Training someone at the time. That explains why no one pulled the emergency brake. A tour bus carrying caribbean tour bus passengers. 20 peop 12 people killed, 20 injured. All that plus strength in numbers. Rose mcgowan gathers accusers together for a candid conversation about the Metoo Movement. An officer dragged half a mile by a suspect, after a traffic stop gone wrong. And jingle bell jackpot. More than 5 500 million up for grab, as lottery fever sweeps the nation, just before christmas, today, december 20th, 2017. From nbc news, this is today, live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. And good morning, everybody. Welcome to t. Wednesday morning. Big allnighter in washington last night. They did pull an allnighter, didnt they . We have the House Speaker to talk about what the congress is up to. Well get to our top story. The most sweeping rewrite of the nations tax laws in decades, just a final house vote away for landing on the president s desk for signature. We will talk live to House Speaker paul ryan in a moment. First, Kristen Welker with the latest. Good morning. Reporter good morning to you. The white house and lawmakers on capitol hill are celebrating today, after the Senate Passed that landmark tax bill overnight. But one final step does remain. The house has to vote again today, after that unexpected setback, that was not only embarrassing but caused a delay. Still, the bottom line, this bill is expected to pass and make its way to the president s desk. Mr. Trump on the cusp of his first major legislative achievement. This morning, President Trump and the gop a huge victory, after an overnight senate vote. The tax cuts and jobs act is passed. Reporter a 5841 vote along party lines, giving the green right to republicans sweeping rewrite of the tax code. If we cant sell this to the american people, we ought to go into another line of work. Reporter the president calling it the biggest in history. The final vote repeatedly interrupted by protesters. Democrats venting their outrage. Its not tax reform. It is a heist. What a disgrace. Thats what this bill is. Its an absolute disgrace. Reporter chuck schumer, the top senate democrat, also blasting republicans for talking during his speech. We believe youre messing up america. You can Pay Attention for a couple of minutes. Reporter the senate vote, coming just hours after republicans heralded the passage of the house bill, with speaker paul rya the report is adopted without objection to reconsider is laid upon the table. Reporter ryans gavel falling off the desk as he made the announcement. And the house bill hit a roadblo roadblock, of a Senate Parliamentarian said that three didnt comply with budget rules. Forcing the senate to make minor changes before it could pass. With those provisions eliminated, the house will have to vote on the bill again today, before the legislation heads to President Trumps desk. What does the gop mean for you . Corporations get the largest tax cut, slashed from 35 to 21 . That rate will be permanent. While most americans will also see lower rates, the cut for individuals will expire in a decade. The bill repeals the obamacare individual mandate and scales back popular deductions like the one for skat property taxes. Democrats argue it benefits the wealthy and hurts the middle class. Its a looting of america. The wholesale robbery of the middle class. Reporter the new nbc news wall street journal poll shows the bill remains unpopular. 41 of americans calling it a bad idea. Republicans insist it will change minds. It will increase takehome pay. Reporter in a statement, Sarah Sanders called a historic vote towards tax reform. Saying the white house is looking forward to the houses final vote today. Lawmakers have one final hurdle before they begin their christm christm christmas breaks. The government runs out of money on friday. And with fights over disaster relief, they could be heading towards a shutdown if they dont find a resolution. Kristen welker, thank you. Were joined by the House Speaker, paul ryan. Good morning to you. Good morn you banged that gavel and voted on tax reform. You worked on it for a long time. The biggest tax cut here, the rate is going to corporations. Their tax rate goes from 35 to 21 . As i understand the argument of your colleagues, youre counting on corporations to take that money and put it back into the economy, hire people and raise wages. It wasnt work if they dont do that. Is that correct . The studies show us thats what does happen. But first of all, savannah, dont forget that we tax american captiorporations at th highest rate in the world. As a result of that, were losing jobs. Were losing jobs overseas. And american businesses are becoming foreign companies. They call them inversions. Were seeing a rash of companies relocate overseas. This is what youre trying to fix that. The rate goes down, and the idea jobs. Correct . We say that the corporations, not only are we going to let you bring your money back from overseas, were going to tax you with a rate thats on par. But were going to give an incentive of investing in american jobs. You can write off investments by hiring more people when you purchase blnew plants and equipment. Workers benefit, wages go up, more jobs occur. We need to put the American Economy in a better Competitive Position to compete and get faster Economic Growth. This is a tax cut for families, as well. It is. And let me jump into this. The biggest tax cut is for corporations. Ceos have said, candidly. Im looking at a list of ceos who say they dont plan to reinvest. They do stock buybacks to line the pockets of shareholders. Let me quote michael bloomberg. He said, a tax cut to jumpstart the economy, a favorite phrase of politicians who have never run a company. Its pure fantasy to think that the tax bill will lead to higher wages and growth. Ill ask you plainly, are you living in a fantasy world . I would compare that anecdote to surveys of the businesses, the National Business manufacturers that show the majority of businesses will do what we say, reinvest in the workers. Reinvest in the factories, pay people more money, higher wages. Let me pin you down on that. Workers benefit on this through higher wages. Its not a question of if oop. T its a question of when. I want to drill down on this point. The wall street journal recently had a conference of ceos. And gary cohn, the white house adviser, asked are you going to reinvest this money if tax reform passes . Let me show you what happened. Through, do you plan to increase investment . Your companies investment, just a show of hands if the tax reform goes through . Why arent the other hands up . Gary cohn saying, why arent the hands up. Corporations are sitting on a ton of cash. Why arent they raising wages and creating jobs now . About 3 trillion of that cash is trapped overseas and cannot come back into our economy to be reinvested because of our tax laws. You remove these barriers to investment in our economy. You give businesses an incentive to invest in america, in their factories. And thats what we do. So, look. Savannah, the tax rate before this bill passes is 35 . Thats the highest in the industrialized world. The rest of our competers tax their companies at 22. 5 . When we tax businesses at higher tax rates than our foreign competitors are taxing theirs, were losing and theyre gaining. Whats more important is american businesses are moving overseas. Theyre not even American Companies anymore. This is a trend that has to be reversed. And we know that if we fix these tax laws, we will get reinvestment back in this economy. The anecdotes i will tell you every study under the sun shows us, you lower the tax rates, you will see growth in america. A lot of people will be counting on that and hoping for that outcome. You have a long time budget hawk. I remember you in 2012, doing Campaign Events in front of that deficit clock. And its estimated this tax cut is going to cost 1. 46 trillion more to the deficit. I know the theory is, if you have more tax growth, you get more revenues into the coffer and that reduces the deficit. Let m are you saying that the growth youre going to get from the tax cut will equal the amount it would cost on the deficit side so its a wash . So youre not adding to the deficit at all because of this . Nobody knows the answer to that question. Thats in the future. What we do know is this will increase Economic Growth. Let me say it this way, savan h savannah. People are living paychecktopaycheck in this country. Another group of this country are one check away from living paychecktopaycheck. We havent had a threestep growth in the economy since 2008. That means stagnant wages, flat living standards. You have to get Economic Growth so people can get ahead in america. Thats what were doing. The average tax cut for the median family of four will be 2,059. 2,000 if youre living paychecktopaycheck, is a tax cut here. Were trying to give relief to americans. Doubling thehi were making it so simple that almost nine out of ten taxpayers can do their taxes on a refofor like a postcard. We need Economic Growth. We need people who are living on the margin, living paychecktopaycheck. You point this out, in addition to getting the economy growing faster and getting people in higher paying jobs, we have to control our spending. We have more work to do. We have to go after spending control. But you also have to have Economic Growth. Those are the twin things that get the debt down. Grow the economy, cut spending. This will grow the economy and we have to get back to cutting spending. Im almost out of time. I want to ask you about Sexual Harassment this has been a time of reckening in my economy. In your line of work, in congress. You have accepted, asked for the resignation or retirements of colleagues, democrat and republican who have been accused of sexual misconduct. My president. President trump has been accused, as well. Three accusers asked for a congressional investigation. They want you, they Want Congress to look into whether the accusations against the president are true. Would you support such an investigation . As you know, the person in charge of that committee, trey gaudy, has given an articulate response. Those are criminal matters. I would invite you we do ethics investigations. I would invite you to talk to the white house. Let me get at the other issue youre talking about. You know this very clearly because it happened in your industry, in your studio. Its happened here in congress. Lets take this moment for as seriously as it is, and not make it a partisan thing. What im trying to do this with democrats, we need to make sure this moment is the cultural changing moment it needs to be. And that means, not only do we have to change our laws, not d disclosure and transparency works. Not only do we change the way the laws work going forward, but we need to change the culture. Lets not make it a partisan food fight. Lets see this issue and give the issue the respect it deserves so we can change the culture so were not having this story a year from now. And thats why were taking this seriously. Were going mandatory training. Were going to bring out reforms at the end of this week to show how Congress Gets ahead of this problem. Victims will know where theyre going to go. And the laws and transparency are where they ought to be. It should not be a partisan issue. The White House Position on the president s accusers is they are all liars. Is that your position as well . I dont know what all of the accusations are. Im focused on fixing congress. Im focused on my job, where i work, making this institution safe. I want my daughter to be able to grow up in an economy to go into a work, sector, where hes not being harassed, where shes being embauered. Im not focused on other stuff. Is the government going to stay open . Yes. The government will stay open. Well check that box. Appreciate it. Merry christmas to you. We have more to get to this morning, including the investigation into that deadly amtrak Train Derailment in washington state. Officials have already determined it was speeding at the time. Now, they want to know if something or someone was distracting the engineer. Gadi schwartz has the latest on all this. Gadi, good morning. Reporter good morning. Ntsb Officials Say there was one other person in the cab with the engineer when this crash happened. A conductor in training, trying to familiarize themselves with the brandnew line. And now, investigators are looking into the possibility that the distraction may have played a role in this crash that killed three people and injured more than 70. Twisted metal and crumpled cars. Evidence of the forces that tore as accident investigators comb through the wreckage, new questions about what could have caused the derailment on the lines First Official run. Everybody is going left and right, up and down. To wake up to looking up at the seat of the opposite row up in the air. I see peoples legs on the car beside me and it was horrible. Reporter this seahawks fan was taking the train home from the game. Train is safer. You run into Something Like this. It hits home. It was bonechilling to see the train, like, eerie, that my husband was on that. I dont know how anyone walked away, actually. Reporter nearly 100 people were taken to hospitals. At least three people were killed in the crash. Ntsb investigators say theyre working to recover Additional Data from the onboard cameras. They learned from the black boxes from the trains brakes per hour into a 30mileperhour curve. It looked like the emergency brake was activated when the accident occurred. Rather than being initiated by the engineer. Reporter the Safety System known as ptc, designed to prevent such accidents, had not been implemented on the new line. Ptc is positive train control. Its and overlay system that allows the technology to communicate and enforce things such as speed restrictions. Reporter at least some of the crew had been doing practice runs for two weeks before the crash. Investigators say the engineer had done the route before. Under amtrak policy, he wouldnt operate the train unless he was qualified and familiar with this territory. Reporter but some communities along the route had long warned about the danger of running highspeed trains through the area. Warnings they say, amtrak did not heed. And its important to note that back in 2008, Congress Passed a law requiring all trains to have that critical safety functi that positive train control, by the year 2015. But Train Companies said they couldnt do it in time. That deadline was extended, to the end of next year. Savannah . Ho hoda . Back to you. 7 18. Lets go to al with the weather. Lets show what we got going on right now. We have severe thunderstorm happening through the southeast. Could be some flooding. Windy conditions in southern california. Good news is, these are not the drier winds. But theres a little more humidity to them. Biting windchills in the northern plains. Brisk in the northeast. Were watching that storm system coming out of the rockies. Well look at that, what i good morning. Im storm team 4 meteorologist chuck bell. Skies are mostly cloudy. The sun is just about ready to come up in the washington area. Northwest winds averaging 15 miles per hour. So breezy and a little chillier today than we were yesterday. Temperatures will hold steady in the upper 40s to around 50 degrees pretty much all day long today before falling into the 30s by 7 00 this evening. So well turn a little colder. Tomorrow, sunny and chilly. Back to clouds on friday. And rain but mild on saturday. And thats your latest weather. Guys . Al, thank you. Coming up, the accusers leading the Metoo Movement, including rose mcgowan, come together for a candid conversation. And christmas in bethlehem. An eyeopening look at the birthplace of jesus then and now. Hey hgood, how was practice . Must have been hot out there today, huh . Yeah yeah why dont you go put that stuff in the laundry room right now . Okay. Do your athletes bring home big odors . Tide sport is super concentrated to beat even the toughest stains and odors. Hey buddy hey oooh somebody ran laps yeah. The new tide sport collection its got to be tide just ahead, hackers able to drain the balance on popular gift cards before you even use them. How to protect your money. A new rossen reports coming up. And with five days before christmas, very christmas, very this holiday, the best gift you can give, is your time. Volunteer at neighbhorhoodofgood. Com. State farm. This i can do, easily. I try hard to get a great shape. Benefiber® healthy shape is a clear, tastefree, 100 natural daily fiber. Thats clinically proven to help me feel fuller longer. Benefiber® healthy shape. This i can do a dogs big life, is measured in wags. And when you feed your dog natures recipe, you fuel the wag with our premium recipes like chicken, sweet potato and pumpkin. Natures recipe. Fuel the wag. Daddy did you get my surprise . Its the Little Things that make life rich. Ritz. Its time forweet, the holidays. Ab. Holla back holla hey. Hurry in to old navy for up to 75 off the entire store. Get last minute gifts for just 3, 4, and 5 bucks at old navy. 7 26 is your time now on this wednesday, december 20th, 2017. Good morning to you. Im eun yang. Im aaron gilchrist. In the news, 5,000 students were allowed to graduate last year from Prince Georges County schools without meeting requirements. Now the County School ceo says additional staff training and Better Technology will prevent these problems from happening again. Go to the nbc washington app for the latest on this scandal. Less tha