good day i'm chris jansing in new york and right now on msnbc no answer yet to title 42 troubles as migrants are dumped on the vice president's doorstep a major supreme court decision on the future of immigration policy could come at any time. house and politicians are leveraging the issue. we're continuing to track

that brutal storm that killed 50 people, plus left thousands stranded across the country. why one governor is now calling her state a war zone and in ukraine, an attempted drone attack deep inside russia has vladimir putin once again saying he's ready for peace talks, but is anybody taking that offer seriously as president zelenskyy urges his countrymen to keep the faith. today the future of title 42 allowing migrants to be turned away quickly at the border because of covid-19 public health concerns remains in limbo. what is clear, that the dangser to migrants and the political fight are increasing the supreme court could grant the biden administration's request to end the trump-era border policy, or keep it in place issuing a longer stay. but with freezing temperatures not only is a humanitarian crisis growing at the southern border, the white house is now financial saying strong

criticism for governor abbott after that busload of migrants was dropped off in front of vice president harris' home including some children and people wearing only t-shirts in that brutally cold weather start with sam brock covering the story at the border for us sam? >> reporter: there has been a tremendous amount of uncertainty as regards title 42. the trump-era policy that allows for expulsion of migrants coming to the united states who are seeking asylum without authorization under fears about concern of spreading covid-19. of course, that's no longer necessarily applicable and what's argued in court a federal judge back in november said this policy should be lifted, but 19 republican attorneys general led by the state of texas argued that the administration needs to -- supreme court, papardon me, nees to issue an administrative stay putting everything on hold thousands of migrants sleeping on the streets now of el paso,

and trying to seek help in shelters as temperature dipped into the 20s and 30s the biden administration did respond and say they don't believe that title 42 should be kept in place, but need more time to implement the transition as dhs right now is still overseeing title 42 for some 23,000 agents on the southwest border trying to manage what has been utter chaos for the moment. now, what's the significance of december 27th, tomorrow? that's when the biden administration asked until at least that period of time to make this transition but everything remains murky as we currently are under this administrative stay issued by the supreme court. how it will be resolved is not clear. what is clear, looking at one of the worst crises in terms of immigration in the last half century, political and economic distress throughout the region rocking the state of affairs, and you see play out on the border right now what happens next week is anybody's guess. in miami, sam brock, nbc news.

and lloyd lawyer challenging title 42 on behalf of asylum-seeking families, josh lederman at the white house and on the politics of this, democratic strategist and former executive director of the new york state democratic party and ashley a political republican strategist good to have all of you here what we just saw and heard from sam and his description as utter chaos at the border, what's your assessment of what's happening there? >> yeah. i think that the administration has more than enough resources to handle it there's going to be necessarily some transition period, because the border had been locked down of title 42 for so long, but whatever transition is necessary, i think, is going to be short term. it's wrong to think the administration doesn't have the resources. they have the resources, and finally just need to move past title 42, and one thing i want people to understand about title 42 is, it provides people with

no asylum whatsoever people can have discussions whether we should prorevise our asylum laws but can't have title 42, no way to present their asylum no matter how much danger they're in supposed to be temporary it's long past the time to get rid of it. it's just a pretext now that we're trying to actually regulate with this policy. >> eastern fn not about covid, what are we going to do about what is clearly a crisis at the border >> i think -- it's not a crisis in the sense of a national security crisis the way some people want to portray it. i think we have resources and should surge the resources to process people i think what we see is a backlog of short term because the border has been closed so long. let's have that discussion the administration has put forward various plans. let's try and implement them one thing we can't do is keep title 42 bp we can't politicize

this, also these are real human beings playing in danger and we can't let these abstract policy arguments and obscure these are despot he'll who just want to present their claim. we have ways to do this. it can't be title 42. >> for year after year and i would argue even decade after decade, josh, we have seen the politicization of the immigration problem, what to do about the border yet here we are. democrats have been criticizing busloads of migrants left in blue states. now the white house is reacting to what we saw at the vice president residence. what are we marrying from inside 1600 pennsylvania avenue and what is the plan to deal with, what is clearly a situation at the border, where you have people coming in the resources are not there, because they're sleeping out overnight. freezing being put on buses being take ton blue states what's the plan and what's the

reaction >> the white house has been critical of these busloads coming from texas for months, chris, but cous white house officials felt this was take ton a differ level both because these migrants were essentially abandoned in weather below 20 degrees in the middle of night and because according to the white house there was no coordination with federal authorities, with local authorities who could be more prepared to accept these migrants we know here in washington, d.c. the city has declared an emergency, which has freed up some funds, and create add city-wide office to deal with this, but in this ins stan, without spokesman abdullah hasan said that did not occur saying it was a shameful and dangerous stunt that put the lives of those migrants at risk and he says the administration is ready to work with both parties on this immigration issue, but that this cannot be the subject of this kind of political gamesmanship raising the

question of what the white house can and will do once this title 42, if it is lifted by the supreme court, the white house has asked the supreme court through the justice department for at least 48 hours after they were to get rid of this policy, before that would actually take effect so they could start to try to make those transition plans. meantime, they are looking to surge resources to the border. there's billions more, 3 billion or so more that homeland security requested to help with that, but, look, we've heard lots of promises in the past about surging resources to the border, we're going to hire more people and speed up the immigration, you know, process of deciding who can stay and who cannot, and it has never seemed to really address this issue we also, hearing from republicans today, via the rnc, pointing out the numbers in november were higher than ever been for a november before, and we're expecting once we get the numbers from december, they will be even higher, chris.

>> so, does any of this matter politically, to be honest with you? because as i pointed out, again and again and again we've had periods of time where we focused on the immigration issue everyone agrees something needs to get done. nobody seems to be able to agree on what should get done. texas governor greg abbott, ain't no secret about his plans. he tweeted before christmas he'd bused more than 15,000 immigrants to sanctuary cities saying we can't handful. you folks in the blue states handle it. where does that leave us and i don't know, what does either side think they're accomplishing here >> yeah. you know, i heard on your air once described as the politics of, and policy of cruelty and it really is. i'm a child of immigrants. i teach a lot of students at the senior university of new york, many of my students are children of immigrants so this really does strike a cord with so many young people across the country, and i know that they are

thinking about this and mobilizing around this issue you know, if you look at what's happened in new york, you know, thousands and thousands of migrants have come here to port authority and the city is estimating that at least $1 billion will be needed annually to manage this influx and you even have the city council of new york, a democratic city, challenging the biden administration on this issue saying that the city needs more resources. so the concern is that, though this is a, sort of an ongoing crisis, that i do think going to lee's point earlier, that the administration has the funds to do this, and there's no reason for, you know, the elected officials in the city of new york and across the country to, who are democrats, yelling at a democratic administration saying you guys got to step up to the plate. that should not be the case. what's going to happen if this does not get addressed you will see young people mobilize around

this issue going into these next elections. >> and ashley what do you see happening here in terms of the politics of this does anything move inclusion of young children and babies taken off buss into the freezing cold give any republicans pause? what do you see this going, ashleigh >> well, seems like playing politics with human lives is the way you run for president on the republican nticket in 2024 that's the sad state of american politics right now sort of discussing issues here that have been discussed at length around resources what we can actually be doing at the border is now becoming a humanitarian issue and while republicans would love to say they're pro-life they only care about children and families when it comes to babies that are in the womb when they are outside of the womb, look at what happens they're anti-obamacare anti-welfare anti-humanitarian aid in these situations and this is a huge problem, but yet republicans,

again, continue to see this as the entry fee to the gop nticket in 2024 and having a hard stance on immigration is that platform for them to me christmas eve bussing three busloads of migrants to the vice president's house is shameful, disgusting and should be called out for what it is, but instead they're, you know, as pointed out earlier, rnc is putting out statements about the border numbers instead rather than calling this a shameful, political play that it was. so i'm quite disgusted by it there needs to be real issues to solve this problem and republicans would be first to tell you that they don't believe in covid being a thing any more. why is title 42 still around this needs to be something that is addressed and it's not republican it's not democrat. these are human lives that are at stake here. >> pash leigh, vassal, thank you all very much more for being with us today. straight ahead, holiday havoc. a deadly winter storm still

paralyzing parts of the country with freezing temperatures and record snowfall. plus, cancellation chaos airlines playing catch-up after grounding thousands of flights over the weekend buffalo's airport still closed until tomorrow up next, the rebooking nightmare plaguing thousands of tired travelers. you're watching "chris jansing reports" only on msnbc. ♪ what will you do? ♪ what will you change? ♪

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right now that monster winter storm still wreaking havoc across the country and already killed 55 people parts of new york absolutely buried in snow we've been watching plummeting temperature, huge snow drifts travel nightmares from deadly car crashes to nearly 6,000 flights canceled or delayed so far just today i'm going to bring in nbc news correspondent jesse kirsch here in new york and meteorologist angie lassman.

fighting cold is the issue here, you're outside i'm inside upstate the death toll in buffalo, new york, climbing. "buffalo news" reporting desperation growing after three days of this storm the governor, kathy hochul, has said the storm turned the city of buffalo into a war zone how are people coping? >> reporter: yeah. well, chris, they're coping with the help of first responders, including 400 members of the nabil guard deployed there talk about this being compared to a war zone. the governor calling this the most devastating storm in the history of buffalo for anyone who knows that part of western new york they will talk about the blizzard of '77 1977 that is a storm that lives on in the lure of snoms in buffalo pap community that is very familiar with bad winter weather. this storm is being compared to being worse than '77 and we now know in erie county new york where buffalo is according to officials this storm is now

deadlier than that storm was more people have died in that community because of this storm than did in that decades' old storm. an idea of the severity what they're dealing with reports of people found dead in cars, found dead in the street mayor of buffalo telling me perhaps people ventured out not knowing what was going on, disoriented, possibly medical incidents and dieing because of the dangerous cold and blizzard-like conditions they were facing. there were also signs of hope coming out of buffalo. including a remarkable story of good samaritans. one couple telling us friday afternoon they got knock on their door from strangers asking for shovels. wanted to dig out a bus that was stuck on the side of the road pap grew's nine korean tourists and their driver trying to get to niagara falls obviously that wasn't happening. the couple quickly rushed ten stranger into their home, fed them and gave them a place to sleep for two nights to make sure they stayed safe and warm

these groups now looking at each other as new family. here's what one of the americans who welcomed these koreans into their home told us last night. >> i said, come on in, everybody, because you're going to be here for a while. >> i feel very grateful that we were able to help them, because it could have been a very terrible outcome and i feel like we made ten extra family members. >> reporter: one of the korean tourist i spoke with this morning, on his honeymoon, by the way, said that he now has family in buffalo, new york, and hoping he can return the favor and treat these people very well in korea one day, if they were to visit just an unbelievable story and that couple very humble saying the real heroes in this situation of the first responders working around the clock to try to find people hoop might still be stranded days into this storm. chris? >> not your typical honeymoon

story, at least that i've heard, but it is lovely to end on the note of positivity and how great people have been through all this jesse, come in from the cold thank you for braving it for us. angie, you've been tracking the storm since last week. where are we still seeing its impact linking >> good news, chris, the storm system moved into canada well to our north. bad news is it's still producing winds out of the west-northwest. wind off the great lakes still seeing those persistent snow lake-effect snow bands. you can see some of those still over places like buffalo, which have already received over four feet of snow there were 16-foot snow drifts and dealing with blizzard conditions more than 36 hours continuously at one point and really don't need anymore of that we'll see this last into tomorrow and will continue to watch for potential of 6 to 12 more inches for folks ss in buffalo. rest of the country, west oh snow from the tennessee vaem to southern plains and as we look

into tomorrow another system working through basically it's northern tier of the country, bring a little snow to parts of wisconsin and northern michigan. maybe a couple inches, closer to lake superior. as far as those temperatures that strong storm left behind, still bitter cold air in place for much of the eastern half of the country. look at the positive news coming out of the western half of the country. we have warmer air in place. 60s in denver for today as we look to tomorrow, spreads east are and slowly and surely t thawing out and temperatures up in the 50s this weekend. good for folks in buffalo. >> can't come soon enough. thank you, appreciate it. ready to talk? vladimir putin says he's ready to negotiate, but is he serious? we'll get a live report from kyiv in a moment you're watching "chris jansing reports" only on msnbc. before we begin, i'd like to thank our sponsor, liberty mutual. they customize your car insurance,

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the unknown is not empty. it's a storm that crashes, and consumes, replacing thought with worry. but one thing can calm uncertainty. an answer. uncovered through exploration, teamwork, and innovation. an answer that leads to even more answers. mayo clinic. you know where to go. this holiday season ukrainians are showing their strength finding ways to celebrate the season with acts of defiance against russia it comes as russia is claiming it shot down a ukrainian drone

near one of their air bases. that would mark the second time that air base deep in russian territory has been targeted just this month ukrainian officials denied sending any drones into russia joining me now, nbc's matt bradley live from kyiv and u.s. army retired lieutenant twitty good to have you both here matt, yet another extraordinaire display of resilience, the pictures i saw coming out of ukraine. determined ukrainians celebrating christmas even as the war rampsrages on what's the latest in the battlefield and from cities and towns around you >> reporter: hearing from the battlefield the last couple of weeks hearing a lot about bakhmut and heard volodymyr zelenskyy mentioning that he had just been in bakhmut right before making that historic visit to washington and addressed congress actually a lot of action we're hearing about today is a little north of bakhmut in a city called crimnia, a excite of what

looks like ukrainian advances. heard rumors especially on social media, it be had fallen to ukrainian, liberated from the russians but actually heard from senior people in the ukrainian government actually that it looks as though the ukrainians are on the outskirts and haven't actually managed to take crimina but no rest in fighting throughout the chris mission holiday. you mentioned, acts of resilience in that drone attack that targeted engels air force base in russia, deep beyond the border of ukraine, that was the second time that's happened in a month. what we can expect after that, if the last time that happened is any indicator, that russia will likely retaliate. this is something that russia likes to punish ukraine for. these attacks inside russia. and you know, this is going to be an embarrassment for them and we're already seeing chatter on military bloggers, pro-russian

military people, criticizing this alongside what we've been seeing, this increase in chatter criticize the russian ministry of defense from pro-military and pro-russian nationalists inside the country. over the next couple of days we heard from president zelenskyy warning could be retaliation and that's something that this city, kyiv, the capital is bracing for, because this city has been dark a lot of the power restored ever since the last round of bombardments a couple weeks ago, but russia still seems intent as temperatures drop to try to cut off electricity here and keep this city in darkness and to keep the ukrainian civilians throughout the country miserable and hopefully soften them from what he says could be some kind of negotiations coming up, though nobody here is taking that seriously chris? >> matt, thank you so much we appreciate it what is clearly a snowy night there in kyiv. general, let's talk about those possible negotiations. really, the only person who

seems to be talking about them and then kind of contradicts himself is vladimir putin. are we at any point in this war where you see some sort of serious peace negotiations happening? >> well, chris, i don't see any serious peace negotiations at all. normally if you're going to say that you want negotiations, you're going to put your best foot forward and try and do something to where it shows good faith. good faith from president putin should be he stops the attacks on innocent civilians and the infrastructure good faith from putin should be pulls back from bakhmut and pulls back out of the south. so none of those actions -- it should be deeds not words, if you want negotiations to happen. and i don't see it at this point. >> let me ask you about ukraine's latest drone incursion. what does it tell you about their strategy and for that matter about russia's air defenses

>> says two things number one, shows just how vulnerable the russians air defense is this is 400 miles from the ukrainian border in which that drone went into, it went into one of russia's most strategic air bases, the air base houses bombers and all kinds of strategic attack aircraft from the russians so it was pretty significant and an embarrassment another embarrassment from the russian's side the second thing, it once again shows that the ukrainians are courageous enough to attack deep inside russia, and it also shows that they have the ability, to attack at will anytime that they want, and i would see them continuing on these habitats continuing through the winter months in order to keep the russians off guard. >> you mentioned continue through the winter months. how do you see this ending, and

do you see it happening anytime soon when i say "anytime soon," within months? >> yeah. unfortunately, chris, i don't see it ending anytime soon and i don't think anyone else sees it ending anytime soon. you have to remember, although the ukrainians made significant gains before the winter months, there's still a lot of fighting to be done to kick the russians out of the country the russians still hold a good bit in the southeast they also hold the, you look at the south, south, the dnipro river hold that terrain there that goes almost over to odesa and so they still control that portion of the land bridge going in crimea and also they hold crimea, and so they still hold somewhere between 18% to 20% of the country, and as we come out of the winter months you can

expect to see the ukrainians conduct a counteroffensive to try and attack and push the russians out that won't be an easy fight and it will be a long tile. >> lieutenant general steph twitty, happy holidays thank you so much for being with us. and coming up, donald trump waiting to see how the justice department reacts to the january 6 committee referrals and what additional evidence the doj might have that we haven't seen yet. you're watching "chris jansing reports" only on msnbc. (woman) oh. oh! hi there. you're jonathan, right? the 995 plan! yes, from colonial penn. your 995 plan fits my budget just right. excuse me? aren't you jonathan from tv, that 995 plan? yes, from colonial penn. i love your lifetime rate lock. that's what sold me. she thinks you're jonathan, with the 995 plan. -are you? -yes, from colonial penn.

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today the focus is squarely on the justice department, and what they might have that isn't in the january 6th committee report what does jack smith, the man named last month to head the investigation, up to right now and how much of a road map does the 845-page january 6th report

provide? we have philip rucker and paul butler here to talk about it, first, msnbc's katy tur reminder of exactly what happened in that house hearing room >> what happened on january 6, 2021 played live and unedited across all networks at the same time meaning all of us saw the same thing trump mobs beating up police officers, vandalizing the u.s. capitol, ransacking the floors of the senate, free of political spin or reimagination, but that was then, and by 2022 the events of that day had gotten fuzzier muddied up by partisanship so the january 6th committee made up of seven democrats and two prominent republicans played it their task to sharpen the country's memory and to prove who was do blame. >> you'll never take back our country with weakness. you have to show strength and you have to be strong.

>> all: usa! usa! usa! >> reporter: in nine televised hearings the january 6th committee set out to make their case. >> president trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack. >> reporter: using recorded depositions from the people who were there donald trump's own team. >> there were suggestions by mayor giuliani to declare victory and say we won it outright. >> it was far too early to be making any calls like that, what they were proposing, but i thought it was nuts. >> reporter: his own aides and advisors -- >> he said, dead people are voting indians are getting paid to vote flat out much of the information he was getting is false. >> reporter: his own cabinet members and his own family >> i played it clear i did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which i told the president was bull [ bleep ]. >> i respect attorney general

barr so i -- accepted what he said, was saying. >> reporter: all describes what happened in their own words, and making it clear that right from the beginning, donald trump was told the truth. >> i thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has, you know, lost contact with -- with -- he's become detached from reality. >> reporter: but donald trump was so adamant about staying in power the committee showed he would try to overturn the election >> the only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged remember that. >> reporter: he tried to do it through lawsuits 61 cases lost, half thrown out >> and in no instance did a court find that the charges of fraud were real. >> reporter: he tried to do it through pressure on the states leaning on officials. >> so, look, all i want to do is this i just want to find, ah, 11,780

votes. >> there were not votes to find. that was an accurate count that had been certified. >> you told president trump you would not do anything illegal for him. >> i did, both times. >> reporter: and spreading lies about individual workers. >> there is nowhere i feel safe. nowhere. do you know how it feels to have the president of the united states to target you >> reporter: when neither the states nor the courts would bend he tried to do it through his doj. >> he responded very quickly and said, what i'm just asking you to do just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the republican congressmen. >> reporter: demanding the election be declare add fraud pushing to seize voting machines and trying to install a loyal ag. >> did every assistant attorney general that you spoke to as you said agree to resign >> all without hesitation said

they would resign. >> reporter: with time running out trump tried his vice president, demanding he refuse to certify the election on january 6th. >> mike pence, i hope you're going to stand up for the good of our constitution and for the good of our country, and if you're not, i'm going to be very disappointed in you. i will tell you right now. >> reporter: and when vice president pence officially refused, the committee argued trump tried to do it by unleashing his masses. >> we're going to walk down and i'll be there with you. >> reporter: in the a protest the panel said trump knew would get out of hand. >> the confidential informant from the proud boys told the fbi the proud boys would have killed mike pence if given the chance >> i'm here to report that pence caved. i'm telling you, if pence caved we're going to drag mother [ bleep ]'s through the streets! >> heard it here first mike pence has betrayed the united states of america

>> boo >> all: hang mike pence! hang mike pence! >> i overheard the president say something to the affect i don't kir they have weapons's they're not here to hurt me. takingeffing -- i can march th capitol from here. >> reporter: and even planned to join. >> reached up to grab the steering wheel mr. engle grabbed his arm, said, sir, you freed to take your hand off the steering wheel we're going back to the west wing we're not going to the capitol. mr. trump then used his free hand to lunge towards bobby engel. >> reporter: back at the white house, the committee shows how donald trump stayed silent unmoved by images of bloody police the gallos erected on the lawn the pleas from republican lawmakers to say something, and do something. >> mr. president, you have got

to stop this. >> heard my phone ringing turned the shower off it was leader mccarthy who i had a good relationship with told me it was getting really ugly over at the capitol and said, please anything you can do to help i would appreciate it. >> already talked to the president. i called him i think we need to make a statement. make sure that we can calm individuals down >> reporter: unmoved for 187 minutes, until 4:17 p.m. >> i know your pain. i know you're hurt we had an election that was stolen from us i know how you feel, but go home and go home in peace. >> reporter: in the end, vice chair liz cheney said president trump knew the patriotism of his supporters and knew the loyalty he inspired and he preyed on that loyalty, turning their love of country into a weapon against our capitol and our constitution. >> what happens when the

president disregards the court's rulings as illegitimate? when he disregards the rule of law? that, my fellow citizens, breaks our republic. >> during the committee's final meeting the unanimously voting to make four criminal rereferra to the doj inciting insurrection, obstructing an official government proceeding making false statements and defrauding the united states. the investigation is now in the hands of special counsel jack smith. >> katie y tur, thank you for t report. and editor of the "washington post" and msnbc analyst paul butler, professor at georgetown school of law. great to see you paul, knowing what we now know laying it out clearly, right, in this report what do you expect jack smith and doj have already found out, want to know? as they move towards a decision on whether or not to charge?

>> so they've been actively using the federal grand jury so the special counsel probably knows much of what's in the final report from the house, but what prosecutors are doing right now is evaluating whether this very incriminating report can actually be translated to an indictment and prosecution of the former president one example of the difficulty is thinking about the incitement to insurrection the most difficult to prove of the crimes the committee recommended trump be prosecuted for. the report includes some really interesting potential evidence for example, in the middle of the insurrection whun of trump's aides texted, i'm sure loving this testified before january 6th trump refused to request that his supporters act peacefully. that could be eevidence of incitement, but it's also hearsay. so a judge might not admit that in a criminal trial.

>> so, phil in your paper, a great story on the ramping up towards the 2024 presidential, and as i'm listening to what we're hearing from paul and the uncertainty we all have about where this is going, how much do you think what the doj does decide will influence who returns, who doesn't, how they run, or is there a general sense already that trump returning is not a reason not to get into the race >> well, chris, i think certainly other potential candidates view this race as open even though trump is already declared a candidate and comes in as a favorite, he's not exactly a heavy favorite and has a pitch, as katy's package just showed, and so wa we're seeing is people like governor ron desantis, vice president pence, former secretary of state mike pompeo and others are beginning the spade work to prepare for a presidential run you know, they know they don't need to jump into the race

tomorrow, but they're going to begin in these early months of 2023 to position themselves in those early voting states to gain sort of a foundation so that they can challenge trump, and they know that trump could be even further weakened, depending where this department of justice investigation goes, both on january 6 but also the investigation into the classified documents at mar-a-lago. >> paul, we shouldn't forget another probe. a special grand jury report in fulton county, georgia, whether trump or his allies broke georgia law trying to allegedly overturn the state's 2020 results. indictments, of course, up to the district attorney, fanny willis, but the grand jury report due within weeks could recommend crim inal prosecution. what are you waiting for >> waiting for that prosecution. chris i think the federal prosecution and georgia prosecution are proceeding

independently. i doubt that there's a lot of consultation between the two this is fanny williams' decision in georgia and jack smith's decision, it has to be approved by the attorney general, jack smith's decision at the federal level. either way, a prosecution of a former president will be historic it would be unprecedented. it would be a must-win for either the justice department or for georgia, atlanta, d.a., but no guarantee either would actually win chris, i think what they both understand is that declining to prosecute would also be symbolic it would say to some people that trump had enough money and enough power to get away with criminal conduct, and that doj or states failed to hold the president accountable. stakes are high and whatever dovrp and fanny women is does will be one of the most controversial decisions in criminal legal history >> without a doubt paul butler, stakes couldn't be

high phil rucker loving the festive backdrop love that. shopping season. how much americans spent on holiday gifts and what it means for business' bottom line and the economy overall. that's next when "chris jansing reports" continues only on msnbc. ♪ what will you do? ♪ what will you change? ♪ will you make something better?

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the new subway series menu. the greatest sandwich roster ever assembled. tony, the new outlaw's got double pepper jack and juicy steak. let's get some more analysis on that, chuck. mmm. pepper jack. tender steak.

very insightful, guys. the new subway series. what's your pick? now, that christmas is over, we are expecting to see a rush of returns for those who didn't get exactly what they wanted analysts predict $171 billion worth of products will be returned this holiday were season, all as we try to make sense how holiday spending and post christmas sales are impacting the economy. i want to bring in data reporter brian cheung at the garden state plaza in new jersey where there seems to be a lot of folks around so what are the holiday spending numbers that you are watching for going to tell us about where the economy is and where it's going, brian >> reporter: yeah, chris we got data from mastercard which checks a lot of activity on the plastic they say retail sales in the two months leading up to christmas

up 7.6% for von line sales up 10.6%. if you adjust for inflation, the numbers don't look as good still, a lot of people behind me at the west tpraoeld garden state plaza out and about mostly doing returns. the last i want to highlight is the one you just mentioned expected returns based off estimates from the national retail federation that $171 billion in goods will be returned this holiday season we spoke with people here over the course of the morning. they waited in line to return or exchange things in an environment where prices are high maybe they prefer to have credit to be a little bit more useful to them. very much the unofficial holiday for returns if you will, chris >> is there advice, brian, are there best ways for consumers to return gifts >> yeah. in this type of shopping environment, it's kind of tempting just to sit at home and

put everything into an envelope and ship it back you have to remember that a lot of retailers actually employed a bit more stringent return p policies 60% have changed their fees. if there is a brick and mortar star, maybe just come to the mall a lot of people are doing just that, returning an online order. as is always the case, read the fine print on the receipt, make sure you know what day you purchased the item that will be the day eligible to return the item. a lot of them allowing returns through the end of january >> no returns for me this year, happy to report. brian cheung, thank you so much. >> reporter: lucky >> no kidding. coming up, holiday hazards a massive winter storm crippling parts of the country residents facing brutal temps without electricity.

travelers driving in deadly snowy conditions we have the latest on recovery efforts coming up. plus, triple threat. we have seen it before major covid spikes after holiday gatherings and this year we add in concerns over flu and rsv what will the post holiday season bring you're watching "chris jansing reports" only on msnbc (classical piano music) - [reporter] one of the deadliest mass shootings in us history at pulse nightclub in orlando. - [barbara] walking into the building for the first time after the shooting, it was crippling, but it had to be preserved. if you are an ally of this community, speak out. there are more of us together than apart. it is the power of love in its rawest form. (classical piano music) research shows people remember commercials with nostalgia. so to help you remember that liberty mutual customizes your home insurance, here's one that'll really take you back.

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