Generate an Interest Rate hike, the first in nearly a decade. What does that mean for you . And eyewitness news, a local News Reporter covering a bank lifetime when the suspect strikes again. Just 24 hours ago this bank what . Oh, thats the robber. Uh this is live tv folks. Thats the robber. Just went by. I have to go and call 911. Talk to you later. The alleged robber behind bars. Wednesday, december 16th, 2015. From nbc news, this is today, with matt lauer and savannah guthrie, live in studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Good morning and welcome to youre a Television Reporter on live tv describing a bank robbery. Youre about to say a description of the robber. He looks like the guy right over there isnt this a fun job . Well tell you more about how that story unfolded. The top story this morning, the fifth and final republican president ial debate of this year. The issues of National Security and isis dominated the showdown. It took place in las vegas. And while everyone expected the new rivalry between trump and ted cruz to take center stage, they spent most of the night clashing with other candidates. We have a all covered. Well talk to the head of the rnc in a moment. Lets start with nbc National CorrespondentPeter Alexander. Reporter good morning to you. This was the first Republican Debate since both paris and san bernardino. The contenders trying to cast themselves as best qualified to keep americans safe. Jeb bush found his voice against little, too late. For the first time we saw ted cruz and marco rubio mixing things up. Fight night in vegas. Jeb bush flailing in the polls, taking the gloves off against donald trump. Donald, you know, is great at the oneliners. But hes a chaos candidate. And he would be a chaos president. He has failed in this campaign. Its been a total disaster. Nobody cares. Reporter trumps reactions alone priceless. Bush argued trump isnt a serious candidate. I wont get my information from the shows. I dont know if thats saturday morning or sunday morning. I dont know which one. Thises a tough business to run for president. I know youre a tough guy, jeb, i know. We need a leader thats tough. Youll never be president by insulting your way to the presidency. Im at 44 and youre at 3. Im doing better. Reporter trump earned points reaffirming he wont run as an independent. I am totally committed to the republican party. I feel honored to be the frontrunner. And i think ill do very well. Reporter ted cruz and marco rubio a pair of ambitious freshman senators, exchanged blows on a series of hotbutton issues from defense spending. You cant carpet bomb isis if you dont have planes and bombs to attack with. Reporter to immigration. He was fighting for amnesty and not to secure the border. I was fighting to secure the border. I have gotten to know him over the last three or four days. He has a wonderful temperament. We will build a wall that works, and ill get donald trump to pay for it. Reporter rand paul jabbed Chris Christie over the bridgegate scandal. I think when we think about the judgment of someone who might want world war iii, we might think about someone who might shut down a bridge because reporter christie directed his sharpest attacks at president obamas foreign policy. Yes, we would shoot down the planes of russian pilots if in fact they were stupid enough to think that this president was the same feckless, weakling that the president we have in the oval office is right now. Reporter and ben carson battling to resurrect his campaign wouldnt answer when asked to pick sides in a spat between paul and rubio over surveillance. I think you have to ask them about that. I dont want to get in between them. Let them fight. Reporter the bottom line most analysts agree is that nothing that happened here last night dramatically shifts the trajectory of this race. That means, like the temperature here in las vegas, things will remain frozen in place. Trump at number one. Ted cruz at number two, with two january debates to go before the Iowa Caucuses. Thank you. Las vegas. Chairman, great to see you. Thanks for getting up early. Good morning, savannah. Lets do some housekeeping. Donald trump seems to be flirting again with the idea this week of mounting an independent run. Last night he seemed again to close the door on that and say hell run as a republican no matter what. Can you now sleep at night . Is the issue closed in your mind . Savannah, its been closed for months for me. I was never losing sleep about it to begin with. I think the media enjoys this narrative about independent runs. The truth is that there isnt going to be an independent in the white house. Theyre either going to be a republican or democrat. I was never concerned about it. Donald trump signed the pledge when i went to his office months ago, and hes never indicated to me why he wouldnt honor the pledge, so i never doubted it. Lets talk about another issue. There is open discussion among some republicans of the notion if donald trump were to be the nominee, that republicans would get together at the convention and come up with an alternative and have a fight. Will you rule out this notion of a brokered convention . Well, savannah, i dont know where that narrative comes from other than a fictional narrative that spun up last week that never happened. So, you know can you rule it out . Well, no one can rule it out. If a candidate doesnt get to a majority of delegates by the time you get to the convention, then you could have a contested convention. But my belief is that we will have a presumptive nominee by the end of march or middle the april. I said that for over a year. I still believe that. The odds of a contested convention are almost nothing. You know, look, is it possible . Its possible. But its possible the democrats would have a contested convention. Is it likely . Of course not. Sorry to interrupt. The discussion comes up because there is this feeling that if donald trump emerges as the nominee that sm republicansome republicans will not be happy with that and fear that it will hand the election to Hillary Clinton. A lot of candidates, if you ask them, say theyll ultimately support whoever the republican nominee is but they cannot bring themselves to say, i will support donald trump. Where are you on that . Will you support donald trump if he is the republican nominee . Of course. I mean, the point is the Republican National committee is being built and is built for whoever the nominee is. It doesnt matter whether its him or someone else, one of the other 13 candidates who are on the stage last night. The Republican National committee is built to be plugged into whoever the nominee is. So were going to support whoever the nominee is. And that means that whatever nominee can get a majority of delegates is the nominee of our party. Thats where were going to be. Trump is getting a lot of agenda, certainly, in terms of this ban on muslims that he has proposed. Youve been critical of it. You said that it would come at the expense of our values. Other candidates have criticized it in varying degrees. Yet, republicans support that idea, the poll i saw 51 to 60 approve of it. Trump is getting a bump out of it. Where is the disconnect . Is he more accurately reflecting where the Republican Voters are right now . You know, look, i think the reality is that we all have the same goal, right . You have 13 people on the stage that have different ways of getting to that goal of keeping america more safe. I do think that people are afraid. Were afraid. Im afraid. Im sure that youre all concerned about where were at in this country in fighting isis and terrorism and what happened a couple of weeks ago in california frightens everybody. So look you said it comes at the expense of our values, and yet youll also support donald im just trying to put those two concepts together. Well, look, here is the thing. The concept is everyone has or at least that many of the candidates have a different pathway of getting to the same goal, savannah. The reality is that this president and Hillary Clinton havent done a good job and American People dont believe that barack obama and Hillary Clinton have done a good job in fighting terrorism. Now look, when you have 13 candidates running, in many cases youll have 13 different ways of tackling the problem. At least at the very least, republicans are Offering Solutions to the problems that i know that americans dont believe are being tackled properly. And so, for that, im excited about the fact that were offering the American People solutions to these problems. And so, while we may not agree with each other on everything, the goal is still the same. And thats the point im trying to make. All right. Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus. Good to talk to you. With the first votes seven weeks away, chuck todd here, moderator of meet the press. Nicolle wallace, former White House Communications director for president george w. Bush. I want to start by saying is Reince Priebus being forthcoming about this idea of a possible brokered convention and his support of donald trump. I think a lot of people think hes whistling past the graveyard. The criticism has been he has his head in the sand. Hell argue, as you heard there, no, no, no. We have a thing in place here to handle all this. Its everybody thinks its going to be contested. Its not. Others think hes wrong. Who won last night . I thought marco rubio took a stand for what is really a more traditional republican foreign policy. I think it was very important to see that the party has someone in the field that could articulately defend when under attack a world view that has us being more aggressive on the intelligence front, being more i thought he did a good job defending that. We never saw the cruz trump argument materialize . Who wins in your book . I thought cruz and rubio together in some ways, because they really do rehab some divides inside the party. Ted cruz taking it in a different direction on National Security. Rubio a much more traditional post 9 11 republican view of foreign policy. Theyre very good at articulating their own points of view. Theyre very good at going after each other. Look, rubio, i thought, took incoming on immigration. I was reminded, as much as i agree that he handled himself why, i was reminded of why i think hell have a hard time winning the nomination. Immigration, hes out of touch with the republican party. If hes a little out of step with the base, its why democrats and republicans argue hes the best one to go against Hillary Clinton. Quickly, jeb bush never gets good reviews at the debates. He has admitted it. Last night was different, we saw a different side of him. What did you think . No debate that jeb bush had his best performance last night. Did a good job. He seemed to get under Donald Trumps skin and annoy him. The unfortunate piece of is is that many wonder and suspect it may be too late. Well see. He found his role. His role is to go after trump. If thats all he does now, i think hell think he has done a service to the party. Breaking story out of tennessee, a sououwest Airlines Plane skidded off the taxiway after landing at the airport in nashville. Nbcs tom costello is covering aviation and has the story. Reporter more than 100 passengers on board and evacuated. All safely, after the plane suddenly veered off the runway on landing, then running into a ditch. That triggered a full Emergency Response on the ground. This morning the faa investigating why this passenger plane rolled off a taxiway in southwest flight 31 originating in houston, was taxiing to the gate then became stuck in a ditch after landing at nashville. Everything is normal. Then we hear a big pop. Reporter photos on social media show one of the planes emergency slides deployed. A spokesman for southwest tells nbc news the 133 passengers and five crew members were safely transported into the airport. The safety of our customers and employees remains our focus. Eight passengers on board the 737 were transported to a local hospital after suffering minor injuries. Bumps and bruises according to the fire department. It was scary. But we were on the ground. It could have been a lot worse. Reporter tuesdays incident coming just days after another southwest flight made an Emergency Landing in san antonio. That aircraft landed safely after part of the wing appeared to be at what the airline calls an irregular angle. All of this with christmas just a week away and the rush holidays. Recovery crews arrived on the scene overnight. They began to move the plane out of the ditch. The nashville airport says all runways remained open through the the evening. Faa looking into whats happened. Turning to the Harsh Criticism aimed at officials in the second Largest School direct in the country. Hundreds of thousands of kids in los angeles returned to class today after a nowdiscredited threat led that an unprecedented decision to close 900 schools. Many parents calling that move a kneejerk reaction. To National CorrespondentMiguel Almaguer in los angeles. Good morning. Reporter savannah, good morning. This is one of hundreds of schools set to reopen shortly. The superintendent saying he had to make the decision out of an abundance of caution. Today many are questioning did he act too quickly. 700,000 students will be back in after the unprecedented decision to shut down the nations second Largest School district just before classes were set to begin. We can now announce the fbi has determined this is not a credible threat, something we couldnt have announced earlier in the day. Reporter the abrupt decision came after an email threat. Someone claiming to be a High School Senior said they were bullied and ready with an army to attack schools with guns and bombs. L. A. Is 65 miles from san bernardino, where 14 were killed in a terror attack two weeks ago today. The decisions were made. The information that we have now was not available. Reporter while the police chief stood by the superintendents decision, privately, Law EnforcementOfficials Say they advised against the closure, calling it a bad move. In new york, where a similar email was received, classes went on as scheduled. Former lapd police chief bill bratten, now the police l. A. Overreacted. We do not see that as a credible terrorist threat, and we are investigating it as a hoax. Reporter after sweeping 1500 los angeles schools for bombs, the allclear came late tuesday. Well after parents scrambled to pick up stranded students. Im happy that they took precautions. I am sad for the kids that they cant be in school today. Reporter this morning, lausd is back in business but only after heavy criticism. As students across the sprawling 710square mile district return, a 17yearold student was struck and killed by a truck after crossing the street. Its unclear if the student was going to or from school after the School Closures were announced here in the l. A. Area. Matt and savannah, back to you. Thank you. Turning now to the historic meeting by the Federal Reserve thats being watched closely from wall street to main street. A little later today the fed is for the First Time Since 2006. Its a move that will impact everything from your mortgage to your savings. Nbcs olivia therns covers financial issues. Good morning. Why now . Good news. Consider this a vote of confidence in the american economy. Central bank saying were back. We dont need emergency measures. They brought in the zero rates in 2008 in attempt to bring us back from the crisis to spoke borrowing and lending in the economy. It worked. The economy is actually growing at a pretty steady clip. 2. 5 . Unemployment is half of what it was during the crisis. 5 . And yes, some people are starting to get wages. We dont need the crutch. Good news for the economy. It can be tough for people on main street. It will impact our bottom line . How soon will it affect us. The first hike is minuscule. A quarter of 1 . The question is the pace at which the fed raises rates. If you have variable rate debt, credit card loan, student loan or an adustable Rate Mortgage you may see an increase. 18 to 20 months out. If youre thinking about making a big purchase, do start to get your finances in order now. Olivia is a Glass Half Full person. Its good news for the economy we dont need the crutch anymore. A check of the weather now. Mr. Roker at the weather wall. Are you guys ready to play the game we love to play . Who is colder here we go. Some of the temperature lows that were looking at for today. Los angeles and new york city, who is colder . Los angeles. Okay. Lets find out. You are absolutely correct 43 degrees for a low. 48 in new york city. What do we win . Nothing. Las vegas. Lets see if youre right. Hey johnny tell them what theyve won. 38 in boston. 35 in las vegas. Our final who is colder, phoenix or washington, d. C. , ladies and gentlemen. Phoenix lets see if youre right. Boom yes. 43 in d. C. Our low, 33 in phoenix. Let the record show we were three for three. You were amazing. Thats whats going on. Well get to whats happening in your neck of the woods right after this in 30 seconds. Look at me all together now all together now everything techie for everyone. Kohls. And these your and thats your latest weather. Miss winter. I just love when you do these games. Thats really fun. A thank you so much. Better than the old weather map. Coming up, does a popular is a popular celebrityendorsed hair care product making