bill to the president's desk by wednesday. now margins are razor thin as cajohn mccain has gone home arizona. >> the word is that john will come back if we need his vote. it's too bad. he's going through a very tough time. there's no question about it. he will come back if we need his vote. kremlin calling. president putin calls president trump to thank the cia to help avert a terror plot in st. petersburg. >> what else? are you surprised? >> coming up, an nbc news exclusive report on what candidate trump was told about russia's meddling during the 2016 campaign. train derailment.

breaking news out of washington state this hour where an amtrak train runs off the track off a bridge and onto an interstate. a local reporter was on the train before it derailed. >> very difficult to process that we were on that exact train about 10, 15 minutes before it derailed. that breaking news. good day. amtrak train 501 derailing on a southbound route between tacoma and olympia, washington. there are injuries and multiple casualties. they do not have exact numbers. emergency crews and first responders are rushing to the scene. national traffic safety board officials are gathering information as they told residents to avoid the section of interstate 5 in that part of pierce county, washington. one of the rail cars fell onto the highway which is the main route up and down the coast. a commuter called into our local

nbc affiliate just moments ago. >> it was about 50 yards from just going under that overpass there. we all came to a sudden stop to try to avoid hitting one another. once we realize wd we were stopped, i looked up and super scary train had come off the overpass there and parts were kind of hanging. people running to try to help. >> jo ling, what are you hearing about casualties, injuries as well as the cause of this terrible accident? >> reporter: hey. right now we have no official report of the cause of this derailment. multiple eyewitnesss say it look like a nose dive seeing the train come off the rails and hit i i-5 in the southbound direction. we have brand new information. they say that several cars on

i-5 were struck by the derailed amtrak train cars and multiple motorists have been injured on the roadway but no fatalities of motorists reported. right now we know that law enforcement encouraging everyone to avoid the area. they are calling this massive accident. it was amtrak 501. the train going from seattle south to portland. this is near the mounts road. first responders are already on the scene. this is a new route. a new service. the first time this morning and the derailment was reported at bt 7:-- about 7:40 pacific time. nose dived on to the freeway. we know there are casualties and injuries according to the piece county sheriff's office but we do not know what the numbers are. the sheriff's office says those

numbers will be to come here. we know the people are injured and that section of the highway has been closed off as well as the southbound train service has been suspended as well. >> thanks. tom costello who covers transportation and you know this procedure so well. the protocol would be the ntsb jumps into action. first they have to find out what is happening with casualties and get emergency vehicles and first responders to the area and try to figure out what went wrong. >> that's right. this is immediately this is a rescue operation with fire rescue and ems on the scene as well as local law enforcement. the ntsb will be almost certainly responding. i would expect the federal railroad would do the same. it's a state d.o.t. investigation. you'll have a lot of parties trying to figure out what happened on this brand new run on the west coast. it's called the cascades line.

running from seattle down to portland. this incident taking place 40 miles south of seattle or so. we're told about 70, 75 people were on board the train at the time. there was this great sense of excitement in the morning because this was the day the inaugural day for this new line. people who were on board to begin with were telling our local affiliate they were excited about this new line, helping to relieve congestion and open up major commuter line, high speed commuter line on the pacific coast and have this happen on day one is a real shocker. that leads to a lot of questions. whether there might have been any rob wiproblem with the upgr tracks, with the trains the on the tracks. you have to assume they did a lot of testing before they opened the line up. now a lot of questions as a result of that. one other note. this did have positive train control. that is that technology which

allows for automatic braking should there will any sort of train to train collision possible or excessive speed or misaligned track. all of that is supposed to have been avoided with positive train control. it's going to be a high priority for everybody involved. >> was this upgrading of old track and what kind of equipment? they don't go as fast as they could go. you know better than anyone because the track is so old. how new is this track and how new is the equipment. is it canadian made. >> to be honest, i don't have

those answers immediately at my fingertips. it looks like the same model. i don't have an answer. the train themselves or when those tracks may have been upgraded. you would have to assume they did an awful lot of testing on those tracks but were they able to test with fully loaded trains running at speed, i think that will be part of the investigation. >> i know you're going to be busy on all of this. thank you. jo ling, do we have any new numbers on how many people were involved? >> reporter: no new numbers in terms of injuries or casualties. we are hearing from the medical center and they are receiving patients and plan to put out some more information. they are still in fact finding mode. they are gathering facts and working to release information

on this morning's incident. we do know as tom pointed out this is a commuter train. a lot of excitement going into this first service going from north to south on this cascades line. train 501. >> alex, were you on the train when it derailed or had you gotten off? >> reporter: it's one of the craziest moments of my life. we got off ten minutes before. we got off at tacoma, washington. about 10, 15 minutes after we got off, the train we were on derailed.

the service from seattle to portland have never left this early. they left at 6:00 a.m. we were on that train. among the people on board we're a number of rail enthusists and people very interested in being part of what they -- what would be historic ride. >> when you were on the train, were the cars filled and what was the experience of the train. was it a smooth ride. tell us what you can recall. >> reporter: there were several stops along the way. every stop picked up a number of people. there were dozens of people on board the train. it was a smooth ride for the portion we took, a 45 minute ride from seattle to tacoma. the thing they've been talking about in addition to a new station that they just opened here in tacoma, washington was they have the new upgraded track

that i believe tom was speaking of minutes ago. we don't know if it was a portion of new track where the derailment occurred but obviously there's a lot of questions on the first day. the very first train that left on this early service and now there's a derailment with many people injured. >> alex, can you tell us what was the maximum speed they were hitting along this route? they want eed to show off a hig speed train. what speeds did they get up to? >> caller: i don't have that information in front of me now. hopefully we'll be able to provide a live picture. we're walking up to the scene for the first time. we're getting our first look at it. it's really something.

they set up tents for emergency responders to work on the injured. it's quite the site hear. i'm going to jump off the phone and try and bring a live picture here as soon as we possibly again and get some answers about what's taking place in front of me. >> absolutely. dwro do your reporting. i hope you're okay. tom, are you still with us? he's probably on the phone with his sources. we'll get back to all of you with more details on this extraordinary tragedy on this new amtrak. you were one of the skeptics about this high speed train. correct me if i'm wrong? >> yes.

my community has been concerned about this modification of the rail route for several years. either stopping it or having some modifications for safety that we were concerned about it implemented. >> the speeds were supposed to be up to 79 miles an hour. those are not super high speeds. we get up to 110, 120 miles an hour on the old amtrak lines here. >> this particular line only had two or three ten mile an hour line, freight deliveries a week.

they modify the line to take the amtrak train running at through densely populated area. there's a substantial grade change. it was always a safety question. >> help under the circumstances orient ourselves. how close is lakewood, your town, to where this derailment took place. >> probably five miles. >> what are you hearing from first responders about casualties? >> preliminary reports seem to indicate there were casualties given the description of the

scene that wouldn't be surprising. >> according to our reporters, talking to someone that some of the casualties occurred in cars that were on interstate 5. the cars were crushed. some of those rail cars tumbled off the overpass or off the rails and on to the interstate. >> i couldn't say one way or the other. >> are your local officials responding to this? >> yes. in fact, our fire and our municipal that's part of team that went back has a federal emergency training.

the response is well planned. >> what kind of trial runs did they do, if you know, before this first inaugural run today with commuters? >> we have seen, been informed of and witnessed trial runs. i don't know exactly what that entailed. our direct concern was the enhanced crossi ining signals a whether they were working properly to our community. i know those took place. i don't know what extent they did full speed.

>> those outside of the area, i know that area fairly well. for those around the country, interstate 5 is critical. is it still shut down? i assume it is. >> it will be some time. this is right through the heart which is the largest military base. the tlafk have to be raffic wil rerouted around. >> finally, just looking ining roadway from the pictures, it looks like it's not rainy day, there's no snow. i assume no ice, so weather is not an issue here. >> it's a bit of drizzle but it's above freezing. normal northwest winter day.

>> i know you've got a lot to do. thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. let us know of any updates. we still have jo ling kent. do you have any new information on this terrible derailment? >> reporter: we are getting more information right now. i can tell you that cascades line last year, about 810,000 people rode that route. it's a very fast growing route. it's a popular route. this particular train was leaving on its first ever service early in the morning. the derailment was first reported at 7:40 this morning. we know according to the sheriff's office there are multiple injuries and casualties. however, according to authorities there we know that when the train car hit, the cars down below on i-5, as you see right there, no fatalities are reported so far from the people who are driving in their cars going in that southbound

direction. we are getting more information as the minutes go by here. what we see is this is the cascades line going from seattle to portland. train 501. multiple injuries and casualties reported. we do not have those numbers yet but the local medical center is taking in the injured. we expect to hear from the hospital very soon. >> we don't know how many people were on the train or how many cars were involved? >> reporter: we do not have an official count on how many people were on that train this morning. it was celebratory first outing of this service. folks were excited to be riding this train and it took a turn for the worst here. we do know there's about 14 miles along this track that have been upgraded or added as this service was being expanded over the past several months. that is now part of this report

of massive damage in the area. it looks like we're getting some more information now. >> the people that were in all the vehicles, even though when you see the pictures, nobody in any of the vehicles are a fatal. the fatales are all contained to the train. what caused it to derail will be up to the ntsb. southbound i-5 is completely closed and will be for some time. >> was there any traffic on the rails before that, around that time? >> we don't know anything when it comes to the rails yet. what you're seeing is what it is. on the other side of that bridge, there's three or four more cars that are upside down on the road and in the woods. >> you mentioned there's some people who have been able to walk off the train.

>> yes. there's some people that have been able to walk off the train. transportation is coming. >> that's where they are in the tents. can you talk about what we're seeing behind us where people are being treated? >> we train for this all the time. we have air force bases and train tracks and ferries. this is a multiple agency response, very koords nacoordin response. they're all working in a pre-planned operation which is to get the survivors out. get the injured to the hospitals and obviously if there's fatales, they'll have to deal with those later. >> as a point of clarification, it's early on but when you say multiple fatality, does that means doe dozens. >> we're just told there's multiple. we're not confirming anything until somebody does it. >> do you know how many cars are involved? >> i want to show you here this

scene. we just arrived. they are having us move down. we're going to try and walk and talk as best we can. we are on the move but right now i can tell you that we are overlooking the scene where this train derailment took place and i have with me now one person who lives nearby. laura. you've lived in the area. tell me what did you hear this morning when this all took place? >> i just woke up and heard a bunch of sirens and noise. it was very, very scary. i'm so glad i was off work today. just looking at this whole mess around christmas breaks my heart. >> i want to have our photo journalist show what we're looking at because it's a shocking site here. the amtrak train 501 that left seattle at 6:01 this morning

derailed off the tracks here. for people unfamiliar with the area, tell us a bit about where we are and where it is in relation to tacoma. >> we're standing on exit 116. it's by the golf course. right after the pierce county line. >> how long have you lived in the area? did you know that this train track was under renovation? did you know anything about the project that was ongoing? >> we've been watching it. i've lived here for 0 yea30 yea. i've been watching it for three years all the construction. >> do you know if the spot we're looking at is the area they were working on while upgrading their service? >> yes, they have been working on it. >> well. we will work to confirm that

additionally as well with amtrak. >> that is our affiliate king. jo ling can he nkent out there . they don't think at this point there's no fatalities from those in the cars on the interstate. there are multiple casualties, correct? >> reporter: that's right. there's multiple fatalities in the train. those riding below in the car going southbound, the pierce county sheriff's office is saying that nobody, no fatalities in the car down below on the road. i-5 continues to be completely closed. this is major artery on the west coast in the middle of rush hour traffic. they confirmed the first report of the derailment happened at 7:40 pacific time this morning. they do not have any information right now about the condition of the rails.

why this happened, what exactly went wrong when this train derailed. the cascades train 501 nose diving off of that overpass there. they do say that on the other side of the bridge and we do not seem to have pictures of that yet but you can see the wooded area behind the trains that several cars are also upside down in that area as well. some people were able to walk away from the accident and they are being treated in those tents. >> thank you so much. we'll bring you more as we get it. coming up, an nbc news exclusive. what he knew. exclusive new reporting about what candidate donald trump learned about russia's involvement in the presidential election in realtime. [lance] monica, it is absolute chaos out here!

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,0 now to a new nbc news rept about what then candidate trump received during the 2016 campaign. two of the reporters who broke this story.

when was donald trump first warned by the intelligence agencies that the russians were meddling in the campaign? >> reporter: our sources are not telling us exactly when this briefing was but we know his first intelligence briefing was august 17th after he had become the republican nominee. both campaigns, both hillary clinton and donald trump got general counter intelligence briefings warning them that foreign adversaries, including russia would try to spy on infiltrate their campaigns. trump wads asked to alert the fbi if there was any suspicious overtures to his campaigns. there's no evidence that he ever did that. as you know, there was a long history, the record now shows of contacts between members of the trump campaign and russians and russian agents in the months before we're told this briefing took place and then afterward there was an exchange between

donald trump junior and wikileaks which is angting as an agent for russia in september. senator grassley asked the fbi said if it happened it would raise questions about the trump administration's response to all this. now those are the questions that will be asked. >> indeed. if it was in august or after he became the nominee then it was two months after that june 2016 meeting another trump tower. what does this tell counter intelligence officials or fbi officials? what concerns would they have? >> i've had the opportunity to provide a briefing to a presidential candidate when i was assistance director and it's an opportunity not only put the candidate on notice of what to look for, who to look out for but for the candidate to share with you what he or she knows about what's happening and any suspicions they have and to

begin a dialogue where the candidate continues to tell you i think something suspicious has happened. i have had contact or my staff had contact with foreign nationals. in my experience and the past with other candidates you see that contact end if it's happening when you provide that admonishment or that briefing. it goes toward the mind set of the candidate that they are not sharing with you anything that's already happened or that is happening in the future moving forward. >> we've heard from congressman, concerns there are efforts now to undermine not only mueller's credibility but during the christmas break there may be a firing of robert mueller. something is president is now denying will take place. >> right. we've seen a number of the drum beat kind of intensify in the

last days and week or so about this. it seems like they are trying to have it a bit of both ways. on one hand you see the white house saying we're not going to fire robert mueller and yet then there's this kind of other effort to discredit this investigation and really discredit robert mueller and that is not new in the sense that the president's attacks on this investigation has always been that this is politically motivated and a witch hunt. now what we're seeing is this effort kind of an outside effort to undermine robert mueller and say that his investigation is politicized and chip away at that. >> they were having a romantic relationship or e-mailing each

other during the campaign with e-mails about donald trump which once released indicated he was removed immediately it was brought to the attention of mueller but that's been seized upon. accusing the mueller team of improperly accessing e-mails. the mueller's team spokesman pushing back. bring us up to date. >> that's right. he said any e-mails they obtain were obtained through legal process or were turned over through sort of standard re procedures from the government. these e-mails were in the possession of the federal government. it's hard to imagine why an

authorized investigator looking into potential crimes wouldn't have the ability to obtain them. if there were any privilege issues, those could be argued but mueller's position is we had a legitimate right to this. you're right. there is a concerted effort going on over those tax from those agents to discredit the mueller investigation by some republicans on the hill. >> frank, your former colleagues at the fbi, how do they feel when you have the president criticizing the fbi as he's on route to quantico. following up tweeting the fbi is in tatters. what about the morale of the men and women of the fbi? >> the agents and employees i'm speaking to, it's impacting

their morale. when they have to pull out his or her credentials and ask for their help, cooperation, the perception of that citizen has of those credentials is crucial to securing our communities. that perception has been diminished by our own president. it's really sad and it is impacting morale. >> thank you so much. joining me now is democratic congressman who is on the intelligence committee. congressman, first of all, let me ask you about our nbc reporting that the president wads briefed and warned that the russians were trying to meddle with the campaign in realtime after he got the no, ma'minatio did not report anything at the time or afterwards of these contacts that had already taken place and were to take place going forward with russian officials. >> good afternoon.

one take away that i have observed in our house intelligence committee investigation is e with probably need a better protocol in place. a duty to report, if yo wilu wi. there's no laws that requires individuals to report to the fbi if they are offered a legally obtained information on their opponents. often times you count on people doing the right thing. it looks like that wasn't happening here. no one has passed it on. if this is corrected, it would not surprise me at all. the trump team seemed all willing and eager to receive help not to want to help law

enforcement. >> what about they're trying to wind down your piece on this. >> that's unfortunate. we have a responsibility to the public to secure freedom of choice. then put reforms in place. we have dozens of witness who is have not come before our committee and thousands of documents that have not been obtained. we don't see any witnesses scheduled beyond this week. if it is close this week or in the coming days, we believe it will be an incomplete investigation and a true abdication of the duty we're called upon. >> there's been a lot of denial starting with the president that mueller is about to be fired. lots of concern on the democratic side. let me play a couple of comments

the president and some of his white house officials in the last couple of days. >> i was at dinner with the president and vice president. i haven't heard anything about this, any firing. we have to get past this investigation. it's a giant distraction. nobody has said that in any way this impacted the outcome of the election. >> is he setting the stage for firing robert mueller? >> there's no conversation. there's no conversation about that in the white house. >> none whatsoever? >> we have continued to cooperate in every single possible way of that investigation. >> let me ask you a question. i've been talking to some legal experts and former officials as well. they point out if mueller were fired, his whole office gets disbanded because it's not created by statute. those cases would be referred to the u.s. attorneys who are now trump appointees.

>> is that your understanding? the fruits of mike flynn and anything he's been contributing and any ongoing investigation would be cut off? >> it would pulverize the investigation. from where i sit, the conser conservative voices i hear that trump is planning to undermine robert mueller's team. they are now tell grating in the recent visits of rosenstein that they would be okay with it. for many of them it would be their idea. they would take credit for it. i'm very concerned. the best thing that responsible republicans can do is to put

forth bipartisan legislation to protect bob mueller and have a panel of judges have to review think firing. that way a guardrail is in place so we don't have a constitutional crisis. >> thank you very much. >> my pleasure. coming up, the latest on the breaking news out of washington state. just in from amtrak. there were 78 passengers. five crew members on board that train when it went off the rails. we'll have the latest. stay with us.

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continuing our breaking news on that derailment in washington state. joining me by phone, former chair of ntsb and jo ling kent. bring us up to date. >> reporter: 75 passengers were aboard and five crew members were aboard going from seattle to portland. this happened south of tacoma where the train derailment happened. a bit more about what kind of train this cascades train is. it seats about 250 passengers. the train was relatively empty at the time. only 78 people were aboard. the baggage car, two first class coach, seven standard cars and a cafe car, lounge car and the service car that provides the electricity for the train.

78 people aboard. five crew members according to amtrak. andrea. >> there's a lot of questions but we were talking to a mayor of a nearby community who has been objecting to this train because they were repurposing some very old freight rails passages that would run ten miles an hour and turning into a high speed rail. it was 79 miles an hour. do we know anything more about what kind of test runs they may have had. this is the very first run of this rain. >> generally when the fra is classifying tracks, federal railroad administration, they will have it rated on what it's going to carry. if you're upgrading tracks that's been for low speed, low density, they will want to make sure that track is in tiptop

shape. that requires additional inspections and it also requires that the track is up to a certain standard that can support what will be riding on those rails so it will be a part of investigation. >> do you know anything about the kind of equipment on this train? >> i don't. i'm just learning about this event like you are. certainly the first day of service there's going to be a lot of things to look at when it comes to this investigation. we try to understand what's going on and amtrak is operating over other people's blinds and making sure the work to start this line with that infrastructure was in place. >> former national transportation safety board member and chairman, ceo of the

national safety council. thank you so much. we'll be looking forward to more reports throughout this day on this. coming up, the new trump national security doctrine coming out. we'll have a full report on the very same day, the first 14-1 vote. the u.s. out voted at the u.n. we'll have all the details. stay with us. machine plap

and breaking news. president trump has had his

first major defeat at the united nations. the united nations security council voting 14 to 1 on a resolution sponsored by egypt to reject the trump doctrine on jerusalem being the capital of israel. this required the first veto ever from trump u.n. ambassador nikki haley. breaking all of this down and the upcoming speech in about an hour of the trump national security doctrine, peter alexander at the white house and nick burns from former undersecretary of state, now at harvard's school of government. and juan zarate, former national security adviser for george w. bush. peter, let's talk about the new national security doctrine. headlines on this, is this major changes from the past? i've heard a lot of criticism that it's a little bit fuzzy. >> i think that's fair to say right now. we've gotten a sense of the drafts of the documents, 70-plus

pages to be released by the president. some of the things i think that we'll be focused on as we discuss this over the course of the day is does this reenvision the rivalry between the super powers, what the president will describe as revisionist powers between china and russia. it's notable that the president will refer to china specifically as one of the sort of strategic competitors here where president obama on a variety of issues including iran among them, climate change, had viewed -- president xi had viewed the chinese as partners. beyond that the president is going to emphasize the value of economic security. the economic security is central to national security so you've seen some of those headlines there. climate change obviously another issue he'll be focused on a little later. obama, the past administration, viewed that as a threat to national security, a threat frankly to the world's security. this president is going to view it in a different framework in the way it relates to energy

dominance for the united states. those are some of the keys we'll be looking at, andrea, when we hear from the president shortly. >> nick burns, if we're talking about economic security and pushing back against china and china's dominance, one wonders why then the president withdrew from tpp and gave china a clear open field to run over us with all those asian powers. >> andrea, i think that is going to be the contradiction at the heart of this national security strategy. if the president goes ahead to say that russia and china are competitors, he's right about that. they are competitors strategically for the united states, but the contradiction is this. no matter what this report says today, no matter what the president says in his speech, we have 12 months of president trump's foreign policy, it's been a radical departure from every republican and democratic administration over the last seven years particularly in trade which you mentioned. he's disavowed free trade. he's disavowed our relationship with the european union.

he's been ambivalent about nato. he's been regress sieve on immigration. he's been absolutely discriminatory on taking in refugees from muslim countries. and he's not been what ronald reagan was, john f. kennedy, leader of the west espousing democratic values. the words matter today but the actions of the last 12 months matter much more. this is a radical administration, i think quite weak administration in foreign policy. >> let's talk about the putin phone calls. juan, two phone calls with president putin in the last couple of days. again the kremlin putting out the word before we here in the united states get notified by the white house that these calls even took place and the most remarkable was putin thanking him for the cia's help in preventing an alleged terror plot in st. petersburgpetersbur >> i think both sides want to demonstrate that some level of cooperation is both possible and

productive. i think what you had here was the sharing of intelligence, operational intelligence that led, according to the russians, to the disruption of a major terrorist attack in st. petersburg. i think that's something that president putin wanted to talk about, certainly president trump wanted to talk about in terms of the ability of both sides to work together. but it is obviously very difficult and tension-filled given the context of u.s./russian relations currently, but it is a demonstration on what president trump has been saying and trying to do which is we can and we should cooperate in certain veins with russia. but there is a contradiction. there's a contradiction in the context of the strategy which does point to russia as one of these revisionist powers and is, as nick points out, part of the tension of this document which is to say china and russia are challenged to the u.s. power. what are we doing about it and how are we dealing with them not just in the economic and physical space but also the cyber domain. this strategy tries to get at that but the policy hasn't fit the strategy yet. >> nick, that conversation with

putin praising the cia, that's probably the most praise that we've heard from donald trump about his intelligence agencies since before and during and since he took office, for him to be praising the cia with the russian leader but criticizing the cia in every other instance. >> yeah, i must say, andrea, as a former career federal official, i find it so distasteful that the president consistently repudiates both the fbi and the cia which are critical for american national security. as juan says, it's positive that the united states is working on issues with russia on issues that we can converge. but the president hasn't recognized the meddling in our election and help our state governments to prevent a recurrence of russian interference in the 2018 and 20 elections. that's a fundamental

responsibility of the american president. the fact that the president is silent on that, consistently silent, i think is the major problem. >> peter alexander, the white house has first of all contradicted the secretary of state in the last couple of days over his overture from ten days ago to north korea, we'll talk any time, anyplace, talk about the weather, the size of the table, the shape of the table, saying that he was dead wrong about that. tillerson then on friday pulled took a much tougher posture. we look back on what tillerson in that same ten days ago briefing and tillerson apparently reviewed a secret agreement with china, notification to china that the u.s. would control and find the nukes given the regime collapse in north korea but would not stay and occupy.

is there more concern and distress with the secretary of state from the white house? >> i think what's going to be interesting as we hear from this president in an hour is the speech he's going to be making which sort of lays out this trump doctrine, a lot of what he's calling for requires diplomacy, requires leaning on your secretary of state, on the state department which obviously that relationship we know is frayed, not to mention the state department dealing with its own issues right now with depar ttue departures, simply a lack of staffing among other issues right now. while the president has talked about beefing up the military, the doctrine calls for more diplomacy more broadly but it's unclear whether the diplomatic channels that exist, the president has the strength to execu execute. >> juan, i can attest that medium and top levels in the diplomatic core, they are

hallowed out, so the numbers that they put out of the bulk of how many people they have don't reflect the real ranking the veterans and the assistant secretaries being confirmed. >> right -- >> to deal with foreign leaders. >> absolutely. i think it's more than just the numbers. it's also people in key positions at the right time. we still don't have victor cha, great korea expert. he needs to be out there. we need to accelerate people of this fairly ambition national security structure. it's ambitious, in some ways continradicts what we've seen i the last 12 months. to do that you need a healthy, robust diplomatic core, a strong military to put layer defense in place. you need a strong treasury and state department working on economic security. all of that is important given

this document. >> juan ra zarate and nick burns, thank you. that does it for this edition of andrea mitchell reports. stay with nbc. chris jansing is up next. >> thank you so much. good afternoon. we do have that breaking news near tacoma, washington. an amtrak train fell off an overpass and onto the i-5 highway below. officials say 78 passengers and five crew members were on board train 501. there are multiple injuries and casualties. southbound i-5 is now closed. the ntsb has launched a go team to the scene. its job is to start the investigation of any major accident at the accident scene as quickly as possible. what witnesses describe is a terrifying scene. >> the front of