welcome back to "morning joe." look at that beautiful shot of los angeles this morning. some people already headed out to work. it's also 6:00 on the west coast and 9:00 a.m. out on the east coast. we've got a lot to this fourth hour of "morning joe" including big stories out of washington. two important bills headed to the president's desk, one to keep the government open, another to fund the military. we are just days away from the final meeting of the january 6th committee where the panel will consider who to recommend to the justice department for criminal prosecution. we will set the stage for monday's vote. >> yeah. a lot to talk about. willie, also, we haven't talked about it yet, but the 49ers last night, the 49ers beating the seahawks. they're going to be heading into the playoffs. and this is a team, they played

the rams early in the year, jack and i went out and watched, and they were tied. those are two teams that have gone in completely opposite directions, the rams completely collapsing, but the niners get actually a young quarterback in there and have just -- they're on fire. they're one of the best teams in football right now. >> the quarterback story there is a great one. the niners are 10-4 now. they got their tenth win last night beating the seahawks. but you mentioned brock purdy. he was mr. irrelevant in the draft this year, meaning he was the very last pick in the entire draft. jimmy garoppolo, their star quarterback, gets injured. he's done for the year. this kid, who was really good at iowa state but clearly the scouts didn't think a ton of him as an nfl quarterback, comes in and has been lights out, has risen to the moment, has been so good. so a really fun story for that team. yeah, they look like they're on

the way to the playoffs at 10-4 right now, looking great in san francisco. >> no doubt about it. no doubt about it. go ahead, willie. just to continue our conversation about january 6th with congressional investigations reporter for "the washington post," jackalamaney. another hearing on monday, another report next week. what do we expect in the final days of the january 6th committee? >> everybody better get ready for an onslaught of new material and potential new christmas gifts with this january 6th report coming out next week. we could see it as early as monday potentially. we have heard that members are efforting to sort of finalize the process and get all the processing of the actual report done to potentially be released to reporters shortly after the hearing. but it's unclear whether or not

that's actually going to be as expeditious as the committee is hoping. but on monday itself, we're going to hear a bunch of criminal referrals that the committee is going to make to either the department of justice, the department of justice inspector general's office, really a handful of entities that could go forward and pursue further either criminal charges against people who were involved with the january 6th insurrection or efforts to overturn the 2020 election. we also have reported previously that we can expect the january 6th committee to recommend that certain lawyers who were involved with these efforts maybe be disbarred from their state bar association, prevent them from practicing law going forward, along with potential referrals that are going to mirror what we've seen written by prominent federal judges like david carter, who have said that it is likely that john eastman, a lawyer for the former

president, engaged in conspiracy to defraud the american people, and the obstruction of congress. we should also expect this committee to pick up on some of these cliffhangers that liz cheney left us with at the end of these hearings where she said there were certain people who were involved with potential witness tampering. so a lot of these looming questions that have been hanging over us since the somerset of hearings are going to be answered next week. >> jackie, certainly a lot to watch out for with the potential criminal referrals. this committee has not disappointed. nearly every meeting they've had, they've presented new evidence, surprises to captivate attention, but there's sort of been this unspoken mission if you will to short of show the case that donald trump should never be allowed near the oval office again. is that going to be what you anticipate their closing argument could be, these last couple times we hear from them after so many months of work? >> yes. and you just articulated that

perfectly. that has been liz cheney's primary mission and she's been the loudest voice on this committee. we can expect the report and the hearings to largely mirror what we've seen during these eight hearings over the summer which sort of showed the arc of the former president's efforts to overturn results of the elections and the various operations that were all simultaneously taking place in order to fulfill his wishes. but that largely serves as the roadmap for this report, and we know from members, especially from liz cheney, that she views it as the committee's really duty to provide this prosecutorial roadmap for the department of justice to pursue charges against the former president and some of the allies that were working closely with him. >> and finally, jackie, before you go, where do we stand on the

potential for the government shutdown? i understand a week -- they bought themselves a week. >> reporter: yeah. we know that the house is called to come back into session next week. this is a rinse and repeat process that we've seen pretty much every year and is likely only going to get worse under a republican majority in the house. there are a few provisions that are still under contention from republicans and democrats, but i think we can largely expect that the government will be funded by next week as the senate and the house are still working to put together a final bill and the ndaa will likely get pushed through as they support the idea of supporting the pentagon budget. >> jackie almaney, thank you very much.

overnight in ukraine, russia launched a new wave of missile strikes against four cities across the country, one of the biggest since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. ellison barber has the latest. >> reporter: this morning, russia launching a new wave of missile strikes across ukraine, clouding the sky over kyiv and forcing ukrainians underground. >> it's kind of making you scared. >> it is. >> reporter: the strikes come as ukrainian officials warn of a renewed push for the capital. the commander of the armed forces of ukraine telling "the economist," russians are preparing some 200,000 fresh troops. no doubt they'll have another go at kyiv. and russia with a new warning directed to the united states. the foreign ministry says if u.s. provides ukraine with the patriot defense system, it will be a provocative move that could entail possible consequences.

three u.s. defense officials tell nbc news secretary lloyd austin is poised to approve ukraine's request for the sophisticated air defense system as soon as this week, but the most intense fighting is still in the east. yesterday, a ukrainian heavy artillery brigade launched attacks on russian positions. as volunteers, like american brad hendrickson, tried to rescue civilians. >> nbc's ellison barber with that report. now let's bring in former supreme allied commander of nato, james stavridis, chief international analyst for nbc news, and a staff writer from "the atlantic" joins us. admiral stavridis, what do you make of that threat that if the patriot missile is provided for ukraine, that will be seen as provocative on the side of russia? >> i think we've heard the "p" word, it's going to be

provacative, many, many times at this point, going back to, oh, if finland and sweden join nato, that will be provocative, if the flagship of the black sea fleet gets sunk, that will be provocative. et cetera. i don't think anybody in the pentagon is lying awac at night. just to put it in perspective, patriot is a very good weapons system. it's been around for decades. there's nothing new or imagine nal about it, but it will provide additional firepower, much needed to the ukrainians to help them close the skies. it won't be instantaneous. it will take some time to train the ukrainians to operate it, but it will be highly helpful. but, no, i'm not worried about provocative. >> what other options do we have with russia raining down missiles night after night after

night, targeting innocent civilians? >> i've been waiting for a proper response to that escalation. the russians are using indiscriminate airpower, old missiles, new missiles, anything that they have, they're throwing at the ukrainians and their infrastructure. and we haven't really responded to that. we haven't upped our game, haven't changed our sanctions, haven't done anything in response to what's really a new level of escalation of the war. it seems to me that patriots and any other form of sophisticated anti-missile defense that we can give them is perfectly justified. >> yeah. >> you all were writing about the same thing at the same time, red lights started blinking in my mind. admiral, fascinated by both pieces.

with yours, though, fascinated about our general lack of strategy through the years toward china. we've been hearing about the pivot for 20 years. do we have a better chance of coming up with a good, coherent strategy towards a rising china? >> boy, i hope so. as i say in the piece, you know, i was a strategic planner in the pentagon for many, many tours, and we would do high-fives, joe, if we could put together a five-year plan, which often never really came to fruition. i assure you the chinese have a 20-year plan, a 50-year plan, a kind of outline of where they want to be in 100 years. we need to adopt that kind of thinking, and it's going to require not only the military piece, but i would argue at least as important is the tech piece of this, the trade and tariff piece of this, the diplomatic, how do we structure

our ally, partners, and friends to work with us, the cultural. this is a big project. now's the time to undertake it. and i think there's a growing sense fairly bipartisan that we need to do this. so i'm hopeful about a long-term strategy. >> ann, your new piece suggests that china's war with taiwan has already begun. tell us what you mean by that, and is there anything the united states and its allies can do about it? >> so, first of all, it's appropriate to bring this up in the context of ukraine because some of what china is doing in taiwan is reminiscent of what russia did in ukraine over the last decade or even two decades, namely, trying to change the taiwanese mind-set using economic pressure, putting pressure on businessmen who do business in china, and above all

using information war, trying to change the narratives, trying to convince the taiwanese that they're weak, that their democracy doesn't work, their allies will desert them and they have no future as nation, and doing that trying to create the conditions by which they would win a kinetic war if that were to break out. the taiwanese are completely aware that the chinese are doing this. they have v they talk about it and have strategies to defend against it. in the article i talk about them using grassroots groups and other kinds of organizations to push back against chinese disinformation and economic pressure in what's kind of an asymmetric war. the argument is if the chinese use kind of centralized techniques of sometimes very crude ways of pushing their narratives on taiwan, that the taiwanese shouldn't respond in exactly the same way but instead fight back using students,

ordinary people, training and so on, you know, to create a grassroots response. but the chinese are thinking, as admiral stavridis just said, long term. they are thinking how do we change the culture in taiwan so that we can eventually win a war, and they're doing that now. >> admiral, let's hear from you on what you think the united states should be doing, what our policy leaders, our military leaders should be doing to avert a chinese invasion ultimately of taiwan. >> yeah. ann is exactly right. now is the time to be examining exactly what china is doing and provide counters, kind of reverse engineer the chooelz strategy. so that means providing weapons to taiwan way ahead of the problem. look, we were late to need in ukraine. we can get ahead of that curve in taiwan. by the way, joe, some good news,

taiwan is a very rich country. it might have the 20th largest economy in the world. they've got the money to purchase these weapons systems, and there are things like smart sea mines that can be driven around and counter a chinese invasion, very sophisticated air defense systems, more offensive cyber capability, help them prepare now not only the cultural mind-set that ann writes about but also very pragmatically with the right military tools not to go to war with china -- taiwan is never going to attack china -- this is about creating deterrence in the minds of the chinese. we can get ahead of that in both ways as ann talks about and as i just mentioned. >> retired admiral james stavridis and "the atlantic"'s ann applebaum, thank you for coming on this morning. coming up on "morning joe" -- more than 20 million people are under winter weather alerts this morning as a

dangerous storm makes its way across the country. we'll bring you the latest on that. plus, one of the world's largest free-standing aquariums in the world bursts. >> now that that's happened, we'll tell the story, but now t.j. has the largest in the world. >> that's all ahead on "morning joe." what should the future deliver? (music) progress... (music)

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50 years ago this week, president lyndon baines johnson delivered what would be his final speech. president johnson, who was to ill at the time, defied his doctor's orders so he could deliver husband civil rights symposium address. here's a part of that speech. >> to be black, i believe to one who is black or brown or what not, is to be proud. [ applause ]

it is to be worthy. it is to be honorable. but to be black in a white society is not to stand on level and equal ground. while the races may stand side by side, blacks stand on history's mountain and blacks stand in history's hollow. and until we overcome unequal history, we cannot overcome unequal opportunity. >> a piece out in "time" magazine reflects on the message given by the 36th president that day and warns that progressives

have failed to learn from it. it reads in part, "on december 12th, 1972, former president lyndon johnson gave what would be his final speech, six weeks before his death from a heart attack. he argued that in order to protect and build on the progress they had made, the public must agree that it's the responsibility of the government to play an active role in leveling the economic playing field to exclusively uplift black americans and other systematically disadvantaged people. yet progressives have not yet heeded johnson's warnings, instead on the same path lbj believed to be among his biggest failure, not pursuing the pursuit of equity. many of the policies and

programs that lbj championed remain under the threat of cuts or reverse reforms including medicare and head start, food stamps, federal housing programs and affirmative action. can we fulfill america's inherent promise frp equality without commensurate economic opportunity? and if not, why aren't we doing more to deliver it?" joining us now, the author of that piece, president and ceo of the lyndon b. johnson foundation. and with us co-founder and ceo of all in together, lauren leader. >> mark, what do you believe progressives should do first? >> well, i think prioritize the issue of economic justice, joe. i mean, i think progressives got very lucky in the midterms because both to democracy and reproductive rights were on the ballot, referendums on those issues. they ceded the economy to the republicans who were talking

about inflation but progressives weren't talking about jobs, they weren't linking economic or racial equity to economic justice. and i think that was what lyndon johnson was talking about all those years ago and frankly was very humbled. he said he had failed in doing so during the course of his administration, he hadn't done enough to ensure that that gap was covered. so i think making it a priority, joe, would be a step in the right direction. >> hey, mark. i want's jonathan lemire. great piece. i was hoping you could expand on the parallel between president johnson and our current president, joe biden, also a master of the senate, there for decades, and one who has two years in a pretty enviable legislative record, maybe not great society but not that far off. talk about what he's done so far and the challenges that await him now with a divided congress the next two years.

>> there were comparisons to joe biden and fdr and lbj when he first took office because biden had these great aspirations for what he wanted to achieve in the presidency, but they were somewhat false comparisons because johnson had two-thirds majorities in the house and the senate. a lot of the legislation he put through, its time had come. it was almost inevitable that it be pushed through at some point, albeit you can't minimize lbj's enormous importance in putting them through as you suggested the master of the senate but also faith in government was at an all-time high in 1964 of 64%. it's at 18% now. given that, though, what joe biden has accomplished given the limitations has been quite remarkable. the infrastructure package, the covid relief, all the things to be pushed through last summer against all odds is a credit to

joe biden and what he's done, again, given the limitations that he has had in his presidency to this point. >> so, lauren leader, given the political dynamic of today, is there some opportunity for progressives especially to bring some of these initiatives and concepts to the finish line? and why hasn't the progress that lbj was talking about been attained by this time? >> and i think for joe biden, his commitments throughout his candidacy was he was deeply committed to racial equity and gender equality and those would be the hallmarks and the pillars of where he would focus. i think the record is a bit mixed. i was at the white house this week for the signing of the marriage equality act, which is historic and delivers on his promise of lgbtq equity. i think women are still waiting on some of the key promises, in particular right now the pregnant workers fairness act,

which is sort of sitting with schumer. we're hoping it will get into the omnibus package next week, essential, essential protections for pregnant workers who can be fired if they ask for accommodations because of their pregnancy, some really key things that we need for women, especially in this post roe world. and obviously biden is focused on things like student debt reheavy, which he couldn't do legislatively but did through executive order. the next two years for him are all about the commitments he made to black and brown communities and especially to women as well. >> mark, thousands of newally -- newly declassified files of the assassination of john f. kennedy have been released but thousands more remain secret despite a sweeping transparency law that called for them to be released five years ago.

nbc news chief washington correspondent andrea mitchell has the latest. >> reporter: this morning the biden administration is releasing more than 13,000 records tied to john f. kennedy 's assassination but withholding thousands more citing national security concerns. the documents showed lee harvey oswald was being closely tracked by both the cia and fbi. why weren't these documents released years earlier? >> in 1963, if americans had seen this stuff, they might have said why did the fbi and cia let our president be assassinated? >> reporter: one document shows that the cia intercepted a phone call oswald made to the soviet embassy in mexico city weeks before the assassination. on a wiretap arranged with the help of mexico's president. >> why wouldn't any of that information be quickly pass todd washington so the secret service could act to make sure this man oswald wasn't a threat to the president of the united states? >> reporter: on that fateful

day, the president and first lady, jacqueline kennedy, arrived in texas on a campaign swing. riding in a limo through downtown dallas, shots ringing from a third-floor window. >> president kennedy died at approximately 1:00 central standard time. >> reporter: the warren commission concluded oswald acted alone, but over the decades kennedy's assassination has spawned countless conspiracy theories, dramatizing movies like oliver stone's "jfk." >> why was kennedy killed? who benefited? who has the power to cover it up? >> reporter: john kennedy's assassination sadly will never with fully solved. that was probably since the daley harvey oswald was killed in that police station in dallas. >> so, mark, we had michael beschloss on earlier today, and he brought up the fact that the cia as well as marc caputo's reporting on it, the cia came in contact with oswald four weeks

before jfk's assassination and dealt with him regularly. the fbi had been following oswald. they knew that he was actually in the texas book depository on that fateful day, did nothing, didn't notify secret service. so the big question is before people start accusing others of starting conspiracy theories or building conspiracy theories, the big question is why won't the government release all the documents so we have a better understanding of oswald's relationship with the cia and the fbi? >> and that's the big question, joe. i don't know why they're not revealing them. i don't know what secrets are in there that the federal government believes needs to be concealed for national security reasons or whatever reasons there are. one of the hallmarks of american democracy is our transparency. that's why we have presidential libraries and national archives,

so you can access the record. it's been almost 60 years since the assassination of john f. kennedy, and we should get to the bottom of this. we should know all the facts around this. so why these are not being disclosed is the big mystery here, joe, but it is very interesting these revelations about the cia and the fbi and what they knew about lee harvey oswald, and i think we need to know why they didn't act, why those records continue to be held in secret. >> president and ceo of the lyndon b. johnson foundation, mark updegood. and lauren leader. the house passes a bill paving the way for a 51st state. we'll tell you who it could be next. plus, the same storm that did this to the great plains could drop up to a foot of snow in parts of the northeast this weekend. more about that forecast straight ahead on "morning joe."

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more than 20 million of you are under winter weather alerts this morning as a dangerous storm makes its way across the country, set to roll through the northeast and new england this weekend. nbc news correspondent kathy park has details. >> reporter: this morning, millions in the northeast waking up to a wintry mess of snow, ice, and rain. the cross-country storm already blamed for blizzard conditions in the plains, plus deadly and destructive tornadoes down south showing no signs of slowing down. new york's governor activating emergency resources and urging residents to avoid unnecessary travel. >> we just want to make sure people heed all of our warnings. >> reporter: parts of central new york could see more than a foot of snow. in syrup kjus, residents say

they're ready. >> it gets really messy. the snow is slick and everything, but you know what, we're used to it. >> reporter: blizzard conditions leaving parts of the great plains buried. nearly two feet of snow falling in duluth, minnesota, since tuesday, while tornado outbreaks swept through seven states in the south. >> everything, we lost everything, all our clothes, we lost food, we lost literally -- the only thing we have probably is the clothes we have on our backs. >> reporter: the powerful storm bringing heavy wind and rain to central florida where a tornado touched down in st. petersburg. >> it was like a train noise and then all of a sudden i heard windows keep on flapping and all of a sudden it broke. >> reporter: in louisiana, the cleanup is just beginning after punishing storms barreled through, injuring dozens and killing at least three people. >> based on the level of destruction we've seen across the state, that we were blessed to not have more loss of life and more injuries than we had.

>> nbc's kathy park reporting fors through. meanwhile, california air regulators voted unanimously to approve an ambitious plan to drastically cut reliance on fossil fuels by changing practices in the energy transportation and agriculture sectors. the plan cements out to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045, meaning the state will remove as many carbon emissions from the atmosphere as it admits. critics say it doesn't go far enough to combat climate change. the house passed a bill that would allow puerto rico to hold the first ever binding referendum on whether to become a state or gain some kind of independence. the bill would offer voters in the u.s. territory three options -- statehood, independence, or independence with free association and commit congress to accept puerto rico as the 51st state if voters on the island approved it. the bill now heads to the senate where it stands little chance of passing. a 50-foot-high aquarium in

berlin that's home to 1,500 exotic fish burst open, spiming nearly 265,000 gallons of water, debris, and fish through the lobby of a hotel and onto a major road. about 100 firefighters responded to the scene at the radison in berlin. authorities were checking for structural damage to the building as guests were evacuated. two people were taken to the hospital to treat cuts from shards of glass. the makers of the aquarium have described it as the largest cylindrical free-standing aquarium in the world. the cause of the collapse was not immediately clear. we will take a look at much more from the morning papers when "morning joe" comes back. ( ♪♪ ) (snorting) (clattering) (frustrated grunt)

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44 past the hour. each december "the new york times" magazine devotes its final issue of the year to remembering some of the lives we lost over the past 12 months. the edition usually focuses on notable artists, innovators and thinkers, but this year "the times" went into a new direction. for 2022, the magazine is honoring some of america's youngest victims of gun violence. rather than looking back at how they died, the issue is shining a light on the lives they lived. joining us now, editor in chief of "the new york times" magazine, jake silverstein. jake, first of all, explain how you all came to this decision and what was the message you were hoping to send? >> sure. i mean, it wasn't a decision we came to lightly in part because we know how much our readers enjoy that typical issue.

that begins usually when i come on this show and talk about interesting people and those we feel nostalgia for who have passed away in the last 12 months. we knew we would be depar 5ing our readers of that typical end of the-year fond lookback, so we fought hard about doing this and why we were doing it, motivated in part by the terrible events in uvalde and that was around the time we were thinking about how to end the year with this issue. and what struck us is as much coverage as those horrible school shootings tend to get and obviously they're horrific and terrify, they do represent less than 1% of the gun deaths suffered by children in the united states every year. and so we thought maybe we need to take this opportunity to spread the lens a little wider and show people the full context of that epidemic. >> such an important time now as we've just passed the ten-year

anniversary of sandy hook and that tragedy as kids had gone to school just like this friday for a lot of kids the last friday before their holiday break. it seems, though, that the pace has quickened, and i'm so glad you brought up the point that these high-profile tragedies in uvalde and parkland and sandy hook just tear our hearts out but all too often we ignore one death after another death after another death that happens -- reverend al always tells us about 2-year-olds shot in cross fire in new york. >> stray bulletses. >> stray bullets. talk about that, how it's never-ending, whether thefocusi. >> 19 children killed in uvalde, that's happened four times so

far this year in philadelphia. there's lots of place where is gun violence, as you say, is happening at a drip, drip, drip cadence in communities where it's an omnipresent fact of life. we know that in 2020 it became the leading cause of death for american children. that was again true in 2021 and it looks to be on pace again this year to be the leading cause of death. it surpassed in 2020 car accidents, which were the leading cause of death for americans under 18 since the 1960s. you know, as recently as a decade ago, car accidents were still twice as likely to kill a young person in america than gun violence, but we now are living in an era that's no longer the case. gun violence is the leading cause of death, and it's rising, rising in city, in small town, it's the median age of the kids who are being affected by this getting younger. these are all really sobering facts. >> so let's look at some of the

children you are highlighting. one was 11 years old from houston. >> yeah. i just want to say, i mean, this issue is about the lives they lived. that's what the title of the issue is. it's always been that way. we've been talking about the larger context and the statistics and data, that's important, but we wanted to focus on the lives these kids live, treat them the way we treat our typical subjects who lived much longer lives. darius was an 11-year-old boy who died this year. our write-up, portfolio focused on a trip his family took to breckenridge, colorado, a winter trip where they got to go as a family on a rare vacation where he was just delighted by the hot tub in the snow. everybody knows how exciting that can be to sit in the hot tub while snow is falling on your head. first time he had a chance to do that and it was a magical moment and we tried to capture that moment in his life. >> another one of the children is juan carlos robles corona

jr., 15 years old in philadelphia. >> philadelphia. he was a kid who was a really hard worker. he worked with his mother at a key i don't say income the fashion district in philadelphia. he was saving up to buy a vend mag sheen. he had a bank account at the age of 14. he was inspired by his mom, who is also a very hard worker, and just trying to build a successful life. he was very focused. that's what everybody said about him. >> some of the anyones on these are just devastating. you look at a 5-year-old. tell us more about him. >> all of these kids were trying to find a story that would bring them to light. it was a story of a baptism that happened the day before.

it happened this an accidental misfire. he was a rambunctious 5-year-old kid who was very connected to his family. one thing about this issue is depending on the age of the kid, obviously, you're seeing these kids in different stages of life. some of them trying to pull away from their family and establish their own independent identity is and all the ways that teenagers do that. some of them like this young man like this little boy still just deeply connected to his family, his grandparents, part of a really close knit family that was built around faith. it was the stour of his baptism that revealed that. >> look at that face and that smile. it's devastating. in the bronx, a 16-year-old named angie. tell us about her. >> like i was just saying, some of the stories, in a way this whole issue gives you a portrait of churn in america. these are story about these kids

lives. they are not about their deaths. they are about their lives. in the case of angie, she was a really kind and generous and wonderful young woman who struggled with anxiety. that was one of the things that people told us about her. that she struggled with anxiety, but she was also a girl with big ambitions and ideas about the future and a life she wanted to lead. and our story is about her sweet 16, which was a big party she initially was hesitant to have happen because she was nervous and maybe felt a little shy, but she overcame that. the profile is about her overcoming that shyness and really just leaning in to have this very over the top, glamorous sweet 16. you see some pictures of of it and what a successful night that was for her. >> this is really beautiful and really powerful. the lives they lived issue is out now. editor in chief of "the new york times" magazine, jake

silverstein, thank you very much for sharing it with us. >> thanks so much, jake. >> appreciate it. up next, an incredible story of survival. two hen are back home with their families after spending ten days lost at sea. that story is next on "morning joe." tory is next on "morning joe. thanks to chase, angie's not sweating this text since there's zero overdraft fees if she overdraws by $50 or less. and, kyle, well, he's keeping calm with another day to adjust his balance if he overdraws by more than $50. overdraft assist from chase.

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a few minutes before the top of the hour. two men and a pet dog were rescued from a sailboat without power or fuel more than 200 miles off the coast of delaware. ten days after friends and relatives had last heard from them. nbc news correspondent stephanie gosk has more on the incredible rescue. >> reporter: this morning two sailors are thankful to be alife after a miracle rescue that saved them and a pet poodle. all lost the at sea for more than a week. >> it's a miracle. it's christmas. >> the 65-year-old a lifelong sailor, inviting his 76-year-old friend joe and his poodle on a sailing trip from cape may to the florida keys. after making a stop in the outer banks of north carolina on december 3rd, without warning,

clear blue skies turned into the worst storm of their lives. >> i never heard wind so bad in my whole life. it sounded like the devil was out there. >> reporter: 40-foot waves crashed into their vessel leaving them with no power, no gas, no food, barely any water for ten days. the rescue effort started after frantic family members called authorities leading the coast forward on a search that spanned more than 20,000 square miles. on tuesday a crew member from an international cargo ship spotted the boat 200 miles off the coast of delaware. >> he came around and picked us up. it was amazing. it's like finding a need until a hay stack. >> reporter: spotting them was one miracle. actually getting them on board the massive oil tanker was another. an intense effort that took three hours. this cell phone video captured the crew using a cargo net to rescue the weary boaters. the captain calling the rescue a divine intervention.

>> god send our ship to save them. >> that's absolutely wonderful. stephanie gosk with that report. time now as we move into the weekend for final thoughts. >> my final thoughts are about the nfts, the trading cards. not mika is concerned about the potential for fraud. the photoshopping, some are worried about the republic and this man who was president of the united states trying to fleece it for $99 a pop. but mika is worried about the photoshopping and the screen grabbing. >> i don't get what you're et getting. if you take a picture, there it is. you got it for free. and wow, what a gift it is to the eyes. i say that with sarcasm. >> jonathan lemire, i saw the tweet that was for the fascinating about how there used

to be big yellow books sent around to every doorstep with assassination coordinates on there, also font as the phonebook. your final thoughts? >> let's go there with elon musk. a complaint that his realtime location was being tweeted out. someone smart note this is might be about residency. he lives in texas. he spends a lot of of time in business. you find out how often he's in texas to try to avoid paying taxes. someone sent that theory this morning. >> so many theories. >> any final thoughts? >> willie kind of took mine. ooum a little concerned. i don't understand what it is he's selling. i guess nothing. i guess we know that. >> i hope everybody has a great weekend. and as always, we thank you for your patience. >> we really do. jose diaz-balart picks up the coverage right now. good morning. 10:00 a.m. eastern,