Delay on taking any action on Immigration Reform. Lets go to the white house and luke russert. What have you learned about this . Reporter a white house official told us the reason the president is delaying this decision is due to midterm politics. The reality is the president has had to weigh in the midst of the political season and because of the republicans extreme politicalization of this issue the president believes it would be harmful to the policy itself and the longterm prospects of comprehensive Immigration Reform to announce administrative action before the elections. Its rare you have the president , much less any politician, admit that their action is a direct it is directly being changed because of elections. But in this case, the white house is up front. I spoke to one aide and i said the words red state democrat, is that what this is about . They sort of acknowledge yes. This is about those races in louisiana. Its about those races in North Carolina. Arkansas. Alaska. Where theres vulnerable red state democrats that if the president were to have an executive action on Immigration Reform, that could potentially inflame the older whiter electorate, it could have dire consequences for those races. So how difficult a decision do you think this was for the president . And basically what youre telling me, if he still intends on doing something, its giving it up in the short term because he wants to do something comprehensive based on the elections that would last long term, is that it . No, it really is just trying to give cover to those vulnerable red state democrats. You think about this, alex, and its a very fair question. There will be, perhaps, some families broken up, some people deported within this twomonth span between now and the elections, simply for midterm politics. If the laws going to change in 2 1 2 months, why are we waiting 2 1 2 months . Well, is it for political reasons . I think if you sort of look at where this could be beneficial politically, it really is only in some of the gubernatorial races like pennsylvania and florida. And those are not as big a priority for the white house as trying to keep the senate in democratic hands. But make in mistake, were hearing from a lot of Immigration Reform activists who are upset about this news, that they dont believe the white house and Senate Democrats have done enough. And interestingly, i spoke to a few my sources on capitol hill. Its my day job, as you know, alex. Theyve been split. Some say this is great. It gives democrats a lot of cover. Others say, you know what, we should own this issue and this might spur latino turnout in places like North Carolina and give us a better chance. So that debate will be settled as we go into the election season. Make no mistake about this, alex, this wasnt to get the policy better or to try to involve more people. This is done for political reasons. Okay. Hey, by the way, im glad youre moonlighting for us at the white house this weekend. Thanks for having me. Were going to hear more from president tomorrow morning when we hear chuck todds inaugural broadcast as moderator of meet the press. The new York City Medical Examiners Office says further tests are needed to determine the exact cause of death for joan rivers. She passed away thursday a week after suffering cardiac arrest during a medical procedure on her throat. As preparations are made for her funeral tomorrow in new york city, an investigation into her death is under way. And nbcs ron mott is in new york with the latest on that. Word is its routine, it would be done in a situation like this normally, right . Yes. Hey there, alex. Its a routine investigation. Especially considering the type of procedure that joan rivers was undergoing. And thats of her throat area. It is normally a very, very safe procedure. One death out of 10,000 procedures performed in this country. So the risks are pretty low. When you introduce sedation, thats when you add comb pla i ka s complications at the procedure. We know apparently she stopped breathing during that procedure and had to be rushed to the hop and, as you mentioned, she died a week later. The autopsy is inconclusive. The medical examiner says tests are necessary to come up with the cause and manner of death. The new York State Health department is the agency that is handling this investigation. The clinic where this procedure was taking place has been fully cooperative. Our own dr. Nancy snyderman has talked to a number of doctors in the city and around the country who know the clinic and say they are very highly regarded, highly skilled physicians. So its going to be a matter of trying to discover what happened, what went wrong. So many of these procedures are safe. People have them done every day. Pretty routine and pretty quick, i might add. I know john rivers did a lot jokes over what kind of funeral she wanted. So what are the plans on that . Well, she joked about telling melissa that her daughter melissa, that everything is in her name, she wanted a big grand setoff. Theres a parade going right past us on fifth avenue. She wanted a hollywoodtype sendoff. She apparently is going to get it. She wants a red carpet out there so the guests coming to the services tomorrow just around the corner at the temple em emanuel will walk the red carpet, and then the red carpet will be placed in the casket with joan rivers. A witty way for her to go home, as it were. Okay, thank you so much, ron mott. We invite all of you to watch the special celebrating joan rivers tonight at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on msnbc. An important discovery about the crash of a small plane on its way to naples, florida, when something went wrong, and that plane mysteriously continued to fly south past cuba. Norad reported the pilot was slumped over the controls but they could only watch and wait for that plane to crash. On board, a prominent Real Estate Developer and his wife. Nbcs mark potter has more from port antonio, jamaica. Reporter the sun back up now on the north coast of jamaica. The search for the debris and for the victims continues now in full. This is the area where Authorities Say the crash went down. Were on the north coast of jamaica. Thats the caribbean sea. Authorities say about 14 miles out is where the crash occurred in a northeasterly direction. Now, today, the jamaican authorities are saying they may have made an important discovery about 24 miles off shore, 24 nautical miles, a statement from the Jamaican Defense force says they believe they found a debris field out there and some pictures have been published publicly. They also send out a statement, saying, quote, while it is not yet possible to confirm the debris sited is from the missing tnb900, our pilots are very confident that the sighting is consistent with that of a highimpact debris field. This has since been cooperated by a United States coast guard c130 aircraft involved in the operation, end quote. Now, today, the jamaican coast guard is back out there. Theyve got aircraft out there trying to confirm that those pieces actually did come from that aircraft. The jamaicans say they have not yet found the victims. They have not found any personal effects. All they are saying they have spotted are what they believe are pieces from that aircraft. They also say there are some problems out there. The debris field is shifting because of the currents. The water is very deep out there. As much as a mile. Theres been some bad water, both here on land and off shore. You can see sort of the rough weather out there. With those conditions, they are trying as best they can to pick up the debris, to identify it, and to determine more about what happened with that flight yesterday. Back to you. Okay, mark, thank you for that. Other news now. A charter plane carrying more than 100 american citizens had to make an unexpected landing in iran. The charter was fly from Bagram Air Base in afghanistan to dubai. An initial report suggested that plane was forced down by iranian jets but the state department denied that report. A u. S. Official reportedly said the incident happened because of confusion over the planes flight plane and it was simply a civilian aviation matter. That plane landed later in dubai without any further incident. The eastern part of ukraine is quiet today. As a ceasefire appears to be holding. Ukraine, russia and kremlinbacked separatists agreed to the ceasefire after four months of bloodshed. President obama said hes hopeful it will continue. Detroit is facing a power crisis today after this vicious storm knocked out power to approximately 365,000 customers. Wind gusts up to 75 miles an hour caused more than 2,000 downed power lines. Some customers could be without power for several days. On the west coast, hurricane norbert could bring flash floods to parts of the southwest. Will it bring any relief to the drought. Weather channels alex wallace has that. Moisture is flowing in, the jet stream blasting in as well. It will help get these stormed maintained a bit. You can get these winds aloft, transferred down to the surface. This frontal boundary pushes into that warm and moist air mass. Damaging wind threat, along with some hail. Anywhere from the midatlantic, up into new england. A lot of big cities will have to contend with that. In the southwest, we also have the threat for some wet weather. Got a lot of moisture streaming in. Weve got a tropical system off the coast of baja. That, along with a bit of a frontal boundary, this is the tail end of the same front moving into the northeast. Thats going to enhance some of our rainfall as well. Some of that rain could lead to some flooding here. Plus, as we get into the early week, well watch what happens with norbert as some of its moisture sneaks in as well. Were coming up on one year since the traffic jam seen around the world. Ill speak with my colleague Steve Kornacki about some big twists in the story. Take 4 advil in a day or just 2 aleve for all day relief. Honey, you did it baby laughs yawn ding toaster strudel more fruit in the filling, ya . Mmm ya warm, flaky, gooey, toaster strudel now, with more fruit bue to use special care in keeping the denture clean. Dentures are very different to real teeth. Theyre about 10 times softer and may have surface pores where bacteria can multiply. Polident is designed to clean dentures daily. 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One year ago this tuesday, a few orange cones set out in a small new jersey city would spark a political scandal that threatened to take down one of the Top Republican contenders for 2016. The George Washington bridge scandal put the inside politics of governor christies new jersey on the National Front page. But now that the headlines have tapered off, wheres the story today . Joining me now, the best guy to ask that question, msnbcs steve kornac kornacki. Im so glad you stuck around, thank you, through the morning here. Do we have a clear picture today of what really went on in chris christ Christies Office . No, we dont. We really dont have that many answers right now. What we have are the prospect of answers. A sense of some of the people theyve talked to but this u. S. Attorneys office, this is the same job Chris Christie once had, when Chris Christie was in new jersey, there were a lot of leaks, the media found out a lot. This is the complete opposite. The best reporters in new jersey, the most wellconnected legal reporters in new jersey do not know exactly whats going on in that office. So youve got the question of the bridge itself. Youve got the question of david sampson, christiesconfidant, the chairman of the Port Authority, business dealings with him, and then the allegations from the mayor of hoboken about sandy aid money being denied to her city because they wouldnt go along with the development project. Youve got three separate things here. We know in some way the u. S. Attorneys office is looking at all of them. We dont know who exactly theyve talked to. Theres a lot of mystery here. A lot of stuff we dont know yet. Interesting to me is the officer who came on scene, whose duty it was routinely to go and check the traffic patterns in the morning. He has quite an explosive story to talk about. Can you tell a little bit of what hes showinging . Basically, a year ago when these shutdowns are happening. Traffic chaos on the new jersey side. And this officer is basically trying to alert the higherups. We have a problem, we need to take action. Hes told from his superior officer shut up. Thats what comes back. In terms of the significance of that, does that broaden our understanding of whos involved here or what we know about this . Not really, i dont think, because i dont think we still we know that the people at the Port Authority understood this was going to cause some problems. By design this was supposed to screw it up. What it shows is there was an officer there who was presumably answering to some of the other people on the new jersey side. And when this officer was saying, you know, why dont we do something to fix this, no, were going to this is the operation were doing. Do we know if he was reprimanded for that . No, it certainly doesnt seem that way. Lets talk about christie being in new mexico this week. What he wanted to do was go there for a trade mission. Why is that . Because he says that would be National Politics . Yeah, first of all, the fact that hes there is obviously says something about his national ambitions. And it says something about the particular challenge republicans face. The particular challenge that republican candidates face when their party has done so poorly with latino vote for so long. The idea of how much more diverse the american electorates getting. If you want to win in 2016, whatever candidate you are, you need to do better there. Hes making a gesture. At the same time, the specific issue of immigration, which has a lot to do with why republicans havent fared that well with latino voters. Christies kind of hog tied because in his past, 5, 10 years ago, before he was a president ial prospect, he said things and did things on immigration that put him that marked him as sort of a moderate. A republican primary in 2016 would tell very conservative republican primary and caucusgoers were not going to touch him, all of this stuff. Its an issue that he doesnt want to talk about it right now because if he doesnt talk about stuff that will make the base happy, its going to hurt him in the general election. Okay, lets also talk about an issue thats closer to home for him, and that is the closing of all these Atlantic City casinos, which is putting economic stress on the state certainly. This was a gleaming multibilliondollar industry for him. What happened . Has he made public the plans to make up the revenue thats going to be lost in the garden state . No, no one knows. The interesting stuff is the big casino thats closing right now, the one that the state gave all the incentives to. Its completely bombed. Now, the deal they cut with revel basically said youre not going to get your tax credits unless you make a profit. The state can say, we didnt give them any money because they never turned a profit. What christies would say is, look, this is a gambling city. It used to be, you go back a generation, you look on the east coast, where are the casinos, only one place, Atlantic City, new jersey. You either had to fly to las vegas or drive to Atlantic City, your two choices. In the 25 years since then, delaware has slots, connecticut, new york, massachusetts. There are slots on rhode island. There are like 50 casinos in that same region. Atlantic city, you dont by being Atlantic City, you dont attract day trippers anymore. They have other places to go. Looking at that, looking at that competition, its just gone all around you, how two years ago do you say, yeah, lets invest in a huge new casino in a city that already has 12 of them. Hey, i like you on this set, come back more often. Sure, less pressure as a guest so it works for me. I like you as a guest and a host. Thank you. 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