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good morning. s it's 10:00 a.m. eastern. 7:00 a.m. pacific. i'm ryan nobles. after years of broken promises and legal battles, some of former president trump's tax returns are now public. a short time ago, the house ways and means committee release trump's tax returns from 2013 through 2020 and returns from some of his businesses. it comes more than six years after the former president made this pledge to release the returns. >> i'll release them when the audit is completed. i have had audits for 15 or 16 years. under audit, when it's complete, i'll release them. >> he never did release them. the committee obtained the returns in november after a long legal bat thal went all the way to the u.s. supreme court. the panel hoped to res lease the documents last week, but it delayed the disclosure so they could redact personal information. the former president responding
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to the release with a statement saying in part, the democrats should have never done it, the supreme court should have never approved it, and it's going to lead to horrible things for so many people. for us now to start off our coverage this hour, senior national politics reporter jonathan allen, jeff bennett, and sue craig, a "new york times" investigative reporter, who has spent more than anyone time digging into trump's taxes. thank you for being here. jonathan, let's start with you. the returns have only been out for a short period of time. what have we been able to learn so far? >> ryan, we have reporters going through all of these returns. all the hundreds of pages between the ways and means committee. one of the things that becomes clear is how muddy the picture is that the irs was having dufltty doing its mandatory
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audit because of the pass-through entities. so the ways and means committee saying there was no accounting for, no ability to go through hundreds of pass-through entities and also saying that they had difficulty figuring out a complete picture of his deductions and how reliable they were. ultimately, a lot of falling on the irs is for not having prioritized this. >> sue, so much of what we learned today, we learned the top lines when the committee released their initial report on their findings. what have you been able to take away from what's been gleaned this morning? >> we have both their findings and then "the new york times" obtained three years of what's out today. so i'm really focused on and going through we don't have the 2018 personal return. i just opened them about 45
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minutes ago and going through that one now. and then going through 2019 and '20. i'm interested in some conclusions both the report made and things that we found when we did our investigation into 2020 where we got some of what's out today, but got a lot of the underlying documents. i'm trying to sort of sometimes we just lost the trail because we didn't have 2019 and '20, but the committee last weekend in reporting identiied things that didn't look right. i'm looking for more evidence on some of of those issues. so power browsing. there's so much stuff here. >> power browsing, great words. i appreciate that. so let's talk about the politics of this. why is it important for the american people to see donald trump's tax returns? >> it's important to see the tax return of any presidential candidate to make sure that the president and husband administration is working in the best interest of the american people. not in the best interest of
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himself. so when donald trump for years had said my tax returns are under audit, there was nothing preventing him from releasing his tax returns. i did the reporting at the time. just because he said they were under audit didn't mean he couldn't make them be fully transparent and make them available to the american people. what's also interesting here is we know that donald trump was not audited for the first two years of his presidency as was mandated. when jonathan talks about the difficulties the irs is having, the irs is woefully underis staffed and underfunded. it has 80,000 staff rs, the same in 1970.ers, the same in 1970. since then there's more billionaires to take advantage of every loophole manageable. here you have donald trump in 2020 paying no taxes whatsoever. and president biden has said
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that the irs audited his tax returns both in 2020 and '21 and a spokesperson said he was aud mitted for each of the eight years he was aud uted. there's some real questions about the presidential audit system, this program that is apparently broken. >> and that's one of the things that the committee recommended. in order to get these tax returns, they needed what was called a legislative purpose and one of the things that they called for is reform to that program and providing the irs more resources to make it happen. so let's get back to the substance of the taxes. this is something you have reported on extensively. the former president claims to be this incredible businessman, but what do the tax returns reveal about his business practices? >> the tax returns reveal the office that he is wildly unsuccessful businessman. when i think about our reporting, i think back to one story in 2019 when we get a
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transcript of his 1040s for 9 years. and because there was some database of taxpayers we were able to match up his tax returns and found out it was a couple years he lost more than any other american taxpayer. ask that just to me really just puts an exclamation mark on his businesses. most of them lose money. then he has had really two big flushes of cash. he had the inheritance from his father and that wasn't just a one-time thing. that was over his life. his father was there for him at every turn. and then his second flush of cash came from the apprentice. and all the licensing deals that came from that. we have seen in between that he invests in money-losing businesses and ends up losing that matchup then we saw going into the white house in 2015 and '16, all those licensing deals were lucrative for him that he got from the apprentice, they were starting to dry up as he
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entered his presidential campaign in 2015 and '16. we haven't seen any indication those have come back. he would be announcing them publicly. that's what you see. i haven't hit 2020, but we can see from what we saw last week he's still not making any money. his businesses for the most part lose money. >> let's get back to the politics of all of this. we talked about the legislative recommendations that the committee issued. those are just to die on the vine because republicans will take control of the house in a few days. would there be some other potential political fallout? and you see every time you talked to republicans on the ways and means committee, now this opens pandora's box to ask for anyone's tax returns. will they make good on that threat? >> they might. they said they will request and release the tax returns of some democrats and their allies. they suggested that they might
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release the tax returns of the liberal supreme court justices, to which democrats have said that's all to the good. more transparency for public officials is is a good thing. democrats that i have spoken to about this, to inchud some members on the committee, this is about trump, but it's measure just trump. it's about presidential accountability, making sure that the irs works, as it is supposed to, and it's about transparency across the word. so we'll see. as you mentioned, republicans take control of the house next week and control of the committee as well. if they are focused on retribution, democrats have made the case that there are bugger issues at play than just the politics of it. >> wrap this up for us. obviously, there is some political fallout for donald trump. but i have to assume that most people have already made up their minds as it relates to donald trump's taxes. how big of an issue could this potentially be for him in his second run for president. >> it could be a nagging issue.
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there will be republicans who are running against him who may look at some of the things that are inside these returns and determine that they are good political ammunition. if there's an inability to show the charitable deductions or authentically charitable and the amounts suggested, that's something ab opponent will look into attacking trump on that. but you're right from the broader per sective. most people made up their minds about whether he's the businessman he says he is and whether or not he pays the taxes that somebody who earns the income that he has over time should pay. >> thank you all. great conversation given the fact we had such aed time, i appreciate you being with me. we're going to talk more about the situation now with a texas congressman lloyd dogge gerks. he sits on the house ways and
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means committee, which released these taxes today. appreciate you being here. what are the main things that you took away from your review of donald trump's tax returns? >> ryan, six years after i made the first motion to get them, we have six years of trump's tax returns. i think it's really outrageous. it's outroy jous with trump personally and with regard to the irs. here is the most powerful man in the world, the self-ascribed clever genius, who brags of his wealth almost daily, and he did not pay the taxes that most modest wage earner in this country would pay. nothing in one year, $750 a year in others. all of this related to the claims for big losses, big deductions, big credits, taking advantage of every loophole and because of the sorry job that trump's internal revenue service did, we don't know how many of these were legal loopholes for the rich and how many of them
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were unjust and illegal. because the irs didn't do the job of auditing. the largest of his losses is $105 billion. we did not see any investigation of that nor did the ways and means committee get those records. excellent work that "the new york times" did back in 2020 leads us to believe that that's probably related to the failure of his atlantic casinos. but year after year he's relying on losses to not pay much of anything. is and i think americans should be greatly outramged by that and the failure of the irs under trump to do its job to audit him the way they have audited other president presidents. >> you want you to respond to republican complaints about this. they are organizing that it's going to open up pandora's skbox allow future ways and means
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committee of which you'll no longer be in the majority in a couple days to access anyone's tax returns the former president himself saying today that it's going to lead to horrible things for so many people. why was this situation unique and how can you assure us that this is not going to become the norm. that every sick cycle someone's tax returns are going to be released to the public. >> these complaints come from the same who were trump's accomplices for two years this blocking all of of the motions that i and others made to get access for private examination of these records. the president of the united states is unique. he is the most powerful person in the world. we have had a procedure to get his returns and no one els. i i think that they are making excuses for their cover-ups and ii their failure to examine carefully the failures that occurred here from a wealthy person who refused to pay his
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fair share of our national security. i don't think it did lead to any other investigation of others, but i i stand ready to hear what they have to say about that. if they ared in more than political retaliation and transparency, we ought to look at it. we also need to look more closely at more than just the paper or the documents. that's all we have. no one from the ways and means committee talked with anyone who actually did the audit. so there are many unanswered questions here that are worthy of examination, but i doubt that's what these cover-up artists want to look at. >> congressman, thank you for joining us on this day. have a happy new year. straight ahead, a high stakes meeting between vladimir putin and china's xi ping. and a live report from the war front in the aftermath of a pufl powerful russian assault.
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it's not the same. what could you do to solve the problem? we could get xfinity? that's actually super adult of you to suggest. i can't wait to squad up. i love it when you talk nerdy to me. guy, guys, guys, we're still in session. and i don't know what the heck you're talking about. xfinity rewards is a program whose sole purpose is to say thank you with experiences big, small, and once in a lifetime. sometimes it's about cheering hard enough to shake the stadium. let's go! -haha, woo! sometimes it's as simple as movie night right here at home, on us. you mean the world to us. so we're bringing you closer to what you love. kinda like this- welcome to 30 rock! join xfinity rewards for free on the xfinity app today. our thanks. your rewards. vladimir putin meeting with chi noo aes president via video conference says he expects him
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to visit russia in 2023 in what would be a public show of solidarity from china amid russia's military campaign in ukraine. president xi addressing the military conflict calling it a complicated and controversial international situation. this as russian forces continue to step up attacks on ukraine's critical infrastructure. authorities in ukraine say thursday's barrage of missile strikes on major cities included 70 missiles of which 58 were shot down. overnight ukraine saying it thwarted another drone strike on kyiv. joining us now live from kyiv is matt bradley. and also joining us is former united states ambassador to ukraine william taylor. >> reporter: yesterday we heard there were 40% of households that didn't have power. we don't know what the situation is there, but over the past couple weeks, the ukrainians have gotten very good at turning
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the lights back on. and right now, we're still seeing some rolling blackouts, but the lights seem to be back on. we have been driving around the capitol today and things seem to be working more or less, but there's a lot of challenges. the russians showed this morning that they are not done with bombarding kyiv and the rest of this country. yesterday you mentioned 70 projectiles launched by the russians at targets nationwide. most of them were shot down. those 16 that you mentioned, those 16 self-exploding drones that the ukrainianss say were provided to the russians by the iranians all of those were shot down before they struck their targets. but the fact is that a drone that's been intercepted or a missile that's beener is intercepted is still dangerous. yesterday we went tout a children's playground that was struck by debris falling from the sky because one of those drones had been struck right above it. so that's still very much a
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risk. then we went to the home of an elderly man just outside of the capitol and he was telling us how his whole home was destroyed. it was an awful wreck. you're seeing that on your screen now. this elderly man was describing how he was just sleeping in the morning and suddenly the debris crashed through the ceiling. there wasn't any military sites or electricity sites around them. this was a missile that had been intercepted. so it's just going to rain down wherever it hits. and this man said he barely got out alive. it was only because his neighbors went to the house and opened the door for him and his son, but they were able tos cape completely uninjured. when you look at the wreckage of the home, it was incredible he was able to get out of there. but it's clear that this russian bombardment, there had been a reprieve most of the past two weeks it's clear they are going to continue striking as best they can. it seems as though they don't
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necessarily have the missiles to spend to keep up the pace they had been doing with their bombardments from the summer and earlier in the fall and early winter. >> matt bradley on the ground there in kyiv, thank you. let's turn to ambassador taylor. president putin and president xi meeting at a time of weakness for both. russia its flailing military campaign. what is your reaction to this meeting? ask what could be the international fallout there if president xi does visit russia? >> that's a good question as to whether or not president xi will visit russia. he expressed some real concern about what president putin is doing in ukraine we know that president xi has had his security council representative abstain. he's not supported russia, nor
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in the general assembly is. so when you see the kinds of questions that president xi has for president putin, it's not empirely clear he's going to be comfortable visiting moscow any time soon. president putin is isolated. he's isolated within moscow and on the international stage. his only connection is to a fairly skeptical president xi. so president poouten doesn't have a strategy for the war, as you pointed out. he's losing on the battlefield. his only purpose is to make ukrainians suffer. >> let's talk about that isolation. "the washington post" reporting today about how he is becoming increasingly isolated to the point where he's canceling his new year's eve meeting with the billionaires. a russian staut official says a day ride is emerging from those
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in elite who want putin to stop the military onslaught and those who believe he must escalate further. it he was to lose support, what would happen to putin and his war? >> that is one of the ways that this war could end. that's one of the ways this war could end. if president putin loses support of the military or the people around him or the population or the billionaires, that's one of -- he'll indicate that he's got another way to go. and the way to go is to pull out of ukraine, have a conversation with the ukrainians. he might be able to salvage something it he pulls his troops out. but that is a strong indication that he is isolated. he doesn't have a plan. he pulled out at several big meetings.
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but one thing he pulled out of was the annual hockey game. he usually plays hockey every year, but he didn't do it this year. he doesn't want to be seen in public. >> ambassador taylor, thank you. we appreciate it. and straight ahead, we'll go live to the busiest airport in the u.s. where southwest flights are getting back to normal after that historic meltdown. but how long could frustrated passengers have to wait to be reimbursed after being stranded after the holidays. reimbursed after being stranded after the holidays ♪ what will you do? ♪
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charmin ultra soft is so cushiony soft, you'll want more! but it's so absorbent, you can use less. enjoy the go with charmin. this morning southwest airline flights are mostly back on track after a day's long meltdown that reeked havoc on thousand of travelers post christmas journey home. thursday a return to home nol by today after canceling thousands of flights earlier in the week. customers will be reimbursed for other costs such as rental cars and hotels but the process could take several weeks. joining us now with more on this is blayne alexander. she's been on the front lines for a couple days now.
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you spoke to the transportation secretary pete buttigieg who said he's got the company under a microscope. what did you learn from that conversation? >> i learned he's frustrated with southwest. the company is critical and he was certainly critical of of how they have been handling this entire situation saying that passengers really shouldn't have to try to search around for information, that it should be easy to hear from the airline on what's happening. another thing he told us is that he plans to enforce some very massive fines. we're talking about to the tunes of tens of thousands of dollars per person, per passenger, per violation if the company does not essentially right size it or reimburse them properly. that's going to be his top priority going forward. here's what he told me. take a look. >> the airline said to me that they were going to go above and beyond what's required of him. i'm looking to make sure they actually do that. and if they don't, we are in a position to levy tens of
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thousands of dollars per and commuicating this to the public. i don't know why the ceo of southwest hasn't been on tv ten times as hutch as i have to explain what they can expect from their airline. >> one thing i asked him a couple different ways is what can he did to garn teep won't happen in the tuch. also the fact this is something they are going to be watching closely. >> you pressed him about his role in all of this. how did he respond?
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>> the department had already done some things. you saw what we did over the summer to get the airlines to come together and say this is what they were going to guarantee the passengers. they have a standard to hold them to and the stuff penalties are to follow if they don't actually follow through on that. >> wael have to say if the airlines received hundreds of millions of dollars during the pandemic to stay afloat. you certainly think there's some role in accountability. thank you for your report as always. straight ahead, is the legal foot about to drop on congressman-elect george santos. the latest move by prosecutors have the soon to be freshman lawmaker admitted to fabricating everything from his educational background to his religion. fro background to his religion deadls in us history at pulse nightclub in orlando.
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president biden closed out a jam-packed year with one more signature and he did it while on vacation. last night he tweeted this photo from st. croix signing that $1.7 trillion omnibus bill. in addition to keeping the government's lights on, the sweeping bill also includes reforms to the electoral count act designed to prevent another january 6th. biden also touted the investments in medical research, veteran health care and tens of billions in ukraine assistance. and two law enforcement sources confirmed that federal prosecutors in new york are now investigating republican-elect george santos. he acknowledged this week that he embellished claims about his background apologizing and calling it a mistake. take a listen. >> reporter: george santos, the republican from new york is now the center of a federal investigation i by the u.s. attorney's office around
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possible financial irregularities that may have benefitted his campaign. >> this campaign was never about me. >> reporter: the santos story quickly began to unravel after he won a narrow victory in a traditionally held by democrats. "the new york times" initially sdovrd he lied about his education and work history. by the day claims about his background are now being called into question. like in 2021, over the span of just six months, santos claimed that he lost his mother on 9/11 and that she had died in december, five years ago from cabser. but it's his financial his ri that's drawing interest from investigators. when he ran for office in 2020, he claimed to have a job that paid $55,000 a year. during his 2022 run, he reported a sal are you in the range of $1 to $5 million. coupled with the massive influx of income came a personal donation to his campaign. $700,000, raising questions
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about whether where the cash came from. he admitted he embellished as pekts of his bio, but his promise he's not a fraud. >> our community has been victimized and we demand accountability. >> this as calls for him to resign continue to grow. let's talk more about this now with jake sherman, the founder of punch bowl news and an msnbc political contributor. thank you for being here. break this down for us. are the republicans going to do anything about santos before he is potentially seated here in a couple days? >> you know as well as i do that's probably not. they have very little incentive to do anything here and i would say this. the ethics committee, which governs behavior by members of congress is the only committee in congress that's dead locked with as many republicans and democrats. so they are even limited in their own ability to act without a complete bipartisan consensus.
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the real challenge for republicans is what do they do when he's under investigation. there's a precedent in the house republican conference that unless you are indicted, you could serve on committees, you could do anything that a regular member of congress can do. once you're indicted, you are force to give up your committee assignments, but republicans are going to say innocent until proven guilty. that's the posture they are going to take. >> there's been so much fallout on a variety of levels to the santos scandal. one of the big things is how did everyone miss this before the election? we're not just talking about opposition researchers, but we're also talking about reporters. those of us on this side of the ledger. but we're now learning there was a story in the north shore leader that reported that santos was claiming an inexplicable rise in his net worth and nobody seemed to pay attention to this.
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why is that we all missed it? >> that's a very good question. there are hundreds and hundreds of candidates running for public office. it's not an excuse. reporters should have is seen this, local reporters, national reporters should have seen this. as you indicate, one local reporter did see it. but we should have been more vilk lant about the backgrounds of elected officials and people who are seeking to become elected officials. that all being said, these financial disclosures are incredibly vague and vague for a reason. members of congress don't want to give a lot of information away and the institution protects them. they don't have to explain about how they went from making $55,000 a year to a million a year. they don't have to prove their employment and who they are working for and what they are doing for this person. they just center to write it down. it is a felony to lie on a financial disclosure. people have been indicted and investigations have started because of that fact. but there's no good excuse for why people missed this.
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>> you're unique position to answer this. does it tell us something about candidate quality, the type of people that running for congress now that someone like george santos was able to not only get the party nomination in election cycles and won? what does this tell us about the people running for congress now? >> that's a really good point. i hadn't thought of it in those terms, but it does tell us something. number one, it tells us about the demise of local news. because in old times and previous years, a candidate like this would have been weeded out. but the reality about santos' election, he was carried to victory because of an unusually strong performance by a republican candidate for governor who did very well in long island. this district, as you indicated in your piece, was held by democrats for a long time.
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but there's always been kind of seedy people who have run for public office, people with questionable backgrounds. but i do think -- let me put it this way. i was on the phone with a colleague. neither of us have ever seen anything so egregious in our time covering congress. >> that's a great way to put it. and you have covered congress for a long time. jake, thank you. we appreciate it. happy new year. let's talk more about this with vermont representative-elect becca balan. congresswoman-elect, ift to get to your win in a second. but first, your reaction to this. do you think house republicans should take action when it comes to george santos? >> absolutely.
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as your colleague was saying a few minutes ago, this is an egregious case of somebody being a fabulous while running for office. the lies are not just limited to this particular run. they go back many years. one of the things that i have been thinking about is how we are dealing right now with an incredible distrust of government. in 1958 when we first started tracking these things, 75% of americans trusted that congress would do the right thing some or most of the time. right now, it hovers at 20%. this kind of situation does not help matters. the thing i have been thinking about is that santos seems to have an incredible lack of self-dignity and that make mess nervous serving with someone who doesn't have enough dignity in himself and what his message means for his constituents and america to step down. that's what really needs to happen is he needs to step down. >> let's talk more about you and
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your historic collection. the fist openly lgbtq person vermont has ever sent to congress. how do you feel entering this new session ask how important is it for you to present that kind of diverse geographical diversity that you could bring to the democratic caucus? >> i am feeling so hopeful and eager. i'm the first lgbtq to represent vermont. but more importantly, i think it speaks to who we are as vermonters and as americans that somebody, who is a child of an immigrant and a working class mom, who was a schoolteacher who didn't have strong political connections, could come to congress. it take misbreath away every time i think about it. a few minutes ago, a staffer
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sent me a picture of my name plate outside of my office. and it made me teary. i feel so proud and eager to serve my constituents and to be a role model for other people who want this path for themselves. >> congresswoman-elect, my day job is covering congress every day. so im sure i'll see you in a couple days. congratulations and good luck and happy new year. >> thank you so much. happy new year. coming up next, do the letters xbb mean anything to you? if not, they will in the next few minutes. the cdc's new warning about the latest covid variant and how much it's already spread across the country. ready spread across the country. power e*trade's easy-to-use tools like dynamic charting and risk-reward analysis help make trading feel effortless and its customizable scans with social sentiment help you find and unlock opportunities in the market
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azalea's cancer was in a peculiar position that was made it difficult to treat. ricardo: the doctor, she was telling us that, ok, the first thing you need to know is that we can take care of this. and then i was told that i wouldn't have to pay for anything. interviewer: thanks to your help, families never receive a bill from st. jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food. so they can focus on helping their child live. join with your debit or credit card right now, and we'll send you this st. jude t-shirt that you can proudly wear to show your support. simone: when you donate and when you contribute, you are saving lives around the world, not just that one child that you see on tv, or that one child that you may know. ricardo: i would say this is one of the best donations you could possibly make. these kids deserve a fighting chance. simone: st. jude saved her life.
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and it saved us as a family. and for that, we'll be forever grateful. interviewer: please call. go online, or scan the qr code below. become a partner in hope today. (bridget vo) with thyroid eye disease... i hid from the camera. and i wanted to hide from the world. for years, i thought my t.e.d was beyond help... ...but then i asked my doctor about tepezza. (vo) tepezza is the only medicine that treats t.e.d. at the source not just the symptoms. in a clinical study, more than 8 out of 10 patients taking tepezza had less eye bulging. tepezza is an infusion. patients taking tepezza may have infusion reactions. tell your doctor right away if you experience high blood pressure, fast heartbeat, shortness of breath or muscle pain. before getting tepezza, tell your doctor if you have diabetes, ibd, or are pregnant, or planning to become pregnant. tepezza may raise blood sugar even if you don't have diabetes. and may worsen ibd such as
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crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis. (bridget) now, i'm ready to be seen again. (vo) visit mytepezza.com to find a t.e.d. eye specialist and to see bridget's before and after photos. we have some breaking news on capitol hill. the house january 6th select committee has just released additional transcripts of witness testimony gathered in their investigation. joining us now is senior national political reporter jonathan allen. jonathan, quite a few interesting names on this list. perhaps the one that people will click on first is virginia thomas, the wife of sitting supreme court justice clarence thomas who many people have been interested in her role. what stands out to you? >> there's a cornucopia of links to click here, not only ginni
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thomas, but also rudy giuliani, one that people are going to look very closely at is tony ornado. his name repeatedly came up in conjunction with both what sort of intelligence there was about january 6th before that date and, of course, what former president trump was going on that day as the committee has gotten testimony about his efforts to push people to go to the capitol and tried to go to the capitol himself. a lot of names on this list. mitchell, a longtime republican lawyer, mark finchem, the arizona politician, a lot of these folks, including iuliani involved in the effort to have fake electors. lots of list of names on the transcripts today. we're just starting to through them. >> jonathan, you mentioned tony
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ornado. theoretically within this transcript we'll find out what the committee asked about closing the loop on the testimony of cassidy hutchinson about what happened in the presidential motorcade on capitol hill. she told that story about the president reaching over the seat of the motorcade to lunge at bobby engle and the driver. and she said tony ornado was the one who told her that. it will be interesting to see that in the transcript. >> absolutely. and that's -- you make exactly the right point. you've been covering this as closely as anyone. the -- effectively hearsay of cassidy hutchinson about what she had heard from tony ornado, that's going to be one of the things we're going to be looking at. in addition to that, that security posture before january 6th and what tony ornado knew about what the president's plans were for january 6th both ahead
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of time and realtime. >> it's not the incident itself, but the fact that the president was insistent about going to the capitol. thanks for jumping in at the last second getting this information out to us. we appreciate it. as we reach the end of the holiday season and prepare to ring in the new year, health experts are warning a new covid subvariant and causing a vise in hospitalizations. according to the cdc, the omicron subvariant known as xbb now accounts for more than half of covid cases in the northeast, up from just 7% last month. across the country, it accounts for 18% and it's growing. join me now is vin gupta. a pulmonologist and an nbc medical contributor. now we're talking about a subvariant of a subvariant of a subvariant. it makes your head spin. does it appear to be more contagious than previous strains? what should people do to protect themselves? >> ryan, good morning. thank you for framing the question like that. because i think our viewers are
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probably wondering why does this matter? and those of you, especially those that are medically higher risk, why are we talking about yet another variant. what's different about this variant, why we should be talking about it more when we're talking about covid is, this is arguably the most contagious version of the virus yet. last year this time, you'll remember, we talked a lot about omicron. it's all over the news because it was very contagious. that was the version of the virus that if you inhaled it from the air, it was going to stick to your cells and it was more stickier and infective than any variants. it turns out that xbb is the most sticky, the most contagious version of the virus yet. if you haven't been boosted, if you're over 65 or outside that four to six-month window, make sure you have a plan. if you test positive for covid,
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this is the type of virus, ryan, that the variant -- this is the type of variant that can accumulate quickly. basically the more contagious a variant is, the more of it that can accumulate in our nose and ultimately in your lungs. that's why this is risky and we should be saying that it's more contagious than frankly any other version of the variant that has existed since the beginning of the pandemic. >> let's talk about what's happening in china right now. a spike in cases there. some experts saying that the risk of a new variant. how concerned are you about the rise in cases there? >> well, i thought the biden administration did a smart policy shift by requiring testing predeparture. it allows us to have intelligence and surveillance data on potential variants of concern where we previously didn't have that. the reason the biden administration did that policy in the first place was because we were not getting that data from the china mainland. now we have that information
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void filled. that's a good thing. but we have a problem here stateside with xbb. the fact that we don't have mask mandates on planes. simple measures to contend with what we know is going to be a surge. we have a lot of problems here at home. but i thought that was a smart policy change instituted earlier this week by the biden administration. >> thank you for being here. we appreciate it. tomorrow marks a significant day in american public health. it is dr. anthony fauci's last day as the head of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases. the nation's top infectious disease expert, this is after a half a century of public service. he's been a long time. fauci turned 82 on christmas eve. he's been the director since 1984. his stepping down will mark the end of fauci's extraordinarily predominant role in the white house where he's been in the forefront of president biden and
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president trump's response to the covid-19 pandemic. fauci announced that he would leave his post back in august. and we are still following breaking news when we return at the top of the hour. six critical years of former president trump's tax returns finally made public after years of intense speculation and legal back and forth. we have a stellar panel of experts standing by to help dissect the documents page by page. stay with us. we'll be right back. y page stay with us we'll be right back. what will you do? ♪ what will you change? ♪ will you make something better? ♪ will you create something entirely new? ♪ our dell technologies advisors provide you with the tools and expertise you need to do incredible things. because we believe there's an innovator in all of us.
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(vo) after fifteen years of the share the love event, subaru and our retailers have donated over two hundred and fifty million dollars to charity. in fact, subaru is the largest corporate donor to the aspca... ...and the national park foundation. and the largest automotive donor to meals on wheels... ...and make-a-wish. get a new subaru during the share the love event and subaru and our retailers will donate three hundred dollars to charity.
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