Its tuesday, december 19. Im Ayman Mohyeldin alongside yasmin vossoughian. Were learning more details about the amtrak that sent rails tumbling. Overnight the National Safety transportation board confirmed the train was traveling 80mileperhour in a 30mileperhour zone. At least three people were killed when the derailment happened. Amtrak says 80 passengers and five crew members on board at the time. According to Washington State police, 72 people were taken to local hospitals. Everything was fine and suddenly, you know, just out of the clear blue, there was no warning of any kind. It was just total shock. I thought initially it was an explosion. A lot of yelling and skraem icr i was probably one of the first few guys out of the train and a lot of people were stuck in the train. So they were running in, and, you know, trying to get them t out. Amtrak saying the train was not using the technology positive train control that can be used to prevent derailments. Bring in scott live. Good to talk to you this morning. What more are we learning about the cause of this crash, why it was traveling at 80mileperhour when it should have been going 30. Well, thats the big question, yasmin. Its something the National Transportation safety board team which only got here late last night is going to be looking into. As you said, they were able to determine the speed. They did that quickly. They found the black box on one of the locomotives. Determined indeed the train was going 80mileperhour in a 30mileperhour zone. This track is configured so the engineer has to slow the train down from 80 miles an hour down to 30 miles an hour to make that turn. Clearly that didnt happen. And the question is why didnt it happen. And also, theres a lot of attention being paid to positive train control. Thats the technology thats been around for a while, but only spe radically implemented around the country that can automatically slow down a train going too fast. The technology was in effect here. Investigations dont know if that would have prevented the accident. This is a tragedy with multiple levels. Take a look at interstate five now. You see the scene of the disaster there. Train car still on the highway. Cranes have been brought in to try the get the wreckage out of there. Anybodys guess as to when theyll be able to get the highway back open. There could be structural damage that theyll have to deal with as they continue to deal with the investigation. Yasmin . About 16 hours or so after that crash took place, still very much an active scene there and a lot of questions, not a lot of answers. Scott, thank you. President trumps initial reaction to the Train Derailment was to tweet about the relationship to his policy agenda. Quote, the train accident that just occurred in due ponte washington are soon to be submitted infrastructure plan must be approved quickly. 7 trillion spent in middle east while our roads, bridges tunnelling and railways crumble. Not for long. Ten minutes after that my thoughts and prayers are with everyone involved in the train accident. Thank you to all the wonderful first responders. Currently monitoring it here at the white house. Swimpi ingswimp switches gea the house vote is expected around 1 30 this afternoon. The bill is expected to pass and head over to the senate where there is less room for error, but is also expected to pass that chamber as well. Senator john mccain will miss the vote as he recovers from chemotherapy. Senator Susan Collins and mike lee who had been undecided said yesterday that they would actually support the bill. Only senator jeff flake remains undecided. Vice president mike pence has postponed trip to middle east in case his vote is needed to break a tie. Meanwhile, senator corker railed against what the bill would do denies that an added provision that would actually enrich him personally was the reason why he flipped in favor of the measure. Take a listen. Obviously, i didnt finish reading the bill until this weekend. Its a 503 page bill. And obviously was never aware of it. Certainly had nothing to do with me deciding i wanted to vote for the bill. When i didnt even know the provision existed. Couple days before the holidays, Mitch Mcconnell laid out what he plans to tackle before he leaves town. Ambitious agenda packed into this week. Starts with tax reform. Expires friday. Renew funding for chip. Childrens Health Insurance program. Renew the Veterans Choice Program for va needs. Pass supplement funding for hurricane ravaged states and territories. Pass a waiver to avoid automatic medicare cuts and stabilize obama market bills. Action from this list is daca, republicans say will be dealt with january as it nears expiration deadline in march. I thought i had a busy two weeks before the new year begins. All right. Joining us live from washington, breaking News Reporter for the Washington Examiner. Melissa quinn, great to have you with us this morning. Lets talk a little bit about republicans and expectations to vote on the gop bill tax bill today. What are you going to be watching out for. What should we be looking out for as this plays out on capitol hill. Good morning. I think this vote specifically in the senate is going to be one with very little fanfare. Really, that changed yesterday when Susan Collins and mike lee both republicans who had expressed some he is takes about the plan came out in support. What that really did is gives them more wiggle room. One senator to watch is going to be jeff flake, the republican of arizona. As you mentioned earlier, he is at this point the only republican senator who has not come out and said whether he is in favor or opposed to the bill, but the thing about senator flake is that he really is not opposed to sort of bucking President Trump and his agenda. Weve seen him frequently speak out against President Trump and i dont think hes one who would have any qualms about going against his party and opposing the legislation. Melissa, obviously avoiding a government shutdown, also the days are narrowing for that. Are we going to see woet sides he here come to an agreement here before christmas so we dont come to government shutdown. I think thats the Million Dollar question. The litany of items for Mitch Mcconnell before the end of the year, there is speculation about what is going to happen with the Government Spending bill. Republican leaders and congress, Mitch Mcconnell and paul ryan have been meeting with democratic counter parts. Hopefully to come to some sort of an agreement. At this point, doesnt look like an agreement has been reached and there are a number of items including legislation to stabilize obamacares Health Insurance market. Of course. Democrats are pushing for Legal Protections. For dreamers which we know expire in march. That make this situation all that more complex and complicated given the various dynamics within each party of the house and the senate. Interesting to see how its all going to play out. Live in washington. Thank you. Nearly ten months after inauguration President Trump announced National Security str strategy yesterday. Made a point to bash predecessors. Extensively listing grievances and things he views as, quote, failures and also reiterated Many Campaign vows before proclaiming a new list of fundamental truth that serve as a base for his strategy. America is in the game and america is going to win. Our strategy, for instance, we must protect the american people. The homeland and Great American way of life. This strategy recognizes that we cannot secure our nation if we do not secure our borders. The second pillar of or strategy is to promote american prosperity. Economic security is National Security. The third pillar of our strategy is to reserve peace through strength. We recognize that weakness is the surest path to conflict and unrivalled power is the most certain means of defense. Fourth and finally, our strategy is to advance american influence in the world. This begins with building up our wealth and power at home. So trump also made a point of slamming russia and china as rival powers that seek to challenge america influence, value, and wealth. The president s speech contained little about stopping the type of cyber warfare russia is believed to use to metal in the 2016 election. Now exclusive nbc news report reveals the fbi cautioned then candidate trump about foreign rivals including russia during the campaign. Nbc Peter Aaron Hicks has more on this. Nbc news learned senior fbi officials warned donald trump weeks before he secured the gop nomination. My message is things have to change. Foreign adversaries including russia would likely try to spi and infiltrate his campaign. According to government officials familiar with the matter. Both urged to alert the fbi about any suspicious overtures. Candidate trump made his own unusual overtures. Calling nbcs report on the contents of a classified conversation an inappropriate leak. Mr. Trumps toward russia translating to policy. Vladimir putin keeping praise on President Trump. Cia helping break up a major terror plot in russia. Also under scrutiny, transition team. One lawyer Counsel Robert Mueller improperly obtained thousands of emails now being used in the russia probe. In a rare public statement, a mueller Spokesman Says not true. You cant unring this bell. If theyve already reviewed the emails and know whats in them, then deleting them or giving them back doesnt really change anything. Senior republicans on the House Intel Committee tell nbc news they expect to conclude they year long russia investigation in the coming weeks. Top democrats are complaining they would like more witnesses to be interviewed and claiming republicans are trying to shutdown the probe prematurely. Washington post reports that people with knowledge of the Mueller Investigation said it could last another year. With members of special counsel seam says that expect to be working through how much of 2018 at a minimum. Still ahead, Ambassador Nikki Haley offering up harsh words at u. N. Vote. Been three months since Hurricane Maria. Puerto rico is still struggling. Very latest on the Recovery Efforts there. Plus a check on the weather when we come back. We are the tv doctors of america, and we may not know much about medicine, but we know a lot about drama. We also know that you can avoid drama by getting an annual checkup. So go, know, and take control of your health. It could save your life. Cigna. Together, all the way. more people shop online for the holidays than ever before. clapping and the United StatesPostal Service delivers more of those purchases to homes than anyone else in the country. because we know, even the smallest things are sometimes the biggest. Welcome back. The United States has vetoed a decision to recognize jerusalem as the capital of israel. The fact this is district manager done in defense of american sovereignty. Its not a source of embarrassment for us. It should be an embarrassment to the remainder of the diplomatic counsel. Some presume to tell america where to put our embassy. The United States has a sovereign right to determine where we establish an embassy. The United States will not be told by any country where we can put our embassy. What we witnessed here today in the security counsel is an insult. It wont be forgotten. It was the first time Ambassador Haley has used veto power and first time in six years the u. S. Has done so. Added its a charge. Administration will review the death toll from the hurricane especially Hurricane Maria earlier this year after criticism that the number of fatalities was severely underreported. Officially only 64 deaths have been pinned to the category four hurricane that made landfall or september 20. Analysis by the New York Times found in the 42 days after land fall, 1052 people died across the island. According to washington post, government will reexamine medical records and call doctors for more information to determine whether deaths identified as quote, natural need to actually be reclassified. In the nearly three months since this storm, thousands are still with little or unreliable access to electricity. Making it difficult for those who depend on equipment and medicine and treatment to stay alive. Switch gears and bring in nbc meteorologist. Bill karins. Give us an update. We dont have to switch gears. Its good to keep bringing up puerto rico and remember theyre going to go through the Holiday Season and still like 35 of people dont have power. Its been over three months now. And we cant forget that story and forget about the suffering theyre still going through and will go through for who knows how long. Lets get into the story of the morning. The fog once again. Yesterday we had 38 Million People in dense fog. This morning up to 59 million. The reason we have so much fog out there. Extremely warm. We have a lot of humidity. Moisture in the air. We have dense fog from areas of southern kansas, all texas throughout all the gulf coast. Almost the entire state of florida. Now many places reporting visibility under a quarter mile. Some areas like houston reporting zero visibility. Houston international airport. Just like pea soup type fog. We will see a change during the day. Storm system coming in. Clear things out a little bit with the heavy rain a bit. Right now thunderstorms and heavy rain. Thats sliding up over austin and waco. Heres 7 00 a. M. This morning. Heavy rain. Not yet in dallas. By the time we go through the afternoon, thats when it will shift up towards dallas. Ly is really drench memphis and nashville. Northern portions of mississippi. All day take the rain right through the state of North Carolina and also through south carolina. Todays forecast. Theres the fog. Theres the rain. One more maybe one and a half more warm days in areas like boston, new york, d. C. D. C. Near 60 degrees today for your tuesday. Thats much warmer than its going to be next week when we have a cold air arrive. Minneapolis, small sample of the cold coming your way. By the time we get to wednesday, only 25 for you. Rain in the southeast and begins to cool off in areas especially of northern new england. Take a look coming up next half hour at the christmas forecast. Changes especially in the northeast. Chance that some people could get snow on christmas. Really. Wow. Look at that smile on her. Im like teasing a little sevenyearold kid. Wow. And im seven. Thanks, bill. Still ahead the falcons and the bucks squared off on monday night football. All came down to the final play of the game. Plus kobe gets not one, but two numbers lifted to the rafters last night in los angeles. Sports is next. [ mouse clicks, keyboard clacking ] [ mouse clicking ] [ keyboard clacking ] [ mouse clicking ] [ keyboard clacking ] good questions lead to good answers. Our advisors can help you find both. Talk to one today and see why were bullish on the future. Yours. hard exhalation honey . Can we do this tomorrow . grunts of effort can we do this tomorrow . If you have Heart Failure symptoms, your risk of hospitalization could increase, making tomorrow uncertain. But entresto is a medicine that was proven, in the largest Heart Failure study ever, to help more people stay alive and out of the hospital than a leading Heart Failure medicine. Women who are pregnant must not take entresto. It can cause harm or death to an unborn baby. Dont take entresto with an ace inhibitor or aliskiren. If youve had angioedema while taking an ace or arb medicine, dont take entresto. The most serious side effects are angioedema, low blood pressure, kidney problems, or high potassium in your blood. Tomorrow, tomorrow. When can we do this again, grandpa . Well, how about tomorrow . Ask your doctor about entresto and help make tomorrow possible. Ask your doctor about entresto so this is the allnew chevy equinox. Its gorgeous. It offers rear seat reminder, builtin 4g lte wifi. Apple car play compatibility. Wow. And teen driver technology. Thats crazy. Now to get all of these features, youd need all six of those crossovers. Thats insane yep, and you still wouldnt get everything thats in this equinox. Wowww. Six cars in one. Use your employee discount for everyone to get forty five hundred dollars below msrp on this 2018 chevy equinox. Find new roads at your local chevy dealer. Welcome back. Louis is here for sports. Falcons travel to tampa bay. Bucks just trying to play spoiler at this point. Out of the playoff picture. Go to second quarter. We love big guys that score touchdowns. Freeman, thats a fumble. Offensive lineman jumps on the ball. Thats a touchdown. Love that. Hell keep that ball for the rest of his life. 147 lead. Freeman would also redeem himself in the third quarter. 32 yard run. No fumbles this time. Safety. That poor guy. 2414 lead. Here come the bucks. Hes looking for adam humphries. Touchdown. Only down by three. Time for the kicker. This is for the tie. Jeez. That was low and right the whole way. That pretty much sums up the bucks season. 54 yard kick. Wide right. Falcons win, 2421. Playoff hopes still alive. John skipper has resig