we think we can get him back, and assad should be held accountable. >> joining me now is deborah ticethe press," mrs. tice, thank you for being here. we are so sorry for what you and your family have been going through for the past 12 years? thank you very much for having me here. >> well, it's an honor to have you here. let's start off by talking about this extraordinary moment. rebels have overturned the assad regime. i know some in your family feel like this is a turning point. how do you feel right now about your chances of finding austin? >> when we first came into the city we met with the state department. we met with the white house, and you know, it was saturday night when this happened, when they breached damascus, and for us, this kind of chaos, for us it represented a huge opening, a huge opportunity and especially when people started going into the prisons, finding their families. there was a man that had been held in silence for 34 years, and he was reunited with his family, and so we are just really excited about being a reunited family. and you have information that sug

tice home. what we can say this year that we can continue to support austin, that we continue to support deborah and the entire tice family and raise awareness through 5ks and discussion and press and entire conferences and we still have failed and austin tice has not yet come home. i still have four weeks left to once again call on president joe biden. you are still the president, there's still time to get this done. it is incredibly critical that austin tice, airplay marine and award winning journalist and american return to his family. he was a journalist as we all know, journalism is not a crime. i'm really truly honored to be standing here with the tice family today. i think you'll be able to have a chance to hear from a few of them. but this is truly a dedicated family. deborah, you've constantly been an inspiration to me with your fight and power and not letting in go and deep support with your entire family with you, and i know you've traveled, some of you very far around the globe to be with us today and means so much to have you here. thank you for being here at the press club. i'll al

we are praying for deborah and their entire tice family. we look forward to that interview., thank you so much. we hope you join christian for this morning's meet the press. she will have exclusive interviews with senators lindsey graham and bernie sanders, as well as that deborah tice interview that we just mentioned. if you just stick right here with us for today in the bay, meet the press is on at 8 a.m, right after this newscast, and coming up in about 30 minutes from now, we will talk to nbc bay area political analyst larry gerston for our weekly segment, we'll take a look at how the california legislature is changing. with more women now filling seats. turning now to comedian and actor jamie foxx is recovering after being hurt in a fight on friday night at a restaurant where foxx was celebrating his 57th birthday. police in beverly hills there say it was a physical altercation. no arrests were made. fox's representative says someone threw a glass at the star, hitting him in the mouth. he had to get stitches. this comes just a few days after the release of fox's new net

our interim authorities, officials, to make sure we do a good search, so that i can one day look deborah ticethe eyes and tell them our search has been exhausted. in a perfect world, we're going to find austin tice. i think i've gone on record numerous times saying i believe he's alive and he's waiting for me to find him. the president said he believes austin is alive. our job in the u.s. government is to keep pressing and pressing and pressing to find out austin's location, his disposition, his status and to bring him home. >> you're referring to them as interim authorities. the head of hts, was described by state department officials as being very pragmatic in those meetings today. but his group and he hadimself still considered a terrorist under u.s. law. do you trust they are being helpful to the u.s. now? >> they were definitely helpful today. we conducted a joint search of a facility that we all thought would have a probable, i guess, some sort of relation to austin tice. so, i understand, of course, their past. what i can tell you is right now they're being helpful in the search for au

i'll sit down exclusively with austin's mother, deborah tice. it's all ahead this sunday on meet the press. as you heard, meet the press is sunday morning, 8:00, right here on nbc bay area. we've got new details tonight about the investigation into the murder of the united health care ceo. we've confirmed a missing person's report for luigi mangione was filed in san francisco. investigators tell us mangione's family filed a report with san francisco police in november last month. then, after the killing in new york city, a san francisco officer thought that the wanted suspect looked like mangione. the officer contacted the fbi in san francisco. the fbi then shared the tip with the fbi office in new york. investigators say they received hundreds of tips from across the country about the shooting, and the tip did not stand out over other leads. but investigators say it shows the authorities did work together to try and solve this crime. contra costa county animal shelter is making an urgent plea for your help tonight. consider adopting a pet for t

deborah tice is the mother of 43 year old austin tice of houston.he says the news of another american being freed by syrian rebels from prison is giving her hope that her son will also be released. tice has been the focus of a massive surge after the president of syria was ousted last week. >> i feel like we're standing in line and we're not the only ones that are still standing in line, because there are still a lot of prisons that have not been opened. it's going to take a while. >> some u.s. officials, though, say they fear that tice might have been killed during a recent round of israeli airstrikes on syria. and right now, it is no longer safe to be in syria if you are a u.s. citizen. that is the word from the state department. following the fall of the assad regime. fox's greg palkot has the latest developments from london. israeli airstrikes are escalating throughout syria, and there are still sporadic clashes taking place more than a week after the fall of the assad regime. now, the state department is telling americans to leave the country,

i was with deborah tice, austin tice's mother the other day. and she is pointing out that u.s.erting too much interest but all that said, do we think we can get austin tice out? she has appealed now to vladimir putin as well as getting a promise from netanyahu that he will not strike syria where austin may be. but why can't the u.s. go in with special forces covertly, maybe you can't confirm that, and try to find him? >> so two things. i saw the entire family about ten days ago in washington before i went back to the region. i committed to the family that we would leave no stone unturned in finding austin and bringing him home. since then, we have fanned out everywhere with every possible source, every possible actor who might be able to get information. this involves anyone and everyone who has some relationship with the different rising authorities in syria. we have been in direct contact with them ourselves. we have other partners on the ground. and we are looking to get on the ground ourselves as quickly as we can. but the most important thing is this. any information, any

tice is an american journalist, a former marine and eagle scout. he was captured while reporting on the syrian civil war. this is the last time that marc and deborah saw their son. he was 30 years old. you see him there just days before he turned 31. he is now 43 years old and his parents are out front. now marc and debra tice and deborah, here we are, more than 12 years since those horrifying images, the last that you saw of austin after that, you went to syria. you spent nearly four months there meeting people, trying to find his trail, to find where he was. and you met some people that you became very close with. you've talked to a source that you've referred to as very significant there, telling you that now austin is being cared for and that he is well. what can you share about how certain you are that austin is okay well, i mean, it comes from intel that's been verified by many different agencies in the united states. >> they just don't want to share it. they don't want it to be public. but it's verified. it's real. and, um, as recent as august of this year, as recent as august of this year. >> marc, what? what makes you feel this confidence

. >> tice's mother deborah said she has been assured that he is alive and has been treated well.he brother and sister, they are very encouraged by this. what do you think is happening behind the scenes trying to find him? >> yeah, i mean, andrea, we know from the phenomenal, you know, media coverage including richard engel there on the ground that people are -- the syrian people, and of course some media with them are just going, basically from jail to jail. they're looking for hidden prisons. obviously austin tice was somebody that the syrians wanted to hold on to and did not want americans to free him, so i would imagine that he wouldn't be easy to find, but i would hope that this new government, this new -- the organization that's now in control of the syrian government, the so called hts, their initials, that they would be motivated as a gesture of goodwill to really put out every effort to find austin tice and to bring him home. he has been there way too long. he was there of course chronicling the brutal civil war in syria that assad unleashed on his people and he has been

a missing american journalist austin tran29: the toppling of the assad regime, and today, tice's mother, deborah, sitting down with kristen welker on meet the press to discuss what a reunion with her son would mean. let's go to matt bradley in damascus, syria. tell us what we heard today from austin's mother. >> reporter: it was interesting, she was describing the fall of the regime and all of these images we have been seeing. of people going into these prisons, like that notorious barracks where we have seen people just wasting away for years at a time, the victims of torture being crushed to death in these cells. and she said that this gives her hope. seeing these people being released, seeing these prisoners flooding out into the streets, and seeing the people of syria trying to break in and bust them out. now, this has been happening in the past week, and again, we have seen so many incredible images and sequences of this, but she said just recently, the discovery of this american, travis, basically she saw that as a rehearsal. now, this man was somebody who nobody really knew that he was he