top of the hour this wednesday. i m jim sciutto. and i am erica hill. right now several key hearings happening on capitol hill. a pretty busy day in washington. this hour lawmakers will grill active administrator billy nolan after multiple close calls on the runway and some of the aviation incidents sparking safety concerns. also federal reserve chairman jerome powell appearing before lawmakers for the second day defending his decisions to raise interest rates in an effort to tamp down inflation. we re also watching the top u.s. intelligence officials testify, among them fbi director chris wray, the director of national intelligence avril haynes as what they see the biggest global threats facing the u.s. today. cnn s melanie is live on capitol hill today. several events and several bits of testimony on the hill today. walk us through what you re watching. yeah. a very busy day here on capitol hill. we are tracking a number of high-profile hearings, and i want to walk yo
is that, you know, to have a congress that can t function, it is just embarrassing. we re the greatest nation in the world. how can that be? president biden calls the drama playing out on the house floor embarrassing. this morning, there s still no speaker after three more rounds of voting. we ll have the latest from capitol hill. plus, buffalo bills safety damar hamlin is still in critical condition, but the team says he s showing signs of improvement. we ll get an update on his health. and the president says he s planning a trip to the southern border amid a record number of migrants crossing into the united states. what we re learning this morning about that trip. good morning. and welcome to way too early on this thursday, january 5th. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. the house of representatives is set to vote again today on its next speaker after republicans failed to unite around a single nominee for the second straight day. after thr
hill. we are tracking a number of high-profile hearings, and i want to walk you through a couple of them. the first one we are watching is in the house financial services committee. that is where we are going to hear testimony from jerome powell, the chairman of the federal reserve. yesterday, he received quite the bipartisan grilling in the senate and so he ll be in the hot seat and he was grilled over interest rates and jobs and i expect we ll hear more today and the second we re watching is in the senate commerce science and transportation committee which is having a hearing on aviation safety, something that has been in the news quite a lot lately. they ll hear from the faa active administrator and it comes amid this new string of safetiness dents which we should point out still does not have a permanent leader. this will be an opportunity for lawmakers to ask what is going on with all of these close calls happening on runways lately? finally the third we are watching is the senate
organization continues to express concern about the lack of outbreak data coming from beijing. more headlines here, congress wants answers following the mass cancellation and delays of southwest flights between christmas and new year s. the chair of the senate commerce science and transportation committee yesterday announced plans for upcoming hearings. this as the airline tries to make amends to customers. the carrier is offering 25,000 bonus points to affected travelers. that s the equivalent of roughly $300. the points are on top of reimburse manies for customers who had to make alternate travel plans. more than 15,000 flights were canceled between december 24th and january 2nd. a date for the congressional hearings has not yet been set. and first lady jill biden is set to undergo surgery next week after a small lesion was found above her eye during a routine skin care screening removed out of an abundance of caution.
that republican health care plan. something president trump pushed for in his interview televised this morning on a christian broadcasting network. repeal and replace. i am sitting in the oval office with a pen in hand waiting for our senators to give it to me. what will happen if they don t? i don t even want to talk about it because i think it would be very bad. i will be very angry about it. elbe angry. joining us now, richard blumenthal of connecticut, a member of the senate judiciary and armed services committees and also the comments science and commerce science and transportation committee. excuse me. let s start with this, mitch mcconnell may have a revised bill. is your heart and mind open to these changes? my heart and mind are open to working constructively as long as this revised bill avoids repealing and december mating the affordable care act. the reason for all of this drama