we start on the ground in philadelphia with nbc's ayman mohyeldin who is near the crash site and msnbc national correspondent joy reid who is at temple university hospital. let's start ayman. what's the latest on the recovery effort, ayman? >> still very much an active scene here reverend. the ntsb a while ago wrapped up their press conference. the word you hear time and time again is timeline. they're trying to piece together the timeline of what happened in those fatal final minutes. the train left the station. at 9:21 it was completely derailed. a lot of questions surrounding the speed at the time it was entering the left turn. as you were saying the initial data suggests that it was going at about a speed of 106 miles per hour. and at the time that the engineer applied the emergency brake, the final data point collected was about 102 miles per hour. in either case that is about double the speed of what was authorized for the train to be making as it entered into that curve. now, officials here say they're still collecting what is known as perishable data, that is information that m

ayman mohyeldin is there. ayman, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, jose.learning more about the identity of these two suspects one of them in particular elton simpson, was a man known to the fbi, he was first spotted on their radar back in 2006 because of his activities and plans to travel overseas so much so that the u.s. government accused him or brought him to trial over those specific charges. he was convicted to lying to federal authorities about his plans to travel overseas, but he was not convicted, according to a judge, of joining or wanting to join a terrorist organization and did have to serve probation. this is according to court documents. in addition to that the other suspect involved in this shooting, according to sources, was nadir soofi, a man born to a texas mother american mother pakistani father and has an 8-year-old son so certainly, all of these factors are going to be important as officials try to piece together the timeline of what led them to carry out this particular attack but more importantly now that isis has put out this claim

ayman mohyeldin, gentlemen, thank you, aman let me start with you. in to liberate a city? >> two ways to look at it the immediate impact and the aftermath what happens after the city is liberated. they are probably the most hardened fighters especially after what they did in tikrit. they fight with a lot more conviction than the iraqi army so there is one argument to be made perhaps those are the types of fighters you want on the ground. the concern is the sectarian tensions that will come out of having a shiite militia take control of a city in the sunni arab heartland in iraq and their practices in the past have raised concerns about human rights violations and other kinds of concerns about brutality and abuses so it's one of those questions that i think, you know people on the ground are calculating depending on short-term versus long-term gains and costs. >> yeah and steve, the president did an interview with your publication, "the atlantic," i would ask you to read it but said part of the problem is that sunni security forces have not been train

. >> ayman mohyeldin is in texas for us. what's the latest? >> reporter: the ongoing investigation continues to focus on these two men and perhaps any other associates. as you mentioned in that introduction, there's going to be big focus by intelligence officials as well as law enforcement officials to try to determine whether isis is capitalizing on this from an open toon is tick type of view or it had an operational link to these two individuals. a lot of intelligence will focus on these two men and any affiliations they may have had and communication and more importantly to trace if they had funds or money provided to them even training may have been provided if they traveled abroad and where that money may have originated from. we heard from the grandmother of one of those suspects in which she tried to say her grandson would not have been an individual who would be radicalized on his own. this is something he may have been forced to do as a result of that. all of these raise serious questions whether or not isis had a hand in this. ice is

. >> nbc's ayman mohyeldin has been covering the story for us out of garland, texas. there's no evidence to support this claim that isis is responsible or motivated this but what do we know at least regarding what they are saying? >> yeah you know tamron that's a very good question i think it's certainly going to be the focus of both the federal and intelligence sources working this case right now. there's no doubt about it that the recording, that is the radio broadcast of the announcement that came out of an isis top tier forum, if you will certainly seemed authentic and credible from those who know it and follow it in the past the claim of responsibility does not seem too much to be in doubt, if you will. i think the focus is going to be from an investigative point, and this is what has not yet emerged, what role if any isis did actually play in this particular attack. was this simply a claim of responsibility by the terrorist organization as a moment of opportunity for them to try and get some propaganda value out of this attack or was there any kind of operationa

joining me now from garland is ayman mohyeldin.tell if this was an operational isis event, as they claim or aspirational on the part of two roommates from phoenix and isis is just trying to claim the credit. >> that is certainly going to be the focus of both u.s. intelligence officials and law enforcement officials to try and determine now that this claim of responsibility has come out, what is the linkage between the terrorist organization and these two men. there's no doubt about it at least from those who know isis well that the claim of responsibility seemed to be authentic, meaning it came from a credible source, a source that has in the past this radio station belonging to isis has put ought then theic material. that, in itself is going to be a first if it is proven to be true. i think your point about the linkable between the terrorist organization and these two men here is going to focus on whether there was any material support, where there any other associates involved in planning and executing this attack any money trans

. >> ayman mohyeldin, thanks so much.ent of the islamic community center in phoenix where elton simpson worshipped for a decade. it's great to have you insight into what you've been talking about your remembrances of simplesim simpson simpson. you said he stopped showing up. when that happened, did that concern you now or only now a red flag in recollection? >> at that time it was not a red flag because he became involved in working for nadir and his pizza parlor. and also he was brief lyly -- at that time it's a normal story of a lot of people that come to the mosque and after a while they get busy with their lives and end up moving to different sections of town or ended up being busy with the business or personal life. so at that time it was not a red flag it was -- >> does it worry you about any type of radical element that has no infiltrated the mosque? >> no. why not? because i know what the mosque preaches and all these sermons are taped and put on our website, all of the lectures are taped and put on the website. i

and in minneapolis, correspondent ayman mohyeldin. against isis. what's gone wrong? >> i think all along folks like me have understood we have the broad outlines of a strategy in iraq, not syria, but a strategy in iraq. but it's been underresourced and overregulated. it's based upon limitations probably for policy or political reasons on the american role. >> what limitations? >> well number one, joe, we have a ceiling on the number of troops. and it's kind of been directed do as much as you can within these numbers. and then within the numbers how we use the troops, they're not allowed to go forward they're not rent with the iraqi army below the brigade level. it's hard to call in air strikes when you don't have a tactical american party forward in the front line of troops. >> what do we need to do to turn it around? >> lots of things. end some of the limitations. frankly, embrace a bit horrific. "washington post" i think had it right at the very end of their editorial when they said we run the arriving of prolonging this war which a

. >> let's go to garland with ayman mohyeldin.ter: we don't know in terms of the last several days how they managed to get from phoenix to dallas without authorities perhaps throwing about their movements. what we do know from court documents is that elton simpson was a man that the federal government had on the radar for some time. he was convicted in 2010 or 2011 of attempting to go overseas and join a terrorist group, but the judge at that point said yes he had lied to federal authorities about his intent to travel, but at that time there was no substantial evidence that he was going to join a terrorist organization, so as a result, the specific terrorism related charges did not hold the conviction was purely on lying to federal authorities. so there is no doubt that there will be a lot of questions as to how again the individual that the federal authorities knew potentially posed a danger managed for some time to keep a low profile and continue on with planning this attack. i think central to that and now with this claim of re

let's go to philadelphia, nbc news correspondent ayman mohyeldin is there. what's the latest in philly? >> reporter: the scene behind me still remains very active. we've seen some oversized trucks arrive an indication perhaps that they're prepare to go move some of those cars. we know from yesterday the ntsb says it has released the tracks back to amtrak so they can begin repairing them but they will continue the investigation by moving the cars to a secure location. the word you're hearing from ntsb officials over and over again is time line. they're trying to establish the time line for two important event events. one the time it left the train station to the time of the derailment, and also the time line of the engineer and what his-was like hflife was like the past 24 hours. we're hearing the investigation is ongoing. as a result of the train reaching about 106 miles per hour in a turn that was meant to be only about 50 miles that's broke double the speed that he was authorized to go around that curve. they're also collecting data about some of the signa

choicehotels.com >>> good morning, i'm ayman mohyeldin. we begin with breaking news.tes are bracing for another round of soaking rain after a weekend of historic and deading flooding. hundreds of homes have been destroyed by fast-moving floods. at least three people are dead and eight are listed as missing. among the victims, veteran firefighter jason farley was swept away by floodwaters in oklahoma. >> it's hard to imagine jason is not here. >>> joining me now on the phone is the mayor of san marcos texas. sir, thank you for joining us. can you give us a sense of how big of a scope of a devastation is in your town at this point? >> what i can share with you is that this was the largest flood, most devastating flood in the history of our community. for san marcos itself we are kind of the -- anticipating roughly about 400 households that were destroyed, probably well more than that that were damaged. fortunately at least at this point we've only accounted for one casualty immediately in san marcos. i know there have been several others throughout hayes county and over