This. Good to see you this afternoon. Thank you for joining us on this. There is a solution sitting on the president s desk as we speak. Any idea if hes going to sign it . Reporter well, its absolutely on his desk as we speak. After finishing the enrollment process, that bill was actually flown here to south florida, yasmin, so the president could either sign it or veto it, but theres actually less optimism today than there was even just a day ago. The way this has played out the past few days, both sides had been urging the president to drop the threat, simply sign the piece of legislation that his own negotiators had agreed to with members of congress. The president has been silent on this for several days following that initial threat he made in that twitter video before he flew here to enjoy the maralago vacation. Today he is doubling town on twitter once again talking about the need to, in his view, have the 200,000 checks that his own negotiators agreed to. The president appears to be more dug in on this than he was even just a day or two ago. Thats not leaving any Clear Pathway out of this. Look, its not necessarily a bad idea, right . Weve been talking about this mere 600 check that will be written that wont cover their rent when you have an average rent of around 1700. 200 could help out a lot of families across this country. That being said, its holding up money right now and we speak of that 2,000. I know that senator Lindsey Graham echoed that. It seemed like he was out golfing with the president by basically endorsing the idea. I guess the question is is that opening the door, josh, to getting other republicans on board . You know, i wouldnt hold your breath, yasmin. Its interesting how this has scrambled the usual politics because its often democrats trying to get something from President Trump and not able to do it. For years republicans have been the ones accusing democrats of being the big spenders saying theyre trying to pass all kinds of spending that fiscal conservatives disagree, but now President Trump is to the left of even where democrats were when they were trying to get 1200 payments. Hes far to the left of his own Republican Party and thats what put republicans in such a difficult position. Either they have to go against their own positions theyve been campaigning on or they have to go directly against President Trump, potentially override a veto of this legislation if he chooses to do so. Thats not a position theyve been willing to take in the past. Yeah, that will really hold them on a question like that. Will republicans come on board . Usually the answer is, no. No, they wont. Nbc newss josh letter man, enjoy the weather, my friend. A Christmas Morning explosion that rocked downtown nashville. They spoke about how theyre piecing together what led to this explosion and who actually might be responsible. Thats the key question. Thats where we find nbc shack brewster. Good to see you. I know there was a press conference around 2 p. M. Updating folks here with the fbi. Walk us through what we know so far. Reporter thats right. We actually have some new information in the past couple of moments. The police chief saying they have identified a person of interest in connection with this bombing investigation. This is just a person of interest, not a formal suspect as we heard during that press conference. The local newspaper is reporting theres a large heavy police presence. Thats 15 minutes from where were standing now. We could see developments there. We heard that press conference. We heard from the fbi, atf, local leaders as well. We heard about the complexities with this being a massive bomb that went off and affecting many areas, many blocks and listen to what we heard about how difficult it has been to process a scene of this size. Having been up there seeing that scene, its like a giant jigsaw puzzle that throws pieces of evidence across multiple city blocks. They have to gather it, catalog it, put it back together and figure out what the picture of that puzzle looks like. I am confident in the team we have that we will get to the bottom of this, we will find out the story of this individual or individuals, we dont know right now, but this ultimate scrooge who on Christmas Morning instead of spreading joy and cheer decided to spread devastation and destruction. Reporter so we know that theyre still going through this investigation. We also know there are about 250 fbi agents involved in this investigation, not only here but in the surrounding field offices really trying to track down any lead that they could find. Theres still a curfew in effect at the exact bomb site, several blocks away from where im standing. Thats the latest as we hear. One other point that i want to hear that you heard repeatedly from the officials during that press conference, there is no active threat. Theyve made that clear. Youve heard that from officials from the atf. There is no active threat. That there shouldnt be a cause for concern. You can take what you want from that being that there hasnt been a suspect announced at this point. They pointed out the active threat, theyve gn through the scene looking at the surrounding areas making sure there are no other explosive devices. They are clear and a sense of confidence there is no active threat and no reason to be concerned at this point. Yasmin . All right, shack. Good to see you. Thanks for the update on that. Appreciate it. Want to go to more on this. With that i want to bring in jim cavanaugh, a former atf agent in charge and an msnbc analyst. Every time were on air together its because something is devastating or breaking. Right now its the cleanup, trying to figure out the motive and the person who pulled this thing off. Three people critically injured. There were some remains found on site. Investigators looking to find those remains. Whats the biggest thing with the breaking news that there is a person of interest . I think its following along. It could very well be, and we talked about it since it happened, a spectacular suicide event and the bomber could very well be the remains that have been found. Thats not totally the case. It could have been a person that was killed, some other person, a homeless person or a dog on the street of remains. It has to be verified its human and who it is. It remains, yasmin, it likely or probably or maybe just a little more than not could be a spectacular suicide. We dont have any demand yet, but that could be let me put it this way, whoever did it, whether its a suicide or not, has a big message they want to put out to the public. They want us to know why theyre doing this. So i dont think it will be a mystery to us even if they died. Well find some letter or notice or were going to find something on their computer, their iphone. Theres some stuff that will be found that will tell us, you know, why they did, this because they want to tell it. They have the recording going off. Theyre trying to show they dont want to kill other people. Why not drive down there in a vacant lot across from titan stadium and blow it up if you dont want to hurt anybody. You could look around and see theres nobody there. Theyre trying to show something, that they have this ability and theyre doing this for some crazy purpose. Well probably learn what that is. Yeah. You bring up a good point, something that i hadnt necessarily thought of but now it seems so obvious, that there was a lot of theatrics involved in all of this. It kind of seemed like something that was coordinated in hollywood and then put to practice with this, you know, kind of eerie, you know, voice running on loop warning folks of the explosion of the vehicle in nashville its not necessarily something we hear about in real life, just something we see in movies. It seems as if this could be someone, as you said, that was wanting to know wanting to show their motives to be known in a way and with that in mind, you know, youre talking about the authorities saying theres 500 or so tips that theyre sifting through. I mean, how do you do that . Well, those are leads. We computerize those leads, both the atf and the fbi, weve done that for 25, 35 years. The leads go into computerized systems and theyre tracked and assigned to agents to follow the leads. When you get a case like this, before you get started you could have 500 leads. Think about going around and picking up the 40 or 50 video cameras from businesses, just the tourist area. Thats going to start off with 40 leads right there. Each camera is a lead. Youve got to look through all of that video. Youve got to assign an agent and a detective to sift through that to see if you can find something. Theres a lot of information. On the d. C. Sniper we were getting thousands and thousands of leads. It wasnt unusual to have a bombing case that youve never heard of nationally where weve had 7,000 leads in the case. Were used to in the federal government to deal with cases that are just oppressive to investigators. We have to have a command structure that can deal with investigations that big because we have to track all of those leads. Thats one of the things that we bring the government brings to help city, county, and state agencies, and many of them do that, too, but a lot of times its just an oppressive number of resources is needed. You hear the numbers of the federal agents that are there and the resources, the National Response team from atf. Fbis evidence response team. These are specialists. They bring in forensic chemists, engineers, dog handlers. They bring all of the strengths to the case to vol of this because of their vast experience and training. Thats what they need there. What does this do to the other cities around the country considering this was a vehicle in a major city like nashville during the Holiday Season . I could imagine a lot of folks on high alert now. Yes. Exactly. Pay attention. We said all our Law Enforcement commanders pay attention, learn from the vicarious experience of other agencies whats going on, and they do. They spin off the Intelligence Units of the Police Departments and state police Fusion Centers and federal Intelligence Units, we all spin off. Pay attention. Check your files. Is anybody moving . Anybody trying to do something . Do we hear anything . We get that from intelligence agencies, too, if it involves International Terrorism that might strike. Everybody has to be alert. You cant let your guard down. When we have whats going on in the country, whats going on around the world, were in conflicts with iran, we have other enemies out there, we have terrorist enemies, we have domestic issues. You have to pay attention. Law enforcement has so much on their plate and it pays all the time to be vigilent so you can interrupt the next one. Jim cavanaugh for us. Always good to talk to you. Happy holidays, by the way. Want to turn now to covid. With many ignoring advice not to gather at christmas, Health Officials fearing a post holiday covid spike could be coming. As the National Death toll is reaching 330,000 devastated. In california alone now surpassing 2 million confirmed cases of covid19, the most of any state here in the united states, and the u. S. Will also now require anyone who wants to travel from the u. K. To test negative for covid before they get on the plane to the united states. The cdc announced the change saying its going to take effect on monday. This is coming following growing concerns about a new coronavirus variant discovered in the u. K. That could be up to 70 , get that, 70 more trans sis sibl than the orange nalg strain. I want to bring in dr. Natalie azar. Good to see you. The news out of the u. K. , its pretty scary, just going to be honest. 70 more transmissible. I mean, we already knew covid was highly contagious, hence the reason why so many of us are Wearing Masks right now, to keep from spreading it, but what does that mean to you and what does that mean about the death rate of this new strain . Basically, yasmin, whatever experts look at is they want to know does it spread more easily . Number two, does it cause more severe disease . Number three, they want to know if the mutant is able to evade protections such as in the vaccine. For transmissibility, yes, 50 to 70 more transmissible. That is definitely the current understanding. Whether or not its more pathogenic, at this moment in time it does not appear to be. It does not appear to cause more severe illness and doesnt appear to be deadlier. At this point, most of the data we have points to the fact that the vaccine will still be protected. If it is slightly less efficacio efficacious, which it is possible, were talking down to 75 to 85 effective as opposed to 95 effective. These mutations are not expected. I can guarantee you every single day but for right now i think were going to be okay with the vaccine we have. All about transmission, its the same behaviors weve been talking about for ten months or more. Dr. Azar, lets talk about this goal of 20 million, right . When we were going into this vaccination period they had identified the 20 million magic number and that would cover the majority, if not all of the Front Line Health Care workers most exposed to the covid19 virus. Most exposed. You know that but i want to clarify that for the audience. That said, it seems as if were not hitting that mark, right . This is the first phase. Right. Thats pretty troubling. You know what, yes. I mean, were way, way off the mark. I think that getting 40 million doses by the end of the year in order to vaccinate 20 million was clearly aspirational. Just to, you know, play devils advocate or be a little bit fair to the process, this is a Monumental Task to go from allocation, execution at the state level. Having said that, i think that after a few weeks of administering the vaccine, states are understanding what needs to be done and how they need to change if theyre hitting any hiccups along the way. It will only help us that we have the guarantee of 100 million more doses of the pfizer vaccine. We have moderna on board now. I think we got off to a little bit of a slow and rocky start, but i do think we will be able to accelerate and get everyone in this country vaccinated who wants to be in 2021. Fingers crossed. Heres hoping. Dr. Azar, thank you. Stick around, by the way, because were going to see you back here shortly to answer some of the most important questions our viewers have. Thank you for that. Coming up, everybody, with emergency benefits expiring today, well catch up with karen smith. She is a single mother. Were going to hear how she is doing to make ends meet this Holiday Season. That is coming up. Later california is now the new new york. California is the new york that was back in april. Were there. Were new york. This week california became the first state to surpass 2 million coronavirus cases. We are live in San Francisco as concerns grow for a post holiday surge. Stay with us. Ith ushypnosis. Quit cold turkey. Kidding me . instead, start small. With nicorette. Which can lead to something big. Start stopping with nicorette oh, i will rescue you welcome back. The final stretch georgias crucial Runoff Election is boosting optimism. Jon ossoff and warnock shattered fundraising efforts. They outhandedly beat their republican counter parts in fundraising. Its attracted nationwide attention and could explain why ossoff and warnocks fundraising was powered in part by small donations from outside of the state. Small donations accounted for less than 30 of what senators perdue and loef leffler have ra. Election day is january 5th. More problems for boeing after a 737 max jet was forced to make an emergency landing. The incident occurred shortly after takeoff on tuesday when they experienced mechanical issues and shut down one engine. They diverted to tucson, arizona. Safety experts insist such glitches are common. Boeing, nonetheless, is bracing itself for intense scrutiny amidst the 737 max jets grounding. All right. A national catastrophe. That is what our guest, karen smith, is calling the federal governments failure to agree on a stimulus package. The president derailed the package earlier this week when he condemned the 600 payments and demanded the payment be raised to 2,000. Hes given no indication whether he will veto the existing bill. Hes been at his club in maralago and a Government Shutdown is looming. With me now at this point, my friend, karen smith, a single mother who has struggled to pay her rent since being laid off during this pandemic. Karen, good to talk to you again. This is our third time talking. I know a lot of folks have reached out during your appearances with us. Im sure youre incredibly appreciative of that. Nonetheless, here we are. We anticipated this moment coming today. Tonight these benefits running out for folks like you that are living off of these benefits that arent even enough to pay your rent. Right. As you talked about. How are you doing today . Its not unexpected as you said. We knew they were going to end. We had a little bit of hope last week when Congress Passed the latest bill. I wasnt really surprised when the president decided to blow it up. He has blown up the defense bill before that. Actually just ten miles south of me right now playing golf, which is insulting and upsetting. Were really worried. Our christmas managed to come together because people were really kind on the internet. My son managed to get this really awesome red, white, blue tree donated from somebody who supported President Trump. People were generous about sending him games, books and stuff for christmas. Going forward, i think that we are going to kind of sell furniture and sell what we have and try and get into a motor home. A friend put up a go fund me which i have absolutely refused to do and i just dont see this Getting Better soon. All right. So, gosh, i have a couple of things for you. Lets first talk about this 2,000 stimulus check. Thats a good thing. The president is pushing for this 2,000 stimulus check. It doesnt seem like hes publicly advocating for it, going after the republicans that could make the decision and push it forward. Sure. Instead, hes golfing, as you mentioned. Hes wi