announcer: this is nbc nightly news with lester holt good evening, and thank with us. official assurances that all is safe near the site of that ohio toxic train derailment aren t playing well with many area residents tonight, not with people experiencing physical symptoms and fish dying by the thousands in nearby streams. it has been almost two weeks since the train jumped the tracks in eastern ohio near the pennsylvania border spilling tanker cars carrying hazardous chemicals. after a controlled burn meant to avert a catastrophic explosion, officials signaled it was safe for evacuated residents to return, but tonight there is worry, skepticism, and anger about what is really happening and about what people are being told ron allen is covering it for us tonight. reporter: tonight outrage growing less than two weeks after that massive train derailment and the controlled burn of hazardous chemicals sent up a toxic plume of black smoke in east palestine, ohio. it doe
we start tonight with that late breaking news that special counsel jack smith has subpoenaed trump s former chief of staff mark meadows part of smith s investigation into trump and his role in the january 6th insurrection. now, i should say this is according to a single source and being reported by cnn. nbc has not yet independently confirmed this reporting. but cnn reports tonight that meadows received a subpoena for documents and testimony some time in january. this comes just one week after we learn that special counsel smith subpoenaed trump s former vice president, mike pence. so clearly things are heating up. and beyond the fact that subpoenaing the former president s former chief of is staff is a huge deal on its own, mark meadows in particular is quite a potential witness. meadows was involved in a now infamous phone call between trump and georgia secretary of state raffensperger in which trump pressured raffensperger to find 11,780 votes. and he was in the office wit
it s how you use your radar. we typically are focused on things that are moving fast. and so it s a bit more difficult to collect on slow moving objects like a balloon. and as they made adjustments, they were able to seize that. the secretary of defense giving an explanation for the string of unidentified objects over the northern united states. it comes as president joe biden may address today how his administration will deal with other objects in the future. also happening this morning, we ll get our first look at pieces of the grand jury report investigating donald trump s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in georgia. and meanwhile the former president s only challenger so far in 2024 kicks off her campaign with comments about her former boss and president biden that are getting a lot of attention this morning. good morning and welcome to way too early on this thursday, february 16th. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. president j
right now on andrea mitchell reports live from munich, but reporting that the georgia special grand jury report has been made public today against the objections of the district attorney that it could hurt imminent prosecutions. the president will finally speak out about the chinese spy balloon and other shootdowns. will he explain his policy after bipartisan criticism? and here in germany, vice president kamala harris attending the munich security conference and world leaders gathering to talk about how to help ukraine survive russia s onslaught. i ll speak to the ambassador and richard engle from the front lines. good day, i m andrea mitchell in munich. it s 6:00 here. you can hear the bells tolling. world leaders, including vice president harris, gathering at a critical time in the war in ukraine. i ll be interviewing the vice president tomorrow on administration plans to help ukraine defend against russiaes spring i ve and hold vladimir putin accountable. breaking
. good to be with you, i m katy tur, former vice president mike pence is putting up a fight. a moment ago in minnesota, he told reporters he is pushing back on special counsel jack smith s subpoena requiring him to testify about january 6th. pence is citing the speech and debate clause, something normally reserved for sitting lawmakers. my fight is on the separation of powers. my fight against the doj s subpoenas very simply is on defending the prerogatives that i had as president of the senate to preside over the joint session of congress on january 6th. for me, this is a moment where you have to decide where you stand and i stand on the constitution of the united states. yesterday if you were with us, you would have heard former federal prosecutor paul butler tell us that argument, that speech and debate clause would be a good academic paper for a law student but not as good of an argument in court. after all, pence was not a legislator, technically. he was vice presi