"chris jansing reports." at this hour, republicans take their battle against the justice department to the next level. will they vote to hold the attorney general in contempt for refusing to give them audio tapes of president biden's interview with the special counsel. we're tracking the action. also, terrifying moments in georgia after a man hijacks a bus full of passengers. how the high speed chase came to a deadly end. the ice sting across the u.s., eight men with suspected ties to isis arrested in three major cities after crossing the southern border. how did they escape detection for so long. plus, breaking news, the fed out with its latest decision on interest rates after u.s. consumers got some promising news on inflation. our nbc news reporters are following all of the latest developments, but we begin on capitol hill with nbc's julie tsirkin where speaker mike johnson is expressing confidence the contempt vote against attorney general merrick garland will pass. julie, what's the feeling you're getting from republicans writ large? >> reporter: well, that's exactly right, chris. according to republican leadership, they feel like they do have the votes and their very slim majority now of about two-vote margin that they will have the votes to hold merrick garland, the attorney general, in contempt of congress for failing to turn over the tapes of the biden interview during the special counsel probe looking into the classified documents that the president had possessed. look, you don't have to take my word for it. take a listen to speaker johnson himself this morning. >> we'll be holding attorney general garland in contempt of congress. he is refusing to comply with a lawful subpoena and that's a problem under article 1. we have to defend the constitution, the authority of congress. we can't allow the department of justice and executive branch agency to hide information from congress. i do think the contempt of merrick garland will pass on the floor, and we're anxious to have that happen. >> reporter: now, there were many moderate republicans who were unsure how they would vote on this. i spoke to a handful of them last week, yesterday, revisited with a number of them, including new york republicans who have a tough reelection in november. they tell me now that they are definitely going to vote in favor of holding garland in contempt of congress. he said he should turn over those tapes. republicans feel confident they have the votes. in an hour and a half from now, will the votes translate to reality. will they be able to get the simple majority needed to hold the attorney general in contempt of congress, something that garland has said unnecessary, something he said is a targeting of his department, that remains to be seen. we know in the past, republican leadership has put votes on the floor before that they thought they had the votes for, and at the last minute were surprised when one or two republicans voted against them. we'll see what happens here, chris, but certainly a lot at stake this afternoon. >> julie tsirkin, thank you. now to a wild high speed chase involving a transit bus. kathy park is in atlanta for us. this story is terrifying. what happened here? >> hey, chris, good afternoon to you, terrifying indeed. so this initially came as a call to law enforcement, a hostage situation, possibly, and there was gunfire reported on a bus, and it quickly escalated near downtown atlanta. and you're seeing some incredible and dramatic images of what became a bus carjacking, and now the suspect has been identified as 39-year-old joseph greer. he is a convicted felon, but this all happened during the height of rush hour, and this bus, this hijacking, it crossed several jurisdictions and it took roughly an hour before officials were able to disable the bus. they use an armored vehicle. they were able to get the bus to stop. 17 people were on the bus. and when they cleared the bus, they found one individual, one victim who had gunshot wounds. this individual was taken to the hospital, and was later pronounced dead. but a little bit more on the suspect once again. a convicted felon. he was arrested 19 times before, and now faces several other charges in the wake of what's happened including kidnapping, murder, hijacking of a motor vehicle, and chris, this is a new twist that we have learned after speaking to our local affiliate in atlanta. shortly after, there was a separate shooting that was reported in atlanta. this was before the hijacking, and our local affiliate reporter there on the ground actually interviewed the suspect, the hijacking suspect hours before the bus hijacking. so that is an unusual connection there. and in this interview, the suspect, joseph greer is talking about his mental health history, and also talking about his criminal past as well. we do know that he has waived his initial appearance. we are still waiting for that new court date, chris. >> kathy park, thank you. we have learned several men with suspected ties to isis living here in the u.s. have now been taken into custody. nbc's julia ainsley has the latest for us. julia. >> what we know so far about these eight men is they were arrested over the weekend by i.c.e. in new york, philadelphia, and los angeles, all crossed over the border and they're all from tajikistan originally. at least one is a citizen of russia, and at least two of them crossed over over a year ago, which means they were living freely in the united states. at the time they crossed, we should point out, we don't believe they crossed as part of a group. at the time, none of these men had any kind of derogatory information. that's a term, customs and border protection uses to say they didn't have anything that could connect them to terrorism or criminal background from their home country that would alert officials at the border that they should detain these people. they were treated like any other migrant that wouldn't pose a threat and released. it wasn't until recently that an fbi probe found these met might have a connection to isis. they're currently being held in i.c.e. detention, and only charged with immigration violations. that's the key here. essentially, what federal authorities decided to do was arrest these men, get them off the streets while they continued this investigation. they went for the lowest hanging fruit, which is the immigration violation. they have not yet been charged with terrorism related crimes, but that could come later, and we're told this is all part of what officials say is a heightened threat environment for terrorism in the united states. particularly from that part of the world where isis k has been growing. remember, that was the organization behind that attack in moscow last fall, and it's something that we understand the fbi is continuing to watch. >> julia ainsley, thank you. we have some breaking news. the fed has just announced it's leaving interest rates unchanged. nbc's brian cheung is with us now. what can you tell us? . >> the federal reserve, just a few minutes ago, announcing it's not going to change interest rates. it's going to hold them where they are, essentially, we shouldn't expect to see our mortgage rates, credit card rates, auto loan rates decline. that's the benchmark they use. in assessing the economy there has been modest further progress towards inflation getting to the 2% number. that's important, we just got updated figures on inflation. this coming from the consumer price index. you can see 3.3%, that's how much the government says prices increase between may of this year or may of last year. that's a slower pace than the 3.4% figure we had seen in the april to april period, and substantially lower than the 9% pace. when you unpack the numbers underneath the inflation report. we did see food prices, on a monthly basis, by the way, increase by 1/10 of percent. by the way, they declined even further, prices at the pump, between may and where we are today on june 12th. lastly, the shelter, this remains a big story, that's not letting up in terms of inflation. prices are rising by 4/10 of a percent on a monthly basis. the federal reserve holding interest rates steady after seeing the data this morning, and again, we'll have to see whether or not they project interest rate cuts. projections alongside the announcement today show the possibility of one or even two interest rate cuts by the end of the year. the median member of the 17-person committee, saying they could see one interest rate cut by the end of 2024. >> brian cheung, thank you for that. in 90 seconds, new secret recordings of justice samuel alito as democrats make a push for the supreme court code of ethics. is reform possible? 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>> no, i think the role for the court is deciding the cases. if i start -- would you want me to be in charge of guiding us toward a more moral path? that's for the people we elect. that's not for lawyers. >> if that's what he believes, what should john roberts do, do you think? or maybe at the very least, should that help build faith in the court? >> well, i think, the problem, what i found stunning is the same response that joyce had, which is supreme court justices feeling comfortable just speaking into a microphone, in a hallway of someone who they do not know. and particularly for alito, expressing the beliefs that he did. and then the chief justice, we don't know if he heard what alito said, but, you know, i don't know if they was cleaning up what alito said, but it's just -- it is pretty stunning that alito would be that forthcoming, and that even if the chief justice would respond in some way. if he wants to actually protect, you know, the court in that way, he should be being, you know, we can't know what he's doing behind the scenes. he should be more aggressive in managing the court, in dealing with the ethics problem, and perhaps siding with the minority sometimes, when these questions, you know, some of these abortion cases, the contraception case coming up. if you really want to keep government, keep the court out of measuring and guiding towards morality. you know, he's not -- he is -- there was a time, you know, i'm thinking in particular, chris, of the affordable care act decision in 2012 where we understood that chief justice roberts really played a role in trying to keep the court incremental and how it's deciding things, not overstepping its bound when it comes to legislation, kind of keeping that decision, getting that decision to where it needed to be, and then either has laws all controlled or has stopped or not pushing back or not pushing back enough to keep the court from becoming the court of godliness, you know, to paraphrase what justice alito said. >> there's been attention on a number of justices, as you all know, joyce, but also on their lives, in the case of alito's life, who he blamed for flying the controversial flag, there were two of them outside the property. she was also recorded and here's what she said. >> you know what i want, i want a sacred heart of jesus flag because i have to look across the lagoon at the pride flag for the next month. >> they're persecuting you, and you're like a convenient stand-in for anybody who's religious. >> look at me, look at my, i'm german, from germany. my heritage is german. you come after me, i'm going to give it back to you. >> does justice alito need to address what his wife said there? does the chief justice need to address both what he said and what she said? does it have no bearing on his work? >> well, mrs. alito clearly knows what expectations are for her behavior as the wife of a supreme court justice because in that same recording, she goes on to acknowledge that justice alito has asked her not to fly flags right now, and that she won't fly them right now, and that's when she goes on to talk about the flags that she would like to fly. so, look, there aren't hard and fast rules around spousal behavior, but the problem here is that the supreme court does not have an army that goes out and enforces its decisions. the supreme court has merit as an institution in our society because the public has confidence in it. and we are living through a time of just lagging public confidence in the integrity of this court as an institution. the justices and the people around them need to be taking every step they can to restore that confidence, not continuing to denigrate it. >> jen, you previously said, the blame the wife defense, makes somebody look like a coward. do you think, though, it moves the needle at all? do you think that the supreme court is something people are voting on in november? >> i do. i do think that, and, you know, by the way, alito's wife was talking about the sacred heart of jesus flag. leonard leo has it. i have seen it. leonard leo has that flag hanging outside of his home in maine. he, of course, is a very wealthy donor who has given a lot of money to conservative legal organizations who try to accomplish what they have, which is very conservative, and religious leaning in their decisions, supreme court. so i think that -- i do think, you know, it is -- i mean, it really is stunning to hear, justices normally don't voice any kind of political opinion at all, and to be so casual with it, i found -- i found really shocking. i thought that the discussions happening behind closed doors, the supreme court, and i do think it's going to be a vote. i think the supreme court is going to be a big voting issue. when you have the mifepristone decision coming soon. already living with how the roe decision has wrecked women's health care across the country, and now you hear that the supreme court justice wants there to be a nation of godliness, and the chief justice is a little weak kneed about how you push back on a court that's trying to push towards morality. i think that's going to have a big impact. >> joyce vance, jennifer palmieri, thank you both. for more analysis, check out msnbc's how to win 2024 news letter, scan the qr code on your screen and sign up to get major updates to the campaign trail sent straight to your inbox, each week through november. the war, shocking new statistics that shows u.s. soldiers are more likely to die by suicide than in battle. in ba. g and living longer are two things i want from my metastatic breast cancer treatment. and with kisqali, i can have both. kisqali is a pill that when taken with an aromatase inhibitor helps delay cancer from growing and has been proven to help people live significantly longer across three separate clinical trials. so, i have the confidence to live my life. kisqali can cause lung problems or an abnormal heartbeat, which can lead to death. it can cause serious skin reactions, liver problems, and low white blood cell counts that may result in severe infections. avoid grapefruit during treatment. tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including breathing problems, cough, chest pain, a change in your heartbeat, dizziness, yellowing of the skin or eyes, dark urine, tiredness, loss of appetite, abdomen pain, bleeding, bruising, fever, chills, or other symptoms of an infection, a severe or worsening rash, are or plan to become pregnant, or breastfeeding. long live life and long live you. ask your doctor about kisqali today. it's good to get some fresh air. fresh air? 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