After landing in nashville. 100 Passengers Evacuated and at least eight of them taken to the hospital. The terrifying moments as we head into one of the busiest travel weeks of the year. Peaking interest. All eyes on the Federal Reserve today. The historic meeting likely to 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 robbery gets the surprise of a lifetime when the alleged suspect strikes again. Tyler, just 24 hours ago this bank what . Oh, thats the robber. This is live tv, folks. Thats the robber just went by. I got to go here and call 911. Ill talk to you later. The alleged robber now behind bars. That reporter adding new meaninged to the phrase live on the scene today wednesday, december 16th, 2015. This is today with matt lauer and Savannah Guthrie live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. And good morning, welcome to today on a wednesday morning. So youre a Television Reporter on live tv describing a bank robbery, probably about to say and heres a description of the robber. He looks a lot like the guy back over there. Just ran by. Isnt that a fun job sometimes . Really is. Were going to show you more about that. Well show you how that story unfolded coming up. Lets start with our top story this morning, fifth and final republican president ial debate 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 donald trump and ted cruz to take center stage, they spent most of the night clashing with other candidates. We have it all covered and well talk to the head of the rnc in a moment, but lets start with nbc National CorrespondentPeter Alexander. Peter . Reporter hey, matt, good significantly this was the first Republican Debate since both paris and San Bernardino with all the republican contenders trying to show strength. Jeb bush finally found his voice against donald trump, but was it too little too late, and for the first real time we saw marco rubio and ted cruz battle back and forth. Fight night in vegas. Jeb bush flailing in the polls taking the gloves off against donald trump. So, donald, you know is great at the oneliners, but hes a chaos candidate. And hed 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. This is a tough business. Oh, i know. Youre a tough guy, jeb, i know. And we need to have a leader. Youre tough. President of the United States. Im at 42 and youre at 1 and so far im doing better. Doesnt matter. You started off over here jeb, youre moving over further and further and pretty soon youll be off the end. Reporter trump earned points reaffirming he wont run as an independent. Im totally committed to the Republican Party. I feel very honored to be the frontrunner, and i think ill do very well. Reporter ted cruz and marco rubio, a pair of ambitious freshmen senators, exchanged blows on a series of hot button issues from defense spending. You cant carpet bomb isis if you dont have planes and bombs to attack them with. Reporter to immation. He was fighting to grant amnesty and not to secure the border. I was fighting to secure the border reporter anticipated fireworks between trump and his chief challenger, ted cruz, never materialized. Gotten to know him over the last three or four days. He has a wonderful temperament the. Hes just fine. Dont worry about him. We will build a wall that to pay for it. Reporter rand paul jabbed Chris Christie over the bridgegate scandal. I mean, 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 they dont like the friends. Christie directed his sharpest attacks at president obamas Foreign Policy. And yes, we would shoot down the planes of russian pilots if in fact they were think that this president was the same feckless weakling that the president we have in the nval office is right now. Reporter and ben carson battling to resurrect his struggling campaign wouldnt even answer when asked to pick sides in a spatd between paul and rubio over sfants. I think over surveillance. I think you have to ask them about that. I dont want to get in between them. Let them fight. Reporter bottom line, analysts agree Nothing Happened last night shifting the status quo meaning the temperature in the race, the field will remain frozen with trump at one and ted cruz at two and two more Republican Debates in january before the Iowa Caucuses. Thank you. Reince priebus chairman of the Republican National committee is also out in las vegas. Good morning. Thanks for getting up early. Appreciate it. Hey, good morning, savannah. Lets do some housekeeping. Donald trump seemed to be flirting again with the idea this week of mounting an independent run. Last night he seemed again to closed door on that and say hell run as a republican, no matter what. Can you now sleep at night . Ed is the issue closed in your mind . Savannah, its been closed for month for me. I was never losing any sleep about it to begin with. I think that the media enjoys this little narrative about independent runs, but the truth is that there isnt going to be any independent in the white house. They are either going to be a republican or a democrat. I was never concerned about it. Donald trump signed the pledge ago, and hes never indicated to me any reason why he wouldnt honor the pledge, and i never doubted it. Ive been concerned about. Issue. Theres open discussion among some republicans of a notion of a brokered convention, that if trump were to be the nominee, that republicans would get together at the convention and come up with an alternative and have a floor fight. Let me ask you directly. 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 thats spun up last week that never happened. Will you rule it out . Can you rule it out . First of all, 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 well have a presumptive nominee by the end of march or ive said that for over a year. I still believe that. The odds of a contested convention are almost nothing, but, you know, look, is it possible . Its possible, but its possible the democrats would have a contested convention. Is it likely . Of course not and its something that go ahead. Sorry to interrupt. The discussion comes up because theres this feeling that if donald trump emerges as the nominee that some republicans will not be happy with that and they fear that it will essentially hand election to Hillary Clinton. A lot of the candidates, if you ask them, say they will ultimately support whoever the republican nominee is, but they can not 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 so it doesnt matter whether its him or someone else. One of the other 13 candidates who are on the stage last night. Committee is built to be plugged into whoever the nominee is, and so were going to support whoever the nominee is, and that that means that whatever nominee can get a majority of delegates is the nominee of our party and thats where were going to be. Trump is getting a lot of attention and certainly setting the agenda 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, and yet republicans support that idea. The poll i saw was 59 to 61 approve of that idea and trump is getting a bump out of it and theres 41 . Wheres the disconnect . Is he more accurately reflecting where the Republican Voters are right now . Well, you know, look. I think the reality is that we all have the same goal, right, and so you have 13 people on the stage that have different ways of getting to that goal of keeping america more safe. Do i think that people are afraid. Im afraid. Im sure that youre all concerned about where were at in the this country in fighting isis and terrorism and what happened a couple weeks ago in california frightens everybody. Look but you said it comes at the expense of our values and yet youll also support donald trump and im just trying to put those two concepts together. Well, look, heres the thing. The concept is that everyone has or at least many. Candidates have a different pathway of getting to the same goal, savannah, and the reality is that this president and Hillary Clinton havent done a good job, and the 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, many cases youre going to 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 People Solutions to these problems. And 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 us. Appreciate it so much. Thank you. With the first votes just seven weeks away where does the race go to here, chuck todd is nbc political director and moderator of meets and Nicolle Wallace is former Communications Director for president george w. Bush and analyst for msnbc. I wanted to say is Reince Priebus being forthcoming about the possible idea of a brokered convention and his support of donald trump . I think he is and a lot of people that believe hes whistling past the graveyard, the criticism has been hes got his head in the sand and he will argue. No, no, no, weve got a thing in place here to handle all this. Everybody thinks its going to be contested, its not, but theres others that thing he wouldnt. I thought marco rubio took a stand for what is really a more traditional republican Foreign Policy, and i think it was very important to see that the party had someone in the field that could articulately could defend when under attack a world view that has us more aggressive on the intelligence front and more aggressive in the middle east, and i thought he did a good job defending that. Never saw the cruz trump argument really materializes. Who wins in your book . I thought the cruz and rubio together in some ways because they really do represent some divides inside inside the party, sort of ted cruz, sort of want of taking a different direction on National Security, as nicole just pointed out, rubio a more traditional post 9 11 view of Foreign Policy and they are very good at articulating their own points of view. They are very good at going after each other. Look, rubio i thought took some incoming on immigration, and i was reminded as much as i agree i thought he handled himself well, i was reminded why i think hell have a hard time winning this nomination. With the Republican Party. If hes a little bit out of step with the Republican Base its why a lot of republicans and democrats will argue that hes the best one to go against Hillary Clinton. Touche. Jeb bush never gets good reviews after debates. Hes admitted. Here or anywhere else. Last night was different though. We saw a different side him. Theres no debate that jeb bush had his best performance last night, that he did a great job, on the offense against donald trump. Really seemed to get under his skin and annoy him. I think the unfortunate piece of it is that many wonder and suspect that it may be too late but well see. But he found his role. His role is to go after trump, and i think if thats all he does now he thinks hes done a service to the party. You. Thank you. A breaking story out of overnight. A Southwest Airlines plane skidded off the taxiway after landing at airport in nashville. Nbcs tom costello is covering aviation for us and has the story. Tom, what can you tell us about it. Reporter good morning, more than 100 passengers on board and plane suddenly veered off the runway on landing and 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 tennessee tuesday night. Southwest flight 31 originating in houston was taxying to the gate and then became stuck in a ditch after landing in nashville. Everything is normal and we hear a big pop. Reporter photos posted on social media show one of the planes emergency slides deployed. A spokesman for southwest tells nbc news the 133 passengers and 5 crew members were safely transport the into airport. The safety of our customers and employees remains our primary focus. Eight passengers on board the 737 were transported to a local hospital after suffering minor injuries, mostly bumps and bruises, according to the nashville fire department. It was scary, real scary. We were on the ground so it could have been worse. Coming days after another southwest flight made an Emergency Landing in san antonio that. Aircraft landed safely after part of the wing appears to be what the airline calls at an irregular angle. All of this with christmas just a week away and the rush beginning, millions of americans expected to fly for the holidays. Recovery crews arrived on the scene overnight and began moving the plane out of the ditch. The nashville airport says despite the emergency all runways remained opened and operational through the evening, no delays. Both the faa and southwest looking into what happened. Back to you. Tom costello, thank you. Now to the Harsh Criticism aimed at the School Officials in the Second Largest School District in the country. Hundreds of thousands of students returning to class after an unprecedented decision to the close many schools. Many calling that a knee jerk reaction. Lets go to nbc correspondent Miguel Almaguer in los angeles. Reporter good morning. This is one of hundreds of schools set to reopen acting out of an abundance of caution the superintendent says he was acting responsibly but this morning many are being critical of him. 700,000 students will be back in school today, just 24 hours after the unprecedented decision to shut down the nations Second Largest School District just before classes were set to begin. We can now announce fbi has determined this is not a credible threat, something we couldnt have announced earlier in the day. Reporter 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 just 65 miles from San Bernardino where 14 were killed in a terror attack two weeks ago today. Decision was made and information we have now was not able. While the police chief stood by the superintendents enforcement Officials 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 bratton, now the Police Commissioner in new york, says l. A. Overreacted. We do not see that as a credible terrorist threat, and we are investigating it as a hoax. Reporter after sweeping 1,500 los angeles schools for bombs the all clear came late tuesday, well after parents scrambled to pick up stranded students. Im happy that they took precautions. Im sad, you know, for the kids that they cant be in school today. Reporter this morning l. A. Usd is back in business but only after heavy criticism. As students across this 710 square mile School District get set to return, a 17yearold student was struck and killed by a truck yesterday as he was crossing the street. Or from school after the school closure. Savannah and maid, back to you. All right, Miguel Almaguer, thank you. Want to turn now to the historic meeting by the Federal Reserve thats being watched very closely from wall street to main street. A little later today the fed is expected to raise Interest Rates for the First Time Since 2006. Its a move that will impact everything from your mortgage to your savings. N