everybody would have a suitcase or some sort of package sitting next to them and impossible to know who got what into that terminal but whatever they got was large in size and created

trying to ask whatever they want as long as they don't use that evidence in court. that is sort of a general rule in many western countries. in terms of the response here in the u.s., the white house has put out a statement saying the president has been briefed. the justice department has a statement saying the attorney general has been briefed. they're following this. they emphasize a couple things this morning. one is there is no intelligence warning of any kind of attack in the u.s. along these lines. there have been no directives sent out to the operators of airports in the u.s. or cranes or subways telling them or urging them or recommending precautions. nonetheless, lots of information

about these attacks have been shared by federal authorities with their local counterparts. they're keeping them informed and up to date and many of them are responding in their own and here in d.c. on our metro system, it's all hands on deck in terms of dog teams, the dogs that are explosive sniffing dogs and much more visible presence of security and you're going to hear a lot more announcements on our subway and watch for suspicious packages and report anything you think is suspicious. in new york, the police say they're going to have a much more visible and aggressive presence at tunnels, bridges, subways, trains, commuter fac facilities and at airports. i don't think that the travel experience for travelers in the u.s. flying today will be substantially different, but undoubtedly, they'll see more security and there will be a lot more sharing of intelligence that people won't see as this plays out for the next 24 to 48 hours. >> pete williams, our justice

correspondent, pete, stick around, we'll come tayo you man times this morning. kelly is on her way to brussels. she is now in a car, as i understand it. kelly, good morning. what can you tell us? >> good morning, savannah. i hopped in a cab from the train station in france and if, in fact, the borders are closed somehow by highway, there is no sign of it as yet. taxi driver happy to take me into brussels. traffic is slowing here and we've been told that at some point this will stop. that we won't be able to get into the country. so, we're testing out that theory now. yes, as i was on my way into brussels this morning, the attacks that already happened and the explosions have already happened at the airport. we were stopped about 20 minutes outside of brussels. and told that it was for

security reasons. shortly thereafter the train station in central brussels was evacuated and the train station closed and we were turned around and sent back to france. so, as it stands, we're trying to get our way in, but as i mentioned earlier, you know, the transportation system is very difficult. the metro lines are shut down and the trains have been shut down and the airport is shut down. so, it's become very difficult to get into the city. >> i can only imagine the simpuatisim situation there, kelly. nbc tom costello has new information on the attack and the impact on the airlines and the airports. tom, before you get to that, i want to say you also have a different perspective, as i do, you have close relatives who live in belgium and you spent a lot of time there yourself. in particular, you spent a lot of time at that airport. >> my wife and kids are belgium,

they have dual nationality. my kids were born in belgium, i went to graduate school in brussels and used to live there. we have been in and out of that airport for 25 years. we know it very well. when you look at those images right there of the brussels terminal, that is a devastating impact. i have to tell you from having baeg there first hand i don't see them recovering from this in 24 hours, as they initially suggested. this looks like the entire departure level has been obliterated by a massive bomb or bombs. and, so, this is going to be a very significant blow to not only air travel in and out of brussels. by the way, that's the shot right there. the starbucks right next to it. right to the right is where we believe the bomb went off. or very close to it and those are ceiling tiles that came down from the airport terminal down to the ground and there you have the concourses throughout brussels airports that are jammed and packwood people who are fleeing the airport out the back-out into the ramps and out

on to the tarmac. therefore into the update on the status of american airlines flights that are going into brussels. we can tell you that american airlines flight 751 scheduled to depart from brussels into philly has been canceled. flights into brussels. delta 80 atlanta to brussels is on the ramp and holding in brussels. they don't want to deplane these passengers because of the chaos and the security scene on the ground. so, those passengers who have been on the ground for several hours are staying on the ground. new york 42 new york to brussels has been departed to amsterdam. d.c. to brussels continued and landed at 7:01. that is a concern. that would suggest that those passengers may have been in the terminal that time of the explosion. you're looking at a shot there of flight aware. live air traffic control look at the traffic in and around brussels and the brussels airport being shut down.

what you're seeing there are planes going over the top of brussels, but certainly not landing in brussels. united 999 newark to brussels has been, we are told rerouted to a remote location. i don't know if that's on the ramp in brussels or if that is another airport. a military airport or something. i simply don't know. that's united 999 safe and on the ground at this hour. one other point i would tell you that miami international airport has just advised us because of the concerns about the contagion effect or another possible attack maybe on this side of the ocean, miami is increasing the use of canines today, increasing more uniformed officers in the miami airport. more behavior detection patrol units out and about. random patrols and perimeter patrols and random screening and checkpoint. kind of a roving situation through the miami airport. i would be surprised if you don't see that at airports

throughout the united states. >> most of brussels is shut down. interesting my sister-in-l and brother-in-law live there with their children and schools are in session. they are only a few miles and school's in session. so some parts of life remain normal there this morning, tom. >> you consider, i have my cousins whaare the same age as my kids who are going to school in belgium and you might consider there is no place safer for them right now than to keep them in school rather than out on the streets. keep in mind in belgium and most of europe, kids routinely ride the subways to and from school. and the train. so, to keep them in school and in a safe environment makes total sense. i'm sure just you have getting facebook instant messaging checking in that they're okay. but, clearly, we have a situation where many people are apparently very seriously

injured or have been killed in brussels this morning. >> this happened at 8:00 local time and may well be that some kids were already in school at that hour and being told to just stay put, especially since transportation is such a challenge now. we want to turn to an msnb contributor but he also happened to be at that brussels airport at the time of this attack. steve, good morning. we spoke to you earlier. wae know you're doing wellica y physically and let us just ask what you saw, what you heard. >> i mean, basically, i was at the airport to get back to washington. i've come up from the train. i left the brussels train station this morning on to the airport. and was there literally minutes, minutes or within a minute or so after the blast. saw the smoke and saw some of the chaos but i wasn't able to get any closer than i had. i'm actually sitting next to gentlemen on the train. yeah, that's mine.

sorry. and, yeah, and i'm right now there is a lot of tension on the train that i'm on my bag was right here. there's tension everywhere. i saw a lot of chaos this morning and went back to brussels north station and at that point we began to hear about the subway station. so, things tensed up. security got very tight and i was able to get what seems to have been and i was told by the conductor the last train out of belgium. >> all right, steve. steve, thank you very much. if you can add anything, please get back to us real soon. just, again, to recap. we've got a devastating scene in brussels, belgium, this morning. both at the airport and in a metro train beneath the streets of brussels where several explosions have gone off. at least two at the airport. at least within one in the metr.

28, 29 people confirmed dead. many injured. the scenes you're looking at of extreme damage to that subway train there and also inside that departure terminal at the airport where what is being called a suicide bomb was detonated, not sure if it was what we have come to expect or imagine with someone walking into a terminal wearing some kind of a belt or some kind of a vest. the people we've spoken to this morning who are more expert at things like this than we are have looked at those scenes of devastation and said that it appears to them this was a larger device. perhaps carried into that departure terminal in a suitcase in a box, maybe a backpack. but, obviously, with devastating impact. >> somewhat coordinated as there is more than one attack. that is the scene that we're seeing of a metro car. at least 15 were killed in that attack at the metro attack, 15 more at the airport and dozens more injured and belgium's prime

minister saying this is a dark hour. get donald trump's take on today's events when he joins us live right after this.

good morning, welcome back to a special edition of "today." one took place at an airport and another at a metro station. >> clearly this heightens concerns at security at airports here in the united states. wae can tell you that president obama has en briefed on the situation. as you know, he's traveling in havana. national security is a key issue in the presidential race. republican frontrunner donald trump joins us now by phone. mr. trump, good morning to you. >> good morning. >> often people talk about a president getting that 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m. phone call when something tragic has happened either here at home or around

the world. so, let's go to the hypothetical situation. president trump gets that 2:00 a.m. phone call. what would you have done? >> this is a subject that is very near and very dear to my heart because i've been talking about certainly much more than anybody else and that's why i'm probably number one in the polls because of the fact that i say we have to have strong borders. we have to be very vigilant and careful who we allow into our country. i know brussels well and brussels is a total mess. brussels is a, i'm not talking about the attack today, i'm talking about generally speaking. it is a city that used to be the finest. one of the most beautiful and one of the safest cities in the world and now it's a catastro catastrophic and very dangerous city where police have very little control and it's too bad. >> what would you have done first as president of the united states if you got this call? >> president i would do what i

have been doing for the period of time that i was president. i'd be very, very tough on the borders and not allowing certain people to come into this country without absolute perfect documentation. we're allowing thousands of people back into our country and we don't have proper documentation. we don't know where they are coming from. they happen to come from perhaps syria, but nobody really knows. they have no idea because they don't have the documentation. >> mr. trump, who would you exclude? how would you make that determination? >> i would exclude the people coming in from syria that don't have documentation. coming in from the migration line that interestingly have cell phones in many cases but you say how do they get their cell phones and where do they get their bills paid? i would exclude those people from coming in. you go to pairs and you go to brussels and you go to other cities and you look at what's happening with germany and murkles and allow over a million

people to pour into germany and that's not working, it's turning out to be catastrophic. >> they have in belgium a guy in custody right now. he is said to be the man who planned the paris attacks of november 13th. they have him in custody. what would you would say would be in appropriate in terms of what they can do to him to get any information they can about possible further attacks? >> i would say they should be able to do whatever they have to do. they have is to g nay have to get the information. >> be specific. >> they won't do that because the laws are so liberal over there. but they should be able to do whatever they have to do to get him to give the information and the very sad thing is, he was being guarded and protected by people that were a few doors away from where he lived. and they were protecting him and they were guarding him and it was lucky they were able to find him and he was planning another

attack. but they didn't find him because people turned him in. those people were guarding him and protecting him. that is not supposed to be the way the system works. >> when you say do whatever they have to do. can you be specific? what do you mean by that? >> i'm not looking for breaking news on your show. but, frankly, the waterboarding, if it was up to me and if we changed the laws or have the laws, waterboarding would be fine and if they want to do as long as it's with. we work within laws. they don't work within laws. they have no laws. we work within laws. the waterboarding would be fine and if they could expand the laws, i would do a lot more than waterboarding. you have to get the information from these people and we have to be smart and we have to be tough and we can't be soft and weak, which is what we are right now. but i say we, i'm talking about other countries also. >> if you talk to experts who do these interrogations you often find a division. some people think that kind of harsh interrogation technique will work and deliver you the information and others say it

doesn't work, you'll get false information. are you in the camp that harsh interrogation, shall we say, torture, works in a case like this? >> yes, i am in that camp. i don't believe the other people. i am in that camp. absolutely. they'll read him his rights. he'll sit there with a good lawyer and the lawyer and ten years will go bye-bye the time it goes by, the world will have moved on to an even worst place. i am in the camp where you have to get the information and you have to get it rapidly. >> keep in mind draw the extinction held by law enforcement not by some military unit or intelligence service, like was the case here in this country when the cia took some of these suspects to secret sites to other countries. he is being held by the belgium justice system. >> that's okay. he's being held by whoever. let the mill tear take him over. belgium is no longer belgium. belgium is not the belgium you

and i knew, matt, from 20 years ago. one of the most beautiful and safest cities in the world. terrible things are happening and people are leaving and people are afraid and this all happened because, frankly, there is no assimuting. >> i have just a couple seconds. >> they don't want laws that we have. they want sharia law and you say to your self, at what point? how much do you take? we're allowing thousands and thousands of these people into our country and we're going to have nothing but problems. >> in just the 30 seconds i have left, mr. trump, what would you say the american people on a morning like this? >> i would say to the american people that we are going to be very strong. we are going to be very vigilant and very tough and we're not going to allow this to happen to our country. and if does happen, we're going to find the people that did it and they're going to suffer

greatly. >> mr. trump, donald trump, thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you very much. >> i want to mention we also asked democratic frontrunner hillary clinton to join us this morning and she declined. sg . >> by the way, president obama has been briefed by his security team and traveling to havana, cuba. he is also in touch with his counterpart across the globe as we watch what unfolds here. we have reports of at least 28 people who have perished this morning and dozens of others injured as we sit back and take the toll, once again, of yet a terror attack on a major western capital. >> waking up to the images we all dread seeing in some major european city. we're going to take a break now and let some stations breakaway for their local news and weather and for others we'll be back with more of "today."

good morning, welcome back to this special news on "today." at least 28 people have been killed in two separate attacks. perhaps two explosions at the airport and yet another attack at the metro station in brussels, belgium. we've got dozens of others who have been injured. let's turn to our foreign correspondent richard engel who covers this issue for us comprehensively and is, once again, we call upon at a moment like this, richard, to put it into perspective and what to take away from this choice of brussels, belgium, as a target. >> the city is in lockdown right now. more details are amerging about what happened. two explosions at the airport. 8:00 a.m. local time. one inside the arrivals hall and then we're getting more specific information about what happened on the, in the attack on the metro system. it was apparently on the metro car. this is according to a

spokesperson for the metro system in brussels. as the car was stopped at the station. there were earlier reports, including some reports coming to u.s. government officials that multiple metro stations had been targeted because people were seen fleeing from the metro because there was a lot of panic, smoke, chaos. what, according to the spokesman for the system it was on a car while it was stopped at this one station and then people at all of the surrounding stations began to evacuate the system. the metro system, the transport system is now closed in brussels. cell phone coverage is very spotty in the country. you ask why brussels. brussels has been a headquarters. a location for a number of isis cells. and, unfortunately, just in the wake of these attacks, intelligence sources are telling nbc news that there are a number

of syrian trained isis militants in europe currently looking for targets. how big that number was, the official said more than 50 less than 100. that is a very large number of syrian trained militants. all we were told was in europe at the moment. so, there is a heightened concern across the continent. not just in brussels. but in other countries, as well. >> richard engel, thank you very much. we're getting an update on the death toll here. >> we have at least 26 killed. we said 28 earlier which is often the case in the breaking news situation. this comes from belgium officials and as you see there on your screen. 15 have died at the metro station attack. 11 at the airport and we don't know the number of those injured, but given the pictures we've seen this morning, one imagines there are quite people who suffered injuries this

morning. we have a city, brussels, belgium, shut down effectively. the airport is closed and the train stations are closed and the cell service has been suspended and trains going in and out have been stopped, as well, as this western capital takes a toll and now tries to recover. >> we talk about soft targets and clearly this airport, most people are familiar. you go to an airport and at some point you go through pretty extensive security screening. but where these attacks were carried out was before that point. presecurity. so, you drive up to the airport, you're in a car, you're in a bus, you're on the subway. you go into the airport and that's where all ethese people stand and none of them screened, all carrying luggage signing up at kiosks and checking in for flights. some cases just buying a cup of coffee standing shoulder to shoulder and this is what happened. someone detonated a device that has been called a suicide device and that's the result inside the main departure terminal at

brussels airport. we'll pause for a moment and allow more of our stations to join us as you just stand by. good morning, breaking news. this is a special edition of "today." chilling images out of brussels, belgium today. the scene of terrorist attacks. 11 people killed in a suicide bombing at the airport. at least 15 others killed in an attack on brussels subway system. >> keir simmons joins us now. what can you tell us? >> across europe people have been prased for something like this. the prime minister saying what we feared would happen has happened. nbc news confirming so far that 26 fatalities. matt, this was a clearly coordinated and terrifying series of attacks in the heart of europe. brussels airport rocked by those explosions around 8:00 a.m.