♪♪ good day to all of you from msnbc world headquarters here in new york. welcome, everyone, to "alex witt reports". it is official. 10 days before being inaugurated as president, donald trump will be sentenced in new york for his 34 felony conditions -- convictions in the hush money tropical will include no jail time and no real penalty at all. judge juan merchan dismissed trump's efforts to get the case tossed out altogether saying it would undermine the world of -- rule law. today trump slamming the rolling and merchan himself. give us trump's reaction to this ruling. is there a chance the sentencing date won't go forward?

>> reporter: there is a potential chance. there is an appeal that could take place here before the sentencing, of course, trump's legal team has continuously suggested it intends to appeal the verdict that was handed down by that jury unanimously back in may, those 34 felony counts for falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to stormy daniels to influence the 2016 election. for donald trump here, of course, this january 10th sentencing day, it will happen 10 days before inauguration.

judge merchan say he may appear in person in lower manhattan or virtually. i want you to look at part of the decision, the rolling that was handed down by judge merchan last night in his decision to have the sentencing take place before inauguration day. he writes in part, quote, to and dismiss the indictment and set aside the jury verdict would not serve the concern set forth by the supreme court in its ampulla cases addressing presidential immunity, nor would it serve the rule of law. he did note he could, he could potentially move the sentencing back to after donald trump were to leave office in 2029, but said he would not intend to do that for obvious reasons. he did suggest also there would be no substantive consequence. that should be expected. that would include no fine, no probation. for donald trump, he still has to go forward with the sentencing and will formally be a convicted felon come this friday but at the same time, with no jail time, of course, there are really questions about what an alternative history

would have looked like had he lost the election on november 5. for donald trump, if you look at the social media posts of his over the last 24 hours since his really came down, he wrote quite explicitly in part, it is time to stop. it is time to end the warfare once and for all so we can come together as one nation and make america great again as part of a social media posts. he continued on, calling this a witch hunt, a hoax and called out judge merchan for what he says was a political prosecution . of course, so much of that is already rejected by the courts here but for donald trump, he is on his way to the white house and also on his way this friday to facing his sentencing and for molly becoming a convicted felon. >> externa. thank you for that. let's bring in brendan buck, former press secretary to john weiner. good to see you again. when it comes to trump's sentencing, is justice being served here, even though he won't face any jail time? >> i think so. this was the case of all the ones being brought against donald trump, it seemed the weakest on the substantive grounds. the underlying facts of the case, having an affair with stormy daniels and paying her off, all kinds of things in any normal world maybe would disqualify somebody for higher office but bringing him to court on this always seemed a

little shaky. i think a lot of democratic analysts have had admitted as such. i think, when you turn around and we went through all of this drama, you know weeks of hearings and a trial and deliberations, ultimately resulting in a sentence that doesn't really amount to much of anything. i think, it just underscores how unnecessary all of this really was. i think there were much more serious charges he was facing from jack smith, his involvement in january 6. i thought they should have sought a trial on that but unfortunately we don't have that. but i think this just reinforces what a waste of time this ultimately was and politically we saw it didn't really have much, if any, impact. democrats didn't even try to make a big deal out of this, whether the white house or democrats, they didn't really

engage which told me they saw it was a political nothing burger. >> can i throw in a but there? the specter of a convicted felon, in the white house or the oval office, how does that taint his upcoming presidency? >> it is hard for me to say at all. after the election, people brushed this aside. i think some of this, underlying substance, again, the affair, is the kind of thing most people just sort of assume donald trump would do. i don't think they were shocked by this. we know the facts of this situation and we have for very long time. they didn't really damage them in any meaningful way. people will certainly throw that word around but they threw that word around during the campaign. the majority the country elected him president so i think he will be able to turn the page on this. fairly conclusively move on and if people want to call him names they will do that but i don't think it will limit him, he will limit himself in many

other ways but this will not limit his ability to govern. >> branding, we will discuss in just a moment but first, we will pivot to julie tsirkin from capitol hill and the state of congress. julie, welcome, my friend. things were looking rocky for speaker mike johnson but he got the vote and that extended first round. how bumpy is the road ahead from now for the gop majority? >> reporter: yesterday was perhaps the easiest a mike johnson will have over the next two years. you and i were talking about that a lot, even before the holiday break, even before new members were sworn in yesterday and the new congress began. this is only just beginning. today our meeting behind closed doors, talking about how they will address their legislative priorities, meeting trump's campaign promises that essentially now he was republican lawmakers to make good on. i was able to report in the last couple minutes, alex , trump is coalescing on one path forward on reconciliation, the

one key procedure mechanism we talked about that allows republicans, or democrats essentially, to bypass the 60 vote threshold in the senate and pass items having to do with immigration at the border in trump's case, having to do with those tax cuts he pass in 2017 he now wants to extend, cutting the deficit, all of these items that republicans are really going to have to remain unified over, over the next two years to make happen. i want you to listen to what the newly minted senate majority leader john thune had to say about johnson's future here. watch. >> is a really, really tough job, yes. i think he has been responsive to his members, but he's got a lot of folks that are headed in different directions. i think what he has to do and has been doing, figure out how to balance it. i will give him deference to how he runs the house, he understands the house, i don't. i do think that they will need to be, we will need to be, as

the senate and the white house, working closely as a team, if we will get the agenda done. >> reporter: that is john thune talking to kristen welker. john thune has a point, he may not know the house as well as johnson does, but he knows the senate. even in the senate, he has a three seat majority to work with, plus j.d. vance, the vice president- elect, who can break any type. johnson can lose a couple of votes in a lot more members are to deal with. it will be a rocky road for the two men as they try to navigate trump, navigate trump's team and their conferences, which, as we saw yesterday, are going to give them a hard time. johnson managing to lose just one republican on that vote ultimately, but at least a dozen others have expressed concerns and have sent him a letter and express their points of view, one he johnson to make

sure he gives deference to members and weakens his own leadership team in the process, something johnson, by the way, told us he wants >>. >> julie tsirkin on capitol hill, thank you for that, my friend. i want to bring in brendan buck and joined by melanie zanona, senior reporter for punch bowl news and msnbc contributor. we will go with you first , melanie. let's run through the final moments of the first ballot yesterday. house leadership was getting ready to move on to a second round, but they kept the vote open and did not gavel it closed back o'donnell trump got on the phone with key members. just explain how this all went down. >> yeah, it was a really dramatic moment. looks like mike johnson has to go to a separate ballot, there were three ultimate holdouts, ralph norman, pete self and thomas massey. i know that they were determined to get it done on the first ballot so they kept it open. him and other congress caucus members began on working on norman and self on the house floor. they saw that thomas massey was a lost cause. i am told messing meese -- nancy mace whipped out her cell

phone and called donald trump, who was in the middle of the game of golf and took the whole group to the back room and handed over the line. he said, i need you to be here with me, need you to vote for mike johnson, i need you, i have this mandate and i need you to deliver for may. that is all it took to get them to fall in line. is only 15 minutes later, they went back to the floor, went to the clerk and switched their votes. for me, the two big takeaways, trump still has a ton of influence in that conference. we told you that would be a test of his influence. number two, the fact that johnson needed trump to get over the finish line proves just how difficult governing is going to be for him in the months ahead as they tried to enact this very difficult process julie was talking about, reconciliation, and, keep in mind, there are about to lose two more members when a elise stefanik m mike waltz

goes to the trump administration. it is a tight margin and a really tough road of governing ahead. >> johnson has begged the president-elect not to poach anyone us. we really can't afford it, technically speaking, they gain. to three, johnson got it done, the vote had its hurdles. given the missed minuscule majority lead, will anything be easy for speaker johnson of the next two years? >> yes, i just think we need to appreciate the narrow majority. a pretty recent speaker has lost votes on the floor at some point in the selection. the speaker election. it is just the nature of the majority he has and it reinforces there is no margin for error in anything they do. will require these members to appreciate they have to stick together or they get nothing. it is as simple as that. they stick together or they get nothing. they have ideas on things they want to do on immigration and taxes and are trying to figure out the best path i had to do that but all of those paths require every single one

getting to one vote to get things done. we were talking about the simple question of who should be speaker? now we will be talk about complex tried -- tax trade- offs, physical trade-offs, the complexities of immigration, policy, all of these things people have very strong opinions on. it seems that you still have people that are very, i don't know, self-centered. whatever they think is the only thing that matters and if they don't correct that worldview and realize that if they don't give a little bit they will get nothing and this will be a very unproductive waste of a congress. >> let me go to your experience as a press secretary to house speaker john boehner who said working in that position was like hurting a bunch of cats, with regard to how he looked at the republican party. that is when the tea party was under way. can you compare the tenor of that time with what we see now? >> well, i think it is all somewhat related. where we are now, we have a lot

more people that see themselves as free agents, you know? the bigger era, we had some people getting in the freedom caucus era, some people realizing that, you know, if you go off and you fight with the leadership, you can make a name for yourself. maybe you can raise money and you can see if that works for you. now you've got dozens of people who have that role. they are all free agents and they don't know leadership anything. they don't need leadership's money, committee assignments, they don't need anything from the traditional leadership apparatus. at any one moment, you know, like thomas massey voted against the speaker. he will pay no price for this. chip roy of texas, who is been very critical of the leadership and threatening to vote against

johnson, as we talked about, he threatened to take the rest of the agenda if it does not meet his standards. he can get away with that. he could probably do that and get away with it and survive because you are looking conservative compared to leadership. i want to pick up on that with you, when you talk about people making a name for themselves, i think about lauren over and what she did when she cast her vote for johnson. she is fine, don't let us down, mr. speaker. given her reputation, was that some kind of warning? do you think johnson's speakership is in more, less or about the same jeopardy as kevin mccarthy was and what will keep his caucus together and maintain their loyalty? >> yeah, there are deathly parlor bets going on about whether he will be ousted, so does mike johnson, and the next how many months, whether he will last longer than kevin mccarthy did, which was nine months after he clinched the gavel. no doubt, like lauren barber, conservatives and others are putting johnson on notice. they voted for him, most of them did, they gave him the gavel. right after the vote, they put out a letter signed by 11 conservative saying we have reservations. the only reason we voted for johnson is because of our allegiance to trump, the

election results on monday and here is what we are expecting from him going for it. these members are saying we are absolutely prepared to use the motion to vacate if johnson doesn't live up to these demands. the reason why that 11 numbers so important is because now, under the new house rules that were just adopted, and takes nine members of the majority party to band together and force a so-called motion to vacate the speakership. that is the tool they used to oust kevin mccarthy last year. that is just an example on how they are prepared to use their leverage going into all these high-stakes negotiations, not just reconciliation bills, but funding the government. that is just around the corner in march, huge, huge task for republicans to get that done with their slim majorities. >> as i have said a couple of times recently, good luck, everybody. it is good to see you both. what makes the new orleans terror attacks stand out from all the others? it comes down to chemistry. we are back in 90 seconds.

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this, as the community of new orleans is beginning the healing process. faith and community leaders gathered today for prayer service. president biden and the first lady will travel to new orleans on monday. they will be meeting with grieving families, community members and local officials. let's bring in and bc's kathy park, joining us for new orleans. welcome. what are we learning about the attacker and what investigators found in his houston home? >> reporter: alex, good afternoon to you. yeah, the fbi released new information overnight saying they actually recovered a transmitter from the suspect's f1 50 truck, that was intended to detonate two aeds found on bourbon street. speaking of bergen street, it is back open for business, it actually reopened thursday afternoon. there is still a somberness in here, especially as you get closer to a growing memorial, where you will find flowers, candles, all honoring the 14 lives lost. >> reporter: the french quarter in new orleans is fully open to the public and security heightened as the memorial

grows for the victims in the new year's day terror attack. >> it was just senseless. >> reporter: the fbi saying the suspect, 42-year-old shamsud- din jabbar, was 100% inspired by isis, with growing questions about how and when the army veteran became radicalized. >> he posted several videos to an online platform, proclaiming his support for isis. >> reporter: on friday, federal agents returned to the houston home registered to jabbar and were seen toeing away a gray sedan. k prc obtained these images from inside the home, showing the remnants of bomb making materials confirmed by two senior law enforcement officials and federal investigators say jabbar used a very rare explosive compound found in the two aeds he placed in the new orleans area. jabbar's younger brother telling k prc he noticed no red flags pick this wasn't the man i knew. this wasn't the father, the son that i knew. >> reporter: as the investigation presses on,

security measures on one of the most famous streets in the world are coming under greater scrutiny. in 2019, safety assessment report found the current barrier system on bourbon street does not appear to work and recommended fixing the barriers immediately, warning the two modes of terror attack most likely to be used are vehicle ramming and active shooting. >> we should lockdown the entire area. >> reporter: city officials have defended security measures, even after new graduates were rates. jesse kirsch visited the area hours after bourbon street reopen, reporting only some entrances were fortified with vehicles. >> wide-open. >> reporter: as bourbon street comes back to life, visitors near and far are paying their respects to the 14 lives cut short. among them, nicole perez, a single mom recently promoted at work and matthew tenedorio, on the new orleans pelican steam. 18-year-old nikyra dedeaux was set to start college in a matter of days with hopes of

becoming a traveling nurse. her friend was with her the night of the attack. >> in a split second you lost your friend. >> in a split second. she was truly just the most amazing, compassionate, considerate person that anybody could ever meet. >> reporter: heartbreak in a city known for celebrations, now looking ahead to securing the super bowl next month. >> reporter: and the investigation into this attack is far from over. the fbi saying they received nearly 1000 tips so far. the leads are coming in from all of the country, alex. >> kathy park, thank you so much. join me know when former cia military analyst spokesperson for the counter extremism project. welcome. within this past year, isis k militants killed scores of people in attacks in moscow and iran, they plotted an election day mass shooting in oklahoma, which the fbi oil.

taylor swift was forced to cancel three concerts in vienna after intel revealed islam explained to kill tens of thousands of fans there. water the conversations in the intelligence community right now in terms of isis and its capability of carrying out more attacks? there unfortunately, what we have seen with isis is, while the u.s. intelligence community defense community, we have made a lot of progress against the group and taken back a lot of their territory so they no longer hold territory, they have been able to extend their technical outwards. they have done this mostly on my. while the landmass they actually controlled in the territory they actually controlled has disagrees -- decreased substantially. they have lost strongholds in syria. they have spread out of it and

become more decentralized in terms of location, but the reach is kind of borderless. that is where we see this rise in the united states with homegrown terrorism that have links or connections to foreign groups. >> which brings me to nbc news, which reports investigators found shamsud-din jabbar used a very rare explosive compound in those two ieds he placed near the attack site. he had planned to use a transmitter to detonate the devices. they did not go off, we are not sure why. officials say the material he used has never been used in either a u.s. or european terror attack. how could jabbar known, first of all, about that compound, and how to actually make it? what does that indicate to you? >> i think that is a really interesting question and i think one of the things that will give us a better sense on where on the spectrum this was on ice as directed, ices inspired. these attacks take place with

sometimes zero contact with isis or just simply reading and self radicalizing. that is one end of the spectrum. on the other side, there are actual points of contact or direction from ices. we don't specifically know where this individual is on that spectrum but i imagine when they look into the online materials, and collect all the resources, one of the things they are gonna look at is not just planning a strategy for the attack but the materials that were used, the instructions and where those particular bomb materials, where he learned of those, if there was direction for many other actors. the critical part of this for law enforcement is to really make sure this was an individual lone wolf. if it is not a lone wolf, that means there could be other plans, other operations that need to be disrupted by law- enforcement. >> and yet, to that point, i am curious, the conversations underway right now within the intelligence community about this. every single time i speak with someone on this broadcast, they talk about the difficulty of

preventing the lone wolf, right? it is almost easier to go after an organization. it is bigger and broader. what is the conversation underway right now to say, we got to get the lone wolf who has been radicalized? >> s. you basically focused on the center dilemma in these terrorist attacks. obviously, we have been extraordinary fortunate that since 9/11 we have not had a mass scale casualty attack. mass scale attacks require a lot of coordination, individuals, money changing hands, materials, planning, long-duration planning. those actually, in most cases, easier for law enforcement to uncover, whether that is through intercepted communications, imagery or financial trails. we are talking about one individual. that makes it extraordinary difficult and why the director of the fbi has warned about this and all of his predecessors that the lone wolf is the harder to cats.

the smaller the cell, the smaller the footprint. it makes it extraordinarily hard to prevent one person from doing this. >> tara maller, come and see us again. thank you. chris matthews is next with his thoughts on jimmy carter and the narrow victory for house speaker mike johnson. ♪ ♪ johnson. ♪ ♪ that grimy film on your teeth? dr. g? ♪♪ it's actually the buildup of plaque bacteria which can cause cavities. most toothpastes quit working in minutes. but crest pro-health's antibacterial fluoride protects all day. so it stops cavities before they start... crest. ( ♪♪ ) my name is jaxon, and i have spastic cerebral palsy. it's a mouthful. one of the harder things is the little things that i need help with:

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♪♪ ♪ that his doorbell rang 39 times today in honor of our

39th president of the united states outside the farm where president jimmy carter grew up in archery, georgia. the funeral motorcade paused there briefly after passing through carter's hometown of plains, georgia. we give you look right now of a look at the procession on its way to atlanta to the jimmy carter presidential library. joining me now is following the procession very closely first. >> i would say the word would be solemn. of course, former president carter was relatively unknown outside of georgia before he made his way to the white house. many people here feel very proud he is the one and only president from the state of georgia. of course, he entered public service, first in the georgia date send it and then the

governors mansion. most of the people i have been speaking to coming out to the carter center ever since the news he passed last week, they remember him for the type of man he was, how down-to-earth he was, his humility. let's talk about what the mourners in his hometown of plains had to say this morning. ♪ >> the work that he did impacted the lives of millions . it was in a great way and it is fitting to pay respects. he has meant a lot in this community in south georgia, you know, to have somebody in this area, a farmer, go on to do great things in washington and around the world and to bring that home, i mean, that has had a very big impact on the community. ♪ >> reporter: alex, as you mentioned, we are expecting the former president's remains will be here in atlanta momentarily. they will stop first at the georgia state capitol, where governor will lead a moment of silence before they make their

way here to the carter center, where there will be a private funeral ceremony with his family around 3:45. then he will lie in repose at 7:00 p.m. and members of the public are invited to come and pay their respects until 6:00 a.m. tuesday morning. at that point, his remains will be flown to d.c. for state funeral services, which will take place next thursday. >> priya sridhar, thank you so much. i want to have our director bring us back to the video as we watch the procession make its way down the highway to atlanta. what we have been able to see, everybody, you can see cars stopped on the overpass. there has been a presence of people getting out of their cars and paying homage to president jimmy carter as the motorcade passes. you can see this for yourself, as well, on the other side of the highway, traveling in the opposite direction as people realize that what they are seeing is this presidential

procession, very solemn one. they have been slowing down as if to pay respects as they know what is happening there. some people are even stopping. there you see it. joining me now we have chris matthews, former speechwriter for president carter. chris, you obviously knew president carter very well. official flags are being flown at half staff in his honor without the 30 day period of mourning. not to change the tone, donald trump appears to be pretty unhappy about that, he is claiming, without any evidence, democrats are giddy yet flags being at half staff in his inauguration, adding, nobody wants to see this and no american can be happy about it. trump says he will attend carter's funeral, chris, but why is he bothered by this tiny

detail, given how carter approached his own inauguration? >> you know, now i see he did say nice things about the former president, the late president. i was surprised at that, given the tone of politics today. people say nasty things about the other side, that is the way people talk, especially trump. he made a point to say something nice and he will attend the funeral. i take that very seriously. we will be there with the other presidents, bill clinton, joe biden and barack obama. joe biden will give the eulogy. the flag at half staff, i think, it will be noted on television, of course, but i think that will not be a big part of the mood of the day. >> let's talk about the panama canal. president carter asked you, talk to you, about it, rather, about negotiating that treaty and the challenge he was up against in the city. he concluded holding onto the canal could well have meant years of fighting hemispheric terrorism. give me a sense to what he

saved the country from. some say it is another vietnam. >> a lot of what carter did, i am not defending everything, but a lot of the things he did were to prevent problems down the road. when he became president, the first thing he did after walking down pennsylvania avenue, he sat in the white house and gave a pardon to all the vietnam era resistance , all the people that fled to canada, that is over, we will stop kicking the can down the road. no more argument about vietnam. he wanted it over with. the same with the panama canal. he saw the rage of the people down there, the naturalistic people from panama and other countries who wanted to see that country, the panama canal restored to the country it was

in. look, i have been down there. it is a remarkable american achievement. it is an american achievement. we built it. it is extraordinary. it is all about gravity. it is all about natural sources. we deserve all the credit for it and we paid a good price for it. he is getting the price down for american shipping companies, i am all for that, let's get the better deal for the united states. if he tries to take the canal back, that is a huge mistake. that will cause problems. jimmy carter, the same reason he brought peace between egypt and israel. at the time, israel faced one enemy, the arab enemy, the chief enemy against israel was iger. egypt had waged four wars against israel, 1948, 1956, 1957, of course, and in 1973, the young cup or war. all those wars are going -- on now. all the horror they are facing there on both sides, no fighting with iger. i think it is really important because it will foreclose a war with iger. egypt has held that treaty. it is a real treaty and i think carter deserves real credit for that. i think, if trump is pressuring, like he is talking

about tariffs with canada, is he is just trying to pressure institutions, like the panamanian government, fine. if he is talking about really trying to grab it back, that is a disaster. >> let's talk about what carter said about managing the iran hostage crisis. here's the quote. when the hostages were taken, it was a major crisis for me and every american, as well. i was to blame for it because it was up to the president to keep us away from having passages taken and there was nothing i could do about it. almost every one of my advisors had suggested we should attack iran militarily but i did not want to go to war. chris, not only did he not want to go to war, he also -- >> other presidents, look at dick cheney, if he had been in office when the hostages were taken. about other people who have much warmer hairtrigger.

you could argue, we take another country's diplomats and you put them away for a year, you're committing an act of war. he could have acted in that way and reacted in another act of war with an attack on iran. he could have done that. you just heard, as he told me, a lot of this, all of his advisers say you have to attack. you have to go in. he did not want to do that. i have studied his words. carter, whether a pacifist or not, he did not like war. he would not have gone to war for that. ronald reagan, dick cheney or someone like that would've acted in a way that americans would've felt a lot better about that situation. he was focused entirely, and you can argue exclusively, the hostages. he wanted them to get home. he was something about being commander in chief of the united states, he was thinking about getting american hostages back home safely. he did that but at a tremendous price to american dignity, to our diplomacy, to the world and the way the world should operate. you should not be able to take

another country's diplomats and they did. the ayatollah backed them up. it was wrong and he let them get away with it because he wanted the hostages home alive. another president would have said you have 24 hours, 48 hours, get them back on an american base or we are going to work with you. we are not just going to shoot at you, we will go to war with you. another president could have done that and survived politically. carter could not have done that. he was for peace. his christianity taught him peace. he believed in the prince of peace. he would not declare a war. that is a great question for historians because it was carter's decision to think only about the hostages. they got home alive. that they did. chris matthews, it is always so good to see you, my friend. thank you for joining us. the new congress and how a little dysfunction might go a long way in helping the democrats in 2026. that is next. ♪ ♪ next. ♪ ♪ it's a quick and easy way to get my floors clean. wetjet absorbs and locks grime deep inside. look at that! swiffer wetjet.

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♪♪ mike johnson barely held onto his job as house speaker. he faces tough challenges ahead with the razor thin majority. he may be forced to work with democrats. here is what house majority leader hakeem jeffries had to say about that. >> house democrats will work hard to find bipartisan and common ground with our republican colleagues in the incoming administration on any issue, whenever and wherever possible. >> joining me now is democratic congresswoman susan domine of washington, the chair of the democratic congressional campaign committee.

welcome. congresswoman, i am glad to have you here. i know you had mori -- minority leader jeffries who said democrats are willing to work with publicans. do you think the house speaker is willing to do the same? >> i think you heard in that from leader jeffries, it is bipartisan, it will be hard to do anything in this congress with the majority getting smaller as folks go to work on the trump administration on the republican side. you did not hear the word bipartisan from speaker johnson yesterday. so we are going to try to find a path for to get things done for the american people and i think if republicans actually

care about getting important work done, they need to reach out and work with democrats, both in the house and the senate. >> you make the point about what was said by both leaders yesterday on the house floor, after the election officially of mike johnson. if the speaker does try and work with house members across the aisle, how much pushback could you expect from say, members of the freedom, of this, and how does he navigate that? >> the only thing we got things done, even in this past congress was with house democrats coming and actually putting forward the votes to help keep the government funded, that helped us avoid a default, all that happened because of house democrats. so speaker johnson, if he is focused on getting things done and focusing on the needs of the american people, needs to reject extremism and actually focus on getting important policy done. we are going to be there at the table to help get important policy done, to help address affordability issues for families, make sure we have strong programs, like social security and medicare, continuing for families across the country, but if they are going to keep to extremism, i

think it will be up to them to figure out how they will pass legislation. >> given this razor thin majority for republicans, is there an opportunity for democrats to get some of its legislation passed? >> i think we will try, however we can, to do the work of the american people. i talked about affordability, we have important issues coming up on tax policy this year. we need a tax code that is fair and to make sure that we are focused on working families, not on the wealthy and well- connected, which seems to be the priority for republicans. we are going to fight for families, fight to address the issues that are facing the american people and fight to find a path forward to get legislation pass however we can, but if republicans are going to focus on extremism and focus on the wealthy and well- connected and not work on

policies important to the american people, we will hold them accountable for that when we come to the elections in the midterms. >> speaking of that, do you think the ongoing dysfunction of republicans will help republic -- democrats retake congress in 2026, particularly if donald trump is not on the ballot? >> well, republicans have the house, the senate and the white house. it is on them to try to move policy forward and if they are not focused on the needs of the american people, they are going to be held accountable. we will make sure the american people are aware of the work they are doing and i actually do think we have an incredible opportunity. when i talk to folks across the country, they want to see governance work. they want folks to really focus on the needs of the american people and so we are going to do everything we can to make

sure those priorities from people across our district, across the country, are being met, but if republicans refuse to do that, then absolutely we will hold them accountable at the ballot box. >> washington congresswoman suzan delbene, thank you so much for joining us. i appreciate that. as we head to break, we will give you a look at interstate 75 in georgia. president jimmy carter's remains will be arriving soon in atlanta. they may be getting close as we have been watching traffic pick up just a bit. getting close to the big metropolis as we give you a look at the state house, as well. we know governor brian kemp will be waiting there, as well as legislators and members of the state patrol. they will be receiving former president carter very soon as soon as he arrives there. in a short time there will be a moment of silence that will take place in front of the georgia capitol. later on, there will be a ceremony at the carter presidential center. we will, of course, bring you all the events as they happen. with this. n. with this.

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♪♪ now today's other top stories. 57 million americans across 30 states are under winter alerts is a brace for the first major winter storm of the season. heavy snowfall and crippling ice conditions expected to last out the week. kansas city is preparing to see the biggest impact today with up to 13 inches of snow. family members of erik and lyle menendez are describing their hours long meeting with the new l.a. county district attorney as productive. the families are pushing for reduced sentence in renewed interest in the brothers' case. the hearing is set for january 30th and 31st. the santa cruz wharf is reopened less than two weeks after powerful waves caused part of it to class. businesses that shutdown also reopened ahead of schedule.

former president jimmy carter's remains are expected to arrive in front of the georgia capitol in atlanta for a moment of silence in the next hour. the ceremony will then take place at the carter presidential center. we will bring you the events as it happens. stay with us. we will be back after a short break. ♪ ♪ break. ♪ ♪ it's that simple, for 24 hour heartburn relief... one beats ten. prilosec otc.

very good day to all of you from the msnbc world headquarter here in new york. welcome, everyone, to "alex witt reports." we begin this hour with live pictures of the georgia state funeral procession for jimmy