right now on early start, going nowhere. almost 1,000 flights canceled as freezing rain pelts airports and roads from texas to west virginia. plus more fallout from the memphis beating. seven police officers off the job, three fired from the fire tent. > department. and secretary of state antony blinken is meeting with abbas after his sitdown with netanyahu. good morning, welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m christine romans. we begin with a major winter storm. overnight arkansas governor sarah huckabee sanders activating the national guard as severe weather moves across the state. sleet, freezing rain, bitter cold temperatures impacting some 38 million people from texas to west virginia. a winter storm warning is in effect for a large portion of texas including dallas/ft. worth. schools in the area are closed due to the dangerous conditions. according to flight aware nearly 1,000 flights have already been canceled. chad myers, wh
and some of the most extreme far right members of the gop will have real power in the house thanks to kevin mccarthy s desperate deal making to become speaker. and also ahead, another tragic scene in ukraine. we ll have the latest on a deadly helicopter crash outside kyiv. good morning, and welcome to way too early on this wednesday, january 18th. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. we begin in washington where the white house is making efforts to tamp down criticism about a perceived lack of transparency in the classified documents case involving president biden. in a phone call with reporters yesterday, a spokesman and senior adviser fielded questions. and both republican and democratic lawmakers have called on the white house to explain why it took until this month to inform the public that classified material had been found at the penn biden center in washington, d.c. and the documents were discovered back in early november. when asked yesterd
hunter could yes. he s never pulled out once [laughter] i m sorry about that. yeah, we have women here, disgusting. so, kat, you know, the the democrats last week democrats were saying if nothing the debt creel can, they will be there will be violence in the streets, but then they do stuff like this, which is like actually could really inflame a bunch of voters, because really when they re going after trump, they re going after the voters. he s just kind of a proxy in a way. well, i mean, they re going after trump and i also think when things have changed in terms of like indictments and so, everything has changed, right. the espionage act charges i think the espionage act is bad and it has been historically be used to stifle the scent in this country and we re now at a point
week. we have foundthat collectively we can work together and find solutions to the problems that america needs most. yes, sir. [question inaudible] lack, i m not more optimistic. we re 15 days away and you re trying to raise the debt creel something the only thing that i think is better is now we have a format. a structure. it s something that i requested in february at the very first of february. the president for all that time said never negotiate. that s not 74% of america thought that was the wrong position. took the president a long time to admit that he needed to do what we re doing today. [question inaudible] i d like to see if they can meet today. they know each other well. they have met in the past. i think there s respect for on both sides of the aisle for all of them. give them an opportunity.
move a debt creel increase to avoid the default and not include any increases, they would be short of a filibuster attempt, and nine republican senators would have to break ranks, and senator john thune said that would not happen, and any deal of mccarthy s would need an explicit blessing to get there, and they would undercut his position, and so they said that not only would they raise the national debt t limit as t white house has insisted, and how this is going to be managed is unknownment and this is the biggest fear since 1911 whenhe united states credit was downgraded. and how this is going to be resolved is anyone s guess. unspeakable tragedy in