Legendary television producer, thats norman lear. The Kennedy Center nominee spills secrets on how he created comedies like all in the family and the jeffersons. But we begin with todays eye opener, your world in 90 seconds. The ayes are 51, the nays are 48. Republicans claim victory on tax reform. Is this still about helping people who are living paycheck to paycheck . Hell no republicans will probably lose the house and the senate because of it. My view of this, if we cant sell this to the American People, we ought to go into another line of work. In mexico, a deadly bus crash. It was carrying Cruise Ship Passengers on a land excursion. The Investigation Continues into that deadly amtrak derailment in Washington State. Records show the emergency brake was not manually activated. We have to keep this as a wakeup call. Cardinal bernard law, a key figure in the child sex abuse scandal that marred the Catholic Church in boston, has died. The end of a very long, painful and tragic chapter. The thomas fire is now the second largest in california history. Firefighters expect the winds to whip up again. All that a Massive Volcanic eruption in ecuador. The volcanos first major activity in more than a decade. Amazing. And all that matters the u. S. Marines training alongside marines from south korea simulating combat situations. Im not sure where they had their tops off. Im told it was a marine thing. On cbs this morning. A teen from new york battles his teacher in a bansoff and both of these guys have moves. Oh, my gosh yeah. I love it. Announcer this mornings eye opener is presented by toyota. Lets go places. Welcome to cbs this morning. Im Norah Odonnell with gayle king and Anthony Mason. Just five days to christmas. Uhoh, i better get shopping. And im going to give that contest to the teacher. Very nice. Nicely done, teacher. Very well done. Very well done. Big news day today. President trump is getting ready to sign his first major piece of legislation, a sweeping overhaul of the tax system. The Senate Approved the historic legislation overnight 5148. The house must now take one more step before sending it to the president. The bill dramatically reshapes the tax code cutting taxes for corporations and most individuals. On twitter the president called it the biggest in history tax cut and reform bill. The bill received zero support from democrats who say it does not provide enough help to average americans. Nancy cordes is on capitol hill. Nancy, good morning. Reporter good morning. Congressional republicans have been dreaming of this day for more than a decade. A 40 cut to the Corporate Tax rate, acrosstheboard cuts to individual rates. Now the bill will have to go back one more time to the house, but this is essentially a formality after both the house and the Senate Passed it yesterday. The tax cuts and jobs act is passed. Reporter Senate Republicans pushed their tax plan through in the wee hours of the morning. After eight straight years of slow growth and underperformance, america is ready to take off. Reporter analysts project the bill will cut taxes at every income level next year. On average taxpayers will see a savings of 1,600. Youre going to owe less money to uncle sam, so youre going to get a takehome pay raise. Its as simple as that. Reporter Senate Democrats argued its not that simple. Its government for sale. Reporter by 2027, every income bracket under 75,000 will see a tax increase. By the end of the decade, this legislation will provide 83 of the benefits to the top 1 . Reporter House Democrats issued the same warning. Is this bill about helping people who are living paycheck to paycheck . Hell no reporter but House Republicans also prevailed. Its laid upon the table. Reporter and accused the minority of fear mongering. What youre hearing on the other side is complete false and absolute lies. The American Public has to be pretty confused by now. They have one side saying that this is going to be a huge gift to every taxpayer and the other side saying its a disaster. Well, theyre not confused. Look at every poll. 21, they dont like the bill. Reporter republicans insist public sentiment will change. When the economy continues to improve and wages start increasing because were at full employment, americans will realize this was a good move for the american economy. Reporter tax cuts are such a big gop priority that Congressional Republicans were able to pull this across the finish line without any democratic support. But now they have to pass a Government Spending bill by friday to prevent a government shutdown, and there they probably will need to compromise, norah, with democrats. Nancy, thank you. House Speaker Paul Ryan celebrated the moment when members voted for the bill yesterday. The conference report is adopted without objection the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. Speaker paul ryan joins us from capitol hill. Good morning, mr. Speaker. I know this is something youve been working on for your entire career. Yeah, it is. Good morning, merry christmas. It is something were very excited about this. Were going to give people a big tax cut before christmas. Most importantly this is going to help people get more jobs and better wages and simplify the tax code so were very excited about this. I think people want to understand still whats in this tax code. The majority of it does go essentially to corporations for a tax cut. Why are you convinced that theyre going use that to increase wages and hire more people . Well, first of all, go to fair and simple. Gop if you want to see the details and specifics for yourself. But i would beg to differ. The average family of four in america earning the Median Income is going to get a 2,059 tax cut. When more than half of americans are telling us theyre living paycheck to paycheck, thats real relief. When you double the per child tax credit, double the standard deduction and lower tax rates across the board for every income group, thats real relief for families, for individuals, so thats really helpful and something that i think is needed in these difficult Economic Times when people are literally living paycheck to paycheck. On the business side, when you tax your businesses at such higher rates than foreign competitors are taxing theirs, theyre losing in that global competition. More importantly, u. S. Businesses are moving abroad and becoming foreign businesses because of our tax laws. So were modernizing our tax system and getting from the worst tax system in the world to one of the best tax systems in the world and thats going to give us faster Economic Growth and bring dollars back into our economy from overseas and give us better wages, more jobs. Thats why were doing this. Mr. Speaker, i think polls show that most people view this bill as kind of as you pointed out as far more generous to corporations than it is to individual taxpayers. Are they wrong . Yeah, they are. And i think what it is is youve had this big debate on tv where republicans an democrats are arguing with each other, pundits in the media are saying this and that. When you actually break down the components of this bill, it polls extremely well. More importantly, when it gets in place, when people see their paychecks getting bigger in february because withholding tables have adjusted to reflect their tax cuts, when businesses are keeping more of what they earn, when they can write off their expensing investments in their businesses and hire more people, thats going to change its popularity, i am convinced. So i think theres just tons of confusion out there as to what this does or doesnt do. A lot of people think its going to raise their taxes when every Income Tax Group on average gets a tax cut. So the proof is in the pudding and i think the results will speak for themselves. Youre right, it is confusing for a lot of people. Yesterday senator schumer on the floor said, listen, this is a disgrace. We dont expect him to say good job, paul and company. We dont expect him to say that. They point out in 2027, mr. Speaker, that for the middle class, this actually isnt a break, that their taxes will actually go up. How do you address that . Yeah, so first of all, what theyre basically saying is were cutting them theyre acknowledging that were cutting taxes for the middle class. Then because theres a sunset in those tax cuts at the end of the decade because of senate rules, they will go up. Now, we have no intention of allowing that to happen, but its unfortunate because of the senate rules that we have to comply with that has that sunset. But congress has every intention of making sure that that does not happen. This has been done over and over again because of senate rules where we dont allow these artificial tax increases to ever occur. But i think to acknowledge that theres an increase down the rolled is to acknowledge that were actually cutting peoples taxes right now. Many of your republican colleagues who voted no on this bill voted no because the s. A. L. T. States. Theres a cap on state and local tax deduction. Whats your message to those people and their constituents. First of all, i would take a look at the fact that people in every state, but its especially for the hightax states, you basically have 10,000 you can write off for property and income taxes to begin with, number one. Number two, lower tax rates. Were doubling the standard deduction. So still even in those states the average taxpayer in these groups get a tax cut. Now, im sure there are people, especially very high income people, who will lose a lot of deductions because were simplifying the code that wont see it that way, but the average taxpayer in all of these groups gets a big tax cut. Frankly what you basically have is about 46 states paying higher taxes than their federal taxes. So about four states can raise their taxes on their constituents. So for many members of congress who are not from those states, they dont see it as fair that their constituents pay higher federal taxes, which are soaked up by these high state taxes. So this is sort of a fairness argument as well that youre seeing. Can we talk about your future, mr. Speaker. Big rumors earlier this week, which you denied. Thats just d. C. Speculation. Look, gayle, i didnt mean to cut you off, gayle yes, you did. Ill stop. Go ahead, please. I love and respect you too much to do that so sorry, go ahead. I feel the same about you but there are very credible rumors that you were stepping down. You stepped out and said, no, thats absolutely not true. But where does that come from . Did you say in passing in someone im thinking about it . No, thats what surprises me about this. Thats why i thought it was a very irresponsible piece. The idea that after passing tax reform as if its the only thing i care about im going to leave, get up and go, its ridiculous. Its a thought that never entered by mind let alone discussed it with anybody. I see this as rank speculation among the d. C. Press speculating these things. I think it was fairly irresponsible speculation and faulty speculation. Im not going to get up and leave my conference and my responsibilities in the middle of this term. We have so much more work to do. Gayle, you know im working on poverty and getting people from welfare to work, on criminal justice reform, welfare reform and all of these things. Weve got a lot of work to do. Were excited about doing it and banking a big win here. I want to get back to work and get more things done, not the least of which is to get the military rebuilt so theres a lot of work to do. Thats why im not going anywhere soon. Did you ever think when you were a waiter at tortilla coast that you would some day be handing down the gavel on tax reform . I probably feel the same way you did, norah. Did you ever think when you were a cub reporter youd be hosting this morning show . I did not. Touche. I did not. Well see you in the new year. Take care, merry christmas. Bye. A tourist bus crash in mexico killed a dozen people and hurt 18 others. Seven americans are among the injured. The bus was carrying Cruise Ship Passengers to mayan ruins when it flipped. The crash happened in eastern mexico on the highway from costa maya port where the cruise ships were docked. Manu manuel boroquez is there. Reporter they took off overnight to continue their journey to cozumel. Investigators here are trying to figure out what caused the crash that killed a tour guide and 11 tourists, including a child and 78yearold grandmother. The tour bus crashed and flipped over just after 9 00 a. M. , more than halfway into an hourlong trip from the port to the mayan ruins of chacchoben. Bodies could be seen strewn along the twolane highway. Local reports suggest the bus was traveling on the highway when it apparently drifted off the pavement. As the driver tried to get back on the road, the bus turned up on its side. When we went by, it was pretty horrible. The bus, the front windshield was out like some people had gone through it. Reporter Carrie Vanrenterghem was traveling with her daughters. Traveling for the holidays and its hard to imagine their lives are gone. Reporter the excursion included travelers from two Royal Caribbean cruises. Contribution ra cbs radio rotor is on board theic the ic equinox. It is a very emotional scene. As everybody reboarded the vessel wondering what was going on. Reporter among the dead was a 78yearold grandmother from miami. She was traveling with four other family members. Two were injured. The other two are unaccounted for. Royal caribbean released a statement saying our hearts go out to all those involved in the bus accident in costa maya. We are doing all we can to care for our guests, including assisting with medical care and transportation. Authorities have not yet confirmed the nationalities of those who were killed in the crash. Those who were injured are being treated at local hospitals. But because the ships have now left, its unclear how theyll be able to get home, if and when they recover. Gayle . Very sad story from mexico. Thank you, manuel. Investigators in the deadly amtrak derailment in Washington State are now focused on speed and possible distractions for the engineer. They say that he did not apply the emergency brakes as the train approached a curve traveling 80 miles an hour and that was 50 miles over the posted speed limit. David begnaud is in due paunupo washington, looking at safety technology. David, good morning. Reporter good morning, gayle. Preliminary indications are positive train control was being installed on the tracks here but was not active at the time of the derailment. Ptc is the program that could have voted down the locomotive as it entered the curve here in dupont, washington. Ptc has led some people to say had it been active, we wouldnt be here talking about a derailment and deaths. Crane operators have been busy lifting the mangled rail cars that once made up amtrak train 501 off of the interstate and onto flatbed trucks. New photos from inside the passenger compartment show the destruction caused when the train derailed. The emergency brake was automatically activated when the accident was occurring rather than being initiated by the engineer. Reporter that suggests the engineer never manually slowed the speeding train before it crashed. The event data recorder shows that the train was traveling at 80 Miles Per Hour in a 30mileperhour zone. Among other questions, investigators are looking into whether the engineer was distracted or impaired. Distraction is one of our most wanted list priorities at the ntsb. Reporter the National Transportation safety board says there were actually two people in the lead locomotive cab, the engineer and another conductor who was learning the new route. Both were injured in the crash. Friends and family members are mourning the deceased, including Zach Willhoite and james hamre, two local rail enthusiasts who were onboard to celebrate the inaugural run of this brand new line. Lloyd flem is the executive director of all aboard washington, the Advocacy Group both men belong to. Thats a terrible tragedy, knowing that they left us doing what they had loved and what they had worked for is a little bit of a consoling feature. Reporter there were cameras onboard the train. They were damaged, but theyre on their way to d. C. To be analyzed. Anthony, look, because those train cars actually derailed and fell onto the freeway, it created a traffic nightmare. Even if you dont drive here, yesterday some people waited in traffic for nine hours. One man went one mile in one hour. Traffic experts were telling people some of their best options were a 65mile detour. I5 is that important. David, thank you very much. David begnaud. Cardinal bernard law, who was at the center of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, died early this morning in rome. Law was forced to resign as the head of bostons archdiocese in 2002 after the boston globe revealed he failed to remove sexually abusive priests from its ministry. Globe Investigative ReporterMichael Rezendes helped break the story. He was very, very influential not only in the United States, but worldwide. Cardinal law knew that a priest by the name of john gagen ld spent 30 years in six parishes molesting more than 150 children and yet he continued to allow him to work as a priest molesting more children. Law was never convicted of any crimes. A former Harvey Weinstein assistant speaks out about confronting the movie mogul over an encounter he had with a colleague. So you accused him of attempted rape . Yes, yes. And he denied it . Yes. He said nothing at all had happened. And he swore on the life of his wife and his children, which was his h