundreds and hundreds of bags getting pulled off the carousels and placed in the space between the carousels. people were having to climb on the carousels to get through the aisles of bags and look for their luggage. i started looking for my own and

thought, oh, this one has a phone number on it. i will text them. you know, i texted as many people as i could. twa is a small thing. >> how many people did you text? >> i think around 70. some turned out to be a land line. so those didn't go through. >> just tell me of the 70 how many responses did you get? >> i want to say i think 30 people texted me back. you know, it ranged from okay. i need you to give them my phone number so they can call me to, oh, thank you so much. and then i actually met a man and a woman that came down and got seven pieces of luggage i guess that belonged to themselves and their parents so as i was standing there i helped them find their seven bags. they were like do you work for the airline? i was like no, no. i'm like you, looking for my bag. >> you might well work for the airline and i hope southwest offers you a very handsomely paid job because you were doing their work for them. i do have one of the texts i

want to read to you. here's one. i think that you wrote this. your bag is in tampa. by claim 15. door 166. i'm just a random person looking for my luggage. the person writes back oh, wow. thanks so much. i hope you find yours. you write back, thanks. and the woman after that exchange tweeted out, thank you to the random stranger who texted me my suitcase was in fact in tampa. you are a life saver especially since there was no way southwest could ever tell me. how does that make you feel? >> yeah. i mean, i just did the smallest thing. there were southwest employees there. some of them were 20-year employees of the company and they were working so hard. they were being so kind. they were keeping their cool. some people were being very nasty to them. even though they literally had no control over it. these are the, you know, the people that work in baggage, the people taking the bags off the carousels, people that are pulling the bags out of the bellies of the plane.

customer service agents. they were all working so hard. one woman had plbeen there over4 hours she said. just kudos to the employees trying to do their best to help all the customers get their bags back. this was very minor for us. we live in tampa. our flight was canceled thank god while we were in tampa. >> that is lucky i suppose. did you find your bag? >> yeah. it took us i believe four, four and a half hours to find our bag from the time we went down there, the time we started standing in line. we did get our bags back. >> what do you think southwest should compensate passengers for all of this mess that people have endured the past week? >> i mean, they need to get people home first. they need to get people their luggage first. all the rest is down the road. you can't compensate everybody for everything. if the people just stop booking with southwest that is a huge

loss in and of itself. i don't know if you can really put a dollar amount on that. it would be great if they could reimburse for a rental car or something like that. but any of that, i don't know if you've ever had to make an insurance claim for a car accident or something. >> yeah. >> it can take two years to get the money back. so a nice thing down the road but i don't expect anything immediate unfortunately. >> well, you made people's christmas week better and brighter. so we're calling you the luggage fairy and feel free to put that on your business card. >> okay. >> thanks so much for sharing your story with us tonight. >> thank you. have a good night. >> you, too. so we have developments on the dolphins quarterback tua tagovailoa. miami's head coach confirmed he did suffer a concussion during sunday's game against the packers. what is still not clear is when exactly he was hurt. that is key because the quarterback played the entire game. there were questions about why

he was allowed to play a whole game if he suffered a head injury at some point. it is important to note tua's first health scare this season in september prompted changes to the nfl's concussion protocol to try to ensure players with head injuries are not allowed to continue to play through them. the nfl says it has now launched a joint review of this incident with the players union. coach mike mcdaniels said earlier he and the staff did not notice anything wrong with tua until they reviewed the film hours after the game and then questioned him. it is uncertain whether the quarterback will play in sunday's pivotal game against the patriots. so next, another health scare. pope emeritus benedict is said to be very sick tonight. we have a report from the vatican right after this.

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pope francis asking for prayers tonight for his predecessor 95-year-old pope emeritus benedict said to be very sick. pope benedict made history nearly a decade ago as the first pontiff to step down in nearly six centuries. we have the latest developments

from rome. >> reporter: prayers for a pope in failing health. in his globally broadcast general audience pope francis called on the faithful to pray for his predecessor pope emeritus benedict as his health deteriorates. >> translator: i want to ask you all for a special prayer for pope emeritus benedict who sustains the church in his silence. he is very sick. we ask the lord to console and sustain him in this witness of love for the church to the very end. >> reporter: the vatican says the 95-year-old's health has deteriorated due to the advancement of his age and he is being continually monitored by his doctors. once the head of the roman catholic church pope benedict xvi has been living alongside his successor pope francis at the vatican. after making the almost unprecedented decision to resign from his role as pope in 2013. announcing that decision benedict said his choice to step

down was made due to his lack of strength of body and mind. >> this is a decision made after much prayers and trust in god's will and the deep love of christ's church. i will continue to accompany the church with my prayers and i ask each of you to pray for me and for the new pope. >> reporter: with that resignation pope benedict became the first pope to step down in nearly 600 years. but retained his title and continued to dress in the papal white and make occasional public appearances. born joseph ratzinger in germany in a childhood spent under the shadow of hitler's nazi regime pope benedict xvi has sometimes been a divisive figure, unflatteringly referred to as god's rottweiler in his conservative defense of the faith. he was cardinal and pope during the years when the catholic church's sexual abuse scandals came to light and he spearheaded the vatican's efforts toward a

zero tolerance policy. however, after his retirement he suffered a representational blow when a church report found he knew and failed to act against a pedophile priest while he was archbishop at munich 40 years ago. benedict denied the allegations. even after his resignation he continues to be a towering figure in the catholic church and as his health declines, there will be many sending him their thoughts and -- -- we will keep you with the pope's health. -- now you can hire a karen ticket do that for. you will tell you how, right after this. you will tell you how, right after this. aspen dental is s here for you. this season, and evevery seaso, we offer the custom dental treatments you need,d, all under one roof, right nearby. so, we can bring more life to your smile, and more smile to your life, affordably.

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