we miss you. and i will always save the last dance for you. kate snow, nbc. >> and if you or someone you know is in crisis, you can call or text the national suicide prevention hotline at 988. or text home to 741-741. and that wraps up the hour for me. i'm jose diaz vellar. lindsey reiser picks up with more news right now. good thursday morning the i'm lindsey reiser, at msnbc headquarters in new york.

we're following a number of major stories this hour, including the deadly and vicious storms across the u.s. 50 tornadoes reported tearing through the south this week, while the north braces for another blast of brutal snow, possibly two feet in some spots. in southern louisiana, two tornadoes were spotted merging into one. three people have been killed by the storms in louisiana this week. >> my neighbor lost her life. this material stuff can be replaced. you can't replace a life. up north, snow, ice and powerful winds are whipping their way east and causing chaos on highways. some drivers reported being stuck on the roads for 30 hours. this morning, more than 40 million americans are under some kind of winter alert or warning. we're live tracking where all of the systems are moving next. and all eyes on capitol hill this morning. the senate only has until midnight tomorrow to avert a government shutdown. the house yesterday passing the bill to extend the dead license

plate deadline for one more week. we'll look at the votes it needs in the senate before time runs out. with congressional scrutiny into crypto after sam bankman-fried arrest in the bahamas. one of the most prominent anti-crypto voices out there with this powerful warning to lawmakers. >> by the time the dust settles, crypto may represent a fraud at least ten-times bigger than madoff. >> ben will join me to talk about his message for other celebrities like tom brady and larry david, who vouched for ftx before its collapse. we're going to begin with the extreme weather across the u.s. starting us off, we go to louisiana, just west of new orleans. miguel almaguer in a snowy, duluth, minnesota. and bill karins is tracking

where all of this is heading. the story first is the tornadoes. three people have died in louisiana. what kind of damage are you seeing there and what's next? >> reporter: you can see the damage behind me from one of the tornadoes. we've been reporting on this since yesterday. the warnings kept popping up all day long. we've seen the difference of the devastation in louisiana, the state most affected. behind me, a lot of the homes a year ago, were dealing from the effects of a hurricane. and some of those homes were still being rebuilt. down the street here, you can see debris of what used to be homes. right over here, this driveway, that had an r.v. camper. that r.v. camper flew over in this direction. and that's what you're seeing here. it flipped over, most of it has been destroyed and it landed on an suv that was parked right where i'm standing. both of those were moved over

and that is the kind of destruction we've seen with these tornadoes, as you mentioned. as of now, three people have died. one of those was in this neighborhood. we've been speaking to neighbors. they tell us a lot of the people here were friends. the mom who lived here was the goddaughter of the woman who died in this neighborhood. our affiliate spoke to another relative who said this to us. >> she means -- meant, still means the world to me. and if anybody knew her and knew my momma, they'd know that she would give anybody the clothes off her back. she would help whoever was in need. that was my mom. my message to my mom will be that i love you. >> reporter: that was here in louisiana. we know the storm is moving east. and one of the things i've been told by experts that made it difficult with this storm is,

because of the rain, it's difficult to spot the tornado. i spoke to a neighbor who said she was in that car when it started approaching. she said it was difficult to see anything. it was just clouds and lightning. she had a few seconds to run inside the house. it took about five minutes for it to end. it just felt like everything around her was exploding. that's the type of destruction we saw in louisiana as the storm keeps making its way east. >> only had seconds to get out of the way. miguel, let's go to you with all of that snow up north. what are the conditions right now? >> reporter: they've been getting worse as the day as has been progresses. we were told the totals were oppressive. duluth is used to extreme snowfall. but over the last 35 hours they had 20 inches of snow. this is what it looks like on the side of the road. the plows have been working here the last couple of hours.

look how big the piles are. that's all of the snow compacting up. and one of the things they're worried about here are these large ice cube type of things they've been finding across the areas. it's made the roadways dangerous. not just minnesota they're worried about. wyoming and the dakotas have some major problems on the interstates. many interstates have been shut down for hours. some truckers say they were sidelined off the road for more than 30 hours, the longest time period they've ever endured during a massive storm like this. we expect the storm to continue, in a blizzard warning in duluth, tall way until 6:00 p.m. tonight. when it stops falling this afternoon, they will be digging out for days. >> you and your crew stay safe. bill, where are the systems heading next? >> it started in california about five days ago. now, it's made its way to

florida. central florida. we have a tornado watch. this line of storms is approaching the i-4 corridor. look at the lightning strikes with this, too. and this little, red poligon box here, that is a tornado. that complex is going to be moving over i-4 and into the orlando area over the next hour, hour and a half. this will not be a tornado outbreak where we saw 50 tornadoes reported. we could have isolated tornadoes this afternoon and the rest of the week in florida. blizzard warnings started monday night for areas outside of rapid city. and we're still under blizzard warnings throughout the day today. finally later on, it looks like the conditions are getting better. the snow is calming down but the wind is whipping it all over the place. and in the east, the sleet and the freezing rain is in place over west virginia, northern

virginia, shenandoah valley. and the storm is beginning in areas, heading into the poconos, the cat kills, all of the higher elevations will get 1 to 2 inches of snow. it may start with a burst of sleet. that will quickly change over to rain. slow commute. delays at the airports of the big cities. not the ice and the snow in northernle new jersey and new england. how much ice are we going to get? scattered outages later today. and we get the wind blowing around. that could cause outages, in harrisonburg and maybe up towards state college tonight. and snowfall totals, 1 to 2 feet, the white and the green mountains. this is fantastic for the ski resorts. they are loving this into the holidays coming up. tonight and tomorrow, it will be

difficult. >> my thanks to all of you. a deadline is looming over congress to pass a bill to fund the government and avoid a shutdown by midnight tomorrow. the attention is on the senate this morning to pass the short-term budget bill that just passed the house, with nine republicans in the lower chamber joining with democrats. will they get it done in time? nbc news capitol hill reporter ryan nobles is with us. talk about the opposing sides in the gop as it relates to the spending bill. and are the votes there in the senate? >> nothing is easy in congress. this is another example. the senate could easily pass this continuing resolution to essentially give them the opportunity to talk more about a long-term spending bill into next week. right now, there's not a definitive plan to vote on this in the next 24 to 48 hours. there's enough votes but any senator can put his thumb on the scale to prevent the timing of this from wrapping up quickly,

making it go through the long-term planning that's required in the united states senate. we're waiting to see if a deal will be struck in that regard. there's some senators on the republican side asking for amendments. that's the short-term problem. government funding could run out as soon as friday. the longer-term problem is the spending bill in general. there's republicans that would prefer not to see a long-term omnibus spending plan. they would rather have the conversation moved to next year when the republicans have the control of the house of representatives and they have more power over the negotiations. they have made a top line agreement between senate republicans, house democrats and senate democrats. they are pushing towards that goal and hoping they can wrap it up next week. >> ryan, also, big news here as it relates to january 6th. just this morning, january 6th committee chairman bennie thompson providing an update on what we can expect in next week's report. what can you tell us? >> originally, we thought that the committee was going to hold a business meeting on monday,

where they would vote the report in and approve the report. and we wouldn't see the details until later in the week, possibly wednesday. thompson giving us an update that now we will see a good bulk of the report on monday. there will be a presentation by the committee and they'll vote it in. and as time goes on they will fill out the details, the appendcies and release the transcripts and interviews and documents they collected later on into the end of the year. it looks, now, that monday will be the day that we get the full breadth of the report there. the conclusions and the legislative recommendations and everything else. that's the plan right now. of course, with this committee, you know, kind of putting together this massive document has proven to be a challenge. it can be in the hundreds of pages. eight chapters with a lot of details over the year and a half investigation. right now, it's a matter of pulling it all together before it can be released to the

public. >> your team busy pouring over that report. coming up, crypto criticism. i'm going to talk with actor and activist ben mckenzie after his testimony before the senate. what he called on lawmakers to do. plus, is the clock ticking for tiktok? federal workers could soon be banned from using it on government device markets. the federal reserve raising interest rates again with more hikes expected. and we just got a new report showing u.s. retail sales fell last month by the most in nearly a year. what does that mean for your wallet? we'll explain next. fabric odor, but my clothes still smelled. until i finally found new downy rinse and refresh! unlike many other products, downy rinse & refresh doesn't cover odors or leave residues... it helps remove them. it's safe on all fabrics and gentle on skin -- just add to your fabric softener tray. downy rinse & refresh helps remove odors up to 3 times

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we're following developing news on cnbc on msnbc reports. this morning, markets are falling on wall street. the dow is down 780 points. this comes as retail sales for

the month of november fell, the most of nearly a year. a clear sign of a drop in consumer demand in one of the busiest holiday shopping months. this following the fed's decision to raise interest rates to the highest level in 15 years. joining me now the new york stock exchange is cnbc saraizen. we know the economy here is a complex tapestry. >> yes on both. on retail sales, there's no question that consumers are cutting back on purchases. but it's not all bad news. we're buying less stuff. electronics, furniture, appliances. it was a lot of the items that we bought during the pandemic. how many air fryers or ottomans do you need? it's partly natural that we're

buying less goods. and americans have been spending on services. spending at restaurants and bars actually perked up. it's kind of a tale of two american consumers right now. and it jives with what we heard from target and walmart and costco. and that is, americans are starting to cut back on big ticket, discretionary items. the other factor to point out here in this report, it also reflects that inflation, to your point, is coming down a little bit. so, we're spending less because things are less expensive. it means what the federal reserve has been doing to raise interest rates is actually starting to work. bottom line, we're watching it. the consumers, the biggest part of our economy, there's evidence that the consumer is slowing down. it's not an all-out consumer collapse or recessionary number. >> the markets, are they reacting to the retail numbers

or the fed yesterday suggesting that the hike isn't the last? and what does the fed rate hike yesterday mean in the longer term fight against inflation? >> it's not pretty today. the dow is down sharply today, almost 800 points. for the markets, all about central banks. in the last 24 hours, we noted the federal reserve. we heard from banks in europe, like the european central bank and the bank of england. and the message is pretty clear. from global central banks and there's more work to be done to fight inflation. translation for the markets, higher interest rates, that are higher than even the market was expecting them to go. and lasting longer. and while that's necessary, according to the central banks, to bring inflation down and cool inflation, it has the effect of hurting economic growth and hurting the market. tough medicine for inflation has side effects and can be painful.

and that's what you're seeing reflected in the market right now, higher odds of recession, economic slowdown, because central banks making it clear, they're far from done when it comes to this job of fighting inflation. >> all right. sara eisen. thank you so much for breaking that down. the senate just voted to ban tiktok on all government devices. could this be the beginning of a larger u.s. ban? the celebrity that fell down the crypto robert hole during the pandemic and then became one of the industry's most prominent critics. >> in my opinion, the crypto currency industry, represents the largest ponzi scheme in history. >> ben mckenzie, known for his roles on "the o.c." and "gotham," fresh from the senate. his criticism of crypto and what he wants to see done about it. charging something like a hundred bucks a window when other guys were charging four

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citing security concerns. some say the chinese government could use the platform for spying, with chris wray saying beijing could use it to take over people's phones. joining me now is ali batali. tell me what the house may get. >> this is a live ball. i was asking one of the key lawmakers that would be responsible for the house's timing on the companion bill. and they are still figuring out if it will come up. days are precious here in the house before the gavel turns over to republican control. it may move to next congress. it comes against the larger backdrop of social media companies broadly being more regulated by congress, of greater interest in what actually happens on the platforms. specific to tiktok are the national security concerns that

you outlined because of the beijing-based company that owns it. even though they say this data is not being shared with the chinese government. those national security concerns still persist. and this is not something that has neat red versus blue lines when you talk about it from a policymaker perspective. all senators consenting to it, blocking tiktok on government devices. and it could be focused on in future congresses. even if it's not done in this one. >> this pertains to government phones. is something else? >> there could be a bill. but time is short here. that bill is bipartisan in nature. we're far from knowing the whip counts on this. it's notable to see the senate willing to take this action. again, we'll see what the house ends up doing and if this is something they can do in the few days they have left of being in

session. at the same time, it speaks to the larger climate, that wants to regulate this platform, that has grown in size in the massive way in the last few years alone. ali vitale, thank you very much. lawmakers are putting scrutiny on crypto with a bipartisan senate bill, aimed at cracking down on money laundering in the industry. it comes days after the disgraced founder of ftx sam brankman-fried, was arrested in the bahamas after ftx collapse. it had the endorsement of celebrities. but another celebrity has emerged as a vocal critic of crypto and its actors. ben mckenzie testified yesterday before the senate banking committee. this is how he described how crypto investors were duped. >> they have been lied to in ways both big and small.

by a once-seemingly mighty crypto industry, whose entire existence depends on misinformation, hype and, yes, fraud. >> ben mckenzie joins me now in the studio. i find it interesting how you got into all this. you went down the rabbit hole. talk to us about that. >> sure. a friend of mine who had given me the worst financial advice of my life about ten years prior. he encouraged me to invest in what i think was a penny stock pump and dump. i put a little money into it. he put a little money into it and we promptly lost it. in 2021, he came back to me and told me to buy bitcoin. i hadn't played to crypto currency. i have a background in economics. i decided to visit econ 101. and currencies are account store of value.

crypto currency can't do many of those things for many reasons. the fact that crypto currencies weren't currencies to me were very strange. i went down the rabbit hole, i took gary gensler's course at m.i.t. on crypto and block chain. it was the pandemic. i had time on my hands and took the course. i had more and more questions and by the end of it, i finally concluded that this was at least a speculative bubble at a minimum. a massive one. and at worst, a speculative bubble built on fraud. and so, i reached out to a journalist and i'm writing a book about this. >> you mentioned some of your credits here. you make an admission on twitter. you say, i'm a former teen adoll, standing here, at the possibility of fraud. don't take financial advice from celebs, including me.

why should people listen to you now? >> they would have saved 75% of their money. i started writing articles in october of last year. the crypto market peaked in november. i don't want to brag. but we top-ticked the market, somewhat coincidentally. since then, the market has crashed. unfortunately, even the numbers that you see in crypto currency are most likely untrustworthy. once you put your real money into an investment that is being run through the bahamas, like ftx was, you're sending your money back to a different regulatory regime, it's difficult to get that money back often. ftx is perhaps the most dramatic ximpl. and ever since there's been crypto currency exchanges, crypto currency exchanges have failed and it's usually because they ran off with the money.

>> celebrities have been hocking things since there's been celebrities. why is it that this needs a megaphone from someone like yourself? >> celebrities are usually hocking products. car insurance. clothes. beauty products, whatever. these are investments. if you're not a licensed financial adviser, you should not be getting financial advice, hence the tweet you referenced there. celebrities, i don't know if they're violating the law but they shouldn't be advocating for unrelatelated, unlicensed product to the public. >> a couple celebrities, kim kardashian, floyd mayweather, they were sued for hocking crypto currency. >> our first article was about that. and a year to the day, almost exactly, kardashian had to settle with the s.e.c. >> she settled for $1 million. but the judge flew out the lawsuit. and the judge said this, though. writing there are legitimate

worries about celebrities' ability to readily persuade followers to buy snake oil with unprecedented ease and reach. the lawsuit was thrown out. she had to pay $1 million that is a drop in the bucket to her net worth here. does this need more regulation? >> yes. when you enforce our securities laws, that's a minimum. all of the crypto currencies are securities. there's 20 thousands of them. that's more than all the stocks on our major stock markets like nyse. that's a big deal. we need to enforce those laws and money laundering laws, to your point about elizabeth warren's bill. we need to make sure that the public is protected and not swindled. >> just the last reaction in 24 hours, do you think people heard you yesterday? >> yes. and one of the reasons i know is because i'm getting a lot of hate on twitter with people with

laser eyes in their profiles. what i would say is, they do this really interesting dance saying, you can't -- you shouldn't take me seriously because i'm a former teen idol. if you're a revolutionary business and technology is threatened by me, maybe it's all a lot of hot air. >> former teen idol. >> i mean, i'm not 44 with three kids. i don't know -- >> ben mckenzie, thank you for your time. appreciate it. we'll watch for your book. coming up next, gun violence in america, as the house holds a hearing right now, just a day after our country marked ten years since the sandy hook massacre. the mother of deshawn perry, one of three university of georgia football players just three weeks ago, is speaking out for the first time. >> everywhere he went, he wanted to leave a little bit of his

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at missiontoscreen.com this morning on capitol hill, house democrats are holding a hearing on strengthening gun laws. witnesses include the sister of a victim of the uvalde mass shooting and one of the survivors of the sandy hook massacre. here's what one said moments ago, about the loss of her sister, tess. >> our house has changed forever. the child and the little human who once made this family whole is no longer with us. tess will never get to experience the life we prayed she would live. she will never graduate high school. never fall in love herself. never be present at my wedding. and we'll never know how scared she was her last moments in that

classroom. >> to an nbc news exclusive. we're hearing this morning from the parents of the victim of another school shooting. the parents of university of virginia football player deshawn perry are speaking out for the first time since the shooting one month ago. nbc's kerry sanders joins me now with that interview. kerry, what message do they want to share about their son? >> reporter: it is extremely difficult for them to sit down, four weeks after what happened here. they have joined a club that they never wanted to join. more than 300 people a year are shot in the united states. more than 100 are shot and killed. now, their son, who was a bright star in the family has been shot and killed, along with two others who were shot and killed, also members of the university of virginia football team. and two other students. they were all on a bus returning from an extra credit field trip to washington, d.c. and as you'll hear, the mother's anguish is a message of don't let this continue in the united

states. deshawn perry was one of three university of virginia football players, gunned down four weeks ago. all had been on that bus, as they arrived back on campus. >> for me, it's just -- >> reporter: his mother speaking publicly for the first time with nbc news. >> i'm broken. >> reporter: she had been on the phone just moments before the shooting. >> his cell phone had gone dead. >> reporter: twitter than lit up. active shooter at uva. what was that waiting period like? >> dreadful. >> reporter: hours of waiting and then at 2:30 a.m., campus police rang their home. >> everything just stopped, for me. and just to hear the cry, this wasn't the same cry. losing a child. >> reporter: the alleged gunman a student and former uva football player. so far, police have no motive.

your son was aware of violence. >> yes. >> reporter: he wrote, with all of the shootings and police violence on minorities, you have to have a sense of light inside of you. >> that's who he was. that's who he is. everywhere he went, he wanted to leave a little bit of his light. >> reporter: one semester shy of graduation and now another family in our country in a fight they did not want. >> i had just gotten off the phone with him. i had just gotten off the phone with him. >> reporter: a tremendous amount of courage to sit there and talk about this with us. and today, both happy and her son, the perrys, said they would stand in front of as many cameras they could. to tell people not only is there a need to recognize what's

happening in our country with gun violence, but also, their hope is, there will be celebrity football players. and when we're talking about celebrity, it can be high school through the college, to the nfl. they are hoping they will pick this mantle up and make a point to everybody that gun violence and mental illness are two serious problems that need attention in our country. >> kerry, thanks for bringing that story to us. the white house is preparing for a potential covid wave this winter. the administration just rolled out a new winter response plan. it includes bringing back those free at-home rapid covid tests, a new push for vaccines and having supplies ready to roll out to hard-hit states. joining me now is nbc news white house correspondent, mike menially, and peter cotez, the developer for the senior

development at texas hospital. how is the administration able to send out the tests again after failing to get the funding from congress? >> reporter: as we know, congress is trying to race to get a new funding bill, whether there will be funding for covid. as one administration official put it, they had to make hard choices over the last few months. one of the hard choices was to pause this free testing program for the fall months because precisely ahead of what they expected as we head into the winter months, there's going to be a likely surge. and they wanted to be sufficient supply in the stockpile for this very moment. they were able to move some funding around, as well, taking money away from additional manufacturing domestically for testing supplies because they wanted to make sure they had sufficient vaccine supplies, especially the new omicron specific booster that's available to americans now. part of what we see in this new winter fall plan from the white

house, is a refreshing of things they've already been doing, trying to surge resources to the hard-hit areas. they want people to get vaccinated. as of right now, 34% in that vulnerable age group, 65 and older, have gotten that booster. it is worth putting this into context as we look at what is something of a winter surge right now. last week alone, we saw 3,000 covid-related deaths, which is obviously too high a toll. when you compare that to a year ago, it was over 11,000. and when you compare it to the same week a year before that, it was over 16,000. we are seeing death counts much lower as there are resources available to americans, as many americans are going about this holiday season, much differently, with fewer precautions in the way they were in the previous two years. >> including the important vaccines that won't always protect against illness but protect against sere illness. what are we in for and are the steps so for? >> the numbers are rising in

terms of case positivity, in terms of number of cases, hospitalizations. and those deaths, even though they're 300, 400, that's more than 100,000 deaths annually, which is two or three-times our worst flu season. this is still a significant and killer illness. we need to take it seriously. from my view, the two biggest problems and gaps right now, not nearly enough people have gotten the booster. the reason you need to do that -- you have to get boosted anyway. after about five months after your last boost, the protection against hospitalization starts to wane, as well. you might get infection but not hospitalized. if you haven't been boosted in the last five months, you have some risk of being hospitalized with covid-19. and severe covid-19 is more likely to go on to develop long covid, as well. that's point one. point two is these new scrabble

variants, have scrabble letters, the new booster that has a component in it that seems to cross-neutralize better than the older vaccines. that's two important reasons. and the big thing not happening is not enough seniors are taking advantage of the availability of paxlovid. the white house feels that few seniors that take paxlovid wind up going to be hospitalized or lose their lives. getting the word out to the internalists, family physicians, to prescribe paxlovid is a key point. >> dr. hotez, have another minute. what precautions should people be taking as they travel and go to large gatherings this holiday season? >> remember, it's not only covid-19. we have respiratory virus, way

up. we have influenza. we have num cockle disease. we have strep, and several pathogens that are coming on early. and they're all hitting at once. the reason for wearing a mask and hand washing, yes, it's to help with covid, it really works well against some of the other pathogens. that's the thing to keep mindful of, that circulating right now as we head into the winter. >> such a good reminder. thank you. next, a one-man humanitarian mission. we're going to have you meet the former u.p.s. driver from maine who is saing lives on ukraine's front lines. >> yeah. i feel on the hook. i keep looking at the need and looking at the grief and the freezing cold and emaciated animals and the medical injuries and on and on. we sit down at the kitchen table, pull up the ancestry app, drink our coffee looking

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rescuing ukrainians from life-threatening danger. joining me right now from kyiv is nbc news correspondent alison -- allison, can't wait to hear about this incredible story of an american who is risking his life to help ukrainians. what is driving him to do this? >> he will tell you it's a lot of things motivating him here. a big factor for him, he will tell you, is christian faith. but in our conversations with him, one thing that really stood out to me was a specific poem that he mentioned. he said when full-scale invasion started in february, he, like so many of us, was at home in america watching the images in horror on tv, on social media, and then he came across a poem. it is a poem by a ukrainian poet name ilya kaminsky. it's a pretty short poem only about eight stanzas lawn. it's called, we lived happily during the war. and it starts like this. and when they bombed other peoples houses, we protested, but not enough, we oppose them,

but not enough. it ends with this, in the street of money, in the city of money, in the country of money, our great country of money, we, forgive us, live happily during the war. brad is not that we. what he's doing, the risks he's taking, he takes a lot of them. he says that every one of the risks, every rescue, every delivery he makes it is his protest against russia's war. here is brad. >> the two primary jobs are delivering aid and then evacuating people out. >> he will tell you that he is just brad from the states, a guy who's had a lot of jobs. some with emergency medical training. but most recently, he was a upa's truck driver in maine. now he is driving routes that few would dare to take. under bombardment at times.

and alone. >> i'm sort of the last mile guy in a lot of different places. >> roughly speaking, do you have a sense of how many evacuations you've done since you've been here? >> dozens and dozens and dozens. surely more than 100 bucks. i am bad at counting. >> reporter: all of these videos are breads. >> when i've been over that thing. >> snapshots of humanitarian missions that feel at home could imagine. >> we've got a call about a wounded person next door to an evacuation. >> reporter: this was brad's thanksgiving. >> hello? hello? >> reporter: at nightfall, a call came from eastern bloc move. he was about to begin one of

his most daring rescues. >> hello. >> 60 nine-year-old tatiana was desperately trying to save her husband valentin who was injured in an explosion. she tried to stop the bleeding with tourniquet's and kitchen utensils. >> we have to go to a doctor now. >> reporter: brad tried to carry valentin on his back, but could not do it alone. so, he pulled him down every step to the temporary safety of his two iota land cruiser. finally, after a harrowing drive. they made it to a hospital. there was little time to spare. today tatiana is in western ukraine, the memories of that

night still hunter except for one. >> >> translator: suddenly, out of nowhere, a voice on the street. hey, hey, hey i heard yell! >> her husband, a 48 years, is alive. he says that it is only because of brad. >> translator: he is on real human, he is just an angel, i'm serious. it is impossible for a person. it is impossible for an ordinary person. i just thought that an angel came. >> reporter: brad is still in eastern ukraine. >> did you expect to be here as long as you have been? >> [laughs] i did not. i thought that i probably would have headed back by now. >> he says that he's not going anywhere. there are a lot of people who come in and go back out. >> yeah. i feel like i'm the hook. i keep looking at the need, i keep looking at the grief, i keep looking at the freezing cold, the animals, medical

injuries, and on and on and on. >> you know, brad was a little nervous about his story because he did not want to look like he thought he was extraordinary. he says that he is not particularly special. what he wanted by talking to us was to help other americans see what he has seen so that they do not forget what is happening here. lindsay, he spends most of his time in -- where most fierce battles are being fought. 70,000 people live there now, it's less than 12, 000, and they're under constant shelling. lindsay? >> like that woman said, a little angel. awesome, barbara, thank you. that is it for me this hour, andrea mitchell reports starts next.

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