the french transport minister says they're working to find crucial information from the black box recorder that suffered damage in the crash. also new this morning. the ceo of germanwings says two americans were onboard the airbus a bsh 320 that went down along with 72 germans and 49 spaniards according to the spanish interior ministry. a total of 150 people were on that flight from several different countries in europe the mideast, australia, latin america and asia some of those victims held dual citizenships. helicopters back at the site right now while ground crews slowly return to the debris field. germany's foreign minister calls the crash site "a picture of horror." meantime a moment of silence observed at the airport in barcelona this morning to honor the 144 passengers and 6 crew member whose were onboard. the plane took off from barcelona tuesday morning. flight 9525 was on its way to dusseldorf when after reaching cruising altitude it began a

rapid eight-minute descent before crashing into the remote area of the french alps. right now no word on the cause. the german interior minister is saying terrorism is considered unlikely. nbc's katy tur is in germany where families are the passengers are grieving the loss of their loved ones and nbc's reporter is near the crash site in france. what's the very latest? >> reporter: well jose i'm here at the airfield where we've seen since the crack of dawn six helicopters going back and forth from the site of the crash, dropping rescuers there because there are only two ways to get to the crash site. the plane crashed on a steep ravine difficult to get for even from experienced hikers. only two ways to get there. get on the top of that mountain walk down two hours in a very steep downhill ter rain add the other, quicker, drop the emergency workers from helicopters and that's exactly what they've been doing since

the crack of dawn today. we know there are 20 emergency workers on that site now. stories that they are bringing back here to us are horrific. talking about such a distraction that they believe that the plane literally pulverized at impact and there's only one reason for that. the plane did not slow down it must have crashed that mountain aviation experts told us at about 500 miles per hour nap may be a reason why there was no real sign or sound of real explosion. that was heard around here, from all the people we talked to they did mention there was a strange, big, massive noise but no real explosion or smoke that made it difficult to locate the place as well. now, there are thousands, thousands of very small pieces there. you can't see a big piece of fuselage or wing as you might expect on an aircraft of this level as compared to what we've seen in other aviation disasters and this is making it even more

difficult for investigators too find out what really helped yesterday. >> thank you very much claudio. the waiting continues at this moment because there is no information on what caused this plane to crash? >> reporter: no and waiting, certainly, is almost the hardest part to find answers for just what happened to their loved ones, but, really what's weighing on the minds and hearts of the people out here is the loss of such an unimaginable scale. it's 18 students -- 18 people total, 18 students 6 teachers on that plane in barcelona for a week-long spanish exchange program just coming home and the school kids woke up yesterday not thinking anything was wrong, went to school, and wondered what exactly happened when the too muchers told them to go home, they dismissed class, learning they lost a number of classmates in the crash. the morning is continuing here.

lighting candles on these steps. growing by the hour. we've seen kids come up with bags full of tealights and within just a few minutes they're all lit. we did speak with a few kids last night including the cousin of one of the victim whose just said the school now feels empty. >> she looked forward to meet the others again and -- but on the other side she was also, i think, really happy to go home. >> it hurts so much. >> how is the school feeling right now? >> empty. >> nobody could believe it, really. it's true, but you don't want to understand it. >> reporter: we're told most of the victims are girls between the ages of 15 and 16. now, the town mayor here said that this is about the worst thing anybody can imagine. another official said that the pain cannot be taken away. classes were cancelled at this school this morning, but they

asked the kids to come back here here nun the lesone the less to get counseling and be together as they mourn. >> and bringing in a former ntsb investigators. thank you for being with me gentlemen, and getting a first look at pictures of the cockpit voice recorder recovered. the french interior mince sister says it suffered damage. what can be gained from this? is there, even if it's damaged they can get information out of it right? >> jose, they sure can, and one of the things is going to be this is a solid state recorder unlike the old tape recorders where it was a piece of magnetic tape. so it's really going to be the quality of the circuit boards and chips themselves to have the data. the investigators, if they do get a good cvr, i think will get a very good informational story about what actually happened because we knee there was radio silence. we know air traffic control could not communicate for

whatever reason with the crew and if there was some discussion going on between crew members or there were some other issues that were going on where other crew members may have been in the cockpit, such as cabin flight attendants or something else was going on that should hopefully be captured on the cvr and that will help lead investigators as to what they need to be looking for to solve the mystery. >> tell me, what information in total is recorded on the cvr and then there is another box that records other information. tell me what specifically what is it that the cvr is capturing? >> what the cockpit voice recorder will capture is four different channels. a specific channel for all the captains microphone communications. you'll have a channel for the first officer, or copilot's communication. what's called the cam or cockpit area microphone. a microphone stuck in the middle of the cockpit. >> it's open? >> it's basically an open mic that records all the sound.

it there's any warnings going off, all of that is captured. then a fourth channel that can be used for a variety of different purposes. typically it's the two-way radio communication or a secondary radio frequency. >> john after reaching cruising altitude the plane began a controlled descent. it doesn't appear to be changing course. what do you make of that? >> well it indicates that in all likelihood the auto flight system meaning the autopilot and flight management computerlyly controlling the airplane, at would be norm until that regime of flight. the descent and probably it seems, appears to be have weren't commanded by the crew in a potentially vertical speed or what they call open descent. either one of those would have the airplane maintain track while descending. normally there is a limit set to the altitude where the airplane will level off nap didn't. that didn't occur.

why didn't it level off? not commanded, or even much less likely event that it somehow didn't perform as commanded. >> and john is there a manual override to these a320s? everybody's talking how it's really run by computers. can the pilot or copilot manually override the computers and fly it themselves? >> absolutely. i flew as a captain on the a320 six years and while there is flyby wire which means it's computer driven it's important to understand that there are various levels of sophistication and protections. they're known at laws and there are a variety of laws but the pilots maintain control of the airplane at all times. and so even if in the cases where there has been uncommanded events, the pilots have the ability to switch to a less protective law as you will and continue to fly the airplane. so the ability to fly an airbus

a-320 or any of the airbus aplanes is maintained. the pilots are in control. it's different than the older airplanes, but most all of the modern commercial jet transports are going to fly by wire. so think argument that the computers can do something that the pilots can't override is -- not fully true. and it's important to understand that. that the pilots maintain control. >> john cox and greg feith, thank you both for being with me. we'll continue following all the developments. and back to a live picture from the crash scene, very near the crash scene where we expect to hear from the world leaders gathering there today to monitor this now mission that is very difficult and very somber one. you can see the first responders and the helicopters that are there. we're going to be continuing to watch this scene very closely. i want to now take you to two developing stories involving law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.

the first in california where just a couple of hours ago the man is suspected of killing veteran san jose officer in a shoot-out found dead in his home. police found the suspect scott dunham dead on his balcony with at least one gunshot wound. officers say dunham shot them they responded to a call about an intoxicated man threatening to kill himself. the omp johnson was a 14-year veteran of the san jose police department. in wisconsin, a state trooper killed in a shoot-out with a robbery suspect. the suspect also killed. driving a car matching the description of one connected to a bank robbery. a shoot-out happened after the trooper made contact with the driver. and we're just getting started on this wednesday edition of "the rundown." live in new york city, a busy morning on capitol hill. the president of afghanistan will address a joint meeting of congress as lawmakers weigh the budget. plus democrats and republicans, actually coming together ton a key medicare issue? could that be? plus it's still very early in the campaign season but jeb bush is 5urd bringing out his not so secret weapons.

his brother and his father. how much is this a game changer? and dangerous weather across the midwest to report. storms, hail eve an threat of tornadoes. that story plus today's headlines, next on "the rundown" from new york. this is the equivalent of the sugar in one regular can of soda. and this is a soda a day for a year. over an average adult lifetime that's 221,314 cubes of sugar. but you can help change that with a simple choice. drink more water. filtered by brita. ♪ and introducing our new advanced filter, now better than ever. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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and i take you to the alps in the southern region of france. the alps behind this helicopter you're seeing that is landing as we speak. it is i believe, transporting the president of france francois hollande arriving to the area after having flown over the area where this a320 crashed yesterday. just arriving right now. the french flag on the

helicopter indicates it's probably the leader of france. but now to a different world leader of a phan president ashraf ghani who spoke to the president and vice president on tuesday. he talks to congress today less than two hours from now. the u.s. educated anthropologist turned president will address a joint meeting at congress. the president, obama, may steal thunder speaking at 10:30 marking the five-year anniversary of the aca. kristen welker and luke russert is with us. luke, start with you. we just saw what the leader of israel did a few weeks ago, netanyahu addressing a joint session of congress. is this a similar scene? >> not in the sense of you won't have democrats boycotting. inners it of pomp and circumstance, expect similarities. there had been a strain between the u.s. and afghan relationship under the presidency of hamid karzai.

members of congress felt karzai was not appreciative of what the u.s. put forward in the war. ghani seems to take the opposite position of karzai. he's been thanking the president, taxpayers, congress. both sides eager to hear mr. ghani speak, expected to get a warm reception. this comes against what happened with president obama announcing he'll keep 9,800 troops in afghanistan for the foreseeable future. the drawdown was supposed to be down to 5,500. that elicited a response from john boehner, a good idea keeps the situation on the ground secure in afghanistan. republicans like him for pushing the president to keep troops on the ground there, and the president heeding his advice. >> and kristen, a lot going on at the white house when the two presidents met. what were the headlines?

>> luke touched on one of them. i'm delve into that more deeply in a moment. the big headline the first time president obama was meeting with the president of afghanistan here at white house and made that specific announcement he would slow the pace of troop withdrawal. something that was anticipated but the fact that he made it official yesterday certainly significant. again, he initially been planning to announce the drawdown of 9,800 troops to half that. yesterday he said, no. those troops would stay in place through the end of the year and also as luke touched on, this administration feels optimistic about the relationship with the afghan president of aghani, and have be said that president hamid karzai was in place for a decade yunner scoring how long he'd been the president of

afghanistan. president obama actually confused the names of the two leaders yesterday. take a listen to that. >> the training and advising and strategic input that's been provided continues through this fighting season in part so that president karzai who is taken on the mantle of commander in chief in the awe have not seen in the past from an afghan president can do a serious review. >> so an honest mistake by president obama but on a more serious note those troops will remain to help train and assist afghan forces and also to assist with counterterrorism operations. the decision really coming because there was a sense the taliban has been resurgent in areas and because there are deep concerns that isis could try to gain a foot hold in that region as well. president obama also re-emphasizing yesterday she still committed to drawing down all of the troops safe of about 1,000 by the time he leaves

office. jose? >> thank you both so very much. i want to -- we're keeping a close eye on what's going on in france. specifically in the area call eded sign le alps. you're seeing the french president fan swau hollande just arriving to the area apparently already overflown the area behind him, the alps. the french alps where this a-320 crashed yesterday morning. the president of france along with angela merkel there, you see her. the leader of jemgermany are there. they just arrived after over-flying this area of tragedy. the spanish prime minister is expected to be there as well. he's certainly been very involved. more than 40 of the people killed onboard are spanish citizens. it is a tragedy touching many countries this morning.

turning now to 2016 politics and new evidence the money race is very much on. beginning today jeb bush is bringing out the family. the big gun, to help him raise campaign cash. president george w. bush and wife laura, attending a fund-raiser in dallas and tomorrow president h.w. bush who rarely makes public appearances goes all-in for his son in houston. ted cruz's campaign account looks, look at how much he's actually been getting. a lot of money. lee ann caldwell, and reporter from buzzfeed. thank you both for being with plea. lee ann, jeb bush pay as price for his last name so much of these fund-raisers are collecting on his name now as well. there are some benefits? >> definitely benefits for jeb bush. in the first 24 hours that ted cruz announced his presidency he raised half a million dollars. a pretty solid haul for a candidate who's routinely at the bottom half of the polls. though then you compare that to jeb bush who is raking in the

money. he's holding fund-raisers that require $100,000 per couple to attend. and so there's a big fund-raising disparity between the two, even though they're still both a toibl raise quite a bit. >> we know george w. bush still popular in some circles. his father father very popular. do you see jeb bush utilizing the brother and father to get some campaign cash in the future? will they be part of the campaign? >> it's obviously great to have presidents on the campaign trail. remember when george w. got out of office he did not vat high approval rating? he's showing now whether you have rick perry in the race ted cruz, texas guys he can muscle in and make money in texas a huge state. if george w. just helps him in texas, that's a big deal. >> please stay with me. i want to go back now to the alps in france where they're just starting to have some conversations, the leaders of

germany and france and the leader of spain, the prime minister. okay. the prime minister there with the beard. that's the prime minister of spain. just arriving and saying hello. these are live pictures coming in from the alps in the southern area of france. very close to where this tragedy occurred yesterday. aa achlt a320 germanwings crashed just after clearing marseille airport. these three leaders already arrived. overflown the area. you are still with us very near where we are, our reporter, seeing images. what's expected to happen today? okay. i'm sorry. we just lost that transmission but there you see angela merkel francois hollande and behind him, the prime minister from spain and working on a very --

talking about our correspondent there, claudio, tell us the scene where the crash occurred essentially lyly described edthe plane as beal pulverized. we'll monitors situation as it progresses. it's expected there will be a press conference. when they do we'll, of course bring that to you. greg feith is with us. greg, can you hear me? >> yes. let's talk a little about claud yae was claudio was talking about the plane was pulverized. how he put it. clearly it was going at a very high rate of speed when it hit the mountain? >> absolutely. i've investigated a number of accidents similar to this one in bolivia, 21,000 feet. eastern airline 727 that struck the top of the mountain during cruise descent. the airplane going at about 400

miles an hour. the own tire airplane pulverized and it hit into a snow field. it's the energy behind the impact. so as this aircraft struck the mountain side it started to break up and fragment into small pieces because of the high energy and everything in the aircraft as well as the aircraft structure then comes and starts to fragment and it typically spreads in what we call a fan-shaped pattern, where the point of impact or the origin of impact all the wreckage then is thrown out into a debris field. if this case it was up the side of that mountain in a fan shape pattern. that's why we have such a large debris field is because of the high energy impact and then the throwing of the parts, and then secondarily, there's been a lot of discussion about the fact there was no explosion. there was no fire. no smoke. >> is that unusual? is that odd? >> not for this type of impact, jose. only because as the airplane goes into the mountain side and breaks apart, all of the fuel in

the wing will then addommize and vaporizes quickly. unless you have something to fire off that fuel you won't get a flashover fire any smoke or sustained fire that we would normally see with other type aircraft lie the asiana aircraft that had a fire to it and things like that because the fuel spreads so quickly. >> also, greg the fact that the plane had just reached cruising altitude and then it went on this rapid descent. it was a short period of time when it reached that i think it was like a minute after it reached cruising altitude and the descent happened. at no time did anybody on that crew talk to ground control. is that -- what does that tell you? >> i think that's very unusual. you know we've talked about the fact that the airplane made it to 28 38,000 feet. stayed there a minute or two before it started down.

that doesn't necessarily suggest that whatever problem the crew encountered happened when the airplane got to cruise. it could have happened during the initial climb to that cruise altitude. the crew couldn't handle it or couldn't troubleshoot it and so they leveled at cruise altitude thinking they had to go through additional procedures, or maybe the problem gauss worse so they decided to go down. pre-programmed the descend. so when we look at all of these things, you can't take fragments and factoids and isolation. you really have to put a logical story line together. the fact that the airplane was on a very consistent descend profile suggests that that was an intentional act. we talk about it being rapid, because it was 4,000 feet. per minute. which in flying, that type of aircraft and john cox can better specify that but, you know, 4,000 feet per minute sounds like a lot, but in the grand scheme of things, it is a

normal descend profile, if the crew believed they needed to expedite their destoentcent to a lower altitude. the question becomes why didn't they level off at some pre-determined altitude? why did the airplane continue into an area of high terrain, which the crew definitely would have known about, because, one, they know their situational awareness, what part of the world they're flying in, and, two, have ground proximity instruments which use as general database of terrain. the airplane is literally looking out ahead of itself and give the crew a warning about a minute out and 30 seconds out to prompt the drew take corrective action and it's apparent there was no effort to make that corrective action. >> and no communications as well. both kind of things ss we have sow add together as we paint this picture. you were saying paint it in a large brush stroke because there

are so many small, little details in this that remain unanswered. greg thank you so much. stay with me. >> you're welcome. we're going to take a short break as we're monitoring the situation in the alps in france. you see the leaders of spain, germany and france and we'll bring you more details on "the rundown." stay with us. plenty of guys have this issue not just getting an erection, but keeping it. well, viagra helps guys with ed get and keep an erection. and you only take it when you need it. ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take viagra if you take nitrates for chest pain; it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. side effects include headache, flushing upset stomach and abnormal vision. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. stop taking viagra and call your doctor right away if you experience a sudden decrease or loss in vision or hearing.

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back to coverage of the mid-air mystery over the french alps. you see first responders members of the french military and others just south of the scene where the plane crashed into the french alps call eded seign les alps. the prime minister of spain is there. angela america's, just overflown the area. it's expected they'll be

speaking here momentarily and we'll bring it to pup moments ago a look at the damaged recorder. there you see it. investigators hoping it will shed light on just what brought down the airbus a320 with 150 people onboard. tom costello covers aviation. after seeing the pictures, how likely they'll get information off this? >> reporter: yeah listen, here's what a black box painted orange looks like. what it looks like in reality. can we drop the banner to show you? a good quality box. compare that to the picture we just saw coming out of france and that box has just been smashed. it is amazing to see that. however that casing should still protect the recording inside inside the black box, inside the cockpit voice recorder. they're hoemping inghoping 0 recover and they're very good at this recorder the audio inside the

cockpit. giving them hundreds of pieces data parameters how this plane was performing. we're talking about alt, altitude, speed, vertical acceleration, head, pitch, roll. looking at engine performance, autopilot. whether there was, in fact a cabin pressure issue. all should be included in the flight data recorder. black boxes, there are various forms of black boxes. they don't all look like this come in various shapes and sizes. so i can't tell you exactly what that one looked like on that particular a320 but all do essentially the same thing. the key will be recovering that data as best they can and that should help explain some of what created this emergency. you know i've got to tell you, every expert i talk to, jose is coming away scratching their heads on this one, because how do you go to 38,000 feet spend one to two, to three minutes there, then begin a programmed descent down to what appears to

be 6,000 feet or so and right into the mountain? greg made an important point repeated several times to me as well. if this crew was cognizant, if they were awake, able to, conscience conscious the terrain warning systems would have been going off, a minute before impact 30 seconds before impact. those warnings systems are visual and audible and saying pull up pull up, so the pilots should have known if they were conscious, that they were headed into a mountain. there are so many questions on this one. this is really a strange set of circumstances. >> and tom, at no time did he ever communicate with the ground. another issue? >> yes. eight minutes. >> how weird is that? >> very unusual. flied radar 24 reporting that this was an eight-minute decline at 4,000 feet per minute and nowhere in there did they communicate. you know if you -- something was wrong, right? otherwise you wouldn't program in a descent.

somebody, you would think, would key the microphone and say, we've got a problem, and we need an emergency airport to get to and at that altitude they had plenty of options. right? they're not at 6,000 feet over the alps at that point, they're back eve the mediterranean or southern france. could have diverted to any nun of airports nice gotten into any number of arrangementsfof airports in that area if they could have communicated theoretically. >> thank you for your perspective. appreciate. bringing in managing partner with aairline weekly. good to see pup thousands of that type of plane in the air today. lufthansa says they have hundreds just themselves. what should we know about this aircraft? >> an extraordinarily safe aircraft. we fly in them all the time in the u.s. every airline, easier to name the exceptions than the ones that have them. if you're on a major airline in

this country other than west this, southwest or alaska, you've probably flown on one. like more hondas are stolen because there are so many on the road. generally a reliable and safe aircraft. >> a lot of people are using these airlines. how are their safety regulations? asking a broad question but international carrier, for example, how safe are they versus what we expect in the united states? >> rd, you werejose, you were here when the valujet crashed. a turning point. an incident that made people think maybe low cost means cutting corners on safety. in the case of valujet, that was the case. that really taught these airlines. you know low costs can mean cutting amenity not serving meals and so forth, but safety

is out of the question in terms of looking at cost. that has been the trajectory ever since then. southwest decades ago set the standard for that. a very basic product but a very safe one and now all of these airlines and certainly germanwings, subsidiary of luf lufthansa operates that way. airlines failed for economic reason but very safe to fly. >> good to see you. thanks for being with me. by the way, at 10:53 a.m. german time, germ'sanwings and lufthansa employees gathered for a moment of silence. bringing in angie goff. >> reporter: exactly right. you mentioned earlier, two americans now added to this list of 150 victims.

family and friends in more than a dozen other countries, we've learned, also among the mourners. most of the victims are from spain as well as germany. now i want to take you into a western german town. this is one that is in mourning very dark community right now. the town of haltern. 16 students and other teachers died in the class. the students 15 and 16 years old coming back from an ex-training program. in spain, condolences pouring in from teens who knew the exchange students. [ speaking in foreign language ] language ]. >> reporter: also among victims, two opera singers including german contralto maria radner she along with her husband and

her baby were killed in that crash and we've just received this picture from the mother of one of the british citizens killed. his name is paul brantly, 28 years old and was studying hospitality and hotel management in lucerne. the mom says paul was "a kind caring and loving son. he was the best son. he was my world." and, jose as family members arrive at the search command post, a prosecutor is cautioning them it could be several weeks before they're able to identify the victims. >> angie, thanks so much. we'll see you back here in the next hour as we wait to hear from officials about what they're hearing on those cockpit voice recordings. what we've learned from the black boxes in other crashes as well. what i want to take you to is washington now and the budget battle not just your typical democrats versus republicans. this time also republicans against republicans. the intraparty fight is over defense spending and there are votes scheduled tomorrow on six -- six -- ditch versions of

the the -- different versions of the budget. speaker boehner. >> the way we're considering all of the budgets, both democrat and republican budgets is frankly the most democratic small d, wait you can consider this. the budget alternative that gets the most votes is what goes to final passage and i think that's a great way to do it. >> and joining me now ranking democrat of the house budget committee, maryland congressman chris van hollen. congressman, thank you for being with me. i take it you disagree with the speak jer. >> first our hearts go out to the families of the victims of the airline crash and hope they get to the bottom of it as soon as possible. you're right. here in washington we're discussing our budget plans for the country, which when you dig down, should reflect our values and priorities and i think the priority of the country should be dealing with the fact that americans are working harder than ever today. but they feel like they're on a treadmill or falling behind. unfortunately this republican

budget makes life a lot harder for hard-working americans. it actually increases the tax burden hits students by making college more expensive, will increase the price seniors pay for things like prescription drugs. even while they provide another tax rate cut to millionaires and folks at the top. it's the wrong direction. >> so, but they're in control of both houses. is there a compromise possible? isn't there a way that everybody can work together and try to deal with this very important issue? >> well it is a very important issue and this process will play out over the course of this year. and obviously the president will be weighing in to that process and our hope is that we get to the end of this process if inn way we don't see another threat to shut down the federal government, like we saw recently with the threat to shut down the department of homeland security. so you're absolutely right. we hope to get together. you mentioned in the beginning segment that republicans in the house were fighting with each

other right now, in fact, they have a big fight going on over defense spending. the president's budget provides resources for defense spending in accordance with what the joint chiefs of staff, the military leadership asked for. republicans are not doing that and divided among themselves on that question. >> congressman, a pleasure. thanks for being with me. >> good to be with you. we continue to watch live pictures from the french alps where we expect to hear from the leaders of france and germany and spain. we're going to have that for you live. first, today, we expect to hear from one of the former university of oklahoma students seen in that racist video that got the chapter kicked off campus. live to norman oklahoma. first, a huge merger of two major american brands. found practically in every household. heinz and kraft agreed on a mega deal that will forming fifth largest food and beverage firm in the world. total deal about $36 billion

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isn't. today for the first time we're expecting to hear from one of the former university of oklahoma students from that explosive video showing racist clants from members of the sigma alpha epsilon fraternity. following the story since it bloke joining me from norman oklahoma. gabe gutierrez, good morning. >> reporter: jose, good morning. right, that student is levi petit expected to meet with the chair of oklahoma's legislative black caucus as well as african-american civic leaders and pastors and speak publicly for the first i'm after that meeting. a little more than two weeks ago, you mentioned, this video went viral sparking protests on campus and national outrage as

well. the university has said that its investigation into that incident is ongoing. more disciplinary action to be taken. the university says those two students were expelled. parker rice the other student as well as the parents of levi pettit withdrew put out written statements apologizing saying this was a horrible mistake, but this will be the first time we hear from levi pettit publicly and here on campus the university president will hold what is being called a "family meeting" with fraternity leaders to discuss what they've learned in the past few weeks since that video became public. attendance to that meeting is mandatory. jose? >> thank you very much. up next a tragic story out of washington state. an unarmed latino man shot to death 17 times by police. prompting some to rally around the call latino lives matter. why isn't it getting traction? plus an unbelievable moment

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right as i went to the break i was showing this video. what happened earlier. video out of brazil. passengers able to get off this bus moments before -- look at that -- swallowed by a crater that formed in the road. then what happened? take a look. look at that. the bus is swept away by muddy floodwaters below it. several of the passengers managed to capture the moment this incredible moment. imagine that? they must have known the precarious conditions on the bus. look at that. luckily, everybody was off that bus. which was a boat. now to a major development in the ongoing lawsuit against the president's immigration actions. the fifth circuit of appeals

will hold a hearing on the 17th of april to hear out the administration's arguments against putting those actions on hold. the court will decide whether to stay a ruling in texas that sided with the 26 states suing over the immigration actions while as many as 5 million people continue to wait in league limbo. of course, we will have full coverage of all of this critical decisions right here on "the rundown," but i want to continue to talk about something really very real way related. we're traukalking about the tension in washington. sending a federal mediator there. mediating talks between the city's police department and community leaders following the shooting death of antonio montez. unarmed 35-year-old la tinetino shot 17 times in february. throwing rocks into traffic, police say. pictures caught by a cell phone camera. at the time the "new york times" called it a "ferguson

moment for hispanics" but my next guest is waiting for a latino lives matter moment to actually happen. joining me now to talk is msnbc.com contributor raoul pleasure to see you. you've calmed this one of the most important stories we haven't heard about. what's going on? >> an interesting situation because there are a lot of parallels between what happened in pascal washington and ferguson. in pascal unarmed shooting of mr. zambrano. power struggle in pascal a school district 70% latino but no latinos on the school board. >> 70% and zero? >> uh-huh. the town is majority hispanic yet less than a quarter of the police on the force are latino. an imbalance in the power structure and interesting it doesn't seem to resonate much with main stream media and certainly with the broader american public the way some of

these incidents involving african-americans has. >> interesting. you and i talked about this. we on telemundo covering this story on a daily basis and people are reacting getting involved and yet -- nothing. >> right. this country is used to thinking about race relations, ethnic relations in terms literally of black and white and forget we latinos have been in the mix as long as any other group, in cases longer. >> you've written about this federal mediator heading to pasco next week. what is he going to do? >> pushing to get some type of federal involvement. >> on is since the beginning. >> right. up to now no actual federal presence in pofk oh. monitoring it from d.c. they have a mediator doesn't carry a law enforcement capacity he'll bring together the police and public for talks. the first step.

did did in florida and in the ferguson case. >> i keep asking myself glad you're bringing it up and have been on the forefront of this. in contrast with what happened in ferguson tliz video, pictures of what happened. this is not a situation where one side says one thing and the other side says the other and it's tough to determine. we have pictures, cell phone video, of what happened. views. as a matter of fact, multiple videos. you have to remember that's happened in washington. these cases have been happening all over the country, in texas, in california couple years ago a 13-year-old latino kid in california shot by the police for carrying a bb gun, but haven't seen the national outrage. that's something increasingly latinos are saying why is this happening, it is not enough to have it covered in spanish language media. this is an american problem. they're right to keep pushing

the issue so more people recognize the problem. >> i think it is important not just latinos make these questions. >> right. this is america, we are all living together it effects all our communities. >> thank you. coming up on "the rundown," more on today's top stories. the crash of flight 9525. they're analyzing the damaged cockpit voice recorder as they try to figure out what went wrong. i talk with a former helicopter pilot who has flown over terrain much like this one. and two major events next hour in washington, d.c. president obama talking about the five years anniversary of his signature legislation, the affordable care act, and the afghan president getting ready to speak before a joint meeting of congress. we are watching this as well as the live conference that will starts in the french alps by leaders of france germany and spain. we will be carrying that for you. these are live pictures of the staging area. three leaders of three countries are there, and it just wasn't citizens of those countries that were lost americans, mexicans

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leaders of germany, france spain gathered near the debris site after the germanwings passenger jet crashed into the french alps yesterday. there you see the leaders of germany, france and spain. they just paused for a moment of silence to honor the 150 people on board that airbus a320 that went down tuesday morning. also waiting for some news conference maybe short, to begin from french investigators examining the cockpit voice recorder recovered. it is banged up but officials believe they can get a lot of information out of it. that's scheduled to happen at 11:00 a.m. eastern time. i want to show you the first pictures of this black box, so damaged. the data recorder has not yet been recovered, and that's key

to the investigation. also learned two americans on board. 49 from spain. there are victims from several other countries, why europe asia, australia, latin america, including some who held dual citizenship. search and recovery teams are back working the crash site now. there's no official word on the cause. germany interior minister says terrorism is considered unlikely. bring in michael kay, retired officer and former adviser to u.k. ministry of defense. thanks for being with me. after reaching cruising altitude. we talked about it yesterday as the news was breaking it was only in that for a minute or two before it did this somewhat rapid descent. never communicating with anybody on the ground. what do you make of all of this? >> i think as time is ee lapsing

since point of impact, couple of things are apparent. look at the state of the cockpit voice recorder those things are built to withstand severe g loads and severe temperatures and this one looks in pretty bad state. first thing we can deduce is that the aircraft hit the ground with rapid velocity and g loading on that. i think the second one is how inhospitable the terrain is where the aircraft went down. the big thing that's perplexing me jose, is -- and the cockpit voice recorder will give us insight to what happened in the cockpit in terms of not only communication that occurred between the captain and handling pilot, if they were different, but what alarms were going off. clearly marrying up what the fly data recorder is hasn't been found yet, that's key to get the ultimate conclusion. it will start to give insight into what happened. the big thing for me why the

aircraft wasn't navigated. >> it didn't drop like a rock there was time. >> appeared there was some controlled descent, power on or power off, we don't know. it would also -- it is also perplexing why in the area where the aircraft would have started descending, which would have been perpendicular to marseilles and nice why those airports weren't chosen. absence of radio call and the fact that the aircraft wasn't navigated off the initial flight path are two very big questions investigators will be looking to try and ascertain. >> you called it exact. yesterday at the same time we had no pictures of the area you described it exactly as we are seeing it. the impact was such our correspondent in the area says essentially the plane pulverized. this is a large plane, 150

people on board, and there's very little of the structure left. there's just small pieces. what do you see here? >> traditionally when aircraft impact, you have varying components that travel varying distances, depending on momentum that the components have. heavier components like the undercarriage that are made of steel or titanium go five six, seven miles depending on speed of impact. graphite and more carbon aspects will generally lay in the vicinity of the impact area. what we are seeing with this particular impact is it certainly appears the aircraft is going at a rapid rate of knots into the side of a hill. as we have seen the debris components are very minimal. you go back to the air france crash, the tail it was almost intact and identifiable.

this situation looks like the aircraft met the ground with some rapid velocity, which is again, if you then rewind back into what the investigators are looking for, certainly that will be why the aircraft impacted at such velocity why it couldn't have been turned away from high ground. why a radio call couldn't -- there's something tragic that's gone on here but i think the fdr and cvr will allow us to marry it more. >> keir simmons is in france. good morning. we saw the french president, german chancellor and spanish prime minister saying hello to recovery workers. what can you tell us about what's going on right now? >> reporter: they were in the field behind me talking to people. just before we came on air with you they headed up in a line heading toward the crash site. we think they're going to be given some opportunity to see

the crash site in some way, but it is very, very difficult to get there. you cannot get there by car or walk there. it is a trek that involves many hours. right through the morning, jose we have been watching helicopters carrying search teams, taking off from here going up to the mountain. that wide debris field needs to be searched. there's still the hunt for the second black box. the first black box damaged. still think will provide clues as to what happened but clearly this is going to be quite a difficult investigation, while at the same time there's a deep sense of mourning. the ceo of the airline says that among passengers from 15 countries we know were two americans, tomorrow families will be given the chance to fly over the crash site because, jose that's the only way that they're going to get to see it.

>> talk about conditions of the weather there. we were seeing images after the incident, it was cloudy. talk about how that's been. >> reporter: well you know we have been talking to a pilot of a small aircraft who was flying over the area very shortly after the accident minutes afterwards. he was actually asked to go and search and see if he could figure out what happened to this a320. he says it was a clear day, there were no issues whatsoever. by the way, he also says he couldn't see the aircraft from the height he was at. we now know it was so damaged, pulverized one official describes it he says the weather was clear. since then it has clouded up, it is more difficult for teams trying to fly in there, but it does appear to have gotten easier. through the day today, we have been watching them going up there to carry out this

important work. >> keir simmons, we will keep monitoring the latest developments on the story, bring them to you throughout the hour as we get them. i want to turn to weather in the united states. the midwest, it is expected to cross several states could bring damaging winds, hail possibly first tornadoes of the month? >> isn't that amazing, haven't had this in march. march is usually active. not expecting a huge outbreak everything is quiet as can be now. starting to see energy bubbling up. starting to see some signs of thunderstorms forming. this is along the texas, oklahoma border and most of these storms have lightning with them. not too much in the way of large hail or anything. we are not dealing with that. severe weather threat later this afternoon and this evening will be much worse. that's where we see the bulk of problems. severe weather risk area is upgraded to moderate risk. first one we had this year been that quiet of a season.

this area of red is the worst of it, oklahoma city and back to fayetteville and joplin. this is the greatest area of concern. we are going to see isolated tornadoes. the biggest threat is large hail. expecting baseball to softball sized hail with storms later today, enough to punch out a windshield, a big hole in a windshield. isolated tornadoes are possible. as far as timing of this will go you can see the line of storms of thunderstorm cells. 7:00 p.m. local time. this is when the sun is setting. late day event, kids home from school, most home from work. oklahoma city 7:00 p.m. storms closest to you, same with still water. we advance it through, it comes into what we call a squall line 8 to 9:00 p.m. tulsa to joplin maybe a wind threat overnight to areas of fayetteville. this is severe weather season this is about what we expect to happen. 80s in texas, 40s in minnesota. eventually as we warm up the

country, we see more severe weather in the days ahead. this is just the beginning. >> bill karins thanks so much. a busy day in our nation's capital, an event ten years in the making. president ghani only the second to address u.s. congress. from now, president obama marks a major moment in his presidency speaking live about his health care overhaul marking five years since it was signed into law. later, some answers from the first black box recovered from germanwings passenger jet that crashed in the french alps. new details could be revealed at a presser at the top of the hour. those events and much more ahead on "the rundown."

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also developing about 20 minutes ago, ceremony leading up to the speech from afghan president ghani. starts at 11:00 eastern time 8:00 pacific. have to go back more than a decade to find the last time an afghan president made a speech like this before the troop surge, before the first democratic elections, when karzai spoke in 2004. with me now, adam schiff member of ghani's escort committee, and ranking member on the house intelligence committee. congressman, pleasure to see you. >> good to see you. >> you were there when karzai made his address. how do you compare these? >> it will be interesting to see what president ghani has to say about how things changed since president karzai came to washington. i think he's been leading a pretty impressive early effort both in terms of combining his work with abdullah abdullah in this unique coalition government, also making outreach to pakistan and i think

reestablishing some confidence that the united states has in the afghan leadership which had seriously eroded during karzai's regime. >> and people like abdullah abdullah have been marginalized even though they're very popular and have a lot of base of support. talk to me about the decision to extend deployment of 9800 troops through end of the year. do you think more should stay? is this okay? >> i think this extension makes a lot of sense. it will help consolidate some of the gains the afghan government is trying to make. it will help put pressure on the taliban and we hope compel them to come to the negotiating table. there have been talks about talks for a long time but they have yet to materialize. and i think to the degree it shows continued commitment on the part of the united states that increases the prospect for the negotiations. also from an intelligence perspective, having that larger military footprint gives us the ability to do better intelligence, have more eyes on threats, and there are still

potent threats to the united states in afghanistan, so from that perspective i think it also makes sense. >> you talk about threats from within afghanistan. there's a whole taliban issue, then there's an increasing -- there are an increasing number of reports that isis is getting involved in afghanistan. what does that tell you? now we have two groups potentially extremely dangerous, not only for afghanistan but for much of the world. >> it certainly says that isis is expanding its influence around much of the globe. you see isis franchises popping up see groups claiming to have affiliation with isis we are still trying to confirm. some isis may have command and control over others may be acting very much on their own, but this is a problem. isis is within the terrorism world, evidently the brand to be associated with. it will be interesting to see and obviously have a lot of reason to watch this carefully, whether they get any kind of foot hold in afghanistan.

there are a lot of reasons that's more difficult for them than in other ungoverned spaces. >> congressman adam schiff always a pleasure to see you. thanks for being with me. as we await the president to mark the fifth anniversary of the the affordable care act, his health care reform going to get another enroll ee comes in the form of critic turned presidential candidate ted cruz. now that his wife took a leave of absence from her job at goldman, sachs. take a listen. >> we are transitioning, getting new health insurance, and presumably do it through my job in the senate. we will be on the federal exchange like millions of others on the federal exchange. >> you will be getting obamacare effectively. >> it is one of the good things about obamacare is that the statute provided that members of congress would be on the exchanges without subsidies like millions of americans, so there wouldn't be a double standard. >> joining me to talk about this, one half of the cycle,

abby huntsman ari melber. >> great to see you. >> senator cruz and his wife are going on obamacare. is this going to play in the campaign at all? >> i don't think it will hurt him politically because he has been such an outspoken, one may say even repetitive critic of obamacare. >> imagine. >> that i don't think this act under current law will hurt him. people understand this is the law, this is one way to access health care. i think the conversation raises interesting point, you heard the cnn interviewer say you'll be on obamacare. that's not quite accurate or neutral rhetoric. this is not a program. there's no government program called obamacare where a government doctor with an obamacare badge gives you health care. here we are five years into the program, still have such misinformation. what ted cruz is doing is what 16 million are doing, accessing a range of private sector health care options through these exchanges. and there's nothing controversial about that. so at a factual level, that's an

interesting point. at a political level, i think he will be fine. >> isn't politics great, jose so ironic never know what to expect. >> he is very up front about it. his wife is taking a leave. >> he is. >> he is doing what he has to under the law. >> right. and you mentioned his wife. she was really for the first time with him on the "today" show yesterday. i think we should talk about the wives because they add so much to a campaign. they really humanize anyone running for president, had their kids there as well. but she's someone that i think should be talked more about. she's an interesting person. someone that's very relatable, more than humanizing him. has a career of her own, has taken a leave so he can run. she talks openly about being a religious person. talks about having gone through depression ten years ago. this is something whether you're republican or democrat women across the board even men can relate to heidi cruz. someone to follow as well. >> do you think that's going to be more in this campaign? showing the spouses.

hillary clinton doesn't have a problem showing her -- >> jeb bush we haven't heard much from his wife. >> that jeb bush is different, they have a plan to bring her out later. ted cruz has his wife out from day one, he announced, he is the only one officially announced. always smart politics if you have a family story to tell. i think it is one of the last safe spaces in american politics which we know can be divisive and ugly. there's a chance to do that. and yes, potential first gentleman waiting in the wings, bill clinton will be fun to watch as a candidate spouse. >> looking forward to finding more out about him. not enough. >> jeb bush born to a woman born in mexico speaks fluent spanish. >> she could be a huge asset. >> thanks for being with me. >> love having you here. >> catch them every day on the cycle. why is only one of you not

smiling. >> he doesn't like to smile. >> he is the only member that has one name. >> look at him. >> get it back up there. >> smile smile smile, no smile. >> he is a serious guy. serious guy. >> thanks for being with me. up next zoom through today's other top stories, including a mega marriage of two of america's favorite consumer brands. they say elephants are among the more intelligent animals. this takes it to a new level. some elephants caught the attention of john boehner yesterday. >> why would you wear socks that look like that. i thought the circus was coming to town. you better go catch up with the elephants. jack's heart attack didn't come with a warning. today, his doctor has him on a bayer aspirin regimen to help reduce the risk of another one.

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kraft and heinz are merging. mandy drury is here with the market rundown. what can you tell us about this major merger? >> it is a major merger. kraft has a new all-time high going back to the spin off of october, 2012, it is merging with heinz. and it will be north america's third largest food and beverage company. just to give you a few facts and figures, jose the combination will have revenue of $28 billion. it will be helmed by the ceo of heinz. why the merger? well we have all been there, all going toward organic, healthier things, moving away from packaged processed foods,

there's not as much demand there like it used to be. they're going to keep evolving products to make healthier changing tastes that will be something to watch. as for the competition regulators, they believe the two shouldn't face too much roadblock, there isn't that much overlap in products. an interesting space to watch. back to you. >> mandy drury, thanks so much. great to see you. i want to show you this. three elephants being transported florida to texas, helping out their truck driver after the 18 wheeler they were on got stranded on a highway in louisiana. the truck was stuck when the driver pulled into the shoulder of the road. two elephants were let off the truck, leaned against it to keep it from overturning. no citations were issued for the incident. a presser coming up at the top of the hour could reveal details from the first black box. and president obama moments away from speaking live about

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aleve. big morning on "the rundown." we have three live events we are watching. first any minute now, president obama will be right there where you see this gentleman, stepping up to the mike at the white house. he is marking five years since signing the affordable care act, the most sweeping most controversial legislation of his presidency. also going to the house chamber. afghan president ghani will address congress. the pomp and circumstance begins in about 15 minutes. it will mark the first time an afghan president has spoken to congress in more than a decade. and leaders of france germany and spain will be speaking, met with rescue crews near the crash site. also at the top of the hour hear from investigators in france and possibly get answers

as to why the passenger plane went down. start with unanswered questions about what caused this plane to crash. everyone is waiting to see what we can learn from this badly damaged black box. >> let's look at the picture of that. show it to you again. you can see how dented and messed up this twisted cockpit voice recorder is. this is from the germanwings a320 which could provide important pieces of the puzzle. now, on the "today" show this morning former ntsb chairman debra herzman talked about what information we can find. >> you can hear the crew talk about takeoff procedures any maintenance that might have been done, might be discussing that but also those critical minutes and seconds leading to the crash, you want to know what's happening in the cockpit. that cockpit voice recorder is going to be critical. >> just this past december,

another a320 crashed and they're trying to figure out what caused that. they were able to recover that plane's black box which revealed alarms were going off. the words they used, alarms were screaming, at the time the pilots were trying to stabilize the plane before it crashed into the sea. an airbus 320 was involved in the miracle on the hudson in new york. who could forget it caused by a bird strike. in the cockpit, that cockpit voice recorder they were able to recover captured a cool headed sully sullenberger deciding to land on the river, saving everyone's lives. >> 1539 hit birds. >> you can land on runway one or two. >> can't do it. >> which runway. >> not going to make it. >> back to the germanwings

crash, french officials saying the black box is dajds but hope to make the necessary repairs so it can be usable. i want to go to a former ntsb investigator greg feith and jay rollins. gentlemen, thanks for being with me. greg, one of my viewers was asking via twitter why in 2016 do we not have video flight recorders in the cockpit or other parts of the plane? >> that question has been going on a long time jose. one of the big issues is privacy. a lot of pilot unions have been against video cockpit recorders, only because of privacy issues. there's technology out there where we can capture the video at least being presented on the electronic flight displays but that's an on-going issue and question that investigators had in the past as well why do i

need to see exactly what the pilot is doing. i want to see what the pilot is looking at and commenting on and see what movements or switches they may be manipulating but i don't necessarily need to see the pilot himself or herself in the cockpit. >> but the fact is that if he is incapacitated, if they pass out, then you don't know what they're seeing. but you certainly don't know they weren't seeing anything. >> well you have to be careful with that because if they're passed out, they're not going to see anything, not making any movements, and they're not talking amongst themselves so there are other tools we can use to make that determination, to determine whether or not a crew or crew members are incapacitated. we have the ability to ferret that out. >> that's interesting. jay, how troubling that there was no communication with air traffic control when the plane reached altitude and started its descent. >> for me, this is one of the

most telling things about this flight the very fact that they didn't make any attempt in nine or ten minutes to contact anyone suggests to me they may well have been incapacitated. i think the most critical moment regarding the voice tape will be to see exactly what was being said or not said right about the time the aircraft was leveling off because it is undoubtedly at that point that whatever event occurred did occur, and this aircraft was basically flying itself, straight ahead in a steady descent. >> and jay, talk to me about when you reach cruising altitude. say the plane loses pressurization. how long do pilots and folks in the back have to don a mask that will help them not be incapacitated? >> less than 30 seconds at that altitude. the pilots the first thing they would do is grab for oxygen

masks and put them on if they had any sense there was any sort of pressurization or quality of air problem. the cockpit gets a separate supply of air from the rest of the aircraft so it is a critical thing. once they have the masks on they would have done an emergency descent, which is even steeper than the one described here. again, all of this leads me to believe they may have lost consciousness of some sort perhaps maybe they didn't know what the problem was, may not have been a pressurization problem. >> greg, tell me about the age of the plane. it was 24 years old. where does that fall as far as a commercial plane is concerned? >> unlike a car where we are looking at years for a car and that's how we determine age, with aircraft we are looking at cycles, flight hours and cycles. while this aircraft was 24 years old and sounds like a long time this was probably mid life for this airplane.

you're looking at life span in hours, looking at the number of times it is pressurized, that's a cycle. even though this airplane is 24 years old and maintenance required on a commercial aircraft is very very good unlike your car, if we were to maintain our cars like we are required to maintain airplanes, your car would last a long time in almost brand new condition, so this airplane was mid time. there are going to be maintenance issues apparently were some maintenance issues that were being attended to and that may even account for delayed departure they have. they were 20 30 minutes late. all of that will be ferreted out by the investigators to see if any of those maintenance activities that took place on this airplane had anything to do with the accident scenario. >> greg feith, jay rollins, thanks for your time. we will continue to monitor developments as we await the latest updates from investigators. a quick update from boston. jurors in the marathon bombing

trial are hearing more fbi testimony today after seeing suspect dzhokhar tsarnaev's notorious white hat seen in surveillance stills of him. about an hour ago, they were shown some of the items found in a search of his dorm room. ron mott is following the trial, joins me from boston with the latest. ron? >> reporter: jose good morning to you. they just went to morning recess in this case. day 13 is under way. as you mention, the fbi agents a string of them we are expecting to see all day, talking about evidence collected at dzhokhar tsarnaev's dorm room and the apartment in cambridge that he often shared with his brother, tamerlan. one of the things they talked about this morning was a bullet riddled target sheet from a bb gun in the apartment in cambridge. they were apparently shooting in the apartment, which is a little strange. you mention the white hat. this is the white hat he is seen

on surveillance video, it is a ralph lauren polo hat, jurors saw that yesterday as well. speaking of yesterday, i thought this was some of the interesting testimony. an academic officer from university of massachusetts dartmouth that talked about dzhokhar tsarnaev's academic performance on that campus. four semesters, enrolled fall of 2011. he was a very good high school student, enough to win a scholarship, but about that time he graduated high school in the summer of 2011 to taking classes there at u mass dartmouth, something happened and the government is going to probably in closing arguments say his brother was an influence on him and radicalized him in many ways because his grades took a nose dive he failed a number of classes. at some point lost his financial aid, set an appeal and said the reason his grades suffered is because he lost some relatives in chechnya. very interesting stuff on the stand. the government calling witnesses from the fbi today all day we think. jose? >> ron mott thanks for that live report from boston.

another legal case that made headlines around the world, could be judgment day in italy for murder trial of amanda knox and her boyfriend raffaele sollecito. they'll decide whether to send it for appeal or back to another court. the two were initially found guilty for the 2007 murder of knox's british roommate meredith kercher in italy, then were acquitted in 2011 and freed after four years in prison. knox returned to seattle and has remained in the u.s. guilty conviction could set the stage for knox to be extradited to italy. italian judges say if they don't reach decision today, the case will resume friday. live look at studio 3 a at 30 rock. transgender teen jazz jennings is here with her mother janet for a twitter chat. the 14-year-old is a leading advocate for trans rights. the new face of clean and clear see the real me campaign.

the msnbc twitter chat is going on now, join the conversation and use the #msnbcchat. three big events we are watching, president obama marking five years since signing his health care overhaul into law. afghan president ghani will address congress. and the german chancellor and the prime minister expected to speak momentarily about the passenger plane that crashed in the french alps. we will be right back. with the skin of then olay total effects vitamin-enriched. to fight the 7 signs of aging. in 4 weeks skin looks up to 10 years younger. 7 in 1 from the world's #1 olay. your best beautiful let me talk to you about retirement. a 401(k) is the most sound way to go. let's talk asset allocation. sure. you seem knowledgeable professional. would you trust me as your financial advisor? i would. i would indeed. well, let's be clear here. i'm actually a dj. [ dance music plays ] [laughs] no way!

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if you're taking multiple medications does your mouth often feel dry? a dry mouth can be a side effect of many medications. but it can also lead to tooth decay and bad breath. that's why there's biotene available as an oral rinse toothpaste, spray or gel. biotene can provide soothing relief and it helps keep your mouth healthy too. remember, while your medication is doing you good a dry mouth isn't biotene, for people who suffer from a dry mouth. president obama speaking at the white house, marking the five year anniversary of the affordable care act. kristin welker is at the white house. kristin, good morning. >> reporter: hey jose good morning. that's right, president obama marking this fifth anniversary highlighting the fact more than 16 million americans have health care that didn't have it before the aca went into effect.

the president announcing a public, private partnership for services to those receiving health care that doctor and patient groups like the american medical association, aarp american cancer society and others work together to identify challenges and sharing best practices. all of this comes as there is fierce opposition to the president's health care law, it is being challenged in the supreme court, at least subsidies offered in states across the country. it is also continuously challenged by republicans. they've tried to repeal it more than 40 times at this point. house speaker john boehner releasing this statement on this five year anniversary. quote, the president says his law is working better than expected, even as premiums and deductibles rise. i will make one more interesting point, jose. senator ted cruz who announced his candidacy for the presidency earlier this week is one of the fiercest opponents to the president's health care law. you remember that he shut down

the government in an effort to try to de-fund the president's health care law. he just said that yesterday he has to sign up for the president's health care law because his wife is taking a leave of absence to help him campaign. so that could be politically tricky moving forward on the campaign trail. shows you how much of a hot button issue obamacare continues to be, jose. back to you. >> kristin welker at the white house. thanks. up next about to hear from the president of afghanistan in the united states. first, honoring national medal of honor day. here is jack jacobs on vietnam. >> i was always scared in combat, and when i wasn't i was scared i would soon be. bravery is overcoming fear in what you do. anybody that tells you he was in combat and wasn't scared at some point is lying or psychotic or maybe a lying psycho.

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things are about to get going in the house chamber where the president of afghanistan will be speaking at the top of the hour. you see the vice president among others arriving. we are also expecting to hear from the french president hollande angela merkel. to talk about this bringing in luke russert on capitol hill and steve clemons, editor at large for "the atlantic." luke, what are we expecting from the president of afghanistan today? >> reporter: well it is a reset, jose of the relationship between afghanistan and the united states. it has been tumultuous to say the least under the last president of afghanistan, karzai. a lot of members of congress upset with his leadership, not only because they felt he was not appreciative enough for the treasure and blood the united states sacrificed but also so

many questions pertaining to corruption in afghanistan which they felt karzai and his administration were not taking into account, getting enough information to congress. the new president, his message is one of thanks to america. he went so far as when he came here to the united states yesterday or last few days to thank the american taxpayer for all they've done for afghanistan. that will play well in congress. expect a lot of bipartisan support, a lot of bipartisan applause. one other thing that he did, which is much to the happiness of a lot of republicans on capitol hill convince president obama to keep troops in afghanistan for the rest of the year at that 9800 number the original cut was supposed to be in half to 5500. debehest of the afghan president, obama said they would stay until end of the year. that's something a lot of republicans find to be good policy. >> steve i want to ask about yemen. houthi rebels appear to be close

to capturing aden. talk to us about that. >> right now yemen looks like it is on the edge of a real civil war. you have iran backing the houthi rebels and the rebels are not only at odds with the previous regime, they're also at odds with al qaeda in that country, so you really have -- we are watching deterioration and disintegration of that state. iran right in the middle of it. and saudi arabia under a new king looking with great concern about the entire situation. so it is very worrisome. this could be as we talk about afghanistan on one hand where al qaeda was able to do a deal with the taliban there, you're looking at essentially something where either iranian backed rebels take over yemen or al qaeda gets its foot hold in a major state. >> steve, paint the picture for us. saudi arabia has for years, not a new development, had to deal with this border with yemen, and

they've seen a lot of problems there inside their border with yemen. now iran supporting a group taking big parts of control of that country. this is really a huge potential problem. >> it is a huge problem. there are about 6 million living inside saudi arabia as well. so the notion that there's a tight border there, it is a porous border. you have very large population inside. saudi arabia is directly engaged. most of the middle east looks already like a proxy conflict between iran and saudi arabia. this is direct right on the border. we are seeing a meltdown happen in real time. >> steve, i will take you back to the president of afghanistan who is right behind you, as a matter of fact. about to speak there to the joint session. ghani has been different than karzai karzai, how he dealt with abdullah abdullah made a

difference. >> he is different, but there are a lot of things. this is the thank you tour. yesterday he thanked the american taxpayer. i was impressed, impressioned but stuck by the fact he appeared in coat anti. every time you saw karzai he was in tribal attire with traditional afghan attire. this was -- this is ash raf ghani giving them the afghanistan they want to see. he is worried a precipitous withdrawal will create a vacuum. isis is trying to fill the vacuum left by american disengagement in afghanistan. he is trying to thank us but also trying to give us a picture of what we want. >> steve clemons, luke russert, thanks so much for being with me. before i go a developing note out of the supreme court. justices sent out 6-3 ruling sent the case of a fired pregnant worker back to lower courts for review. this is a victory for the plaintiff, peggy young, giving

her another chance to argue the case. she's the ups driver fired after her pregnancy limited her to only be able to perform some duties. justices writing she must prove she belongs to a protected class of minority citizens and that her employer ups didn't accommodate her like they would have if she became disabled. that's happening now on "the rundown." that wraps up "the rundown" here from new york city. thank you for the privilege of your time. any minute now, we expect to hear from european leaders about tuesday's plane crash, also expecting to hear from afghan president ghani. "newsnation" tamron hall has all of that and more for you live next. i'll see you tomorrow. .. tackle it with fda-approved jublia! jublia is a prescription medicine proven to treat toenail fungus. use jublia as instructed by your doctor. once applied jublia gets to the site of infection by going under, around and through the nail. most common side effects include ingrown toenail, application-site redness itching, swelling,

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a day. but aleve is just 2 pills all day. and now, i'm back! aleve. good morning, everyone. i'm tamron hall this is "newsnation." breaking news this hour. any minute now french officials will hold a news conference to update the investigation into what's been recovered from the

crash of germanwings flight 9525 including one of the black boxes found at the crash site. earlier today the government released pictures of the damaged black box which contained the cockpit voice recorder. officials are trying to download the data from that recorder obviously key to the investigation. also new video shows search crews searching for clues amid a debris field spread across the mountain side. one french official says the plane was, quote, pulverized with largest pieces of debris the size of a small car. also today, we learned that two americans were among the 150 people on board the plane. and germanwings giving new details about the victims this morning saying they came from at least 15 countries. 72 from germany, more than a dozen of them teenagers. and a short time ago the leaders of france germany and spain arrived at the site. we expect to hear from them as

well. meanwhile, claudia will he vonn i can't joins us near the crash site. at this point, the search continues for the second black box. what are investigators saying now. we have seen the helicopters near where the crash site is. six helicopters carrying tens of rescue workers 20 of them have been lifted on the crash site that's the only way to reach it. it crashed into a steep ravine the only way to get there quickly is being dropped from a helicopter. the other way to walk downhill from a mountain top, two hours on a steep descent, which is obviously out of the question especially here in what looks like winter. behind me there are