Love. After social media spread their secret location. Well take a rare official tour with forest rangers who are struggling to protect the trees from visitors. But we begin this morning with a look at todays eye opener. Your world in 90 seconds. Ive never seen anything like this, absurd. That was a nightmare. A massive power outage crippled atlantas airport. Flight delays and cancellations rippling across the country. Power has been restored but the trouble is not over. The president s lawyer accusing muellers team of improperly obtaining thousands of emails from the president s Transition Team. Is he setting the stage for firing muler . Theres no conversation whatsoever in the white house. Were on the verge of getting this done, the single biggest change to the tax system ever that President Trump is going to sign this week. Massive tax breaks to the rich, cuts to social security. This is a grossly unfair tax bill. Wildfire tearing through Southern California has grown to the Third Largest in the states history. These flames are like three stories high. Theyre scary to look at. The owner of nfls Carolina Panthers is selling the team after claims that he sexually harassed workers and made racist comments. All that. Pope francis turned 81 and celebrated italian style. The pope blew out birthday ca t candles. And all that matters. Explosion of love here for ryan after suffering that horrific injury. Ryan surprising his teammates. They didnt even know he was coming. On cbs this morning. This happened in dallas. Two sisters found a dance partner in a Southwest Airlines employee on the tarmac. I hope people resorted to this in atlanta when they had to wait all those hours. The air Traffic Controller entertaining them and keeping up with them too. Look at that. There goes the chicken dance. This mornings eye opener brought to you by toyota, lets go places. Welcome to cbs this morning. Thats a good way to start the morning, right . I think so too. Yeah, good sense of humor, mr. Southwest man on the tarmac. Absolutely. Im Norah Odonnell with gayle king and Anthony Mason, with us all week. Thousands of Airline Passengers are stuck in atlanta this morning after a massive power outage shut down the worlds Busiest Airport. An electrical fire knocked out power for nearly 11 hours yesterday at hartsfieldjackson Atlanta International airport. Power was restored just before midnight. More than 1,100 flights were canceled yesterday. More than 400 flights were already canceled today. About 30,000 passengers were stranded. Some say they were stuck on the tarmac for at least seven hours with no food or water. The flying wasnt stressful enough, officials are still evaluating the cause. Chris van cleave is at hartsfieldjackson in atlanta with the major disruption at the key hub. Chris, good morning. Reporter well, good morning. Many of those 30,000 travelers are going to be trying to get out of here today. Let me show you what the airport looks like as we take a view here. This really came at an awful time. The Airlines Look at sunday as the start of the Christmas Travel rush. And this is an airport thats busy on a good day. 275,000 passengers on average, 2,500 planes coming and going. So today really becomes about recovery. Cheers of joy late sunday night at atlantas hartsfieldjackson airport when the lights finally came back on. It was great when the lights came on, that was exciting. Blackout in atlanta. Reporter but for much of the day, this is what the inside of the nations Busiest Airport looked like. Thousands of passengers stranded inside as the airport ground to a standstill. We were literally carrying old people down the escalators and carrying well cha ining wh. My heart was racing because im scared for their lives. Walk down the escalator which is a nightmare, then we have to go through the tunnels that are pitch black. Its scary. That was a nightmare. Reporter hundreds more travelers were stuck inside airplanes waiting for a gate. We sat on the tarmac for six hours. I have my 5monthold with me. Were trying to get to ft. Myers but all flights have been canceled. No power. No anything. Reporter Georgia Power believes switch gear failed, sparking an underground fire that took out backup systems in substations powering the airport. Atlanta mayor reid. I want to be very clear, we do have a redundant system but it was impacted by the intensity of the fire. Reporter with well over 1,000 flights canceled, the power outage hit dealt at it hardest. Atlanta is its main hub. Continued issues monday in atlanta could mean problems at airports across the country. So as a result you have this terrible mess with airplanes not where they should be, crews not where they should be and passengers not where they should be. Reporter thats part of why delta canceled more than 300 flights mainly this morning as they try to restart normal operations by midday. Of course, the big question now is how does a fire in your primary system take out your redundant system . Thats going to be a question flyers want an answer to. Norah. All right, chris, thank you. President trump says he will not fire special counsel robert mueller. The president spoke out last night after his attorney accused mueller of improperly obtaining tens of thousands of emails covering the time before mr. Trump took office. Paula reid is at the justice department. Paula, good morning. Reporter good morning. A lawyer for President Trumps Transition Team claims that some of the emails that mueller has obtained contains privileged information and that the Transition Team was not allowed to review them before they were handed over to special counsel. The president last night quashed capitol hill rumors that he was poised to fire special counsel robert mueller. No, im not, no. What else . What, are you surprised . Reporter democrats and republicans agree on muellers integrity. I have confidence in director mul ir. I do not at all believe that mr. Mueller has been compromise order his investigation. I think hes beyond reproach. Reporter but the president said he was troubled by allegations made by his Transition Team that mueller got unauthorized access to thousands of transition emails. Looking good. Its not looking good. Its quite sad to see that so my people were very upset about it. Reporter mueller is pushing back and says the emails were obtained legally. In a rare statement, his spokesman said, when we have obtained emails, we have secured consent or appropriate criminal process. I cant imagine theres anything on them frankly because as we said theres no collusion, theres no collusion whatsoever. But a lot of lawyers thought that was pretty sad. Reporter the Mueller Probe faces increasing attacks from republicans over a top fbi investigator who was dismissed from the investigation. Lets get all the documents, lets bring him in for depositions. Reporter now republicans say they will subpoena fbi counterintelligence agent peter strzok and senior fbi lawyer lisa page who texted criticism of then candidate donald trump throughout the campaign. White House Press SecretarySarah Sanders says the white house continues to fully cooperate with the investigation, and they expect it to wrap up soon. But sources close to the case say this will go well into next year. All right, thank you very much, paula. President trump will unveil his National Security strategy in a speech today. And he plans to single out china and russia as threats to american interests. The president spoke again yesterday with russian president Vladimir Putin. He thanked mr. Trump for sharing information from the cia that allowed russia to prevent a terrorist attack in st. Petersburg. Russia made arrests and found weapons and bomb materials. Margaret brennans at the white house with the story. Margaret, good morning to you. Reporter good morning. The two president s spoke again sunday for the second time in four days. In a rare optimistic statement, president Vladimir Putin thanked mr. Trump and the cia for providing the information that helped them to thwart that potential terrorist attack on russian soil. The white house is calling this, quote, an example of the positive things that can occur when our countries work together. Notably for mr. Trump, he also praised the cia, in contrast to his past criticism of that agency. In this case, he thanked the entire Intelligence Community on a job well done. But this afternoon when he unveils his National Security strategy, the president will call out russia as well as china as threats to the u. S. Who refer to them as, quote, revisionist powers attempting to erode American Security and prosperity. Now, that puts them on par with north korea and iran as well as terrorist organizations as undermining americas power. Now, it is clear that the president s National Security team sees Vladimir Putin as an adversary, despite the president s own attempts to broker a friendlier relationship. Margaret brennan, thanks. Congressional republicans say their landmark tax reform bill will be on the president s desk this week. The house of representatives intends to vote on the plan tomorrow. The senate is epected to vote no later than wednesday. Nancy cordes is on capitol hill with the approaching end of a long quest for republicans. Nancy, good morning. Reporter good morning. There is no more tinkering. The tax bill is set. Republicans insist they have the votes to pass it. Now they just need to prove to the American People that the tax cuts are worth the cost. This is an historic event. Reporter treasury secretary mnuchin promised sunday that the 1. 46 trillion tax plan will primarily benefit the middle class. This will be very large tax cuts for working families. Reporter working families may need some convincing. A recent cbs news poll found almost 70 of americans think the plan will help the wealthy. Its a huge giveaway to big corporations. Reporter democrats pointed to a lastminute deduction added to the tax bill, benefiting those with Real Estate Income like President Trump and former holdout senator bob corker. Is that how you got senator corker with this provision . The particular provision youre talking about honestly is just one piece of a thousand page bill. Reporter in a Statement Last night, corker said he had no knowledge of the passthrough provision in question. And asked how it made it into the final conference report. The bill republicans plan to pass tomorrow would reduce rates at every income level. Double the standard deduction. And slash the Corporate Tax rate. This is something designed to be able to energize the energy. Reporter the question is, will it boost the economy to justify the price tag . They did not do enough to still cover. This is not going to pay for itself. Reporter arizona senator john mccain, battling brain cancer, will not be here to vote for it. I understand hell come if we have a need for his vote which hopefully we wont. Reporter mccains soninlaw, journalist ben domonich, told face the nation that mccain was flown home sunday to spend the holidays with his family. He remains one of the toughest men on the face of the earth. Reporter the fact that republicans are moving ahead without mccain shows that they dont believe they will need his vote in the end and that the handful of gop holdouts who havent said where they stand will vote yes when push comes to shove, anthony. Is there anything that could still derail this bill . Reporter well, we still havent seen the final analysis from bipartisan number crunchers. There could be something there that gives lawmakers cold feet. That will show us who wins and who loses from this tax plan. Even democrats i have spoken to thinks republicans have this in the bag, even though they believe it will hurt them politically in the long run. Nancy cordes, thanks. A massive south California Wildfires threatening more homes this morning after advancing three miles since saturday. At 270,000 acre, the thomas fire is the Third Largest wildfire in modern california history. Funeral procession for a firefighter killed thursday crossed five counties. First responders saluted as it passed. Carter evans is in montecito near Santa Barbara where multimillion dollar estates burned. Reporter good morning. This is one of nine homes that burned here in montecito. But with the break of the winds yesterday, firefighters said they were able to have one of their most productive days in the two weeks that this fire has been burning. There are now 8,500 firefighters battling these flames. The thomas fire roared back to life over the weekend as wind gusts hitting 70 Miles Per Hour pushed the flames into the wealthy community of montecito near Santa Barbara. This is what sonya beermans house looked like on friday but this is the devastation she returned to on sunday night. Its hard. Let me tell you, weve had our moments. Its been crying until we got here and its, like, words cant explain. Reporter on saturday, more than 3,000 people in and around montecito were forced to evacuate. These flames are like three stories high, you know, theyre scary to look at. Reporter some 1,300 structures in montecito were threatened this weekend but firefighters were able to keep the number damaged or destroyed to 15. This is a firestorm destroyed this home. Reporter when that wind was blowing, theres not much you can do . Theres no way you can stop a fire front like that. Reporter the fire has now scorched more than 420 square miles. If it were placed over the new york city area at more than 40 miles wide, it would reach from new jersey into long island. More than 700 homes have been destroyed and 18,000 structures are still threatened. The thomas fire has claimed two lives including 32yearold firefighter Corey Iverson who died thursday from burns and smoke inhalation. Firefighters and other mourners honored him by lining the streets. Hes survived by his pregnant wife and 2yearold daughter. This fire is now 45 contained. There are still mandatory evacuation orders. But the good news is, there is hardly any wind, so firefighters are going to use this time to try and build a containment line all the way around the fire before the winds are forecast to return on wednesday. All right, touch and go continues. Cant say enough about the job that the firefighters are doing there. Thank you so much, carter. Carolina panthers owner Jerry Richardson said he will sell the nfl franchise after he was accused of workplace misconduct. Sports illustrated reports that richardson or the team have made confidential payouts to former employees. Beyawn thu beyawn that golodryga is here. The nfl says it is investigating the allegations. And despite a long Statement Released yesterday by richardson, the former nfl player turned team owner, has yet to address the accusations directly. The new report details a pattern of behavior that accusers claim created a hostile work environment. Mccaffrey, touchdown. Reporter since the panthers arival in North Carolina more than two decades ago, billionaire owner Jerry Richardson has been at the helm. And during that time, according to sports illustrated, at least four female employees received financial settlements from either richardson or the team. Misconduct allegations against Richardson Range from sexual to racial. Including what multiple women call the seat belt maneuver. Inviting female employees to lunch and when seated in his car, he is accused of brushing his hand across their breast before putting the belt in the clasp. The report also says richardson asked multiple female staffers if he could shave their legs, requested barefoot massages and gave back rubs that went too low down the spine. Multiple sources told si the 81yearold owner recently directed a racial slur at an africanamerican scout for the panthers. Thats something extremely serious, especially when you see so many people getting, you know, picked out because of things that theyve done in their in the past. Reporter panthers quarterback cam newton says despite the allegations, richardsons impact on the team has been positive. He has had such a fatherlike role to a lot of players in that locker room thats present and, you know, past. Reporter in an open letter that made no mention of the allegations, richardson told fans, i believe it is time to turn the franchise over to new ownership. I will put the team up for sale at the conclusion of this nfl season. I will be the best nfl owner that you can imagine. Reporter highprofile potential buyers are already showing interest. Including hiphop mogul sean combs and Golden State Warrior steph curry. That will be something with steph curry there. Jerry richardson purchased the panthers in 1993 for 206 million. Forbes now estimates the franchises net worth is around 2. 3 billion. The statement said the entire organization is committed to ensuring a safe, comfortable and diverse work environment. A lot of people comparing this to don sterling, the former owner of the clippers, forced to sell that team. Now falling into the creepy category, really jaw dropping to hear. Those are some very interesting possible buyer