a stark difference from antony blinken. she s back at her hotel and followed a dinner with the chinese central bank. this is the most busy day that the secretary had in beijing today which culminated with china s new vice-premier. it was supposed to last for three hours and went more than five hours. in the opening remarks, the secretary pointed to a record number of bilateral trade for the reason for not decoupling and added this. i also believe that the united states and china should seek a relationship of healthy economic competition that is not winner take all, but with a fair set of rules would benefit both. and the trade deficit heavily favors china. the readout from the secretary says that she raised concerns and it was a candid, constructed and comprehensive meeting. the new vice-premier took appointed approach in the beginning of the meeting and even mentioning quotes some airships happened causing difficulty in the relationship. authorized by president xi jinp
his death now raising fears of a potential escalation in the region which could expand into a wider war israel has eso far avoided. plus, three years after rioters stormed the capitol, donald trump further cements his dominance over republicans. what brand new polling is revealing about the gop s increasing loyalty to trump and their thoughts about the legitimacy of president joe biden s election win. and also ahead hours from now house speaker mike johnson and 60 republicans will head to the southern border as senate negotiations resume. we llbri you the latest on where those talks now stand. good morning, and welcome to way too early on this wednesday, january 3rd. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. we ve got a lot of news to get to this morning. we ll begin overseas where hamas is now blaming israel for the death of one of its leaders, who was killed in an explosion in lebanon yesterday. what appeared to be a drone strike happened in a densely p
threats after banning donald trump from the ballot. we ve got the details. also the political fallout. americans freed in a prisoner swap with venezuela arrive in texas. what we know about this deal, and who the u.s. handed over in exchange. also ahead, an estimated 20,000 now believed killed in gaza as fighting between israel and hamas rages on. this as talks to broker another pause in the fighting appear to stall. and today is expected to be the single busiest travel day ahead of christmas, but are the airports ready for the rush? hello, it is friday eve. we are almost there. thank you for joining us at 10:00 eastern. i m ana cabrera reporting from new york. new fallout this morning from that bombshell supreme court in colorado, decision barring donald trump from the ballot. in the 24 hours since that decision was made public, social media sites have been flooded with new and alarming threats against the justices on that court, according to a report obtained by nbc
congressman george santos as his apology tour fails to alleviate concern over his false statements to voters putting pressure on the incoming house majority to act. we re following new concerning development from vatican city. pope francis met with retired pope benedict after his health took a turn for the worse. begin with ongoing anger and frustration at airports across this countries as today there are already thousands more flight cancellations by southwest airlines adding to the public relations nightmare for an airline struggling to explain why they can t keep overcoming the same holiday obstacles as their competitors are managing to, and nbc shamar stone is at the baltimore airport for us. what a mess. i can t believe all the luggage behind you. what about the extended lines of frustrated customers? just give us a sense what it s like there at dwi. reporter: all right. first of all, we ve been here since 6:00 this morning. seems as though things are getting progres
the national archives has called for an investigation into how and why the messages were wiped. it sent a letter to the secret service just a short time ago asking for a report within 30 days if it is determined any information wasn t properly deleted. the committee is gearing up for the next hearing. former white house press secretary sarah matthews and former deputy security adviser matthew pottinger will appear before the committee. both have already testified behind closed doors. this time they ll do it publicly. the committee has already played snippets of their taped interviews recalling the events that unfolded inside the white house on january 6th, particularly their reaction to donald trump s repeated attacks on his vice president as rioters were calling for mike pence s hanging. we all talked about at that point how it was bad and the situation was getting out of hand. we thought the president needed to tweet something and tweet something immediately. we all got a