some significant breaking news as we come on the air. two thank you very muches, two development -- trumps, two headaches. in georgia we heard from the former president himself about the news that a d.a. in that state is requesting a special grand jury now to look into mr. trump's attempts to try and overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 election in georgia. she says witnesses refusing to cooperate. we're live in georgia along with our team for what this means and who should be worried. also breaking this afternoon, ivanka trump responding to the january 6 committee after lawmakers asked her to cooperate. they're not trying to force her, at least not yet. this hour, what she's saying,

what the committee wants to know, and what could happen if she chooses not to talk. i'm hallie jackson in washington on what is shaping up to be a busy thursday. here is blayne alexander in atlanta. our justice correspondent pete williams in our washington newsroom. political reporter for "the atlanta journal constitution" greg bluestein is here along with former u.s. attorney, former senior fbi official and current msnbc contributor chuck rosenberg. and let me take a beat to lay out the back story of this special grand jury request. remember, the big reason why we're here is because of that phone call a year ago, january 2nd, 2021, now infamous, when former president trump called up the georgia secretary of state, brad raffensperger, looking for extra made-up votes -- watch. >> so what are we going do here, folks? i only need 11,000 votes. fellas, i need 11,000 votes. give me a break. you know, we have that in spades already, or we can keep it going. but that's not fair to the voters of georgia because they're going to see what

happened. and they're going to see what happened. >> reminder, of course, that donald trump lost the state of georgia. now you've got the fulton county district attorney saying she wants this special grand jury because some witnesses in this investigation have not been cooperaterative. pointing specifically to the georgia secretary of state and citing a moment when raffensperger told chuck todd he would cooperate if presented with a grand jury summons. something i followed up with him about on this show back in november. >> we would cooperate with any investigation. we sent docs as requested. that's because you got to follow the law, follow the constitution, and they have constitutional authority to convene a grand jury. >> so that brings us up to where we are now at this moment this afternoon with this developing news. so lay out more of what we're hearing from that fulton county d.a. today. >> she sent to the chief judge for the superior court in fulton county and essentially she's laying out her case saying why she believes there should be a special grand jury. i'm going toed from a portion of

the letter, there are a call of things that she cites, but i think this is key to point out. she says the district attorney's office has received information indicating that a reasonable probability that the state of georgia's administration of elections in 2020 including the state's election of the president of the united states was subject to possible criminal disruptions. now, it is notable, as she said, she says that a significant number of witnesses and potential witnesses have refused to cooperate absent a subpoena. the district attorney's office is not commenting further. we've reached out to the secretary of state's office, as well, waiting a statement from them. this is something, a reminder of just how much of a bombshell this call was. remember, this was back right before the runoff elections that would determine the balance of power in the u.s. senate. and it was clear that the president was trying to essentially make that influence before the elections happened that following tuesday. so it's also the president putting pressure on somebody in his own party, that's also why

this is notable, for raffensperger, a republican, being pressured by the president at the time. hallie? >> and he has been slammed by former president trump all along as he now hits the tough primary race. we'll get into the politics in a second for that secretary of state seat. pete, i should note, in the last couple of minutes, we alluded to it at the top of the show, we heard from former president trump, and not surprisingly he is blasting this investigation, as he has done in the past. he says, of that phone call we played, i didn't say anything wrong in the call made while i was president on behalf of the united states of america, to look into the massive voter fraud which took place in georgia. obviously there was no massive voter fraud that happened in georgia, according to the multiple recounts and hand audits that happened there. he also said at one point that he thinks this special grand jury should be looking into that -- what he describes as large-scale voter fraud. again, something that did not happen, that is not true. pete, we know the fulton county d.a. hasn't said much about the specifics of this investigation, but she told the a.p. earlier that scope goes just beyond only

that phone call, right? >> right. what she told the a.p., this was last week in an interview, she confirmed, according to the a.p., that she's looking at a call in november from senator lindsey graham, the resignation of the u.s. attorney in atlanta on january 4th, and some comments made during a committee meeting of the georgia legislature about the election. georgia has a pretty strict law against interfering with the election, and i think that's the key here for the district attorney is to see whether that law was violated by any of these efforts to -- the president's phone call where he said we want you to find 11,780 more votes or any of these other calls. i'm not quite sure what the state law implication would be for the resignation of the u.s. attorney, but she says that's one thing that she's looking into, as well. >> craig, you have the view on the ground there, you've been covering this, i know, for months and months, since it started. it sounds like the d.a. may have

thrown the georgia secretary of state under the bus. talk about what you're hearing from your sources on this. >> yeah. i heard from someone close to the secretary of state, brad raffensperger, that they feel they're going scapegoated, that they're willing to cooperate with the investigation, but that they're being scapegoated for the slow process because it has taken months and not expected to be concluded for months longer. but either way, this is a clear signal that this investigation is moving forward. and it's something that the prosecutor has indicated was likely to happen to give her some more tools to investigate donald trump and his alleged election interference. >> who are the possible witnesses that she may want to be hearing from on this front? >> sure, well, anybody who was around the president who understood what it was he was trying to accomplish. you know, that call that you played in and of itself is not a crime. it's evidence of a crime, and a prosecutor would also have to prove intent. so if the president was deluded

and thought he won in georgia and was asking them to find votes that he thought belonged to him, that might be crazy, but it's not a crime. so any prosecutor would want to talk to the people who talked to president trump, whether it's raffensperger on the phone or those who work for trump at the white house. >> i want to remind folks of the timeline of this, right, of the former president. blayne, you remember it, we talked about it last year. craig, you covered it every day. chuck, we talked about it on this show. it started even before the results of the election were announced. just after election night, right, when president biden, then, of course, president-elect biden was called as winner in georgia, and you then had former president trump demanding a recount, a hand recount, confirm that joe biden won. the attorney general in december came out and said there was no widespread voter fraud. january 2nd was the phone call that we've been talking about, the insurrection, of course, here in washington at the capitol, on the 6th. then on the 7th, of course, the

certification and the 20th, a year ago today, president biden was sworn into office. greg, can you talk a little about what you understand to be the -- the scope of this d.a. investigation sneer. >> -- here? >> yeah, as mentioned, the prosecutor issued the scope much beyond the -- the famous january 2nd phone call with brad raffensperger. they've looking at legislative special hearings that were held in december, 2020, that rudy giuliani participated in and other trump attorneys participated in, and they're looking at d.j. pack, former state lawmaker and former u.s. attorney who abruptly resigned just hours before the january 5th runoff. all that is part and parcel of this broader investigation, and we're not sure exactly what -- what role that pack plays in all this. but it's been part of the inquiries that we've been hearing about for months now. >> chuck, can you talk about the significance of a special grand jury? what they can and cannot do?

>> sure. well, this is a creature of state law. at last count, there were about 50 states, and each have different procedures. in georgia, apparently a district attorney through a regular grand jury can't compel documents or witnesses, and so in this case she needs a special grand jury. she goes to the chief judge of the county and asks that he empanel a special grand jury, and through it the district attorney can compel the production of documents and compel the attendance of witnesses. it's an investigative tool. interestingly, i come out of the federal system, i don't think that part's interesting, but the federal system interestingly has a grand jury sitting all the time which can do exactly these things, compel documents and witnesses. in georgia and in other states, a prosecutor would have to ask that a special grand jury be formed. what that's this district attorney did. it can't return indictments, but

it is an investigative tool for her to use to gather evidence. >> talk about -- you live and work in georgia every day, blayne. what else could be coming as far as next steps, and how much do you hear people talking about this? this has been one of the investigations -- we'll talk about the other potential legal troubles that former president trump faces in a second -- but this has been one of the investigations that has been overshadowing, hanging over his head now for a year. i don't know if you can still hear me on that one. >> yeah. i can hear you, absolutely. you know, this is interesting because i think it's worth talking about. one, what this means in this area and just kind of giving some context around where this is, fulton county, of course, a heavily democratic area. it's metro atlanta. we talked about it when we were talking about the counts when it came to absentee ballots. a very heavily democratic area. this is a relatively new district attorney. she's somebody who was just

elected into office after the previous d.a. had served a number of terms, more than a couple of decades here. this is somebody who's new, who's here in office. so those here in this area at least in fulton county, the heavily democratic area, you're hearing a lot of support for this effort that's being made. so again, worth reminding, though, how big of a bombshell this was with the timing and what the president said at the time. >> and greg, the "ajc" has been all over it. talk about the district attorney. what else do we know about her and the way she may be proceeding here? >> she was elected with a sweeping mandate over a longtime veteran prosecutor, and she's said she'd clear a backlog of cases and would bring a new approach to this office. and will kind of simmering behind the scenes was what role she would play in aggressively prosecuting donald trump after her election. and she made it very clear, it was february when she announced that she was launching this investigation. so it did not take long. she's got a mandate from voters to lead this office, and she's

put aside a team of about ten attorneys and investigators and other experts who are devoted to investigating this. so she's putting some serious resources behind this. >> you know, we mentioned it a second ago, chuck, this is not the only, you know, potential legal trouble that donald trump faces, even as he looks to be trying to make some kind of a play for 2024. i think we can pull up on the screen, you know, what is -- what is at hand here. and i'm sorry print's so small. that's how small we had to make it to fit it on the screen. he faces a slew of civil suits related to everything from the new york attorney general civil investigation that we've talked about, things related to the january 6 riot, a number of lawsuits involving his culpability, his potential liability there. he's got other issues related to defamation, et cetera. but the criminal cases, that's the side i want you to look at, this one, criminal investigations into former president trump's finances. that d.c. attorney general investigation on the attack on the capitol, as well. then an investigation into his

golf course. if you are an attorney, chuck, for team trump, how concerned are you about this step that we've learned about today from the -- from the d.a. given everything else going on? >> oh, i'm concerned, hallie. i would have been concerned for a long time. but by the way, that list of criminal investigations are just the ones we think we know about. in the federal system, criminal investigations through a grand jury are supposed to be done secretly. and so there could be others out there that we don't even know about. but as to your list, if i'm representing mr. trump, which seems unlikely, it would be very concerning to me because there is, as we discussed, evidence of a crime that -- raffensperger is evidence of a crime. if the district attorney in georgia now is going to be using another tool to compel his testimony and to compel documents and to compel the appearance of other witnesses, then this probably doesn't get better for mr. trump. that doesn't mean he's indicted, but if you're a defense attorney

and your client is under investigation, i imagine you toss and turn a bit at night. >> chuck, i'm going ask you stand by for us through the break. thanks to blayne alexander, greg bluestein, for being live in georgia as this is developing. thank you. after the break, we'll talk about the other big breaking news coming out of the january 6 committee in the building behind me at the capitol. the questions that investigators have for ivanka trump and how she is now responding to that request. plus, later, how ukrainian officials are pushing back against president biden today as he tries to clean up those comments about a so-called russian incursion. we're going to be live with richard engle in kiev in a second. a second

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biggest problems like crime and homelessness, just the innovation and courage to lead. join me. so this afternoon you've got ivanka trump responding to the january 6 committee. they want to talk to her, and she's not saying no, but she's also not saying yes. a statement to nbc news from a spokesperson reiterates that ivanka trump did not appear at any january 6 rally, she did not

speak at the rally. the then first daufrt said any security breaches were unacceptable and the violence must stop. the request is voluntary for now. no subpoena, at least not yet. with lawmakers say thafg learned through their investigation that ivanka trump was with her father throughout much of the time on and around the 6th. following this for us, senior political property, "politico" national correspondent and msnbc contributor, chuck rosenberg is back, as well. what else can you tell us about what the committee wants to hear? i know that we've heard at least a little from at least one member of the january 6 committee on this today. >> hallie, the committee is requesting information from ivanka trump about four specific things. i'm struck by the specificity in this letter. they brought their receipts. they cite testimony about her knowledge of these matters. the first is a conversation that then-president trump is understood to have had with then-vice president mike pence from the oval office. the committee cites sworn

testimony that ivanka trump was present in the oval office for at least one part and heard at least one part of that conversation in which trump is believed to have pushed pence to go along with his plan to steal the election. the second is about 2:24 p.m. tweet that trump made criticizing mike pence for not going along with that plan after the rioters had broken into the capitol. they want to know what discussions happened inside the white house and with trump before and after that. they also have sworn testimony saying that some in the white house believed ivanka trump was in a unique position to ask her father to call off the rioters, to try to get them to stop it. there was also a representation and this is the third thing, a representation from the white house that trump had asked the national guard to respond to that attack, but the committee can't find any evidence that he actually did that. they want ivanka trump to potentially clear that up. and finally, there were efforts to get trump after january 6 to stop talking about the election,

about his allies, at the least stop making false or fabricated claims about it. and they believe that ivanka trump might have information about that and all the other events. just to underscore, there is not a subpoena. this is not an allegation of wrongdoing, this is the committee saying she has information they believe about aspects crucial to their investigation. >> the words are voluntary, invite, not mandate, not with the force of a legal subpoena behind it. betsy, what is your sense of -- of whether you think the committee thinks she's going to play ball here? >> i think it's unlikely that she's going to voluntarily cooperate with the panel, but it's hard to say. what we know is she's part of, as you mentioned, a very small basket of people who have received exceedingly polite letters from the select committee. this basket, of course, also includes kevin mccarthy, the top republican in the house, jim jordan, scott perry, two conservative republican congressmen, and sean hannity, the fox news host.

all these people rather than receiving subpoenas have gotten letters that are quite solicitous from the committee. it's also worth noting that at least as far as publicly known none of those people have responded to that politeness by agreeing to cooperate with what the committee is doing. so at some point they're going to have to decide what do they do when asking nicely is not enough. another thing that's notable about this detailed letter, the directive to ivanka trump, is it talks about the way some trump world insiders characterize people who are in the broader space around the now-former president. sean hannity texts caylee mcniny and says no more crazy people, in the days after the attack, suggesting crazy people were a problem. one of the footnotes in this letter says that katrina pearson, who was a former trump campaign official, would refer to some people as, quote/unquote, crazies. a source familiar with the way that trump world would use that

term, crazy people and crazies, said that it was a reference often to one of the top organizers, alex jones, the conspiracy theorist, and people who bought into the qanon conspiracy theory. that cohort of folks was viewed by people close to trump as a real problem. view it as a cohort that needed to be kept away there him. obviously varying degrees of success on that front. >> chuck, when you look at the list that we just showed a second ago of the various topics that the select committee would like to talk with ivanka trump about, what does it tell you about the direction of the committee's investigation right now? >> right, well, one of the interesting things, and betsy alluded to it, is the level of detail in the letter and the number of requests, specific requests by the committee. whatever building metaphor you use from the bottom up, from the outside in, the committee is getting closer and closer to people who were close to president trump. so you know, ivanka trump is a logical witness.

there's nothing special about her. she was working for the executive branch of the united states. she was there when bad stuff happened. you know, if the four of us were a bank when it was robbed you would expect the fbi to speak to all four of us. nothing surprising about that. we may have seen different things. we may have seen the same thing and remembered it in a different way. but ivanka trump is on notice because of the level of detail in the letter to her, she knows that other people have been talking to the committee, that they've been talking to the committee about her. she knows why she's important. i agree that it's unlikely that she'll do this voluntarily, but all the committee needs to do -- it's not that hard -- is issue her a subpoena. there is nothing special about her, and there is no privilege grounds on which she can refuse to testify about things that she saw and heard regarding the events leading up to and on and after january 6th. >> betsy, we're almost out of time. it is worth noting, we know that

the national archives is in the process of turning over documents, some of them, to the january 6 select committee. ivanka trump just to put this in context perhaps the closest person to donald trump in his orbit, right. certainly one of the top two closest people to him. it is hard to see a scenario if former president trump has instructed people not to play ball with the january 6 committee in which she would short of a subpoena and even that still tough to see based on that relationship. although as you say, who knows? >> who knows? hard to say, but it's 2022, and lots of crazy things are happening every day. we can't rule it out. one thing that's worth noting is that in the last two pages of the document that the select committee released include information about federal regulations governing government communications, basically the select committee saying, hey, make sure you turn over everything to the national archives, make sure you didn't take out anything on your personal phone our your personal laptop that actually should be property of the u.s. government. >> betsy, chuck, thanks to all

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soy you know today is the start of president biden's second year in office, and with it a readjustment of some of the ways he hopes to get his priorities done. after you heard the president acknowledge that "build back better" bill, a cornerstone of his agenda in office, may have to be passed in big chunks, house speaker nancy pelosi was asked about that today. and listen to her response here. >> well, let me just say chunks is an interesting word. so what the president calls chunks, i would hope would be a major bill going forward, maybe more limited, but it is still significant. >> nbc's le'ann caldwell on

capitol hill and mark murray at the washington big board, that exists, we're super excited. you heard from speaker pelosi, chunks versus major versus limited. what is this going to look like, and can anything on that front get done before the midterms? >> hey, well, speaker pelosi didn't seem thrilled about breaking it up and using the word chunks. what she also noted in her press conference was that there are restrictions in how they can get this done. the reason they were able to pass the "build back better" plan is because they were using special senate rules that would enable to pass it on a simple majority, and they don't have a lot more opportunity to do that. they can do it one, maybe two more times, and so they can't break it up into chunks if they want to get their entire bill passed just at different times. what she did say is that it will be a bill, she thinks, that might look different, it might be smaller, but that something will pass. and now there is the time i'm

told -- this is the time i'm told my sources that democrats have finished the voting rights in the senate and are in recess, same with the house, as well. they're going to regroup and figure out how to pass this key legislative priority of the president's and democrats, and one thing that's going to be a really difficult pill for them to swallow is something that the president said yesterday, that the child tax credit, something that was expanded during the last covid relief bill and cut off this past january because it expired, he said that that might have to fall by the wayside because senator manchin does not support it. that's going to be extremely difficult because you know why it's really hard especially for those members going up for re-election to give voters money and then have it taken away and not be blamed for it. so it's going to be really difficult for democrats to figure out what can pass and what's going to pass it through. >> one democratic senator has been pushing for it and said

once it's done, it's a done deal. the idea for that reason it would be almost unthinkable to give that money and have to pull it back, but that appears to be exactly what is going to happen. i also know, listen, we've been talking to voting rights experts on this show, i've been talking to them for other stories who say the electoral count act is going to be an interesting piece of something that perhaps democrats and republicans can get done as it relates to election reforms. yes, democrats wanted something much bigger and broader. senators manchin and sinema and the 50 republicans who do not support the voting rights legislation have put the kibosh on that. you have new reporting now on this electoral count and what it could mean -- you're going to break it here on the show. >> yeah. now that voting rights is dead, democrats didn't want to talk about that at this time. but now it can get a lot more momentum because voting rights is not going to go anywhere in the senate. so democrats could feel much more freedom to actually engage in these negotiations with republicans, that encompass the electoral count act, the process of the vice president counting

the electoral college votes on that january 6th. but i'm told that there's conversations about expanding it, too, including protecting election workers from being fired or harassed or threatened. and protecting the counting of votes. i'm told that staff members of the members who are interested in this are meeting today, and then the principals, the members will meet in the next couple days to see if they can determine the scope of what this legislation could potentially look like and if there's even enough agreement for them to continue these negotiations. so we could learn a lot more by early next week, hallie. >> great reporting. live for us on the hill. thank you. mark, at our washington big board, all right. walk us through the polls, my friend. do your best steve kornacki for us. the headwinds that president biden and democrats may be facing. >> i'm going to try my best. let's look at the totality of joe biden's approval rating when he began our first poll had him at 53% approval rating. that's now declined ten points

to 43%. that erosion has come across the board from independents, african americans, latinos, women, young people. but also what strikes me is the disapproval rating increased by 15 points, going from 39% to 54%, where the president has become much more of a lightning rod. let me walk you through the issues -- and we've seen the same level of erosion. on the coronavirus, the president starting with the 69% approval rating in his handling of that. that's now down to 44%. and on the economy, he started out with a majority, 52% approving of his handling of the economy. that's now down to 38%. and then let me take you through some of the qualities on the presidential scale that we've been looking at for president biden. in his highest numbers, it comes from being knowledgeable and experienced, where 44% give the president high marks for that characteristic. but his low of the marks come on

uniting the country, on the ability to handle a crisis, having the necessary mental and physical health and being competent and effective. when we look at the calling cards for joe biden and the 2020 presidential trail, some of the big themes from his inaugural address like on unity, the issues like competency, on being able to handle a crisis, and being able to be a uniter or r all getting negative feedback from the american public. >> before you go, can i flip you to the other side of the aisle? there's something very interesting in the new poll out that i know you're going to get more into on sunday on "meet the press" which is how republicans view former president donald trumpverts us the republican party -- versus the republican party, and inversion to what i think some of the storyline of the narrative or perception has been around this. now you have more republicans who say they are supporters of the republican party, the gop more broadly, and not supporters specifically of president trump. right, when you look at the questions, you consider yourself more of a supporter of mr. trump or the gop, that has flipped from what we saw dating back to

2019, mark. >> yeah, hallie. of course, this came from one of the internal factual questions in our poll. today's big drop was about president biden, the one-year mark. we're going to have a whole lot more numbers coming on sunday and going forward looking at our poll. you're right, this is the first time where we've seen a majority, actually more than a majority say, hey, i'm a supporter of the republican party more than i am a supporter of donald trump. we're going to be digging down into those numbers and look at the intensity because as you note, that really goes against the conventional wisdom when it looks at primaries. a lot of the energy behind the former president and maybe this could actually give an opening -- but we're going to be ducking in to see exactly who those people are, are they the most committed republicans that people are going to be turning out in primaries, and what that necessarily says about 2024. >> thank you for being with us at the mini big board here in washington today. appreciate it. right now the standoff between troops at russia and ukraine's border is getting -- i don't have to tell you -- more and more urgent. president biden suggesting that vladimir putin may have russian

troops invade but saying our response depends on what they do. now you've got the "wall street journal" just out today reporting ukraine is worried that president biden may have downplayed moscow's game plan. they say putin wants to destabilize ukraine more than invade it. don't forget, russian troops have been building up along the ukrainian border for months. now you have secretary of state antony blinken greering up to meet with russia's foreign minister to try and turn down the heat, lower the temperature a little bit. still you have some who worry that may be too late. >> any, any assembled russian units move across ukrainian border, that is an invasion. let there be no doubt at all that if putin makes this choice, russia will pay a heavy price. >> our chief foreign correspondent richard engle is joining us live from kiev. we're glad to have you there live. give us a sense of the reaction from the ukrainian officials that i know you're talking to. >> reporter: so ukrainian officials were taken aback, they were annoyed, they were somewhat

frightened by president biden's comments yesterday in which he said that the international response which he also described as somewhat disjointed, that there's not a great unity among nato allies which is something nato has been trying to present, that the response would depend on the severity of russia's actions. that if it was a small military incursion, that not everyone could agree was an actual incursion, if there was some ambiguity about it, that that would elicit one kind of response, but that if there was a full-on invasion, then there would be massive sanctions. and you heard first minutes after president biden spoke yesterday, the white house issued a clarification saying that what he said wasn't exactly what he meant, that any invasion is an invasion, and that would trigger sanctions and a response, and then that clarification that you just played a moment ago. but he said it, he said it last night.

people here heard it. and it came just after the ukrainian president had spoken about the crisis, and it was particularly embarrassing because the ukrainian president was telling his people nothing's really going on, everybody will be fine, we should just stay calm, and go about your business, and we'll all get through this together. and then almost as the words are finished coming out of his mouth, you see president biden saying that he thinks invasion is going to happen, and seems to suggest at least in those comments that if it's a small invasion, the u.s. might be able to shrug it off. president zelinsky put out a tweet in english which is somewhat stinging. he said, "we want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations, just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved

ones. i say that as the president of a great power." it's signed with a little ukrainian flag. so you can hear that he was clearly annoyed by those comments, and it seems that the white house and president biden are trying to walk them back and add some clarity. >> richard engle live for us in kiev. great reporting, great to see you out there. thanks for being with us and staying up. next up, an nbc news exclusive. a big development in the cold case of a texas mom who's been missing for years and why this development is not coming from the police but a group of youtubers. a story you are not going to want to miss. plus, the ncaa's requirements for transgender athletes and why one advocate says it's going to be a nightmare for the organization. nightmare for the organizations. some patients even felt less fatigued. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your a to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms

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if you wake up thinking about the market and want to make the right moves fast... get decision tech from fidelity. [ cellphone vibrates ] you'll get proactive alerts for market events before they happen... and insights on every buy and sell decision. with zero-commission online u.s. stock and etf trades. for smarter trading decisions, get decision tech from fidelity. it's been more than four years since one texas mother disappeared. but this week, stephanie torres' family got one step closer to finding out what happened to her. torres was last seen leaving her home in december, 2017. and the investigation to try to

find her went cold pretty fast with detectives basically telling the family she might have up and left, leaving her loved ones with not much hope of finding out what happened. that is until yesterday when a group of internet sleuths, scuba divers, discovered a car under water skpp water, and police have confirmed it is her car. divers finding human remains inside leading to this heartbreaking moment the divers from adventures with purpose delivered the news to torres' family. >> so we do have confirmation that there are human remains inside of the vehicle. so -- >> tests that would confirm the identity are still pending. i want to bring in our nbc news correspondent who is there, the only one there as the car was recovered, following the story as part of nbc news' "the missing" series. it is gut wrenching to watch those moments. can talk about the past 24

hours, what they've been like since that moment happened? >> reporter: hallie, it is hard to put that into words. i mean, for the last four years the children have described to me feeling like their mom had basically just vanished, and they had no answers at all. they felt like they'd been left in the dark by the police investigation. and so to then suddenly four years later see their mother's car get lifted up out of the water, it's hard to put that into words. it was just an incredibly emotional and heartbreaking day. we were on the ground here with them from 9:00 a.m. until the sun set. and watching that entire process, seeing the children go through it, you know, there was a sense of relief in some ways to finally get answers that they had fought for for four years. but of course, you know, it's also really painful to see their mother's car and all the memories wrapped up in it in that state. take a listen to my conversation with the daughter, bianca. >> i thought i was ready for -- for all of this, i'm not.

i mean, it's something i've been waiting for for the longest -- for someone to come out and help, and we got it -- i just didn't think it was going to be this fast. >> reporter: you know, stephanie torres is one of 600,000 people who go missing in the united states every year, and often when we report on these families, what we hear particularly from families of color is that they feel like their stories haven't gotten the proper investment or attention from law enforcement departments. and so this family just expressed extreme gratitude that this group they happened to connect with, the group of youtubers, decided to give there case a second chance, come from oregon here to waco, and within an hour, hallie, they were able to find what nobody had found in four years. >> and it just feels so stunning, right, because this is quite literally a -- a car-sized clue in this case. and you talk about how some families, in particular families of color, feel like they are getting the short shrift from

police. the torres family feels that acutely now. >> reporter: absolutely. and this case is really strange in that what the detectives and the police officers who i have spoken to, multiple of them, what they repeatedly tell us is that basically there was no evidence at all in this case. they interviewed many friends, co-workers, and friends of the family, and they just had a very difficult time coming up with any idea of what her whereabouts could be. they said there certainly was nothing that pointed toward the water. what adventures with purpose told us is the way the group works is when they assume someone has disappeared with a car, the only place that a car that hasn't been seen in years could likely be, they say, is under a large body of water. and this body of water, the brazos river behind me here, is quite close to the home that stephanie lived in at the time in waco. and so this was the first place they decided to search. and again, it took about an hour for them to identify a car that

matched her car's exact description. take a listen to my conversation with the leader of adventures with purpose. >> it's very difficult to keep the flame alive in cases like this. she's been missing for four years. if this is the missing person's car. and in cases like this. she has been missing four years, if this is the missing person's car. there is a lot of turnover in a police department during that period of time. people are adults, they can up andly. we do our best to find them and make sure they are safe. but if there are no leads to follow i can't manufacture something that's not there. >> reporter: who you just heard from right there, that was the detective who is now assigned to stephanie's case although wasn't assigned at the very beginning. again, what he is saying is they had no tools to move with, they couldn't make up anything out of thin air. again, the group adventures with purpose says they are essentially filling in a gap

here and they don't really fault law enforcement. they say what has happened in departments around the country is there are not the resources, they don't have the diving teams to do this kind of work. they hope as their organization gross they are able to get the word out there, take on more cold case asks kind of act like partners to police departments like the waco department here. >> do the police departments welcome that help, antonia? and how does this group of scuba diving internet sleuths connect with the torrezs and the torrez family in the first place on this? >> i would say they welcome it in the sense that there was definitely communication immediately we jared licic's team found a car that matched the description. they called the right people in the waco police department and they were here within just a couple of minutes. but there is a separation there. of course the waco police department really insists and wants people to know they did

what they could back in 2017 to try to find stephanie. so there is a bit of sensitivity there. i think adventures with purpose is also careful to say they don't want to come in and step on the toes of police officers' important work. but they know given the situation, the number of people that go missing in the united states that there is a real sense of need there. the way that they connected with stephanie's family and other families they have served over the last couple of years is just through their organic social channels. i mean they have a wildly popular youtube channel and facebook page that hags allowed them to funds this entire process. they came here to waco to find stephanie torrez. and they did it without charging the torrez children anything. >> antonia hilton, an incredible story. we are looking forward to seeing more of it tonight on nbc nightly nows news and on news now at 5:00. big news out of the sports world, the ncaa updating its

policy for trans athletes. they are leaving it up to each sports division. each sport gets to decide the rules about its own competition. the new rules go into effect immediately and puts the ncaa in line with the group in charge of the olympics. but they have got athletes saying they are making it more complicated. athletes will now have to document their testosterone levels three times including just weeks before each competition. there are 25 anti-trans bills being considered in 15 states right now. i want to bring in joe yorcaba. talk to us how this plays out, what have you heard about some of the transathletes pushing back against these new rules. >> one told me there are more questions than answers and there is a lot of confusion which i think summarizes it. but the ncaa in punting to

national and international sports bodies is creating confusion because some of those bodies don't have clear policies for transathletes at all. transathletes are kind of feeling like they are left out in the cold. ncaa also said even though it is going to punt to national governing bodies athletes are expected to document their testosterone levels but it is unclear how it is going to be implemented, who is going to pay for it. >> where on the spectrum could this have fallen in a different way? >> they could have kept their policy in place which required transfemale athletes to undergo testosterone suppression treatment for at least a year, but ann lieberman also told me that the ncaa had been working with researchers to conduct a literature review to create a new and more evidence-based policy. so they said what happened here is that the ncaa seems to have

caved to pressure about transuniversity of pennsylvania swimmer lea thomas who broke a number of records last month. in doing so they circumstance up vented the procedure for creating a new policy which is alarming. >> has the ncaa responded to this criticism at all? >> no, they have not issued a statement other than what it put out about the new policy? we talk about the backdrop. you cover it on your beat, 18 states right now are considering at least 25 bills that ban transyouth. two thirds of lekt youth talk about how it is having an impact on their mental health, these laws restricting trans'rights. these numbers are startling for people who are advocates in these communities. >> yeah. no.

they are definitely startling. i think advocates are saying it would have been great for the ncaa to stan up and take a stand for trans and non-binary athletes. they point to the example the ncaa taking a stand in 2016 against north carolina's bathroom bill. it had an significant impact in pressuring state lawmakers there to pass a partial repeal. i think the hope was that the ncaa would take a firm stand and it would have had a ripple effect on states trying to pass transathlete bans. but it looks like they are going to punt and take a pause which is kind of what other sports governing bodies have done as well. >> great to have you on with your reporting on this. >> thanks to all of you for watching this hour of hallie jackson reports. watch us on twitter, and over on our streaming program for nbc news now for show number two at 5:00 tonight. tonight and every week night. i will see you there. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts after this break. ine: white house" wih

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hi there, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york. the january 6th select committee today offering an extraordinary glimpse into the strength of the evidence it has already collected against disgraced, twice impeached expresident, donald trump, specifically on his efforts to pressure vice president mike pence to violate his oath of office and overturn a lawful election result as well as efforts deep inside trump