crowd. luke, any guidance on when we ll see that motorcade? well, we were told when secretary kerry was brought out from the holding room that pope francis then should be close probably within 10 to 15 minutes is what we believe. secretary kerry came out here and he was greeted with school children shouting, we love pope francis. how been? he nodded and clapped and said of course i love pope francis as much as you do. secretary kerry was the only person that pope francis actually shook his hand as he was coming down the aisle today in the chamber of the house. they have a long relationship dating back to the iran deal as well as the peace talks in colombia. as far as what you are seeing behind me, you obviously have the american airlines flight, a 777 chartered by the u.s. conference of bishops for this purpose called shepherd one. there are two rows of bleachers on either side of me. one is filled up with catholic school children who are so excited to be here. many got the day off,
protocol for shepherd one and the pope. tom, thank you so much. we re going to keep an eye on that motorcade and keep following that. and obviously we ll pick him up again at joint base andrews when we see hill arrive there. if it s anything like the previous motorcades we won t see him between now and then, but we ll pick him up again when he gets there. tom costello, thank you very much. there is another breaking news story we re following out of seattle, washington, where at least two people were killed today in a tour bus collision. for more, let s go to nbc s craig melvin who is following developments in that story. kate, this happened about an hour ago, again, as you mentioned there, seattle, washington, the aurora bridge. all lanes of that bridge are shut down right now. a news conference wrapped up just a short time ago where we got an update on what happened there. let s take a listen. we transported nine and nine
hour drive down to joint base andrews. of course it s a motorcade escort through the city so he ll make great time getting there as you would expect. the secret service and the d.c. police department are going to be very much ensuring that he gets there quickly. then he joins he gets on, rather, that plane, shepherd one, which carries him to jfk up in new york. keep in mind, if the pope is ten minutes late, who is going to complain, right? he s pretty much on his own agenda. he makes his own schedule. as he would like. that s right. and tom, you typically cover some days you cover aviation for us. i m curious about the airplane. he s getting on an american airlines 777, right? it s not a special plane. again, just like the fiat, a modest, regular old commercial plane. well, the 777, for american airlines, is the crown of their fleet. they brought in the newest,
between new york and washington. but we can understand that shepherd one, designation for this flight carrying the holy father, was perhaps to receive better routing today than a lot of other air routes. as we mentioned, kate snow, who has just been heading up our coverage over the last hour or so, will be checking back in with her. she s at her post on fifth avenue. a lot of today will take place right opposite this building, 30 rockefeller plaza, in new york. and we have every reason to believe that, as the motorcade becomes a more real event, as time goes on, we ll see a lot of new yorkers pushing toward those barricades. and a note about the nypd. they have started distributing something fairly new, there are cement blocks that weigh over a ton each, 400 of them, various
white house has been pretty tight-lipped about that conversation. it is a moment between two world leaders but we do hear reports there could be potentially discussion about hostages being held in iran. we know there was a lot of that. when we talked about whether or not that should have been part of the iran deal that was done and those people are still, those americans, four of them, hostages in iran and the president has said he would like them to be freed and of course we believe that is what he wants. he had criticism way it has been handled so far. speculation perhaps the pope could help. bill: other thing is cuba. we were told on the plane yesterday, shepherd one, that the pope will not mention cuban embargo. congress has control of the decision coming off his visit in havana. so that is coming up as well. politics 2016, we will not abandon that. donald trump is your frontrunner, defending a response to anti-muslim remark from a supporter. what he is saying about religion