This Morning’s Top Headlines – Sept. 18 | Morning News Now

We begin with the uncertainty that's growing over the future of the Kennedy Center. Federal judge on Thursday said the Trump administration must give 30 days notice if it wants to make any changes to renovation plans for the iconic institution. Comes as a new photo was captured. It shows President Trump on Air Force One Wednesday. He appears to be looking at a poster referencing the demolition of the center. NBC News Washington correspondent Alice Barr joins us now with the latest on this. Alice, good morning. Good morning, Joe. In what has turned into a series of fierce legal battles, a Democratic lawmaker and several preservation groups have filed lawsuits over the center's closing and accusing the board of ignoring its responsibilities, while the board says the building is now shuttered because of dangerous decay. Today, supporters of the Kennedy Center We want the president and the world to know that if you want to go through the Kennedy Center, you want to try to turn it into a crater like the East Wing, you're going to have to go through us. That after this photo raised alarm of President Trump on Air Force One, looking at a poster that appeared to say Kennedy Center demolished. A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to give at least 30 days notice before making any significant changes to renovation plans, including any demolition. The president has repeatedly pushed to add his name to the building in exchange for raising money for costly repairs. I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition because frankly, if we don't do that, it's going to close. It'll end up being ripped down. It's in very, very bad shape. He now says renovations won't happen until his name is added. Despite federal law establishing the center as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy. When a federal judge blocked the name change, the Kennedy Center's board, mostly handpicked by President Trump, voted to shut down the center for two years, noting in filings the building is unsafe. This video posted by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick shows a partial ceiling collapse after heavy rains. Some Republicans are pressing to move on. We've got an election 48 days from now, I think we should be focusing on that and worrying about what it's named. It's kind of silly. While the Democratic Congresswoman Joyce Beatty and preservation groups who are suing promise to fight on and asked about that Air Force One photo raising concerns about possible demolition. A Kennedy Center spokesperson said the board and its chairman, that's President Trump, are working hard to save the great American institution and address critical infrastructure needs after years of deferred maintenance. Joe. Alice, there is a new push now to try and remove the Kennedy Center board. Tell us about that. Yeah, in this latest legal chapter, eight preservation and architecture groups filed suit asking to remove that Trump appointed board, arguing they're not following their legal and ethical responsibilities. An attorney representing the group said the Kennedy Center belongs to the American people and that the objective is not to have a federal judge run the Performing Arts Center, but to make sure that there is still a Kennedy Center worth governing when the litigation is over. All right, Alice Barr in Washington. Alice, thank you. The first ever meeting between President Trump and Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, could take place soon. A White House official says discussions are underway for a meeting between the two as early as next week. It could happen on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly here in New York. It's the same city where Rodriguez's predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, is in federal lockup. He's awaiting trial on narco terrorism charges. NBC News senior national politics reporter Jonathan Allen joins us with that and more. So, John, what more do we know about this potential meeting? Well, we don't know a ton about this potential meeting, Joe. We do know that the talked to Delcy Rodriguez before. We do know that the United Nations General Assembly is a place where, you know, obviously a lot of leaders end up mixing. And we've seen in the past years, United States presidents meeting with various leaders that they hadn't met with before. But, you know, I'm not sure that a meeting between them is much different than a phone call between them in terms of actual substance. You pointed out Nicolás Maduro in jail there in New York and Delcy Rodriguez, who was installed by the Trump administration as the president of Venezuela and is now basically, you know, subservient to the United States. I'm not sure that meeting is a whole lot different than the president calling and commanding her to do things. John, let's turn now to the war with Iran. President Trump made new comments to Axios about approaching a major crossroads in the war. What's he saying? Yeah, the president says to Axios, which is one of his favorite publications to talk to when he has a message to put out, that he's at a crossroads where he may decide that he needs to annihilate Iran. Of course, he has told us before that he has annihilated Iran, that the war is over. And he said, you know, something that's very Trumpy. And he said, anything can happen with me. So, you know, I guess Joe will have to take him at his word that anything can happen. But I think right now the president is scrambling to, before the midterms, give the American people a reason to think that he has a plan to end a war where the United, when the war started, the Strait of Hormuz was open, gas prices were cheaper, diesel prices were cheaper, goods cost less in the United States. And trying to give people a suggestion that he might be able to end that war, open up the Strait of Hormuz, and make life a little less expensive. John, as the stalemate goes on, NBC News has some new reporting on Marco Rubio's behind-the-scenes role on the war in Iran. He's trying to keep his political options open for the future. The war is pretty unpopular. He's playing a couple of major roles right now in the administration. What is NBC News learning? Yeah, I think the most interesting thing, perhaps, in that reporting is what Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, said, which is effectively that because Rubio is the Secretary of State, he has to be able to be across all of the issues, across all of the countries that the United States is dealing with. And so, from their perspective, it makes sense that there are teams doing specific negotiations. For example, teams working on Israel and Gaza, teams working on Iran that are not necessarily the Secretary of State, who has to be able to zip back and forth between world capitals. We've seen that model before. It's actually the model that Anthony Blinken, the Secretary of State under President Biden, used. So, from that perspective, from the policy perspective, not terribly unusual. What's interesting in the reporting is that while Rubio is playing down a 2028 presidential run to others, folks think that it's really possible that he might run in 2032 or 2036. He apparently believes that 2028 could be a very bad year for Republicans. And then, you know, then again, we are far out and frequently people suggest that they don't want to run for president and then turn around and do. Yeah, we've heard that many times before in the history of presidential politics. All right, John Allen, good to have you with us. Thank you so much. The Iran war could drive gas and diesel prices even higher. Analysts are predicting a big jump as oil infrastructure and critical waterways remain under threat in the Middle East. Those analysts are pointing to last week's damage to Saudi Arabia's east-west pipeline, which is a land alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. That could hike prices well beyond the midterms. Right now, gas prices do remain above four dollars a gallon, and the price of diesel continues to hit record highs. For more on this, joined by our friend Caleb Silver. He is the chief business editor of People, Inc. and editor-in-chief of Investopedia. Caleb, good to have you with us. Let's talk more about just why we're seeing this rise, because really what's happening right now in the Middle East is we're seeing Iran and its proxies retaliate more with everything that's going on. So how is that impacting everything? Yeah, you have that. You just mentioned the east-west pipeline that's been shut down because of those Houthi attacks. About four million barrels a day has been going through there. That's about 20 percent of actually flowing through that region. So that's a big stoppage. But you also have refining capacity here in the United States that's been pinched. So you have outages in the Midwest. You have outages down in Texas. If you can't refine, you can't produce enough of that gas. And that's why the price keeps going up. You go out west to places like California, gas is over six dollars a gallon, diesel much more expensive than that. Let's look at the numbers. If you add it all up, there's one analysis that says it is Americans have paid an estimated excuse me, an estimated one hundred seven billion dollars in extra gas and diesel costs since the war began in February. Is there anything that can be done to offer some relief? You could drive a little bit less, but just think about it. Since this war began, you've had gas prices up around 50 plus percent. And the cost to Americans just since the war began is over a thousand dollars in general just for rising commodity prices. Add tariffs to that. That's another fifteen hundred dollars. And we talked about diesel. Diesel is a key fuel for transporting everything through the supply chain, but it also is the same fuel that they use to make distillates like home heating oil. That's what we're talking about, potential home heating oil rising this winter as well. You know, let's say we saw that on the diesel there, what, six dollars, 44 cents a gallon. That's an all time high again today. We've seen it climb a few cents every single day. What does that do just overall to the U.S. economy? Yeah. So diesel price is obviously important for trucking, for shipping, for airplanes, even use them. But you also have them as a breakdown fuel for everything else. So fertilizer costs are up. Rice prices are super high right now. Corn and grain prices have also been on the rise. Some of that is supply. Some of that is the cost of transportation. So diesel is the key fuel there that really powers all the costs in that consumer basket of goods that we've been looking at. As we know, inflation around three and a half percent right now. In addition to goods, are there services that are impacted from some of these price increases we're seeing in gas? Absolutely. You've already seen what's happened to jet fuel. Prices are up over 70 percent, but services like home heating oil, like energy prices to power just about everything in manufacturing that all comes from diesel. So when we looked at the producer price index last week, that's what manufacturers are paying for goods. That is super high as well, a little higher than consumer prices. Eventually, those trickle down to us as consumers. And we've already seen that happen. So inflation not going anywhere, despite the fact that the Fed had that baby little interest rate raise this week. We'll probably get another one before the end of the year. Well, we have you on a switch gears. We do some little bit of breaking news this morning, and that's Warren Buffett saying he's stepping down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year. Talk about just the impact that he has had on the investing world and what this is actually going to mean. This is a pretty big milestone. Yes. Total legend. He actually stepped down as CEO at the annual meeting last year at the beginning of this year. This is him stepping down as executive chairman. And Warren Buffett has been sitting atop Berkshire Hathaway for the past 60 plus years. He has delivered enormous shareholder returns, but he's also built an incredible company. So he's stepping down as executive chairman. There's me and the legend right there in his office in Kiewit Plaza having a cherry Coke, talking about the markets. That was years ago in a different, different land, a different me. But he is an absolute legend. If you've invested along with Warren Buffett for the last 50 years, even the last 10 years, you have done very well. A thousand bucks and more in Berkshire Hathaway when he took over back in the 60s is worth millions and millions of dollars right now. Has he set things up well for the future moving forward? Absolutely. He named Greg Abel his replacement. Greg Abel has been with the company for many years and his son, Howard Buffett, who's been on the board, will be the chairman. Buffett says himself he will be just a shareholder like the rest of us, but will remain on the board of directors. And I know him very well. And in his office, he's reading all day long, making calls. He's still going to be putting in that work. Yeah, I think he'll be giving some advice here and there. Ninety six years old. That's incredible. Caleb Silver, good to have you with us. Thank you so much. Now for the latest on that deadly helicopter crash that killed three people, including two of our colleagues at NBC Los Angeles. The wreckage is being sent to an NTSB facility. That's where investigators will begin the painstaking work of trying to figure out what went wrong. They'll be looking at everything from the helicopter's maintenance records and flight tracking data to any air traffic control communications. NBC News correspondent Steve Patterson has more on the investigation. Piece by piece, federal investigators slowly removing the wreckage of news chopper four, hauling it to a secure facility in Phoenix. We spoke to NTSB spokesman Peter Knutson. What specifically would help you when you're looking at the physical aftermath of the wreckage? Sometimes even, you know, small things like a bolt or a cable that's overstressed or, you know, show some wear. All of these can be important data points. This dash cam video shows the chopper fall and another angle from new surveillance video obtained by NBC Los Angeles also shows the fiery aftermath. The NTSB is asking the public for any images they might have. The accident happened Tuesday during breaking news coverage in L.A. Photojournalist Eliana Moreno and pilot George Marcinu were in the air covering this deadly accident where a car ran into a bus. Avoid the intersection of Nordoff and DeSoto for the next several hours. When something suddenly went wrong, the NTSB says this video shot in the chopper before the crash will be key evidence. We're going to be able to get a lot of information with that sound spectrum analysis and all that video information to determine just what kind of emergency the pilot was dealing with. A third victim, 29-year-old Eddie Gutierrez Mejia, was killed on the ground. His family telling Telemundo he was just visiting for a couple of days from Guatemala when tragedy struck. And there's new video of that deadly accident that preceded the chopper crash. You can see a driver speeding toward the intersection before slamming into the bus. Two people on the bus were killed. Now prosecutors charging the driver of the car, 36-year-old Bailey Rios, with murder. And new tributes for our colleagues, including Moreno, who was just engaged. Her family writing, we find comfort in knowing that Eliana left this world doing the very thing she loved. We are infinitely proud of her. Steve, thank you for that report. The driver accused of crashing into that Metro bus could face life in prison if convicted on all counts. Prosecutors say charges related to the helicopter crash are also possible pending the findings of the federal investigation. A military pilot is in stable condition in the hospital after a military F-16 plane crashed during a routine training mission yesterday. Now investigators are trying to determine what caused the fighter jet to go down. No civilians were injured, but a hazardous chemical spill linked to the crash forced nearby homes and businesses to evacuate urgently. NBC News senior national security correspondent Courtney Kuby has more. New video showing the fiery aftermath. An F-16 fighter jet crashing just feet from a house. The jet still in flames with pieces of wreckage strewn across someone's yard. It was going down. I mean, there was no doubt about that. Authorities ordering an evacuation around the crash zone. And I was like, I need to get my girls like out of here. Nicole Conrad shooting this video saying the kids first noticed the military jet above them. I hear a big boom and then I see a colorful parachute and the sky floating down from the sky. Texas military officials saying an F-16 jet from the Texas Air National Guard crashed during a routine training mission and that the pilot successfully ejected. Michigan officials saying the pilot is in stable condition in the hospital. His chute never fully opened. It was like a mushroom. Authorities ordering everyone within one mile of the crash site to evacuate due to a hazardous chemical spill related to the plane crash. All as new audio reveals another pilot telling air traffic control that the F-16 may have hit a bird. Courtney Kuby, NBC News, Washington. Tens of millions of Americans are dealing with a weather trifecta, flooding, fires and heat from coast to coast. Several neighborhoods are underwater after heavy rain triggered flash flooding in parts of Arizona, Indiana and Illinois. In California, first responders are racing to contain wildfires. More than two dozen record highs were set across the south yesterday. NBC News National Correspondent Morgan Chesky is tracking it all. Torrential rain creating havoc across the country. In Indiana, the Wabash River swelling to flood stage. This aerial view showing a neighborhood south of Fort Wayne underwater. People working together to push this vehicle to dry land. Rosanna Stantz's daughter's basement inundated. She probably lost everything in her basement, her furnace, water heater, all the things. To the west, parts of the Phoenix area receiving more than a third of their yearly rain in just a few hours Wednesday. In Maricopa County, flash floods trapping two people in their 80s inside their vehicle. First responders on the ground unable to reach them. A sheriff's helicopter finally swooping in to bring them to safety. Rising waters hitting the Phoenix metro area so hard. First responders even used their vehicles to push stranded drivers out of the flood waters. And in northern California, a different kind of battle. Crews racing to contain a growing wildfire near Lake Tahoe. The Floriston fire prompting officials to issue evacuation warnings for families in parts of two California counties. And authorities shutting down part of Interstate 80. The California Highway Patrol saying there is no estimate on when it may be safe enough to reopen. Morgan Chesky, NBC News. And the threat of severe weather continues. So let's turn now to NBC meteorologist Angie Lastman to forecast. Angie, good morning. Hey there, Joe. Happy Friday. We've got a whole lot to talk about, as you mentioned, weather-wise. Let's start with the flooding. That's going to be the main concern today across parts of the Midwest. You can see 9 million people still under these flood alerts. Parts of them are across the Rockies, as well as still New Mexico, dealing with some of this additional monsoonal moisture still in place. We know that we've picked up a whole lot of rain over the past couple of days there. So we're still going to be concerned about that. But we are going to watch this low pressure kind of slide through parts of the plains. And it has a whole lot of moisture to it. And that means that we're going to gear up for another day of some kind of heavy rain threat across the Midwest. Again, in some of these spots that have already seen plenty of rain, saturated grounds, the flooding concerns will be there. No surprise. Even tomorrow, that heavy rain is going to work across parts of the Great Lakes and farther to the east. If you're waking up in Chicago on your Saturday morning, get ready for a little bit of rain. It's going to be kind of a soggy morning across that region. But we'll see those scattered showers and thunderstorms kind of get in place as the afternoon develops as well. The rain and the thunderstorms continue across the Midwest and eventually slide into the northeast. This is Sunday. You can see some periods of rain up and down the I-95 corridor. This will also be accompanied by some cooler weather. It'll be noticeably cooler, very fall-like and a little soggy. So not great for the outdoor plans. I would say get those in earlier in the weekend if you live in the northeast. But as we look ahead to your flash flood risk today, it's Minneapolis, La Crosse, Milwaukee, all included in the potential to see some of that heavy rain and potentially anywhere from two to three inches per hour in some spots. So no surprise that we could pick up more than a handful of rain as we get into at least Sunday across this region. This is where we're going to be most concerned for the flooding. Meanwhile, our friends in Florida through at least the next week are going to have kind of an unsettled pattern. We've got this area of low pressure just hanging around, meandering across this region and plenty of tropical moisture in place. That means that we'll have these repeated rounds of showers and thunderstorms. And we know it doesn't take a whole lot to flood across this region, especially south of I-4, where the heaviest of rain is likely to set up. That means that the flooding concern will be there for our friends there as they pick up multiple inches of rain through at least the extended period. That is going to be beneficial. Annoying, of course, for the weekend and beyond, but beneficial when it comes to the drought that we're dealing with across this region. We're sitting at a deficit for rain in a lot of these locations for the year so far. 15-inch deficit in Orlando. We've got more than a 15-inch deficit in Miami. More than a foot of rain is missing for Fort Myers. So the folks across this region, especially agriculturally speaking, their lawns, they could use a little bit of that rain, but it might interrupt some plans as we get through the next couple of days. And last but not least, of course, we've still got these heat advisories. 15 million people across a section of the Ohio Valley included in that. You guessed it. We're heading to the triple digits again in a lot of these spots. It's just been a roasting September for a lot of locations, and that goes as we head into tomorrow, too. Joe, this is going to be kind of, you know, the extended period where we see temperatures well into the triple digits across parts of this region. If not the triple digits, it's the 90s. You got to go way up north in places like Chicago to see a little bit of relief and more of the fall feel. Unfortunately for our friends across the South, it's still summertime. Shorts and T-shirts are going to be necessary. The leaves are going to turn in January. Or they don't turn at all. It's like green and then, you know, snows and then there they go. You don't even get the nice fall feel. All right, Angie, thanks so much. Appreciate it.