Jokes and jabs today friday, january 8, 2016. Announcer from nbc news, this is today with matt lauer live from los angeles, and Savannah Guthrie live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Good morning everyone. Welcome to a split edition of today. Im matt lauer in los angeles, savannah is back in new york and the people in this town are getting ready for the big event this weekend. Yeah, absolutely. Carpet. I see Ricky Gervais is sharpening his knifes. I bet we will gaffe. I was talking about your arrival. Please have the tea lights for me. Lots to get to. Lets start with this top story. Two terrorism related arre two terrorismrelated arrests, one right here in california. Debate going on about refugees from the middle east. Nbcs justice correspondent Pete Williams is looking into that. Pete, what can you tell us . Reporter matt, good morning. Both of these men will appear in court later today to be formally charged. Officials say this is a case about fighting overseas, not about plotting attacks here at home. The Justice Department says a 22yearold man from iraq aws Mohammed Younis al jayab was arrested while he was living in sacramento accused of lying to immigration authorities. The fbi says when he was questioned in 2014 about whether he was ever connected to a terror group he told them he went to turkey a year before to visit his sick grandmother. In fact, the grandmother says he went to syria to fight with various terrorist organizations, first apparently against the assad regime. A second iraqiborn man was also arrested, 24yearold Omar Faraj Saeed Al hardan who lives in houston accused of providing support to isis by getting to syria. Sacramento man asking how he could join with jawedihadists overseas and hes denied of having any connection to terror organizations when he applied for u. S. Citizenship in 2014. As you know, both men came to the u. S. As refugees. Officials say al jayab, the man in sacramento, had already been syria once when he came here and no suggestion that al hardan, the texas man, was radicalized when he came here 17 years ago as a refugee. Matt. Pete williams on this breaking story overnight. Pete, thank you very much. Savannah. Lets talk politics. The president ial race, donald trump held his first rally in vermont last night blocks actually from democrat Bernie Sanders campaign headquarters. The event drew a lot of supporters and protesters. Lets start our coverage with nbcs peter alexander. Peter, good morning reporter town of burlington, vermont, was on edge anticipating trumps visit, handed out thousands more tickets than they had seats. Vermont, of course, is a deep blue state, not typical trump territory, and the candidate spent a lot of his night battling protesters. In the liberal bastion of burlington, vermont, Bernie Sanders country, the trump show felt more like the set of jerry springer. Trump, trump, trump reporter repeatedly interrupted by protesters the republican frontrunner taunted his unwelcome guests. Get them out. Get them out. Confiscate his coat. You know, its about 10 degrees below zero outside. Reporter even berating his own security. Come on, security. Move faster. We need security that moves fast. Come on, move faster. Pretty soon they are going to get so nasty we wont have any more protesting, you know, that right. Reporter after handing out 20,000 free tickets for the 1,400seat theater, the Trump Campaign enforced a loyalty test to get in. Pledge allegiance to trump or go home. The second we get inside, security sees we have a bernie tickets, they grab on to us and they firstbly eject us out of the building. No questions act. Reporter trump insisted he was simply taking care of his people. They are loyal to me, amend i am lime to they will, he said. The billionaire is also escalating his attacks on hillary clinton. Womens rights are human rights. Reporter posting this incendiary Instagram Video challenging clintons advocates are for women while flashing images of monica lewinsky, Anthony Weiner and bill cosby. Meanwhile, trumps closest rival, ted cruz is dismissing john mccains comments backing trumps questions about his eligibility to be president. It is no surprise. Everybody knows that john mccain is going to endorse marco rubio. And rubio trying to solidfy his place. Its locked in a bitter back and forth with Chris Christie. This guy has been spoon fed every victory hes ever had in his life. Thats the kind of person we so. Shell pat him on the head and cut his heart out. Marco rubio has been calling out christie for days blasting him as a liberal republican. Trump rallied he will get rid of Gun Free School zones on his first day as president. As trump put it you know what a Gun Free School zone is to a sicko, its bait. Matt. Peter alexander, thank you very much. As for the clintons, theyre digging in the in the face of those new attacks from donald trump. Nbcs Kristin Welker has more. Good morning to you. Reporter matt, good morning. President bill clinton sticking to strategy trying to avoid an all out war of words with trump. The Clinton Campaign thinks engaging with trump would escalate the issue. I was with president clinton on the campaign trail yesterday and a number of reporters asked him about trumps criticism of him. The fact that he keeps bringing infidelities when he was in office. Heres how president clinton answered one question. Donald trump is again today making an issue of your past transgression. Do you want to respond and are you worried your past could hurt your wifes campaign . I dont have a response. If he went to the if he wins the republican nomination well talk about it. Reporter the Hillary Campaign thinks president clinton is the best surrogate for his wife. By the way, this is a must win state. Meanwhile, on a much lighter note on president clintons Second Campaign event last night he was in the middle of talking when he got a phone call. Heres what happened next. There are other issues that keep americans up at night. And my phones ringing. And explain why i couldnt take it. Reporter a great reminder to keep your phones on silent, right guys. President clinton will be off the campaign trail and secretary clinton will be rallying women voters with headliners and her top competitor Bernie Sanders campaigning here in cedar rapids. Savannah. Kristin, thank you so much. Lets turn the Racheal Maddow and nicole wallace. Racheal, starting with you. The clintons decided were not taking the bait from trump. Can they continue to do that or at some point do they have to engage . Sometimes they have to engage with donald trump. Its advantageous to the democrat and republican in particular. Theyre going to do it when it seeks them. Does it help you as a democrat . Does it help the democrats in the election to elevate donald sometimes they want to engage with him on everything. When america thinks about the Republican Party they want to think about donald trump. On an issue like this, they want to step aside. Nicole, trump is going after bill clinton on his infidelities and trans depressions personally. Is that smart politics and if it is why arent the other republicans following suit . I think all the standards and rules have been burned and discarded in this campaign season. Trump is already the dominate figure in the Republican Party. The notion that theres any other republican standards, thats a good scale. Trump has prevailed in the minds of the viewers and the voters. So when people see these attacks determinations which is so anti clinton of the 90ser wra, the whole strategy of Rapid Response and responding to every attack was pioneered by bill clintons advisers, legendary advisers from the 90s. The notion theyre going to ignore the attacks and go away is foolish. In the few seconds we have left can we turn to the rhetoric heating up between rubio and christie . Christie has let a bomb fly. Pat him on the head and cut his heart out. That combination of ideas is disturbing. Were not going to forget that line. Its a good reminder that Chris Christie when hes on offense and has a target he proceeds to be an exhaust target, hes an abductive bully. It lands. We all on set went oooh. He can land a punch, nicole. He can. Delivered on was that there is a half war now in this establishment lain. There is a real chance somebody other than trump can win iowa and somebody other than trump can win New Hampshire and this whole race restarts. That makes it so exciting. Racheal and nicole good to have you here. Donald trump is going to be joining chuck on meet the press. Meantime, president obama took on the hot button issue of gun control. The town hall meeting came days after he unveiled executive actions to help combat gun violence. The president emphasized hes not coming for your guns. I respect people who want a gun for selfprotection, for hunting, for sportsmanship but all of us can agree that it makes sense to do everything we can to keep guns out of the hands of people who have tried. Thousands of people to gun violence. Also during that event the widow of chris sniper confronted the president on the effectiveness of gun control legislation. We are at the lowest murder rate in our country. All time low of murders. Were at an all time high of gun ownership, right. Im not necessarily saying the two are correlated but what im saying is were at an all time low for murder rate. Thats a big deal. If you look at where are the areas of high gun ownership, those are the places in some cases where the crime rate hasnt dropped down and some places where theres stiff restrictions on gun ownership. Some of those places the crimes drop really quickly. So im not sure theres a one to one correlation there. The president acknowledged his latest executive actions will not stop all attacks. Progress. As a reminder, were taking the entire show to the white house on tuesday. Well talk to him and Vice President biden will join us live and well bring you special access inside the nations most famous home. Matt, out to you in l. A. Thanks very much. Lets talk about growing concerns over stock market. The dow dropped another 392 points on thursday. Its biggest loss in three months. That caps the worst four day start to a year in history. Jim cramer, host of mad money on cnbc is at the new york stock exchange. Jim, good morning to you. Earlier in the week you were with me and said this was about china and because china is a communist country, they can do things democracies cant and they can change the rules and stop this. Its clear now though, they they . No. Absolutely what theyre doing is winging it, matt its disappointing they told us this week there would be stability and told us they have because of their inability to offer any clarity, the rest of the world is suffering. You said that this is obviously a time of volatility but we probably shshldnt blame it all on china. I know youre a little concerned about some signs youre seeing coming out of the Federal Reserve as well. Yes, all week theyve been saying please disregard all this turmoil youre seeing around the world. All that matters is employment. When you put yourself in a box you make it so thats the only thing that matters. You forget whether the world is slowing down economically. The Federal Reserve has to get off the game of being strict and tight. The numbers are not baring up rather than strong employments. I know youre careful about choosing your words and in the past you have come on the show and said its a time to sell. Would you say that again about this time . No, i think those times have come on and i did have a voice and big decline. Risk. Here we have to take some pain but i think this too will pass and anyone who panics now is going to be able to try to figure out how to get back in. I wont play that with peoples money at home. You say its going to pass because the fundamentals of the u. S. Economy are strong in your opinion. Overtime, it will become clear our country is a leader and we can avoid the repercussionre repercussions of what china is doing and saying. It takes overtime. I cant be bullish right here frankly because we havent seen a big wash out world wide. I think certain times like this, matt, you have tits going to be difficult, its going to be volatile but if you stay the course, youre not going to regret it. Jim cramer at the new york stock exchange. Jim, thanks very much. Savannah. All right, matt, thanks. Now to a disturbing shooting that happened in philadelphia overnight. Him. Matt from our o filiation in philly has the latest on the investigation. Matt, good morning. Reporter good morning, savannah, both the officer and suspected shooter are in the hospital this morning. The officer was rushed to surgery late last night and faces a long recovery. This Morning Police are investigating the shooting of an officer who miraculously survived a shot at point blank range. Im shot. All cars stand by, we have an officer shot 60 and spruce. The officer got in a shoot out with a man who police say walked up to the officer while he was sitting in his police car opening fire with a 9 millimeter gun shooting at the officer 13 times. It gets closer and closer to the point where hes actually inside the car firing at the officer. The suspect hitting the bullet holes riddling one side of the police cruiser, police have not relesionedased the video they captured but describe it as horrific. This is one of the scariest things weve seen. This guy tried to execute the Police Officer. The Police Officer had no idea he was coming. Its amazing he was alive. The 33yearold officer returned fire hitting the suspect. Be advised officer hes a five year veteran and suffered a broken arm and nerve damage after being hit. He was taken to Presbyterian Hospital for surgery overnight. This speaks to the dangers of this job and why somebody would do something so absolutely evil is beyond us. Reporter we are hoping to learn a little more later on today as the Investigation Continues with the questioning of the suspect and perhaps a look at that Surveillance Video that supposedly shows this officer barely making it out alive. Matt, thank you. The mother of the socalled affluenza teen is in texas this morning where shell be arraigned. Tonya touch had been held in Police Custody in los angeles last week. Prosecutors investigated whether ethan couch violated his probation. The two were arrested in mexico late last month although ethan couch remains at a detention center, the sheriff is confident of his return. United Airlines Plane was forced go make an Emergency Landing if detroit when a passenger became unruly. This is cell phone video from inside the plane. Airline Officials Say the woman assaulted several of the other passengers. Police had to board the plane and carry her off with her hands and feet bound. They say the woman may have been suffering from a medical condition. Shifting gears now. Mr. Roker here and cold weather thats right. An amazing piece of video that tells you turn around, dont drown. This is state route 23. He seen some flas flooding and throws his car into reverse. He didnt try to drive through it. Hes backing up. Look at the debris and mud flow coming through. Hes driving through all that mud and finally gets to a clear spot and able to turn around. My gosh, that had to be awfully frightening to see. We also have a frightening map right now. Frigid air coming in. The cold air coming out of canada. Today, look at temperatures ahead of the system. 42 in cleveland. 60 in nashville. Montgomery montgomery, 65. By saturday omaha at 12. Indianapolis 48 and new york city 51 and then on sunday we could see records here in new look at the cold air in st. Louis, 21. 11 degrees sue city and monday were back in the cold air. Washington 38, des moines 24 and its going to feel brutally cold. Arctic air comes sliding down and the feels like temperature in bismarck feels like 3, omaha 24 and look at what happens on saturday. Awfully cold. Were going to get to your local forecast coming up in the next 30 seconds. Gys a little behind in here. Now the silverado offers built in wifi with a connection thats stronger than your smart phone. Slick. So, which one do you want . I pick the chevy. Chevy. Silverado. You just cant beat it. You know with matt gone, his mentos are up for grabs. Matt, weve got them and were not giving them back. I have mine here, too. Dont worry about it. Coming up, how to improve your chances of winning the largest lottery in u. S. History as the Powerball Jack mott grows to more than 700 million. Ive cut you guys out of the equation, by the way, i have my one ticket out here. We have your mentos. You can hold them hostage. The stars getting ready to shine, the tightest races and what Ricky Gervais is revealing to us about the jokes he has planned but first, this is today on nbc. Hes got them in a lock box. Coming up, the new alarm clock that uses smell to get you out of bed. I love that, and the lawsuit bleeding gums . You may think its a result of brushing too hard. Its a sign of early gum disease which you can help reverse by using listerine added to your brushing routine listerine kills up to 99. 9 of germs and helps reverse early gum disease in just two weeks. Listerine power to your mouth also try listerine floss. 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