good day, i'm chris jansing

live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. could the prince provide new proof? we have brand new reporting on finger print evidence, as the police build their case against luigi mangione. and what we're learning about a notebook the suspect was carrying. plus a west coast wildfire doubling in size in just 24 hours, and swallowing star studded southern california real estate until the process. among those evacuating, hollywood celebrities and malibu locals, including one man who fled with his girlfriend, his goats and his pot bellied pig, just as the flames reached his property line. he will join me to talk about it next. and inside a syrian slaughter house, with bashar al assad gone, syrians in a desperate search for loved ones in a notorious, now empty prison, where 30,000 people may have been tortured and killed. our own richard engel shares a first-hand look coming up. we begin on this wednesday

with investigators watching them. we are, in realtime, building a case against luigi mangione, the 26-year-old charged with gunning down unitedhealthcare ceo brian thompson. a senior law enforcement tells nbc news mangione's finger prints match those at the crime scene. less than an hour ago, we learned he had a notebook on him, where, according to multiple sources he wrote about plans to target a ceo with a gun. that's what people close to the investigation tell us. last night, mangione's attorney, thomas dicky said there was no evidence implicating his client in the shooting. >> i haven't seen anything. i haven't seen one scintilla, one speck, one drop of any evidence yet. and remember, this is not a small thing, the fundamental concept of justice is the presumption of innocence, and until you're proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. i have seen zero evidence at

this point. >> both comments come as he and his client appear to be digging in if a protracted legal fight. mangione refused to wave extradition back to manhattan. that means a process that could have been done in a day could now take weeks. mangione intends to plead not guilty to charges in pennsylvania and not guilty to the more serious charges he faces back in new york. i want to bring in nbc's gary grumbach in huntington, pennsylvania. casey jordan is a criminologist and forensic psychologist. and with me in studio, sam brock, and catherine christian, first assistant district attorney in manhattan and an msnbc legal analyst. sam, where does the investigation stand right now? what can you tell us about this new evidence? >> first of all, in terms of a scintilla of evidence, there's clearly evidentiary developments that have happened, and developments related to motive. let's start with the notebook you mentioned. according to two people particular with the investigation, in addition to

the three-page document mangione had on his person, there was a netbook. notebook. in the notebook, outlined plans to attack a ceo at a conference, to use a gun and not to use explosives because it would impact innocent people. what do you do, you whack the ceo at the annual parasitic bean counter, it's targeted, and doesn't risk innocence. as for the evidentiary, you mentioned the fingerprints, and we have information from a senior law enforcement official who says the fingerprints taken from mangione do match a set of fingerprints from the crime scene. what we don't know at this point is whether that comes from the starbucks water bottle that was purchased that police said was bought right before the shooting, the energy bars that were purchased and the wrappers discarded. we know there was a cell phone in the alleyway, not far from where the shooting took place. where the fingerprints with

coming from, we don't know. putting two plus two together, you have fingerprints, you have the gun that bore a strong resemblance to the weapon used during the shooting found on mangione, you have a fake i.d. with the name mark rosario, the same name used at the upper west side hostile. a lot of pieces appear to be coming together. >> prosecution building a case, and to be fair, catherine, the defense attorney, i'll repeat it, says i haven't seen anything, i haven't seen one scintilla, one drop, one speck of evidence yet. he may not have seen it. let's talk about discovery. obviously he's using very precise precise words there. let's talk about discovery, when he might see the evidence. >> the manhattan d.a.'s office i'm sure is very happy he's in pennsylvania, gives them more time to build their case, present a strong case to the grand jury. when his client comes to new york -- >> so it actually works to, you think, the prosecutors in manhattan's advantage?

. >> yes, there's more time. until he comes here and is arraigned on what will probably be an indictment, we call it the clock doesn't start, you know, the timetables do not start, so this gives him enough time to build a case, also to defeat any psychiatric defense, talking about methodical planning, that kind of shows that you kind of understood the nature and consequences of your actions and you knew or that which you did was wrong, which is the standard that the defendant has to prove beyond a preponderance of the evidence that he was insane at the time, so the manner that he allegedly committed this act will sort of mitigate against the psychiatric defense and the d.a.'s office is looking at that now, everything he did before the crime and everything after. >> while the manhattan investigators are building a murder case against him, what can his defense attorney do to build his own case in advance of getting that discovery

information, to getting the evidence. >> if his client does not currently have a psychiatrist, which sort of mitigates against a psychiatric defense, get a psychiatrist. do your own research into your client, speak to, which is all going to be privileged, speak to his friend. speak to apparently there was a period where he was off the grid from friends. why. so that's what the defense attorney, and this may not be -- i don't know if this defense attorney is admitted to practice in new york. it may not be the defense attorney he ultimately will have. he should get a defense attorney who's familiar with new york practice. >> what have you seen from the suspect so far? got played over and over again when he was walking yesterday, and he tried to shout some things that seemed to be aimed against corporate america, perhaps named against insurance executives in particular. we don't know. it does seem like he's trying to communicate his message to the public. is that what you see as his priority now?

what's your observation? >> well, i do see that he is trying to communicate with his public. remember, he was on the lam for four days. so he is fully aware of the big conversation about the insurance industry, which i believe was his mission in the first place. they were taking him in, where he's aware the cameras are on him. it was an impulsive act that was out of sync with his behavior so far, which is incredibly slow, well planned, methodical. ten days in new york before he did this act. planning it, doing a dry run, you know, getting the bicycle, deciding where he was going to put the back pac. when we see that outburst and that kind of insult, you know, it's an insult to american intelligence. it's almost a plea for support from america, but it's also showing some mental health reflections that we haven't seen so far, so, yeah, he seems calm, cold, accumulating, but all of a sudden we see passion and anger, and so it will be very

interesting. i totally agree that we might see some mental health analyses in the near future because i believe as this evidence mounts and i do believe that the direct evidence, the forensic evidence will be overwhelming, a mental health plea of insanity and new york uses guilty but mentally i in the capacity test is about the only avenue the attorney is going to have. >> what's next for mangione and this effort to get him from pennsylvania back to new york. how does this work? >> chris, mangione's house in this correctional facility behind me, he may be here for a while. to be clear, he's going to be extradited to new york in a matter of time. the judge laid out two ways in the extradition hearing he could do this, easy way, which would be waiving his extradition, he would have been in new york by now, or the hard way, him and his lawyer are taking this way. what the process looks like involves a governor's war.

governor kathy chul of new york has to coordinate with officials in pennsylvania, send a ward over here, and there has to be a hearing where it's actually going to be an argumentative hearing, both sides explain why he should or should not be extradited to new york, and the judge will rule from there. his attorney spoke to reporters last night, and told us he's simply testing the process. that's why he's fighting extradition. chris. >> thank you so much for that. there are officials who have expressed concern that he's become a folk hero, particularly online, from the moment this happened almost. now that mangione is in custody, do you think that there will be people, particularly in the law enforcement community who will want to limit his ability to communicate with the outside world, and can they? >> they could try, and it's odd that he would be a folk hero. this is not a single parent living from paycheck to paycheck for a sick kid. this is a rich kid from wealth and privilege. so his parents would be able to pay for any lack of insurance that he had. so this is not, to me, a role

model for someone who's upset with the insurance. he has a life of wealth and privilege, and i'm sure, if he's indicted the manhattan d.a.'s office will stress that, to make sure the jury doesn't have sympathy from someone for wealth and privilege. >> that brings us to motive. new york city investigators say they have been trying to establish if there's a clear link between an apparent back injury, and most of us have seen his social media where there is an x-ray of the spine with a some screws in it. and obviously the killing of brian thompson. the nypd chief of detectives was on fox news tuesday. here's what he said. >> it appears at some point back in july 4th of 2023, he may have suffered some sort of back injury. he was posting an x-ray on his social media showing numerous screws being inserted into his spine. some of the writings that he had, he's discussing the difficulty of sustaining that injury. we're looking into whether or not the insurance industry denied a claim for him or didn't

help him out to the fullest extent. >> sam, what do we know about that connection? >> so police so far have not said definitively that he had this surgery. what we know is i had a conversation with rj martin who lives in this community in hawaii where mangione lived for six months according to martin. he said when he contacted mangione nine months ago, mangione sent him an x-ray, i don't know if it's explicitly that one, but it was posted to social media, it had 3 inch screws, and it was horrifying to observe that, and didn't know personally, when he was interviewing to live there, he expressed back issues, there was an introductory surf lesson that was so painful, mangione was knocked off his feet for days or longer, and this detail was interesting, the idea that he had trouble sitting up straight, being outside and having physical, intimate relationships with other people simply because of his anatomical back problems. that sort of paints a picture of

potentially what could have been going on, no one knows, inside his mind at the time. this is something that was going on for a long period of time, and detectives when he mentioned writings, i believe he's referring to the reddit threat we confirmed overnight. that reddit threat contains years of comments about the fact that he had trouble sleeping, wake up after four hours and again after that, simply because he was in so much pain from his back. he felt like there was a lot of narrative out there. you have to be over 40 years old to have a surgical intervention, when arly it's based on your body, and he expressed he was in a lot of pain. and this affected sort of how he was thinking, his very essence. >> and his social interactions and all of that. casey, we were watching this wave of support for mangione, right, take a look at this, merchandise has cropped up online supporting him. all of these t-shirts and sweatshirts. in addition, his attorney told him his staff told him people are offering to pay his client's

legal bills. does this public response have an impact as lawyers on both sides build their case? or an impact potentially on a potential jury? >> i hope it doesn't have an impact on a potential jury. you know, the voir dire process needs to weed out anybody who considers him a folk hero. in his manifesto, his little three-page note they got from his backpack, he does talk about the fact that the united states. he's very bright, and he's done his research, we're number one in health care costs to consumers. apparently number 42 in the world in terms of life expectancy. and we do need to be very cautious because clearly this conversation needs to be happening. that is why the public is rising up and having a lot of opinions about their own personal experiences with insurance companies, but i have to remind everyone, there is no proof he has had an issue with an insurance company. this could just be his cause of the moment because he wants to

be famous, and he pictures himself, i think, as a savior, as a folk hero for the people, that he's a super hero like batman, you know, going to conquer evil and seek good. that really points to some real mental health issues. why it was -- almost all of these shooters have some mission that they're on to raise the consciousness of america towards the subject of their grudge whether it's their employer, or the cost of health care, you know, irs, joseph stack flew his plane into a building with a five-page manifesto. we have to be taking it with a grain of salt, and not be laughing at it or making light of it. a man died over this. he has a family and children, and they're watching too. >> and they just buried him a few days ago. catherine christian, sam brock, casey jordan, thank you all. in 90 seconds, the explosive fire in malibu burning homes and forcing thousands to evacuate. we'll speak with one resident about his harrowing escape with

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missing cat. the fire has already torched nearly 4,000 acres and is 7% contained, triggering an air quality alert for l.a. county. as the flames push southward, they're leaving behind piles of ash. take a look at this video from malibu's emergency response team of what was a typically green and vibrant park. nbc nbc's david noriega is reporting from the ground in malibu. give us the latest, david. >> reporter: i want to show you the canyon behind me. as you can see from the smoke and little bit of flames, this has been burning all morning. we have seen multiple aircraft flying down the canyon and dropping both fire retardant and water on to those flames, primarily trying to keep it from starting new spot fires and jumping the canyon. if you go further up the hill here towards the road, where we are set up, you'll see a lot of fire department activity, a lot of fire trucks and bulldozers as well, they're starting to clear

the land running from the top of the hill to the road here. they're clearing it of brush, basically to make sure in the event that the fire does jump the canyon and start creeping up this hill, this fire moves fast when it moves up hill, it will be threatening the houses that you may be able to see in that shot there that are on this side of the road at the top of the canyon, and additional houses that are on the other side of the road. so that tells you how hard the 1,500 or so firefighters that are assigned to the franklin fire currently have been working, and they are making progress. they have been taking advantage of some improvement in the wind conditions, the very powerful santa ana winds that caused this fire to explode overnight monday into tuesday, have quieted somewhat. they were able to get that containment number up to 7%, according to cal fire. that doesn't sound like a lot. it's much better than the 0% they were at last night, and it is improving, and officials per a press conference they gave are optimistic they will be able to move this in the right direction. that said, chris, we are still in a red flag warning, which means high winds and low

humidity. very windy, dry conditions. that means that this fire, these conditions could change at any moment, and the crews are still going to be battling against those conditions, until the red flag warning is lifted, which is expected to happen around 2:00 p.m. pacific. 2:00 p.m. local, this afternoon. chris. >> i know you'll keep an eye on it, david, thank you. joining me now is matthew ryder who had to evacuate from the franklin fire with his girlfriend, along with three goats and a pot bellied pig. thanks for being with us. take me through what happened. >> yeah, hey, happy to be here. so my girlfriend jessica and i got a knock on the door at 11: 15 p.m. from our neighbor saying the fire was just over the hill. within minutes it had gone from the ridge line and minutes later, the wind was fanning it down the hill driving it right into our neighborhood really quickly. so we got up and got the animals, and packed some things and were able to evacuate in about 30 minutes.

>> i mean, where did you and the animals go? because obviously it's not like you can check your goats into a hotel. >> yeah, we had an animal evacuation plan that we had designed a month or two ahead of time. we put them in the back of an old farm truck that i have in kind of a crate, picked up penelope against her will. >> the pot belly pig. >> she screamed a little bit. the pot belly pig, yeah. and put her in a crate, and we drove off to the side of the beach, waited there, and basically slept in the truck for 30, 40 minutes overnight before going over to a red cross shelter area where we could figure out what we were going to do next. >> i mean, honestly, you sound so calm, and i'm sure you're grateful that you were able to get out, you were able to get your animals out, but was it terrifying in the moment? >> yeah, it really was a surreal

experience. there was a lot of unknowns. certain people staying at the property, not knowing where to go, where, you know, as you know, malibu has so many animals too, beyond just our goats and the pig. everyone is trying to figure out what to do, and it was really, you know, a bit concerning about how we would approach it. so there's a lot of fear all around, but people being calm and just taking care of, you know, our houses, property, animals, and everything. >> videos from your neighbors show the area was in flames for i think, what, five hours after you left. so what about now? what do you know about how your property looks? folks who live around you, how their property looks? >> yeah, the report back are that thank god our house and other houses have been spared. there were flames all around just, you know, within a stone's

throw from our house and our neighbor's house. and we're also so blessed to have, you know, some amazing friends and neighbors at the farm where we live that some of them are still there, and i don't know if people know how it works, but as the winds keep going, embers can start little spot fires, so at any moment, even though you think you might be out of danger, a little spot fire could come up and threaten a house and business. we have friends that are there, filling buckets and basins, garden garden hoses, putting out spot fires as they come up, protecting our houses. so grateful for everyone, the first responders, everyone coming together to make sure that people, animals, you know, our livelihoods, everything are safe. >> and first of all, it's impressive that you have that plan, that evacuation plan in place for i think probably a majority of america what they know of malibu is like surfing and the beach, right, driving along the pch and looking out on

to the pacific ocean. they're unaware of what happens in malibu, up in the hills, the farms that you talk about, the green space that you talk about, but it is one of the most fire threatened places in america. still, i have to ask, because i'm sure a lot of people are wondering, do you ever think about leaving? do you ever think, you know what, maybe this has just gotten to be a little bit much? >> you know, it is a factor to think about having that risk and having natural disaster at your doorstep, and it's so much more real when you see it coming at your home. the things you mentioned, the real heart of malibu, the ranchers and our friend that's a farmer on property and our friends that are, you know, have animals, it's really the soul of malibu combined with the ocean and the beauty, it's just such a endearing place, and so many amazing people that it is hard to leave when you see that. it's not just what people think of celebrities and kind of glitz

and glam. so that definitely keeps us there. >> it is a beautiful place, and i'm glad that everything is okay with you. i want to wish you and jessica and penelope and the goats a very happy holiday, and i hope you're able to get back into your home soon. thank you so much, matthew ryder. >> absolutely. thank you. >> appreciate it. have a good one. still ahead, pete hegseth's high stakes meeting on the hill, his latest move on the pentagon. and new nbc news reporting of why trump may be trying to keep him afloat. keep it right here. im afloat. keep it right here rescue deep conditioner, with first-of-its-kind melting pro-v pearls... locks in moisture to repair 6 months of damage in one wash, without weigh down. guaranteed or your money back! for resilient, healthy-looking hair... if you know, you know it's pantene. luis fonsi: in this family, we take care of every kid at st. jude like they are our kid.

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on capitol hill, many more meetings, and importantly more clues into the ongoing fight involving confirmations for the people who could help run the country next year. an nbc news whip count shows defense secretary hopeful pete hegseth still does not have the votes to be confirmed. among the key senators he's courting on the hill, susan collins of maine, who like another key senator yesterday, lisa murkowski remains diplomatic and noncommittal. >> i had a good, substantiative discussion that lasted more than an hour. i pressed him on both his position on military issues as well as the allegations against him. i obviously always wait until we

have an fbi background check, and one is underway in the case of mr. hegseth. and i wait to see the committee hearing before reaching a final decision. >> well, some male colleagues have pushed aside sexual assault allegations against hegseth, as "the new york times" reports, the debate over mr. hegseth's fitness to be confirmed has revealed a gender divide in the senate where a tiny group of republican women have emerged as some of the only skeptics, the strategy for hegseth, as well as other picks, seems to be to hang on as long as they can hoping time can improve their chances. let me bring in ryan nobles on capitol hill and david jolly, an msnbc political analyst.

hegseth said he had a wonderful conversation with senator collins but doesn't seem anything about where she stands in her vote. what more do we know about the trump strategy, the hegseth and gabbard strategy, tell us about the latest on those nominations, choices. >>. >> reporter: i think you're right to describe it as a waiting game in some respects for the nominees to hold on and hang on for as long as they can, and with time, perhaps, they can win people over. that's certainly the case for pete hegseth in particular. he's a very charming individual. he gets into the rooms and has conversations with these members, and tries to alleviate their concerns about this wide range of controversies that have cropped up around him. i was with the group of reporters who talked to susan collins after the meeting, and she told us she pressed him on everything under the sun, she talked about all of these different things that have risen up as issues. what we are seeing here, there is to a certain to throw as mans

at the wall and hope that most of them get through. and all of them on some level are somewhat controversial. if one or two of themoff, you still have the opportunity to get three or four controversial nominees through, and in particular, we that with tulsi gabbard, and pete hegseth, and our reporting, julie tsirkin and olympia have said that the trump transition does view hegseth as somewhat of a distraction to some of the controversies that surround tulsi gabbard, and while all the focus is on hegseth, we aren't seeing as much scrutiny on gabbard. how long that plays out, we'll have to wait and see. whether you take into account, robert f. kennedy jr., tulsi gabbard, kash patel, and pete hegseth, and this long list, who under normal circumstances would be controversial and have a very difficult time getting through, there's a real possibility that most if not all will be confirmed in part because there are just so many of them for the

senate to deal with. >> there you go. david, republican senator john cornyn says he told hegseth his confirmation fight will be a very unpleasant process for him and his family. democratic senator richard blumenthal puts hegseth's chances at less than 50/50. let's listen. >> i think my republican colleagues are really deeply troubled and to be really blunt, if the fear of donald trump and his potential retribution were less, there's no question that this nomination would go down and go down heavily. >> david, is that fear of trump's retribution enough to get even his most troubled picks confirmed, do you think? how does that play into this? >> i think it is. i mean, not only are there controversial background to pete hegseth and serious allegations of sexual misconduct, there's also controversial views about the department and we haven't

even gotten yet to what senators have to deliberate on, which is is he even qualified to run a billion dollar agency. is he qualified to be secretary of the department of defense, and i think most senators know the answer to that is no. but donald trump has two strong characteristics we have seen before, he doesn't like losers, but he also doesn't like losing. i think what we saw at the end of last week was an effort when they floated the three alternative names, they were prepared to cut hegseth, because he doesn't like to be associated with someone who can't get the votes in the senate. now that this is dragging on, is donald trump going to dig in his heels because he doesn't like losing and will he say to usan collins and others, you will confirm pete hegseth. this is having reverberations of the kavanaugh hearings, we are looking at the senators to act out a conscience and say hegseth might be a bridge too far, but we got to the actual vote, they all fall in line. we could see donald trump pull

the rug out from under hegseth. >> which brings us to the "wall street journal" editorial board expressing concern about tulsi gabbard, her dogmatic hard left views and predicting that even trump's allies in the senate will think twice about confirming her. what's your sense? >> yeah, similarly, controversial views but also really unqualified. i think that the focus will be on her visit with assad in syria, particularly everything we're learning about assad's regime of torture and the reporting at nbc about some specific faces of that. so can tulsi gabbard overcome kind of the predisposition of senators to say not only are her viewpoints wrong, not only are there questions about her adjustment and meeting with assad, her views toward russia, is she capable of being the d and i. at some point, the senators take the confirmation process seriously. the question goes back to what you said earlier, how much political capital will donald

trump use on these controversial nominees? we just don't know yet. >> former congressman, david jolly, and ryan nobles, thank you both. up next, secretary of state antony blinken in the hot seat today. his long awaited testimony about the u.s. exit from afghanistan after the long review with republican lawmakers. eview with republican lawmakers it, punks! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ mmmm, kinda needs to be more...squiggly? only pay for what you need. perfect! so now, do you have a driver's license? oh, what did you get us? with the click of a pen, you can get a new volkswagen at the sign then drive event. lease a 2024 tiguan for zero down, zero deposit, zero first month's payment and zero due at signing. limited inventory available.

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rvelgt . today on capitol hill, secretary of state antony blinken, saying the president's difficult choice to leave was correct call. >> i firmly believe the president's decision to withdraw from afghanistan was the right one. american troops are no longer fighting and dying in afghanistan. ed american people are safer and more secure. in fact, many of the most pessimistic predictions have been thoroughly disproven. >> nbc's julie tsirkin is reporting from capitol hill, this hearing got pretty heated at times before the foreign affairs committee. i think less about it being done than how it was done but tell me, what did you see as the big take aways? >> reporter: chris, certainly there was some protesters that were removed from the hearing, but there were also fireworks among the members of the panel and secretary of state antony blinken.

michael mccaul, the republican chairman opened up the hearing a little bit emotional. this is the last hearing he's going to chair, and accused blinken of waiting three years to take responsibility for the disastrous withdrawal from afghanistan. blinken, to his part, though, says that he does not regret doing this full pull out of troops, u.s. personnel from afghanistan. he said this is in fact something the biden administration tried to course correct on when donald trump's process had already began. still, though, republican critics on the panel had essentially accused blinken and the biden administration of lighting the world on fire by their actions in afghanistan. watch this exchange here. >> nato is stronger today but not because of you all. nato is stronger because your weakness invited putin to move against ukraine. you signalled you weren't going to stand with our nato allies. you didn't care. president biden didn't care about our nato allies and what they thought about a retreat from afghanistan, instead, what

it did is signal weakness and putin took advantage of it. the reason nato is stronger today is because of the invasion. it's not because of u.s. policy. >> that's incorrect. the reason nato is stronger today is because of president biden's leadership. this alliance is bigger, better resourced, and more members because of its leadership. if you ask any nato ally -- >> reporter: that's andy harris suggesting what i have heard from some republicans who have said basically that this move to pull out troops of afghanistan was done in a way that potentially could have emboldened emboldened vladimir putin, something democrats deny. blinken's appearance today came three months after the committee voted on party lines to hold blinken in contempt of congress for their back and forths and blinken not appearing before the committee. he said he had other matters to attend to until today, chris. >> andy barr fired up, thank you, julie tsirkin, much appreciated. inside syria, the brutal repression of a fallen assad regime is being exposed,

including a notorious prison called the human slaughter house by amnesty international. thousands, tens of thousands of people disappeared into that maze of tiny concrete cells, and now syrians by the thousands are desperately searching the compound for any trace of loved ones who went missing years ago. nbc's richard engel went inside with them. >> reporter: thousands of syrians came to the prison outside damascus to search for missing relatives. this is where the brutal regime of dictator bashar al assad sent those who dared oppose him to disappear. a man held handfuls of nooses he found made of cheap nylon cord, some were freshly used. and still bloody. what did we do to deserve this, he asked? amnesty international dubbed st. nia a human slaughter house. now that assad is gone, syrians and the world can see the

cruelty of his regime. they are describing this as a human press, a torture device that prisoners like this man is demonstrating here would be put on this slab, and then crushed in order to torture them. >> reporter: in another torture room, amal showed a photo of her son elam missing for more than ten years. he was sentenced for being a militant. my son was a nurse, she says. the squalid cells are now empty, broken open by the rebels monday when hundreds of prisoners were freed. but families believe or want to believe their relatives may still be hidden in here. they broke holes in the walls, searching for secret rooms and basements. they didn't find any. instead, they found paperwork. all over here there are documents. it seems like this place was abandoned in a hurry. and if you come in here, you can see with flashlights, everyone is just searching for any evidence that their loved ones

may have been here, may have been executed here. this woman says her son was taken here in 2013 and never seen again. i'm looking for evidence to give me hope he's still alive, she says. on their hands and knees, syrians today searched for signs of life, pouring over logbooks and records, so many names, so many tragedies, syria's blackest site finally exposed. a syrian human rights group says that most of this country's 100,000 missing prisoners are likely dead. >> richard engel, thank you for that report. next hour, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu taking the stand on day two of his own corruption trial. we'll have a live report from tel aviv. you're watching "chris jansing reports" only on msnbc. ansing reports" only on msnbc it's the first iphone built for apple intelligence.

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stable condition according to korean officials. and now to an nbc news exclusive, donald trump plans to scrap a long standing policy that prevents i.c.e. agents from arresting migrants at sensitive locations, including churches, schools and hospitals. nbc's julia ainsley broke this story. i think it would surprise people who are not well schooled on what happens, that i.c.e. agents would go into a church service to take someone. but tell us what you're learning. >> reporter: that's right, chris, in 2011 when i.c.e. came out and said these are the areas where we're not going to go, it was really to reassure people that migrants could continue to go to their children's school events, this they could continue to worship at their houses of worship, and of course they could get health care as needed because these were considered to be vital community services. it kept i.c.e. from doing arrests at weddings or funerals or at rallies. now, though, we understand that at day one, the trump administration wants to rescind

that policy in order to really, you know, take back any restrictions that allow i.c.e. to do arrests wherever they see necessary in part to be able to boost those numbers so trump can make good on his policy and campaign promise to have these mass deportations. now, what this means is that historically, in order to go into those places i mentioned, i.c.e. agents had to ask a supervisor to go up the food chain and prove that in order to get someone who might be a national security threat, a public safety threat or someone who is, you know, in the middle of a criminal investigation, they had to go into one of those places. now, they won't have to go through any of these hoops. they could walk into a rally, for example, where people are protesting mass deportations and start doing arrests there. what they says to me, chris, is that the trump administration is not going to hold back when it comes to supplying visuals to the american people about how far they're willing to go, even if it isn't the case that i.c.e. needs to do these kinds of arrests very often, you can

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it is good to be back with you on this second hour of chris jansing reports. at this hour, seeing red. malibu wildfires roaring across nearly 4,000 acres as firefighters' job is exacerbated by those winds fuelling the fierce flames and forcing people out of their homes. we'll have a live report from malibu. new details confirmed by police just moments ago. what the