right now on "andrea mitchell reports," travel nightmare. thousands of airline passengers stuck on tarmacs across the country this morning during a national ground stop caused by the outage of a key system. transportation secretary pete buttigieg joins me. house republicans are rolling out a new conservative agenda, including on abortion, while launching investigations into joe biden and his family. i will talk to a key republican lawmaker who calls her colleagues' opposed abortion restrictions tone deaf. brian fitzpatrick on how moderate republicans are reacting to the secret deals cut by speaker mccarthy with the freedom caucus. questions continuing to swirl around the biden classified documents controversy. the president says he does not know the contents of the files found in his former d.c. office.

>> people know i take classified documents -- i was briefed about this discovery and surprised to learn that there were any government records taken there to that office. good day. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. we will have breaking news on george santos, the disgraced long island republican. first news impacting travelers across the country. flights are resuming after an faa ordered national ground stop just before 6:00 a.m. eastern time caused by an outage to a critical computer system for airline pilots. tom costello has been on top of this story all morning. what do we know? what do the runways look like right now? >> 7,000 delays nationwide, 1,100 canceled. this computer system called the

notum went down. it gives pilots information about the airports they are coming from, where they're going and potential alternative airports. it's included in this. the computer system went down in the early morning hours. as the delays mounted, the faa came in and said, we have to stop all commercial departures. that was about 7:00 a.m., that went until 9:00 a.m. when they lifted the restriction because the computer system was back up and running. we know the law enforcement sources say the fbi is suggesting at the moment no hint of a cyberattack. we don't know what brought the system down. importantly, this is coming ten days after we had that computer outage affecting air traffic in florida on january 2nd in which people were stranded for hours on the tarmac.

now the investigation into what happened as the delays continue and will likely unfold over the next 24 hours. >> tom costello, thanks for everything you have done all morning. joining me now is transportation secretary pete buttigieg. thanks for being with us. first of all, any hint of what the root cause was of this outage? >> now that the system is up and running, our primary focus is to determine that root cause. i have directed faa to figure out exactly how this happened, the time line, piece by piece about what was known overnight going into last night and then coming out of it. most importantly, as you might imagine, a critical system like this has a lot of redundancy built into it with backups. we need to understand why with all of that redundancy it still rose to the level that there had to be a ground stop lasting about an hour and a half and the delays that we saw. importantly, this is not the air

traffic control system that lets aircraft know where other aircraft are and prevents direct collisions in that way. that system is not the one we're talking about. but we still consider this to be a vital safety system, because this is the one that moves messages that pilots need on anything from a taxiway or runway being out to an issue with a navigation beacon to maybe an upcoming military or space operation in a certain sector. we were not comfortable with flights taking off until that was working properly, leading to the ground stop lifted around 9:00 a.m. today. >> we have seen domestic attacks on other aspects of our critical infrastructure, power substations. are we positive this was not the result of any nefarious activity either domestic or foreign? >> we're not prepared to rule that out. there hasn't been any indication of that. the fbi has spoken to this and of course faa is looking at that

as well as they work to see exactly what was going on inside the files that were in the system leading to this irregularsy. again, what i would say is, there's no direct indication of any kind of external or nefarious actactivity. we're not prepared to rule that out. >> how old is the software? was it being updated? how long will it take to get it back up and running? >> it's been used for many years. it's based on a country. every country has a version for a global standard to get this safety message traffic through our aviation system. it's periodically and continuously upgraded and updated. one of the questions we need to look at and within thing i'm asking from faa is, what's the state-of-the-art in this form of message traffic? how is it possible for there to be this level of disruption? it's an especially timely moment for us to be taking this up.

first of all, of course, to understand the immediate aftermath of the lessons that are learned from that. but also because we're going into a period where congress will be looking at a periodic reauthorization of faa, legislation that typically sets what the next five years are going to be like for the agency. it's the right time for us to be stepping back and saying, in terms of resources, funding, staff, authorities, systems, is everything set up for what we know is going to be a period of continued change and continued rising demand and pressure as our national aviation system evolves? >> as you know very well, better than anyone, the airlines, travelers, everyone has been so disrupted by the holiday disruptions, also by what happened in florida separately. is there any connection to that? what do you say to travelers and to the industry about the nightmarish delays? here is another problem that's cropped up.

>> the connection is that for all of these different reasons, air travelers have been through a lot from the effects of the winter storm to the airline issues we saw over the summer. there have been a lot of improvements that we have been able to secure on aviation consumer protection and customer rights. we see an issue like today which represents yet another disruption that is frustrating for travelers. the most important thing i want passengers to know is our number one priority is safety. it's one of the reasons why today, for example, while this issue was being worked out on the system side, there was this ground stop of about an hour and a half nationwide to make absolutely sure out of an abundance of caution that no aircraft could take off without the necessary safety information. we're always going to err on the side of safety. having said that, we also have to make sure we understand everything there is to understand about this situation so that we can assure the disruption like that doesn't happen again, because on a system that has to operate

24/7 -- that's how the national aviation system works -- even if a primary system is down for some reason, there needs to be the kind of redundancy that you can flexibly deal with that at all times and keep things running. >> one quick question comes to mind is, is there a critical vulnerability here where the entire country had to be stopped because of something that probably involved one sector or another? >> part of what you are seeing here is an abundance of caution and making absolutely certain that operations were safe. this is one of the reasons why we need to get these answers and have this review of exactly what happened. we need to understand whether this reflects a systemic issue and what would be required so there's no single point of failure. there needs to be layers of protection here. this is an incredibly complex system. glitches or complications happen all the time.

but we can't allow them to ever lead to this level of disruption. we won't ever allow them to lead to a safety problem. >> should the government be reimbursing people who missed flights and now have to take hotels and other expenses as they are required to do by you when it's the airline's fault? >> we're not a for profit company selling tickets the way an airline is. our responsibility is to make sure everybody is safe. we are always going to err on the side of safety. also want to make sure that there is efficient, fluid, convenient movement through the system. we have been able to get a lot of wins in terms of how airlines treat passengers. we're holding airlines accountable to their responsibilities when there's an issue on the government side of the house, when there's an issue with the faa, we will own it, understand it and make it clear what's needed in order to fix it and go after that plan. >> secretary buttigieg, thank you so much. we are grateful for you on a busy day to give us all of the latest. thank you.

on capitol hill, the house republican majority continuing their messaging strategy, proposing right wing legislation they know will be killed in the senate without getting to the president's desk. it's on abortion and immigration. garrett haake joining us. take us through what the house republicans have put in place, what votes you are expecting. >> reporter: andrea, the key votes today are those measures on abortion. these are messaging bills. as is every legislative attempt you see come from this house that lacks bipartisan support. on the abortion piece, you will see a bill today expressing the sense of the house condemning attacks on crisis pregnancy centers and anti-abortion alternative operations, if you will. the other part of this is a bill that's designed to protect the life of late-term abortion surviving infants. its opponents argue this is a redundant bill. any medical necessity would require protecting the life of

any unborn infant that would survive. you are talking about a very, very, very small percentage. these bills are part of a republican effort to kind of get on the record with these conservative priorities. we are not seeing any movement towards national abortion ban that's been discussed by a number of republicans. it doesn't appear to be moving towards the floor any time soon. >> garrett haake, thank you so much. joining us now is south carolina republican congresswoman nancy mace. thanks for being with us. i want to start with the abortion legislation getting a vote today. again, as garrett alluded to, this is a very, very small percentage of abortions. these are wanted pregnancies where the fetus died or the life of the mother is in danger because the fetus could not survive outside the mother's body. how do you characterize your colleagues' proposal? >> on this particular issue, i represent a swing district.

what i saw in the general election this year after overturning roe v. wade, the number two issue after inflation -- the number one issue after inflation, the second issue in the district that i have in south carolina was abortion. the majority of people, men and women, across my district -- and i would gather probably across south carolina -- didn't agree with overturning roe v. wade. when i talk to people, this is an issue that is top of mind for folks. we're talking about messaging bills this week. i'm pro life but i have exceptions. this is an issue that we should -- that i want to see us take seriously. if we're serious about balancing the rights of women and protecting the right to life, i don't think the two are mutually exclusive. this is not the way to start off the week. he would should look at measures, for example, making sure every woman has access to birth control. if you really want to get serious about this issue, and reduce unwanted pregnancies, i have entire counties in south carolina that don't have a

single obgyn issue. making a real difference in women's lives all across the country. >> i think you have been open about your own experience with a sexual attack. how does something like this also affect women who are victims of criminal behavior? >> we're not at this point. one of my frustrations is, what are we doing to protect women who have been raped, girls who are victims of incense? there's another story a couple weeks ago, a young woman who had to travel from louisiana all the way to new york because she had a fetus that had no skull. if she carried it, would put her health and life in danger. i would like to see us be substantive. i would like to see us find common ground that brings all these viewpoints together. the vast majority of americans, 85% of them, republicans and democrats alike, they are not on the fringes of the far left or far right on this issue. this is something i talk about frequently. i was raped when i was 16. i put exceptions for rape and

incense in south carolina's fetal heartbeat bill. that legislation, that bill was overturned by the courts a week ago as unconstitutional. there's a way to balance women's rights with the right to life. we have to find common ground here. we need to be serious about it. >> you were skeptical before they were voted on, the rules vote was taken place, you were skeptical about what you called the back room deals between speaker mccarthy and members of the freedom caucus. what did you hear if anything in recent days that convinced you to vote for the package? >> we got more clarification on some of those provisions. we know i want to correct information my colleagues put out. there was one change to the rules package. it's the most open, fair and fiscally conservative rules package in the last 30 years. they had an edit to the motion to vacate, which most of us agreed to. we voted in favor of that. i wanted to know more. what private handshakes were made, what promises were made?

we had rumors going around. we knew some -- there was a small faction of the 20 that were holding out their votes for special committee assignments and special chairmanships on special committees. we wanted to get to the bottom of that. we had a conference meeting tuesday morning where some of the -- some of that was laid out, not just on the rule packs -- the rules package, but other information. we need to learn from the midterm election cycle. we need to learn from those in swing districts that there were issues pressing. abortion was the number two issue in my district. where are those majority maker voices as part of this conversation? i hope that we have a voice in the new congress. i'm going to be fighting very hard to bring some common sense

to the conversation everywhere that i can on issues we care about as americans. >> just to clear it up, you were persuaded there was no back room deal, no promise to matt gaetz for subcommittee chairmanship on armed services, no promises to scott perry about being able to investigate the people investigating him? >> correct. we won't know the answer to that question until steering has done its work. i will trust the steering committee. they are in meetings this week and next week to determine the number of members on each committee and who will be on those committees. we won't know what that will end up looking like. it will be public. that's the most important thing. you can't say cutting back room deals when the left does it that it's wrong and the right does it and it's okay. that's not okay. we have to have the same standard for everybody, no matter what side of the aisle they are on. >> let me talk to you about george santos. moments ago, he said he would not resign. republicans now in his own county, nassau county in long island, new york, calling for him to step down.

where do you stand on george santos? >> this needs to be an ethics investigation. i'm deeply troubled. the guy's entire life and resume was manufactured up until a few days ago when the press got -- took a keen look at it. we learned just a few days ago that his campaign manager allegedly impersonated the chief of staff of now the speaker of the house last year during his campaign to raise funds for his campaign. it's deeply troubling to have someone like that in our body, no matter who they are, republican or democrat. if we're going to have a standard for one side of the aisle on whether they should access classified information for certain democrats that have questionable ties to communist china, for example, then we ought to have the same standard for our side of the aisle. that includes george santos. >> let me follow up. now that the people who know him best, the people in his own county, they would say he is not welcome in the nassau county republican group. he is also being criminally investigated potentially for campaign finance violations.

there's a big question about where he got the money that he used to launch his campaign. the ethics committee takes forever and a day to come up with decisions. why not call for him to step down since the local new yorkers are? >> yeah. there's been a process for this both through the ethics committee and an ethics investigation. when we were -- when republicans were getting attacked in the last congress, i said the same thing. there's a process for this. it can take a few months and probably will. i do have -- based on his record and the lies that have been told over and over and over again consistently, that it will work itself out in the end. hopefully won't take more than a few months. i believe we need to let the process -- there's got to be due process. i have been consistent on that. give the guy due process. i do believe that it will be figured out in the next couple of months through that process. the criminal investigations and/or ethics investigations, that he is very likely facing imminently. >> nancy mace, congresswoman,

thank you very much. thanks for handling some difficult issues on all subjects. good news from the buffalo bills. the team is reporting damar hamlin has been discharged from the buffalo medical center. he went into cardiac arrest, of course, and collapsed on the field during buffalo's january 2nd game in cincinnati, nine days ago. critical care physician dr. jamie nather saying hamlin will continue his rehabilitation at home with the bills. hamlin was admitted to the buffalo facility on monday, coming from cincinnati. up next, the latest on the investigation into the classified documents found in president biden's former office. a lot of news today. stay with us. this is "andrea mitchell reports." you are watching msnbc. ports. you are watching msnbc moderate-to-severe eczema. it doesn't care if you have a date, a day off, or a double shift. make your move and get out in front of eczema with steroid-free cibinqo.

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home internet shouldn't be a luxury. everyone should have it and now a lot more people can. so let's go. the digital age is waiting. president biden on tuesday defended the handling of the classified documents found in an office he used after his vice

presidency, saying his lawyers did the right thing by turning them over to the national archives the day they were discovered. after ignoring questions about the documented repeatedly during a summit with the leaders of mexico and canada just last night, president biden did make a statement before leaving mexico. >> they found documents in a box in a locked cabinet or at least a closet. as soon as they did, they realized there were several classified documents in that box. they did what they should have done, they immediately called the archives, immediately called the archives, turned them over to the archives and i was briefed about this discovery and surprised to learn that there were any government records that were taken there to that office. >> key members of congress, including the democratic chairman of the senate intelligence are demanding to know more. merrick garland is reviewing a preliminary recommendation from

a u.s. attorney he appointed to look into this about whether to open a further investigation. republicans are pouncing. >> why did they treat president trump differently? this is a man who has been in office for more than 40 years. this is a man who prides himself on knowing all this. why does he treat people differently? this is the reason why we have to have a committee. we moved it yesterday. we will get to the bottom of it. they treat people differently based upon their philosophical political party. that's wrong. >> despite what the speaker just said, there are big differences. donald trump kept hundreds of classified documents at mar-a-lago and refused to turn them over for more than a year. president biden's lawyers notified the national archives the day they were found and turned them over the next morning. joining us now is peter alexander, ken dilanian, former u.s. attorney paul charlton and

jim messina. peter, the president was reading from the statement insisting it was handled the right way. it took him quite a few hours to respond. another question occurs, why didn't they announce it from the white house when it happened, if not two days before the election, a day or so after? why did they wait this long for it to leak? >> i think you are right. the fact that the president was reading that statement did seem notable. wanted to make sure the language was exactly right. certainly, some language that had been approved by his staff before he made those comments. the president, as he opened up his remarks, said that people, in his words, know i take classified documents and classified information very seriously. what you are seeing on screen is the president earlier today talking about the faa situation. he was asked this morning some of the follow-up questions by reporters. he did not take those questions as he left. a lot of outstanding questions right now. among them as you bring up, why

the white house, why the president didn't reveal this had happened immediately after the discovery was made, november 2nd, just six days before the midterm election? it came out earlier this week in the form of a leak to a media outlet. what specific level of classification of intelligence is included in those documents? has the white house -- has the president or his staff found any additional classified documents at any other properties that he may own or have worked in the past? those answers remain out there -- those questions remain unanswered. we will hear from the press secretary in the next couple of hours. she's scheduled to brief at 2:00 today. we are certainly -- she will be pressed on these topics. house republicans have been very upset by this. kevin mccarthy calling it a double standard with questions -- calls for a damage assessment and questions about sources and methods perhaps being compromised as well. >> we should point out, as i

said earlier, as you know, mark warner, the democrat chair of the senate intelligence calling for damage assessment from intelligence. ken dilanian, let's talk about the justice department. merrick garland, we understand from our reporting, has the recommendation or the preliminary recommendation from the u.s. attorney, a trump appointee, who he appointed to look into this immediately after it happened, to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest. there are some similarities. these were classified documents improperly not secured, improperly held. that's a violation by both trump and by joe biden. the amount, the degree, the intent, all of that, the duration very different. what does merrick garland do? >> he has to decide whether a criminal investigation is warranted here. as you said, it may be a violation of rules but not all mistakes, particularly innocent

mistakes, are crimes or need to be investigated criminally. it may well be here that there is no need for a criminal investigation. by the way, this review is done under the special counsel statute. really, if everything we are hearing is correct about the circumstances here -- there's a lot we don't know -- it's so different from the mar-a-lago situation. not necessarily a criminal matter. but still as peter laid out, very important political questions to be answered. a lot of haziness around, were there classified documents in other places? has the biden team conducted searches of other locations given they found documents in this one place? parsing president biden's statement last night, he said he didn't -- he was surprised to learn about the documents and appears to not know what's in the boxes. that doesn't mean he didn't know what was in them five years ago

when they were packed. doesn't mean he never touched the documents. open questions about whether he was involved personally. >> paul, you are a former prosecutor. you know a lot about this. barbara was saying to me yesterday that she felt this made it much more difficult for garland to proceed with the prosecution against donald trump, which would be a big step to take, against a former president, on the mar-a-lago case, if he doesn't on the joe biden case, because of the what aboutism. it's politics, not law. but that's the context. do you agree with that? >> that's exactly right. in addition to the political side of this, the what aboutism, we can be certain that trump's lawyers are going to argue that an equitable resolution here, a fair outcome here, if president biden is not prosecuted, that it is only fair that president trump not be prosecuted. as you point out, that's not a legal argument. there's no law that requires

merrick garland or the special prosecutor to listen to those arguments. but defense attorneys argue fairness and what should or shouldn't be done is fair or unfair. here, because of the stark difference, if the outcome is that president biden is found to not have committed a crime and former president trump is found to have committed a crime, that's going to give pause to merrick garland. >> one other question, paul. i remember reading that president obama said that he had gotten permission as an ex-president to get some documents from the archives to his office in chicago where he was working on his memoir and issues of a presidential library -- post-presidential library. former presidents presumably

former vice presidents also, can request access to their archives, but that would presumably be under the tight controls over any classified documents, am i correct? >> precisely right. if you are going to keep in your possession classified documents, as you know, they need to be held in a very specific way. typically, in what's known as a scif. in the absence of that facility, the absence of the ability to make sure those documents are securely head, we put our nation's secrets at risk here. the information is that president biden held these documents in a locked closet. that's not a scif. it's not the security we require. therefore, they were not held appropriately. i don't think there's any debate from the white house or from president biden as to that fact. as ken pointed out, the issue is going to be, what did president biden know? >> there we go. back to howard bakker, what did he know? when did he know it?

jim, that's the political aspect of this. mike pence, a potential candidate in '24 is making an issue of it in an interview this morning. how big a problem is this for joe biden? >> i don't think it is. i don't think there's focus on these issues. i think they are wildly different. i dealt with these things. the biden team did exactly what you are supposed to do. they immediately figured out they had them. they turned them over the same day. they went immediately into a process telling merrick garland. he went into a process to figure out how to handle this. that's wildly different than donald trump spending a year and a half saying he didn't have them, arguing about it, then trying to get list attorne his lie and say he had gotten rid of all of them when he hadn't. these are two separate things. peter alexander is right, there's going to be questions -- political questions. i wouldn't want to be the press

secretary. she will get her butt kicked. we are talking two wildly different situations. it's incumbent upon them to be incredibly honest. >> this is not going away. peter, ken, paul, jim, thanks to all of you. new york republicans calling for freshman congressman george santos to go bye-bye. how is that going to play with republican leaders on capitol hill when they need every vote? you are watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. so it's decided, we'll park even deeper into parking spaces so people think they're open. surprise. [ laughs ] [ horn honks, muffled talking ] -can't hear you, jerry. -sorry. uh, yeah, can we get a system where when someone's bike is in the shop, then we could borrow someone else's? -no! -no! or you can get a quote with america's number-one motorcycle insurer and maybe save some money while you're at it.

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house of representatives. we do not consider him one of our congress people. today, on behalf of the nassau county republican committee, i am calling for his immediate resignation. >> republican officials from the home district of scandal plagued freshman congressman george santos officially calling for his immediate resignation. during this press conference in new york, santos was on the hill dodging reporters. >> will you step down? >> i will not. >> santos saying he is not resigning. santos is facing several investigations, of course, after lying about his background, something he describes as a resume embellishment. some of which he apologized for. there are calls for the fec and the house ethics committee to investigate him and his campaign and prosecutors are investigating campaign finance allegations. here with us now, yamiche

alcindor, brendan buck and phil rucker. yamiche, democrats want the ethics committee to investigate. there's a complaint that santos broke campaign finance laws, also that he impersonated mccarthy's chief of staff on top of federal and local investigations, now his own local colleagues are turning against him. members are saying, let the ethics committee take it. that could take forever. >> you have been covering politics for a long time. is this not one of the most -- it is hard to believe this story is continuing to go on and on and on. >> i'm trying to keep a straight face. >> what else can you do when you have someone who almost made up their entire identity? is his name george santos while reporting on him. he will test the limits of how

far the republican party is going to let a member go. we know there have been election deniers embraced. this someone who made up things from his financial background, from his religion to his identity, his education. he is calling these embellishments. it's not controversial to say these are lies. it's a test for the republican party to say, are you going to keep this person? the math is what's really underscoring the fact house republicans are sticking with him. kevin mccarthy just cannot lose that one vote. as a result, he is having to stick with george santos. it really is, i think -- it blows my mind that this is the story that we're having to deal with and that george santos is continuing to show up to the house given the fact that he is now facing calls from his own party to resign. >> we saw nancy mace, from a swing district, saying that she would wait and see what the ethics committee did, which is a process that you know, especially with some of the changes, go for a long time, brendan.

this just seems so clear. by the way, i think i read some place -- i will have to fact check, that the name is made up. >> it's not -- first of all, i think it's reasonable to say there should be some level of due process. you are right, the ethics committee can take a good time. the ethics committee will tend to sit aside if they know there's a federal criminal investigation taking place. the ethics committee could be slower than usual. that means doj is looking at him. it's more than just the embellishments. there could be crimes. he filed a financial disclosure saying he had millions of dollars when just two years ago he said he had almost no assets. where did the money come from that he loaned himself? those are the real things that are ultimately going to catch up with him. it's not uncommon for a member in hot water to resist resigning. they often are the last to realize that the walls are closing in on them. what happens is, the speaker

will bring someone into the speaker's office, have a private conversation. let me explain what your options are. you don't have a lot of good options. they usually come to the right conclusion, it's best to step aside. i don't know whether kevin mccarthy is going to be willing to do that given the slim majority. i don't know whether george santos, if he did do that, would come to the right conclusion. he has shown a degree of shamelessness i have never seen before in washington. >> how do you get him to come to the right conclusion? phil, this is quite a drama on the hill. santos seems to have no shame. >> that's right. it's been remarkable to see him walking the halls, talking to colleagues during the long hours of voting for the house speaker and now, obviously, dodging questions from reporters. it amounts to a leadership challenge for speaker mccarthy. this is one of the first of what could be many moments in his speakership where he has to make decisions about how to treat a

member who is lying or a member who has some other situation going on. how do you have that conversation? is he having the conversation brendan laid out? if not, why not? if he is doing it, what does it say about his power as speaker that santos is still resisting taking those steps? >> the new speaker has said is they will not put him on key committees. that doesn't begin to get to this. >> no. the question is, should he be representing the six or 700,000 people of long island given that he misrepresented his background and really lied about his background in so many extravagant ways? >> right now, brendan and yamiche, on the house floor, the abortion debate has started. is that a good move? it's not going to go anywhere. is that the right signal to spend, especially after the midterms showing abortion was a big issue. >> your interview with nancy mace was interesting.

it shows the party is still being driven by the far right and the base. it's not a question whether or not abortion hurt republicans in the midterms. it was one of the central reasons why they almost blew taking back the house. you would think there would be some course correction. instead, what they have determined is they need to go on offense more on this issue. it shows you this party does not learn lessons very well. it sticks -- it never is willing to retreat. i imagine this will be the tone and tenor of the house for the next couple years. >> it underscores this say republican party that's going to lean into the far right and lean into the issues that are seen as so controversial in our society. traveling across the country, democratic women and republican women were angry the fact abortion is being taken away. interesting decision by the republicans. >> yamiche and brendan and phil, thanks to all of you. here with me now is republican congressman brian fitzpatrick of pennsylvania, co-chair of the problem solvers

caucus and from a key swing district. what more needs to happen before the house leadership, you are part of that, joins the call for santos to resign? >> thanks for having me. i don't think he should be here. that's for sure. there's a process that has to apply to all members. that's the house ethics committee. to the extent there's concern about how long that would take, we should have an expedited review. there's got to be a system applied across the board. i don't think he should be serving here. >> there should have been -- he should not have been sworn in. if there weren't such a tight margin and tight speaker's vote, he probably wouldn't have been sworn in. you would have gotten rid of the problem. >> there's a system that we have to follow. you can't have inconsistent processes with situations like this. his conduct was egregious.

i don't their he should be here. the ethics committee has to do their work. it should be done quickly. they should return with findings and he would act. >> republicans, as you know, are forging ahead with a number of these very politically toxic bills. first of all, abortion. let's talk about that. i talked to nancy mace today who called it tone deaf. do you agree this is not the way to go? brendan buck said this is not the lesson that republicans should have learned after the midterms. >> nancy is a friend of mine. i agree. she's right. if you look at the majority of people in this country, they believe in legality. they believe in reasonable limits on the back end. our policies ought to reflect the will of the people in america. i don't think it's wise to be going down this path. by the way, nancy and i have spoken -- we have a large group of people, by the way, who are going to hold our own party in check when it comes to what

agenda they advance. we have a four-vote margin. there are more than four of us that are going to be able to halt anything -- any single party solutions or any type of extreme legislation. >> you served as an fbi special agent and federal prosecutor. your colleagues are pledging government investigations of the investigators, the so-called committee on weaponization of the federal government headed by jim jordan, scott perry was the subject of the january 6 investigation, refusing to recuse himself from any investigation of that committee and wants to be a member of it. my colleagues are saying that the better name for this committee should be the committee to obstruct justice. what do you say about crossing the line being crossed? >> i think we ought to give all of our colleagues the benefit of the doubt that they're going to

conduct themselves becoming of the house. one of our jobs is oversight. that's a serious responsibility. it shouldn't be abused. i think we should assume they're going to do their job in the right manner. if it doesn't work out that way, we will address that. >> how do we assume that? let's say someone like scott perry says he will not recuse himself from this investigation if he becomes -- he has been part of a justice department investigation of january 6. his phone has been confiscated by the fbi, the agent you used to work for. why should he be part of an investigation of the investigates? he is able to see the criminal output of the prosecutors while an investigation is pending. >> i don't think the members have been selected yet. i may be serving on that committee. i'm a life long fbi agent. let's see who they staff the committee with, what the balance is, what the ratio is. speaker mccarthy said he is

going to let the democratic conference choose their members, which is good. hopefully it's a fact finding oversight committee. it's going to have a different look to it than the standard judiciary setup. again, i think we should start with the presumption they're going to properly execute the oversight responsibilities. if it turns out not to be the case, we will deal with that. >> okay. we look forward to talking to you throughout this process. thank you very much, congressman. the storm siege. a monster storm pounding california with flash floods, deadly destruction. the latest on when residents can expect some relief. that's next. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health versus 16 grams in ensure® high protein. boost® high protein. now available in cinnabon® bakery-inspired flavor. learn more at boost.com/tv

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>> it's like two feet of mud and water coming down the street and down to the houses it was pretty scary. >> the cyclone storm killing 17 people, which is more deaths than california's wildfires in the past two years. marissa parra is in california. what are you seeing where you are? >> reporter: you can probably see the rain is coming down where we are in northern california. so we're in sonoma county along the russian river people who live around here know that this is one that is not any strangers to seeing flooding around hoar, you can but see how high the water level is. look the at the sign. that's the sign that is submerged under the water. this is normally supposed to be a beach. this is no beach-like condition around here. yesterday there were concerns they would see some flooding around here. now the concern really is main ly the mud slides and the landslides you have to remember all of the wildfires that

ravaged this area. sonoma county, what that means is we have a lot of vulnerable land, a lot of vulnerable soil because of the burn scars. that make it is prime for mud slides and landslides which we have seen in the past. we talked about how this area in california as a whole has seen just a repeated battering from the rain, from the wind, and a combination of the two has led to deadly conditions. we have seen at least 17 who have died. one of them was the toddler. one week ago a tree fell on his house while he was inside of it. there's still a 5-year-old boy missing who was possibly swept away by the flood waters. >> thank you very much. terrible muddy waters. joining me now is meteorologist bill karins. give us the latest on the storm. are they going to get more rain in the bay area today? >> we're fortunate that the rain

today is not the areas that were hit really hard yesterday and the day before that on monday. you remember it was santa barbara county, los angeles, all the way up to santa cruz, those were the areas with the the worst flooding. most of the pictures of the damage and thes are cues were in those areas. those rivers have come down. you see the orange dots? we're down to minor flooding so the rivers are coming down. we only have a couple flash flood warnings that are left over there. we're down to 5 million people in flood watches. yesterday at this time we were over 20 million. so again it's not going to be widespread, but we could see possibility of isolated landslides on to roadways. i haven't heard of any evacuations, so at least as of now, authorities are not concerned with populated areas being overrun by water or mud or anything like that. this is a lot of beneficial rain too. and snow in the higher

elevations. we're having a great start to our water year. we saw what happened in the last couple days. if we get too much rainfall at one time, but this is what the area needed from this 20-year mega drought. so in this storm, this is just the one today and tonight. anywhere in yellow is 1 inch. so 1 to 3-inch rainfall. most of the rivers will be okay with that. we're not going to see a lot of river flooding. but the hillsides are so wet and soggy, we could see some give way. the second storm comes in saturday. it looks like our parade of storms will end on monday with the storm for southern california. i don't think any of those are as bad as the ones we have seen. the weekend forecast to plan out your weekend and keep an eye on the west coast. so late friday is when the storm comes in with the heavier rains in northern california. on saturday it's central and then southern california. the rest of the country has been a fantastic start to the new year. it's been warm and hardly any snow of to talk of whatsoever. >> we have to think about owl of

the friends in california and the terrible devastation there. bill karins, thank you for the update. and just a quick note. george santos did use the name hild name and his mother's maiden name. he didn't like george. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." remember to follow us online on facebook and twitter. chris jansing is right after these messages. is right after these messages power e*trade's award-winning trading app makes trading easier. with its customizable options chain,

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