the white house tomorrow, as president biden intensifies his plea to congress for more aid to the war-torn country. new pressure this morning for two top university presidents to resign after their controversial testimony to congress about anti-semitism on campus. and why former president trump abruptly changed his mind about testifying today at his $250 million civil fraud trial. we begin this morning with the cleanup after the deadly weather ravaged part of our country. this morning nearly 20,000 people in tennessee remain without power after a series of tornados ripped through the state over the weekend killing at least six people including a 2-year-old and injuring more than 80 others. this highway camera captured a twister tearing through the sky before destroying homes and entire neighborhoods leaving some residents with absolutely nothing. one woman says a tornado split her home apart while her family was inside. >> i just remember opening the closet door and just turning around. the wind just took me, and i just remember waking up on this side of my house. >> joining us now, nbc's blayne alexander in clarksville, tennessee, a hard hit area. blayne, good morning, what's the latest where you are? >> reporter: well, jose, good morning. you talk about clarksville, but this of course is just one of the areas across this middle tennessee area that really was ravaged by these storms. we're about an hour outside of nashville just to give you some reference. as you drive through, you see a number of homes that unfortunately look like this, homes that are really left in splinters just uninhabitable, i mean, have just fallen down around the residence around them. it also -- this neighborhood kind of speaks to that cool and unpredictable nature of tornados. if you look over there, there are some houses that we passed through that have not even been touched that just kind of carried on as though things were normal while over here you see homes that are left unrecognizable. i want to show you one house that really is just stunning. this home, we spoke with jeffrey. he's the owner of that home. he was inside with -- or his children were inside, his teenage daughters and their infant son were inside. he decided that when he saw the tornado coming, he was outside working on a car. he saw the tornado coming, rather than seek shelter inside, he got them in a car and drove away. drove away to safety, even though the tornado was literally behind him. jose, when you hear about stories like that not just here in clarksville but scattered around this region here in tennessee, you understand why there were more than 80 people taken to the hospital, six lives already claimed and some 600 structures that were impacted by this. let's listen to one family who talks about what they went through on the night of the storms. take a look. >> it literally felt like the whole house was shaking, the foundation. we could hear all the trees just snapping. >> we all hunkered down in the floor right there, and then the next time we know it just sounded like an explosion went off. you could hear stuff flying everywhere. it was crazy. crazy. it is terrifying. >> so jose, you heard that person there talk about how terrifying it is. back here in clarksville, i want to show you what you're looking at right now is the upstairs window of jeffrey and his family's home. that's the window to the bathroom near their bedroom. he told us that in the very next room, that's where his 12 and 14-year-old daughter were as well as their infant son. they look at it now and everything is in splinters. there's wood collapsed on the couches, the fact that had they stayed in that room, none of them would have survived. that just speaks to the nature of how these are so many close calls, how seconds can count, and how really unpredictable all of this really is, jose. >> talk about unpredictable. what's amazing is right behind you is a house that literally looks like it was blown off its foundation. the house that you were showing us right to your right, but then a few houses next to it they look pretty much untouched. >> reporter: that's exactly what we've seen. not only have we seen this here, jose. we were in another neighborhood about 15 minutes away. we were in front of a house that looked very similar to that one. i talked with a woman who was walking her dog. i said did you guys have any a impact? my fence got a little bit of damage, but that was it. she was just one street over. when you come through, you know, covering as many storms as so many of us have, when you go through places like this, you always see this just traces of just how unpredictable these storms are. it's like they can come down, land on houses sometimes, and then ones across the street will be almost as if nothing ever happened, jose. >> yeah. blayne alexander, thank you so much. appreciate it. five weeks from today iowans will gather at schools, churches, l libraries and other caucus locations to choose who they want to run for president in 2024. a brand new des moines register media com poll gives us a look at where the race stands in iowa. the poll finds that former president donald trump continues to dominate the republican field in the hawkeye state, actually even gaining ground since the last poll in october. nbc news national political correspondent steve kornacki joins us this morning from his big boards. what else did we learn in this poll? >> some interesting numbers here. you take a look, as you mentioned trump leading in our new poll with the des moines register and now significantly an outright majority of republican caucus goers in iowa, 51% say they support the former president, desantis 19, haley 16, the other two in single-digits. as you mentioned as well, that is for trump a gain of eight points since the last time we polled in iowa, which was back in october. trump is the one from this list who's got the momentum, at least according to this poll, and i think what's significant about that is if you think back over to last month or so, ron desantis has been really trying to make a play in iowa to really use that as a launching pad for his campaign, and in the last month, he picked up the endorsement of the governor of iowa. he picked up the endorsement of the key evangelical leader in iowa. he got a lot of press for completing a tour of all 99 counties in iowa and participated in a debate on fox news with the democratic governor of california gavin newsom, had millions of viewers, presumably many republicans, presumably many liked seeing desantis in that situation. there was some thought desantis would make a move in this poll, but it is trump who moved up in the poll. trump who spent more time in the courtroom over the last month than he did on a debate stage, which was zero on a debate stage, trump is the one moving up in this poll, and nikki haley who had been showing some traction growing over the summer and early fall months, stagnant now at 16%, taking a look deeper evangelicals, donald trump, this group he struggled with in 2016 when he ran. in iowa, he came in third with evangelicals in 2016, now totally different story. he's getting 51% of the evangelical vote. that mirrors what he's getting statewide. in 2016 evangelicals made up two-thirds of the entire caucus electorate. this is a huge group on the republican side in iowa. trump being powered by folk say they're going to attend the caucuses for the first time. a group that tends to be much younger than the overall republican electorate, look at the advantage trump is racking up with them. 63%. we asked about the basic question of electability to republicans at the outset of this campaign, trump's opponents thought this would be his achilles heel, this would be their opening, the idea that republicans would be skittish about nominating him for fear he wouldn't be able to beat biden with the legal drama. we asked here, do you think trump can win despite all of the legal issues ongoing, or do you think he is going to be very difficult to win because of those legal issues? look at this, 73% believe he can win. high number and that is a jump of about eight points from our last poll. so as this campaign progresses, more republicans in iowa coming around to see donald trump as electable against joe biden, taking that argument away from opponents. we are a little more than a month away. can anything change here in iowa? there is a history when sometimes we've seen candidates surge at the very end in iowa. two notes of caution here for his opponents, for those who want to stop trump. look at the depth of trump support. seven of ten, 7% of voters say their minds are already made up. they're not going to change their minds. that's a totally different story than desantis. last time you had a republican heading into an iowa caucus this far ahead, this close to caucus day, you got to go back to 2000. it was george w. bush, and george w. bush did win the caucuses and did win the nomination. that's the history trump is trying to repeat here. >> steve kornacki, thank you so very much. and now to breaking news from russia where a spokesman for opposition leader alexi navalny says his whereabouts are unknown. megan, what do we know about this? >> what we know is according to a spokesperson alexei navalny was expected to appear in court today via video, and he didn't appear. now, the spokesperson says that prison officials are saying there was an electrical issue, but we also know that allies are saying that navalny's lawyers have not been able to locate him for several days, that they went to two different penal facilities not far from moscow and the region navalny was expected to be, and they say that he was not there. they were told that he was not there. i also want to read for you this tweet that was posted on x, formerly twitter, bhi a spokesperson who says it's already a sixth straight day we don't know where alexei is and what's happened to him. the process of transporting inmates in russia, we have seen in times past it can take weeks. again, now we are seeing that his allies are raising the alarm. they are concerned because he has not been seen or heard from in the last several days. jose. >> so this is really concerning. meagan fitzgerald, thank you so very much. up next, ukrainian president zelenskyy set to plead his case for more aid for his war-torn country before congress tomorrow. we'll get a preview of the kind of reception he'll likely receive. a state supreme court stepped in to block a pregnant woman from getting an abortion. you're watching "josé diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. ée diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. ukrainian president zelenskyy will meet face to face with members of congress and president biden in a push for critical military aid. his timing is also critical. this marks congress's final week in session for the year, and right now new aid to ukraine and israel is essentially frozen as republicans are holding firm in their demand to include border security measures as part of any aid deal. joining us now, nbc news senior capitol hill correspondent garrett haake. garrett, good morning. is zelenskyy's visit going to move the needle at all for him? >> jose, it may be too little too late for zelenskyy's presence here to change anything. his previous visits to the capital capitol were received quite powerfully by lawmakers. at this point the argument here isn't really about ukraine aid. it's about trying to tie it to some kind of enhanced border security measure, and so even lawmakers who are, you know, on the fence or perhaps even leaning no on this broader package aren't really doing so because of anything to do with this situation on the ground in russia. we've heard as much from some of those republican lawmakers late last week. the domestic side of this bigger deal, not the ukraine aid side of it. zelenskyy can raise awareness and he can raise kind of the threshold of people understanding how dire and urgent the need is. but whether that actively leans on, lobby, pressures lawmakers in this circumstance, i think it's unlikely. >> and so meanwhile, and speaking of the domestic aspect of it, the congressional hispanic caucus is frustrated with the white house over bipartisan discussions on the border? >> yeah, that's right. and this is the other side of that coin, and if i'm volodymyr zelenskyy, i might read that story with a little bit of optimism. what you have here is this border negotiation has been conducted by a very small group of senators that right now doesn't really include anyone from the congressional hispanic caucus, usually someone like bob menendez might be in the room. he's obviously frozen out right now because of the indictments against him. what you're seeing here is chc members who tend to be more progressive, more liberal on border matters, concerned that the president might strike a teal they find unpalatable. might strike a deal that makes his border policy look more like former president trump's border policy. they're complaining about this from the outside. they have not been granted a meeting from the white house that they have requested. their concern might suggest that those negotiations that i just talked about may be farther along than we publicly know. we're on the outside too, jose. we're trying to watch this. you see the pressure that these negotiators are under from the right and now here from the left in the form of the chc being concerned that any deal to unlock ukraine aid and israel aid might go too far to be palatable to them. >> and garrett, meanwhile, this morning capitol police responded to protests inside one of the office buildings. what do we know? >> here's the third leg, we saw significant protests this morning. you see pictures there of capitol police making arrest in the hart senate office building. protesters demanding a cease fire in the israel-gaza war. the third part of this aid package is to israel. we've seen lawmakers come under increasing pressure here to weigh in on the issue of a cease fire, to weigh in on the use of american munitions in that war. i don't know if we have the clip other than this arrest, we also saw one of these protesters climb that statue in hart that many of our viewers might be familiar with from having seen as a site in other protests. i have never seen anyone attempt to scale the statue. but these protesters announced that they would be coming and announced broadly speaking they would have this protest. they believe more pressure needs to be brought to bear specifically on democratic lawmakers to lean on the president on the issue of a cease fire. >> garrett haake on capitol hill, thank you so very much. up next, just moments ago, bright flares seen over the skies of gaza. now israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu says hamas is, quote, at the beginning of the end. plus, new calls for the president of m.i.t. and harvard to resign amid blistering criticism over their testimony to congress about the rise of anti-semitism on campus. you're watching "josé diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. ée diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. ♪y condition. ♪ ♪ get iphone 15 pro and ipad and apple watch - all on them! ♪ (mom) please forgive him. 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