instantly. >> when you play your. >> first $5 lineup, prize picks, run. >> your game. >> good to. >> be with you. >> i'm katy tur. >> the ntsb has both the cockpit. >> voice recorder. >> and the flight data recorder from american. >> airlines flight 5342. >> and in just an hour. >> from now. >> we could. >> potentially learn more about

what investigators. >> have so. >> far found on those two black boxes. when the ntsb holds its second. >> news conference. >> while we wait, we do have new video. >> you can see. >> it right here. >> and new reporting on. >> the crash. this video. >> was. >> first aired. >> by cnn. >> it is surveillance. >> footage of. >> reagan airport. >> recorded on somebody's cell phone. it shows. >> a black hawk. >> helicopter flying steadily toward the jet as it was preparing to land. >> the two collide. >> explode, and then, as you can see, fall. >> into the potomac river. the new. >> reporting reveals more about the. humans involved here. four people briefed. >> tell the new. >> york times that the military sikorsky was. >> not. >> only flying too high. >> but also outside. >> of the. >> approved flight path. >> in a. >> moment, we're going to talk to. a blackhawk pilot who has flown that same path. >> for that same sort of training mission. >> he's going. >> to tell us what. >> the pilots. >> were practicing. >> for. why they do it. >> in. >> such crowded airspace. nbc news is also reporting on air

traffic. control itself. a source familiar tells. >> the tower. >> supervisor allowed one of the controllers to leave. early wednesday night, leaving. one controller to traffic. both airlines and helicopters. joining us now, nbc news senior correspondent tom costello. nbc news correspondent covering national security, and the pentagon courtney colby and former director of the office of accident investigation at the faa, stephen wallace. there was just a news conference. >> a moment ago, tom, giving. >> us an update. >> on the. >> recovery efforts. >> and the body. >> and also the recovery of the fuselage of the plane. what did we learn. >> about here are the headlines as of this hour. according to the dc fire chief, they have now recovered 41 of the victims who are still in the who were in the water. and that leaves 26 who are still on the water. and the dc fire chief says that they now believe that they will recover those victims when they are able to lift the fuselage out, and that will likely require a

salvage team. so 41 remains have been recovered. 28 of those have been positively id'd, and 18 next of kin have now been notified. in addition, the one of the leaders of the airport here of reagan airport was asked repeatedly, are you comfortable with the volume of helicopter traffic and air traffic in and out of reagan? because this airport was designed for 15 million passengers a year, it now handles 25 million. there are roughly 100 or so helicopter flights in and around reagan airport every single day. because of this crash, a crash in the aftermath, the faa has now closed one of the helicopter zones just off of the airport ramp, if you will, right there over the potomac river, closed to all but medevac and police activity. you'll notice that means military choppers are now not allowed in that zone. so we asked repeatedly, we the media asked repeatedly. one of the

directors here of the airport, do you feel like this is unsafe? because clearly that is a message you sent just a few months ago when congress wanted to add five new flights here to reagan, and he said, we follow the faa rules and requirements, we asked again. he said, we follow the faa rules and requirements. the faa dictates how many flights are allowed. congress orders the faa to order to add more flights. and again, the answer was we followed the faa rules and requirements. we expect an ntsb news conference shortly. they will focus largely. we expect to provide a little more a few more details, not only on the black boxes recovered yesterday from the jet, but as well the regional jet, but also we're hoping to get an update on whether they had any success in recovering the black box from the helicopter. that's critical because all of our reporting so far, all of our investigative sources have told us that, in fact, the chopper was flying too high out of its way above rather its limit of 200ft well above

that limit. and then that puts it into the track, if you will, of commercial aviation activity in and around this airport, given the volume of chopper activity, given the plane activity that obviously creates potential conflicts, as we had wednesday night. and so we'll see whether the faa closing that helicopter zone will get. we'll see if they give us a timeline for how long that might take effect. by the way, two of three runways here remain closed because of the recovery operations out on the water. there's a single runway right now handling airport traffic here at reagan national airport. and i one last note, and that is that american airlines has now announced that they will retire the flight number for the flight that went into the water on wednesday night. a lot happening on this very busy day. katie, back to you. >> tom. >> one more question to you. quickly. >> the note you just made about. >> the fbi listening to. >> congress when congress wants. >> more flights into dca.

>> explain. >> that to me. >> listen, reagan airport has exploded in popularity, in part because people love how close it is to washington, d.c. it is literally across the river, right? i mean, i can see capitol hill from where i am. congress loves this airport for that very reason. they can quickly jump from their office right over here to the airport, catch a flight and go home. it used to be that you could only fly so far out of reagan, right? you, in other words, the biggest flights, the longest flights would not leave reagan. but congress kept ordering the faa to add more flights into reagan because members of congress wanted to fly home to their districts, and they wanted to jump on a flight really quickly and get out. in fact, the flight to wichita was just added a year ago. so you've had a lot of safety groups and neighborhood groups saying, stop, we can't keep adding flights. it's not safe. the noise is becoming a problem. too many planes, even

the airport opposed expanding the volume of flights in and out of here. congress told the faa, nope. you got to add five more flights. and as you would imagine, very often those are flights into politically sensitive districts, people who have influence. and so these new flights were added and they i think they take effect in the coming months. >> yeah. and i think. >> i heard you report. >> a little bit. >> earlier, 15. >> million passengers is what that airport is. >> built to, to. >> hold every single year. and right now it's getting 25 million passengers. >> all right. >> let's talk about the. >> faa for a second before we go to the. >> the military. >> and tom, thank you very much, steve, i want to know a little bit more about. how the faa operates in a scenario. like this. when it's clear that there are a lot. >> of flights, a lot of congestion. >> a lot of political pressure to. add more flights. >> so. people can go. >> back to their districts, as tom was saying, people. >> who have. >> influence in washington. >> how does. >> the faa navigate that?

>> well, it's. >> this. >> is this is. >> a difficult. >> debate that has. >> been going on as long as. >> i. can remember. >> and the you've talked about two different things. one is the number. >> of passengers. >> 15 million. 20 or 30 million. and but i think perhaps. >> the more critical issue. >> is the. >> number of destinations. >> and very. much what tom costello was focusing on. i think there are. we always seem to focus on, on. >> the congressional pressure. >> which is very valid. at the same time, i think there are. >> there's actually a lot of passenger. >> demand just to go to these different destinations. and so as airplanes become more efficient. and seven, that when it was first. >> put into. >> service, probably took 80 passengers, they're now over over 200. and as airplanes. get so they can perform better and

better, they can operate into these relatively short runways with with a lot of people. but if the issue is that congress. >> or. >> the public demands to go to more destinations, that requires more flights. you can't you. >> can't solve. >> that problem by putting on an airplane with just a higher passenger capacity. but this debate has been going on for as long as i can remember, and it's clearly going to get another thorough round of discussion following this horrific accident. i would point out that the last mid-air collision with the us airliner was in september of 1978, and this is a system that operates, depending how you count, 30 to 45,000 flights every day. and so incredibly safe. but every time i've. said

that over the. >> years. >> i've known that an accident could happen any day. and now it has. >> stephen, there. >> has been a. >> lot of close calls lately. we report. >> on. >> them here. >> close call in the air. a close call on the runway, close calls at dca that we've reported on, but they're happening all over. >> the country. >> there is a shortage of. air traffic controllers. >> i mean. >> the job is so stressful and there's so there's so few of them right now that a lot of. >> them are working. >> six days a week on ten hour shifts. that is exhausting. and you've got to keep your eyes in the sky. you got to keep your eyes on the radar. you're i mean, that is the position of trying to make sure that. planes and helicopters, aircraft don't crash into each other and remain on these, you know, air highways. which are not easily delineated like we are on the road, obviously. how do you quickly address that? i mean, it takes so. >> long. >> to train up these folks. how do you quickly address it? because it does seem like a problem that that should be resolved and needs to be resolved pretty quickly.

>> well, it might be that the quickest steps is just. >> to. >> dial the system back somewhat, as they have done with the, with the with the helicopter flights. but i you really you really don't address it quickly. i think we might see an effort to make just further automate things. so we're not we're not relying on a controller, which is a very normal thing to do on a commercial pilot, you know, to say, to do you have you visually acquired the other aircraft, maintain visual separation, followed by that sort of thing? i think a huge focus point of this investigation is whether that totally broke down in this case. and, and perhaps part of the solution is just to have more precise automation of flight paths. i think the airliner in this case was flying

exactly what it was supposed to do, typically descending at 300ft per mile. and i just think the use of see and avoid visual separation may get a get a whole new look at this point. >> all right. >> let's talk about the military side of this. i know they're investigating courtney. we're still waiting to hear if they were able to get the. >> the helicopters. >> black box. >> but there's a lot of reporting about where the helicopter. >> was. >> whether it was off path. whether whether it was too high. explain to me the reporting that we currently have. and then i would love to just to get some context about this training mission that this crew was on. >> yeah. >> so there. >> there has been. >> a lot the black. >> box will answer some of the most critical questions. one of the things that everyone has been talking about and candidly, we just need the facts on it is exactly what altitude was that helicopter flying at the time of

the collision? you know that the black box should be able to tell us that. and then, very critically, what were some of those last transmissions between the helicopter and air traffic control, those two pieces of information, those two facts will provide a very telling picture into how this collision occurred in the first place. so what we know about this, this mission. look, the military will often say when there's a when there's a train, a mishap in the air or a collision, they will often call it a routine training mission. that's sort of standard language, but this specific one is a little bit different than a normal training mission because it was really an evaluation. so one of the pilots, the copilot in this case was has to be evaluated as all pilots do. frankly, every so many months on specific missions that they may be required to do in this area because they were assigned to the 12th aviation, 12th aviation battalion out of fort belvoir, assigned to the military district of washington. they have a very specific set of missions that includes flying vips around, but also having to

respond in the case of some sort of an emergency in the national capital region. so people have been asking why would they be training or doing an evaluation so close to a major airport? we've just been listening for the last several minutes to what a congested airspace this is with just the commercial aviation. one of the reasons is they have to be able to fly. they need to be prepared to fly a real world mission by training in the same conditions, training at night, training near the airport. now the pilots and the chief on this aircraft, who we've just gotten the identities of two of them, katie, they were they have in one case, the instructor pilot had more than 1000 hours, the copilot about 500 hours. the chief was well aware of these routes and these corridors and the many, many restrictions that are associated with flying in this area. so these were experienced pilots. they were experienced in this area, but they have to go through the same evaluations that all pilots do. that's why

they were flying this, this at night. i just wonder if. >> we start to. >> think about whether i understand the need to make sure that they have real life experience, but, you know, you're. >> it's dangerous. >> obviously it's dangerous, and you're putting civilians at risk. let me ask you one more question. we don't really have enough time to get into it a lot. but the identities of the soldiers, one of them is not being released. why? >> yeah. so two of the two soldiers, the two men who were on this, their names have both been they've both been identified. staff sergeant ryan o'hara and chief warrant officer two, andrew lloyd eaves. the third soldier is not being identified at the request of her family. and that's right, i said her she is the one woman who was on this helicopter. we know because of secretary of defense pete hegseth comments in the white house briefing room yesterday that she's a captain. he specifically called the third member of the crew a young captain, but her family has has asked that her name and photo not be released at this time. army officials are saying are

not ascribing any reason to that beyond their at this point, they are respecting the family's wishes. so right now she's been because she, you know, unfortunately is still in the helicopter in the water. they have not positively identified her remains at this point. so the army is officially right now classifying her as duty status, whereabouts unknown dustwun and has not yet put out her name. katie. >> courtney. colby. thank you very much. steven wallace a thank you as well. still ahead, we're going to get a little bit more into these training flights. this route. we're going to talk to somebody who's flown it in real life, who can explain what exactly is going on here. plus resign or be fired, what the trump administration is doing to orchestrate a purge to promote a purge at the fbi. and we are watching capitol hill as well, where right now senators are deciding how to vote on the nominations of rfk jr. kash patel and tulsi gabbard. we have a lot of sound from their confirmation hearings that we were not able to get to yesterday. you are going to

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>> wireless, so you get. >> the. >> same coverage. >> wow. >> for unlimited talk and. >> text with reliable coverage and your second. >> month free call, consumer cellular. >> you make. >> good choices. they've shaped your journey. >> to leave all that your life built rock solid for generations. with ambition like that, you need someone who elevates advice to a craft. at ubs, we match your vision with insight. and expertise to. >> shape a unique outcome. >> for you. >> advice is our craft. >> as promised, we're going to talk about those training missions. joining us now, former army blackhawk pilot bradley bowman, who is also senior director of the center on military and political power at the foundation for defense of democracies. thank you so much for being with us. you've flown this route. you've done these missions. tell us about it. >> yeah, yeah. >> so from 2000 to 2002, i was

in 12th aviation battalion. i served as charlie company, 12th aviation battalion, company commander. and flew these routes too many times to count, including on the night of september 11th, 2001, terror attacks. >> i was on. >> these routes. >> and this is a system. what your viewers may. >> want to know is. >> that this is a system. >> of low. >> level helicopter. >> routes that goes all. >> around the. >> national capital region, in and. >> out of washington, d.c. many of the routes. >> are. >> above the major. >> freeways, the beltway. >> 395 for those who know the area, as. >> well as above. >> the potomac and. >> on a day to. day basis, literally daily. >> sometimes multiple times. >> a day. >> these are used. >> to move. >> senior leaders around the national capital region. >> basically. >> in effect. everyone below the president. >> marine one. >> flies the president. >> and this unit would. >> fly everyone. >> else, including. members of congress. senior pentagon leaders and others. >> that's the day to. >> day mission. >> but it's important. >> to understand that this 12th aviation. battalion also. >> has a. continuity of. >> government mission. and some

and. >> it would be safe to assume they have other. >> classified missions. >> that they would. >> need to perform. >> and on our nation's worst day. and so when they're. flying these missions, yes, they're getting someone to an important briefing or meeting. as important. >> as that is, but. >> they're also rehearsing the very same. skills that they employed. after the nine over 11 terror. >> attacks and would employ again on our nation's. >> worst day. >> do they have to do it in order to get the real life experience? do they have to do it by a commercial airport? i understand needing to be familiar with congestion and a bit of chaos because that's what they're. training for. but does it have to happen where it can put civilian life at risk? >> i respect. >> and empathize. >> with. >> the question. after something this. >> horrific, we have to. >> we have to make sure we learn the lessons and make. >> sure this never happens again. this system that i just. described has been. in existence for decades. i did it more than 20 years ago. >> and it's. >> it's safely de-conflicted helicopters and aircraft. >> during that time. >> there have been a. few near misses. and then.

>> we had. >> this disaster a couple nights ago. it failed. we have to know why it failed and make sure it didn't happen again. this crew, if it's true, if they were supposed to be at. 200ft at each place. >> in the system. >> i described, you have to be on a particular route and a particular altitude. it requires precision, right altitude, right route communication, following directions. if we find that they were above. >> 200ft, then. >> that that would be a perhaps a decisive error here that that resulted in this, that training, much of it could be conducted everywhere. but a key principle of military readiness is you want to train the way you're going to fight or train the way you're going to operate. there's a way to build this proficiency and make sure that people. they're not in that area until they're ready to comply. and so i take your point, and i think there's a way to keep. civilian aircraft safe and also meet the. national security requirements. and i am confident there'll be some reforms and there should be some reforms after this. >> the pentagon says the. >> the pilots. >> involved are very experienced. one of them had 1000 flight hours, the other one had 500. that is a lot. it's a

lot of flight experience. if they were above 200ft, they're not supposed to be. but if they were and if they were off route, would there be any system in place within the helicopter that would alert them to the, you know, to ping for, hey, by the way, your altitude altitude is a little bit wrong or hey, we're going to ping it back to air traffic control or whoever's monitoring it at the military. you are not at the right altitude for this mission. >> so what you learn. on day one. >> of flight school is that. >> you have to have your scanning. you're scanning outside the aircraft for obstacles and aircraft avoiding. you're scanning inside the cockpit looking at. >> your instruments. >> and so when they're flying through that route, which i've done many times, you're looking for, you're primarily outside the aircraft focus, but you're also quickly. >> doing a. >> scan inside, looking at your altitude. and i'll tell you personally, if i saw it at 215, 210, 215, i'd be like, oops, correct, correct. quickly. if this aircraft was at two 5303 50, that that would be that would be quite, quite

significant. and so but you don't want to have a single point of failure taking the implicit point behind your question, so that the air traffic control should be at least visually monitoring, if not monitoring by other means the altitude of the aircraft, and if they see a problem as busy as they are, you would want them to contact the aircraft and say, hey, what are you doing? and adjust your altitude. and so we need to have multiple ways here to avoid a single point of failure. and that can include more vertical buffer. are we really comfortable with only 200ft of buffer between the aircraft coming in and these helicopters and more horizontal buffer. and that maybe means telling some very powerful, influential people in washington, sorry, you can't have a direct flight from here or there. and maybe telling the helicopters that maybe they need to hold. many times i was told to slow down, speed up, hold. they can wait. and not every one of these aircraft missions needs to go through that route. they can go somewhere else as long as they're able to do their most important missions on the on our nation's. >> worst day. >> certainly, because it takes years to train up air traffic controllers. one more question to you. maneuverability here for

a regional jet, there's only so much maneuverability that that that an aircraft that large has. what about this black hawk helicopter? how easy would it have been for the pilot to adjust if they saw that plane dangerously close? >> black hawks are like a portion of the sky. they're incredibly powerful, and they're very maneuverable. with five seconds, you can do a very significant evasive maneuver. and so, you know, if there wasn't an evasive maneuver there, then they didn't see it. and that raises some larger questions about whether the communications between the pilots and the atc, whether there was confusion about what aircraft they should be looking. >> at. >> and also an aircraft with those lights. i was told by another pilot yesterday, you can you can get lost in it. the lights can look very much like the lights on the ground, especially at night. if you were wearing night vision goggles, that also make it more difficult. >> night vision goggles have two primary effects. one is it reduces your peripheral peripheral vision in your field of view, which makes that scan i was talking about more

important, and it also creates some lighting problems. when i'd go out flying in the middle of nowhere, i didn't like full moon nights or even half moon nights because they were too bright. so i flew that mission without night vision goggles for two years and it was just fine. and if i had them, i probably wouldn't have been wearing them, because i would rather have the field of view and not deal with the light issues. >> all right. thank you so much, bradley bowman. really appreciate all of your expertise and the context about what exactly is going on in that in that corridor. thank you again. and coming up, we're going to go live to capitol hill, where lawmakers are poised to vote on three of donald trump's most controversial and significant cabinet picks. where are those nominations now stand? some of them could be a bit rocky. first, though, what the trump administration is doing to seize control of the fbi. we've got a control of the fbi. we've got a breaking news on a purge. dry... tired... itchy, burning... my dry eye symptoms got worse over time. my eye doctor explained the root was inflammation. xiidra was made for that, so relief is lasting. xiidra treats the signs and symptoms of dry eye disease.

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>> play. >> $5 to get. >> $50 instantly. in site. >> credits with code tv. >> let's talk about confirmation stuff. senator chuck grassley has asked kash patel to teach lessons. his words to fbi agents and doj officials. if kash patel is confirmed to lead that bureau. in his opening statement at patel's hearing, chuck grassley repeated the claim that the justice department and fbi leadership, quote, acted in concert to further a political scheme to take down donald trump. >> partizan. >> fbi agents and doj officials. >> tried and.

>> ultimately succeeded. >> in launching. >> a full. field criminal. investigation and prosecution. >> of the president of the united. >> states justice. >> department and fbi. >> leadership acted. >> in concert. >> to further a. >> political scheme. >> to take. >> down trump, just. >> like they did with. crossfire hurricane. they have. yet to. learn a. >> lesson, and i hope you'll. >> learn that. >> lesson for them. >> or teach that lesson. >> teach them a lesson. >> joining us now, nbc news chief capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles. all right, ryan, teach them a lesson. >> you know, katie. >> there were three hearings. >> that took place yesterday. >> that all. >> involved perhaps. >> the three most controversial nominees for. >> donald trump, the kash patel hearing. >> you showed a snippet. >> up there. >> robert f kennedy. >> jr, who is his pick for health and human services secretary, and tulsi gabbard. >> his pick. >> as director of national.

>> intelligence of. >> the three. and i. >> watched all. >> three at the same time. >> all day yesterday. >> the patel. >> hearing showed. >> the. >> least amount of pushback from republicans. by and large, their questions were softballs. set up to make him look good. in some. >> instances. >> they were giving him opportunities to try and. talk his. >> way around. >> and provide context to some of the more inflammatory comments that he's made on. >> podcasts and in his books. >> there was very. little probing about his background and the type of director he would be at the fbi. >> it was. >> more about. >> the type. >> of agenda that he would execute on donald trump's behalf if he became, if he became the fbi director. >> so there doesn't. >> appear. >> to be a. >> no vote on the republican. >> side. >> for kash patel right now. he looks as though he's going to sail through confirmation. the things look a little bit different for the other two candidates. >> but as. >> it stands right now, despite all the controversy that surrounds kash. >> patel and i have. >> to say when kash patel's name. >> was first. >> presented, it was among the most alarming for many in the law enforcement community. he

seems to be the one that may have the easiest path to confirmation. >> at this point. >> and we're going to have some reporting from doj in a moment on purges that are happening there right now. people that are being told to either resign or stay and get demoted and be fired. so there is a storyline here. there is a through line. ryan nobles, thank you very much. joining us now, staff writer at the atlantic and author of the atlantic daily newsletter, tom nichols. all right. so not a lot of pushback for kash patel when chuck grassley says teach them a lesson. should we expect i mean, just give us the what would you be expecting if you were at the doj? and kash patel takes charge? >> well, as. >> with most of these nominees, a certain amount. of chaos because it's not just going to be. >> kash patel taking charge, it's. going to be kash patel and. his team, his appointees, the. >> people he wants. >> around him. >> that he's. comfortable with. and. >> you know, one of the things. >> that you don't really get to

in confirmation hearings are questions about who would those people be? >> you know. >> in the. case of. >> pete hegseth. >> for example, hegseth. really doesn't know how to. >> run the pentagon. >> does the deputy secretary know how to run the pentagon? do the undersecretaries know? and it's going. >> to be the. >> same thing. who are going. to be the. assistant directors, the. >> advisers, the people. >> that are around kash patel, the people who might not do the things for donald trump, that kash patel is clearly going to be willing to do. >> kash patel has been described as somebody who would do anything for donald trump. the plot. calabro for the atlantic had a great piece about about him being somebody who would didn't matter what the law was. he would literally do anything for donald trump. donald trump would have no oversight over his interactions with doj, no oversight over his interactions with the attorney general, because the supreme court has ruled any of those interactions, no matter what they are, are immune, period. donald trump has

said that he's upset at his enemies. you know, he wants retribution. we've seen officials who have worked for him, done things under his orders, stripped of their security clearance, stripped of their personal protection. and these are people within the government. should people that are civilians now be concerned about if they've ever said anything negative about donald trump, that they might have fbi agents at their doorstep? >> well, i think, you know, for very senior appointees in the previous administration are people that donald. >> trump wants to settle scores with. sure. >> i think for the average federal employee, what they really have to. >> worry about is getting fired. >> or released without. >> proper cause terminated. >> you know. >> on trumped up kind of problems, trumped up accusations that they haven't done their job. >> when the real problem. >> is that they're considered

politically unreliable. this is why trump wants to get control of. >> the. >> civil service and then. >> destroy the civil. >> service, because. >> the civil service. >> like the fbi, like. >> all these. >> other institutions in american life, are things that constrain the power of each branch of government. >> we we're. >> supposed to be living in a. system of limited democratic government where the government is has its power limited by other institutions in the government. >> but donald. >> trump doesn't like that. so i think that would be the main worry. but i think there will be high profile targets. i mean, when kash patel says we're not going to politicize the fbi. you know, that's hard to listen to with a straight face. >> i mean. >> he has spent years saying, i will politicize the fbi and use it the way donald trump wants it used. so i think for certain people, especially very visible people, yeah, they should be concerned. absolutely. >> it appears while ryan nobles is reporting that kash patel looks like he's going to get confirmed tulsi gabbard, there

are still questions about a number of senators. a lot of republicans really pressed her yesterday on edward snowden to say he's a traitor. she refused to do so, and she was pushing back toward or pushing back toward senators who were asking her that even republicans, they were also asking her about fisa warrants. she's been skeptical of the process by which they're obtained. do you sense that that she is of a different category than kash patel for republicans, and if so, why? >> yeah, she is. and i think that's unfortunate because i think of the of the remaining. really unacceptable nominees. i think there were four with hegseth leading the pack now of patel. >> gabbard and rfk. >> i think actually, patel is. >> easily the. >> most dangerous of the three of those. but he's also very adept. i mean, he in his meetings with the senators, he was apparently, you know, pretty. slick and.

>> was able to. >> you know, talk his way past a lot of problems. and you saw it in. >> his confirmation. hearing where, you know, very he very easily. >> just said, i. >> got a guy whose show. >> i've been. >>n many times, don't. >> remember him. >> you know. >> he's eight times. >> eight times. >> eight times. >> right. >> which kind of offensive? if you're the guy who. >> show that. >> is. >> you know. >> but anyway. they you know. >> so they he was. >> able to tap. >> dance his way. >> past a lot of that. >> gabbard from from the reports i've seen. >> and heard is just not very adept. >> in these meetings. and the senators came out, you know. kind of. >> thinking, you. >> know, just. >> doesn't she doesn't connect. she doesn't. know what she's doing. >> she's just not reassuring. and it is a weird thing she did. pick that one. hill to die on of edward snowden. she, she very carefully backtracked. >> about i'm nobody's puppet, and i'm offended at the accusation. >> that i would support russia and so on and. >> so forth.

>> but boy, she really dug in on edward. >> snowden. >> which, you know, ten, 12 years ago might. have been a more defensible position. >> back when. >> pete snowden still had a lot. >> of defenders. >> but in. >> a bipartisan chamber where, you know, kind of everybody gets it, that what. snowden did was commit. >> you know. steal american secrets. >> and then. >> flee to russia through. >> china. >> that that's. >> a that's a. >> pretty hard sell. and it's. >> kind of. >> weird for her to keep to keep standing on that. >> yeah, i did i did wonder about that. i mean, edward snowden himself came out and said, throw me under the bus if you need to. for whatever that's worth. i want to bring in washington post national columnist philip bump. the other nominee is rfk jr. and phil, thanks for joining us. i want to play a little bit of what another republican senator pressed him on. this is senator cassidy, a doctor from louisiana. let's listen. it's

coming. >> scabbard is simply yes or no question. do you still think edward snowden is? >> i heard it, i heard it start. it's going to come. this is senator cassidy. he's pushing rfk jr on vaccines. >> i just had a friend text me. two children died. in intensive care. >> unit in a baton. >> rouge hospital from vaccine preventable diseases. this past month. so my concern is. >> that if there's. >> any false note, any undermining of a mama's. >> trust in. >> vaccines. >> another person. >> will die from a vaccine preventable disease. >> now you've. >> got. >> a megaphone. >> maybe you. >> and bernie. >> you know, bobby and bernie of everybody in this room. >> the two of. you have. >> the biggest followings. >> tremendous credibility. >> and with that influence comes. >> a great responsibility.

>> now, my responsibility is to learn. try and determine if you can be trusted. to support the best public health. now, let's be political. i'm a republican. i represent the amazing state of louisiana. and as a patriotic american. i want president trump's policies. to succeed in making. america and americans more. >> secure. >> more prosperous, healthier. >> but if. >> there's. >> someone that. >> that is not. >> vaccinated because of policies or. >> attitudes you bring to the department, and there's another 18 year old who dies of a vaccine preventable disease, helicoptered away, god. forbid dies. it'll be blown up in the press. the greatest. tragedy will be her death. but i can also. tell you an associated tragedy. well, that. >> will cost. >> us, that. >> will cast a. >> shadow over president trump's legacy, which. i want. >> to be. >> the absolute best legacy. >> it can be. >> all right, so just like tulsi gabbard, this is not something that he was willing to back off

on. phil, give us a little bit more about what's going on with rfk jr. >> yeah. well, i mean, to some extent it's sort of hard to say. i mean, i think it. >> is clearly the case that. >> rfk jr. >> has a track. >> record that's very hard for. >> him to escape. he was literally the leading voice in the united states of america prior to the coronavirus pandemic about raising concerns, unfounded concerns about the efficacy and safety of. >> vaccines, that that that. >> is who he is. that is how he got the. influence that the senator was. >> just referring to. >> he became that person, that voice. >> and fundamentally, i think it's important to. recognize that he was. he was taking a. path that a lot of people have taken, particularly on the political right in which you. are raising questions about what. >> the elites. >> are saying, what the. >> experts are saying, because there is value to that and there's demand for it. and so that that was the tack. >> that he took. >> it's clear that he believes. >> a lot of. >> what he had said. >> in the past. but, you know, it is hard for him to. >> escape that. it is hard for him to present himself as

actually, i do have this, you know, a moderate record and moderate views of vaccines. simply because there. >> is such a robust. >> library of information about what he's done in the past and said in the. >> past that got him to the point where he is now. >> and now. >> that's. >> all just become baggage. >> i just like that shot of murkowski right there, that face. we'll see what happens with rfk jr. we'll see what happens with tulsi gabbard. it appears that those two could be could be potentially more difficult for donald trump to get confirmed, certainly than kash patel as it currently stands. phil bump, thank you very much, tom nichols. thank you as well. coming up next, the ceasefire is holding. it's holding. and tomorrow three new hostages, including an american, will be released. we're also going to talk a little bit more about that fbi purge that i about that fbi purge that i mentioned. don't go anywhere. i love that my daughter still needs me. but sometimes i can't help due to burning and stabbing pain in my hands, so i use nervive. nervive's clinical dose of ala reduces nerve discomfort

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>> smart buy. >> got it, got it. boss otter. you got this. >> hamas is set to release three more hostages tomorrow, including one american. the now 65 year old keith siegel is expected to return home to his wife, aviva, who was released by hamas in the first cease fire deal back in november of 2023. joining us now, nbc news chief international correspondent keir simmons. so give us what to expect here. >> well you. >> know. >> katie, what we're going to see tomorrow is keith siegel. we

hope we expect emerge from that hamas captivity more than a year after his wife was released. and she has talked in interviews very movingly about them leaving each other while in captivity. when she was freed and he was not. so you can just imagine what it's going to be like tomorrow when they are reunited. it will be. it will be elation, of course, and also a good deal of pain. you can imagine that there are three hostages set for release tomorrow. we're not sure where in gaza they will be released from. perhaps they will be released in and now again, that will be bittersweet because his wife and two children were also held and they are not on the list. so of course, the fears are growing for them, including his youngest son kabir, who was just nine

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>> several top fbi executives, promoted by former director christopher wray, were told to resign, retire or to stay and be demoted if not fired. multiple current and former bureau officials tell nbc news the purge of senior officials includes some of the bureau's top managers that oversee criminal, national security and cyber investigations. important stuff today. david sundberg, the assistant director in charge of the fbi's washington field office, became the highest ranking field agent so far to be fired from the bureau. two senior law enforcement sources tell nbc news that sundberg, who joined the fbi in 2002, was notified yesterday that he was going to lose his job and that he's currently preparing to leave the bureau in the next few days. also happening, white house press secretary caroline leavitt announced tariffs are coming tomorrow against china, mexico and canada. here is that announcement. and then what

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