NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas - Thursday, November 7, 2024

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

Possible school shooting averted in Wisconsin with arrest of teen suspect; Dozens of homes destroyed by Southern California wildfires; Trump says there's ‘no price tag’ for his mass deportation plan in exclusive NBC News interview; and more on tonight’s broadcast.

Breaking news tonight, the potential school shooting that police say was averted in Wisconsin. The terrifying moments police say they believe an armed 13-year-old tried to enter an elementary school but was unable to get inside. The red flags on his social media and the video police say someone sent them showing him with a rifle. How police say staffers averted a tragedy. Also tonight, the wildfire fueled by Santa Ana winds forcing new evacuations in Southern California after destroying dozens of homes. 14,000 acres burned, more than 3,000 homes and businesses at risk. We're in the fire zone. The scare on the New York

subway after a gunman opens fire in broad daylight and flees into the transit system. Our exclusive interview with President-elect Donald Trump on the heels of his sweeping victory. Mr. Trump saying that on his mass deportation plan, there was no price tag. What he said about speaking to Vladimir Putin and just in who he is named as his White House chief of staff. President Biden in his first public remark since Mr. Trump's election win, his pledge for a peaceful transfer of power. New developments in the death of One Direction star Liam Payne. The three people under arrest now. And he's become a social media sensation. A man on a mission to bike across America.

This is NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. Good evening and welcome. Officials in Kenosha, Wisconsin, saying tonight we narrowly missed a tragedy today. Law enforcement speaking of the arrest of a 13-year-old who they believe was armed when he tried to enter a school this morning. Instead, the teen with suspicious bags was confronted and questioned before he could gain entry and then fled. Later arrested this evening, further investigation, discovering videos, a troubling online history and prior statements all being described as red flags. Maggie Vespa joins me now. Maggie, police say he was trying to get into the school multiple

ways. Yeah, Lester, that's right. Police say this 13-year-old suspect carrying a black backpack and a large duffel bag tried to enter numerous stores around an elementary school in Kenosha, Wisconsin this morning, but all those doors were locked. So they say he tried a front entrance, a secure entryway with a buzzer and two sets of doors. And it's there police say that he was stopped and questioned by staff members before he turned around and left the building. And they ultimately found the suspect who surrendered. Now, law enforcement released this video, which they received today, though it's unclear when it was taken. It appears to show the teenager with a rifle. And police told reporters that warning signs were there from the teen's Internet search history to comments he made to other students in recent weeks about his intentions. But police were only made aware of those red flags today.

So while this community is breathing a sigh of relief tonight, police are really stressing that if there are any warning signs, people should speak up immediately. Lester. Yeah, we shudder to think what might have happened. Maggie, thank you. Wildfires are burning on both coasts tonight in California. Fewer than a dozen wildfires are destroying homes and spurring evacuations. And in the Northeast, 49 million people are under red flag warnings. Dana Griffin reports from the California fire lines.

Tonight, the wildfire threat in Southern California, not over, as whipping winds send dozens of homes up in flames. It remains dynamic and it remains dangerous. Santa Ana wind gusts spreading embers through this heavily populated area. Some carried up to three miles away, starting new fires. There's a fire in the backyard. 14,000 residents told to evacuate. Phil Amantia left his home of 30 years as the fire tore through his neighborhood. Were any houses burned? When I left, they were burning. How many? One next door to me,

one across the street from me, and one at the top of my home. Fire crews are going up and down this road trying to reach homes like this that are fully engulfed. You can see this plume of dark smoke billowing into the air as this fire rips through the home. It is going to be a total loss as it is completely obliterated. The wildfire threat has expanded beyond the west coast known for its dry conditions. Today parts of New Jersey are also ablaze. Smoke visible for miles. A new fire in Burlington County threatening more than 100 structures. Back in California, residents are starting to return to their homes no longer standing. It's very sad.

It's very, very sad, but we got out with our lives, two cars and a dog. We can't ask for much more, and we have insurance. So we're just going with that. As firefighters battle tough conditions like sporadic winds and at one point running out of water. It's intense as it gets. The hair on the back of the firefighter's neck I'm sure was standing up. Firefighters are committed to saving homes and lives. And Dana, this firefight is not overridden.

It sounds like another strong wind event could impact the same area as soon as next week. That's right, Lester. That Santa Ana wind event is expected Tuesday night. Fire officials say they are preparing now and ready to respond to any potential impacts from that event. Lester. All right, Danny Griffin starting us off. Thank you. And here in New York, an urgent manhunt tonight for a suspect who shot and wounded a man, then escaped into the subway. Erin McLaughlin has late details. Tonight in New York City, police are hunting for the gunman who caused the chaos shown in this surveillance video after they opened fire on

an upscale New York City street. According to police, a 47-year-old man was shot in the leg and shoulder before the shooter entered the nearby subway. Commuters crouched in fear as the suspect escaped through the subway tunnels. According to WNBC, our station in New York, this surveillance video shows the alleged shooter before the attack. Barista Arielle Schmid was at this coffee shop across the street when she heard shots fired. A few people that were sitting more out here kind of like saw the altercation that was happening and everybody got up and sort of like funneled into the store.

Everyone scrambled for shelter. A few people who actually ran into our bathroom that we have here. Yeah, it's a really small space. Multiple law enforcement sources tell our NBC New York station it all began with an argument inside a nearby computer store. The suspect followed the victim as they ran outside onto the street. According to employees, the victim owned the store and our NBC New York station reports is expected to survive. The NYPD says crime is down across the city for the 10th straight month, but with the gunman now on the loose. Very unsettling, very unsettling. That's small comfort to residents who say they aren't used to this kind of violence.

Erin McLaughlin, NBC News, New York. We turn now to our exclusive interview with President-elect Donald Trump on his top priorities and the world leaders he's talking to. Meet the press moderator, Kristen Welker, spoke to Trump just hours ago. Kristen, you also asked him his agenda on day one. Lester, that's right. We spoke to President-elect Trump on the phone 48 hours after his sweeping election victory. I asked what his mandate is. He said it's to bring common sense back to the country. Now, as for day one, he told me, quote, I think we have lots of firsts. He brought

up strengthening the border, saying, quote, voters agreed with him. They didn't want murderers. They didn't want drug lords. They didn't want gang members coming in. I pressed him on the price tag of his mass deportation plan, which experts say could run into the billions and separate families. Mr. Trump said, quote, we have no choice when people have killed and murdered. They're not staying here. There is no price tag, Lester. And I know he told you he's spoken to about 70 world leaders since his election win. That's right, Lester. Among them, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Ukraine's President Zelensky. I asked if Russian President Putin had called. He said they had not spoken, but he anticipates they will. During the campaign, Trump vowed he could end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, but has not said how.

Lester. All right, Kristen Welker, thank you. And who will surround Donald Trump in a second term? Senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson joins me now. And, Hallie, some late-breaking news tonight. Yeah, Lester, good evening to you. The president-elect says he's chosen his new White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, a longtime Florida political operative who helped run the Trump campaign. She will be the first woman to serve in that role.

And it's just the start of more announcements to come. Transition talks tonight ramping up with President-elect Trump's first meeting with his team on who will help execute his agenda, according to a senior official, including Secretary of State. Under consideration, according to multiple sources, former National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien and Florida Senator Marco Rubio signaling he'd follow through with Mr. Trump's pledge to quickly end the war in Ukraine, despite critics' concerns that could embolden Russia to seize more territory. At the end of the day, what we are funding here is a stalemate war. Also in the mix, former ambassador to Germany,

Rick Grinnell, controversial and combative. If you want to avoid war, you better have a son of a bitch as the secretary of state. Mr. Trump's first term saw more turnover than any administration in decades, 20- cabinet level positions changing hands. At the Pentagon, Mr. Trump may tap Congressman Mike Waltz or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to lead the Defense Department, where the expectation, as one Trump ally put it, is a purge across the board. Military officials replaced with generals Mr. Trump believes would be more aligned with his goals. I believe his policies are good for the United States, good for our national

security, and good for maintaining America's leadership around the world. Former Trump officials Mark Pauletta or Matt Whitaker could take on the job of attorney general to dissolve any remaining federal prosecutions of Mr. Trump, defend controversial Trump policies like on immigration from likely court challenges, and serve as the leading edge for any push to investigate the president-elect's political enemies, as Mr. Trump has suggested, like the Biden family. When I get back in office, I will appoint a real special prosecutor to investigate every detail of the Biden crime family of corruption. But one position that seems safe at the moment, chair of the Federal Reserve, with Jerome Powell serving out a second four year term,

saying today Mr. Trump is not legally permitted to fire him. If he asked you to leave, would you go? No. Can you follow up on it? Do you think that legally you're not required to leave? No. As for the rest of the Trump inner circle, it could include former rivals like Doug Burgum and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who tells NBC News that for the next couple of months, he's staying in the Palm Beach area close to the transition action. Lester. Howie Jackson, thanks. From President Biden, a far different tone about his successor today,

addressing the nation for the first time since Trump's victory, all while the debate grows among Democrats over why they lost. Gabe Gutierrez is at the White House. Speaking publicly for the first time since Donald Trump's sweeping election victory, President Biden telling Americans he's spoken to the president-elect. I assured him that I'd direct my entire administration to work with his team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition. After a grueling campaign where the president described Trump in stark terms.

Trump is a threat to this nation. He's a threat to our democracy. Today, a more unifying tone. We accept the choice the country made. I've said many times, you can't love your country only when you win. He urged Americans to lower the political temperature. I also hope we can lay to rest the question about the integrity of the American electoral system. It is honest, it is fair, and it is transparent.

He also praised what he called Vice President Harris's inspiring campaign. But within the Democratic Party, a difficult postmortem is already underway. Democrats have to do some real soul-searching. Privately, some Democrats are blaming the president for not dropping out of the race sooner. A top Harris campaign official deleted his social media account after taking an apparent swipe at the president, writing, we dug out of a deep hole, but not enough. Still, Philadelphia's Democratic chairman blames poor decisions by the Harris campaign for losing Pennsylvania. I don't think that the Democrats that live in the city related to her. Some Democrats are also urging the party to move to the center. The far left is pressuring the

party to take policy positions that are deeply unpopular among most Americans. But today, President Biden defended his legacy, touting major investments in infrastructure. It's been a historic presidency, not because I'm president, because what we've done, what you've done, a presidency for all Americans. A White House official says President Biden will attend Trump's inauguration, and they're expected to meet here in the Oval Office in the near future. Lester? All right, Gabe Gutierrez, thank you. There are new developments in the investigation into the death of One Direction star Liam Payne. Three people now arrested after the singer fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Argentina. Chloe Malas joins us.

What are they charged with? Lester, so the identities of these individuals have not yet been revealed, but we have spoken to prosecutors in Argentina who have confirmed that one of the suspects is somebody that was with Payne on a daily basis at the hotel in Buenos Aires, and they have been charged with abandonment. Now, the other two individuals, which includes a hotel employee, have been charged with supplying pain drugs. They also say that they actually executed about nine raids as part of this ongoing investigation in Buenos Aires. And also, we have new details on that toxicology report tonight. We know that they found alcohol, cocaine, and an antidepressant in his system, Lester.

All right, Chloe, with our update. Thank you. In 60 seconds, betting on who would become the next president, the controversial gamble that made some big winners on election night. We're back now with the story of thousands of Americans who just hit the jackpot. This was the first time in several decades it was legal to bet on the U.S. election. And as Brian Chung reports, it has supercharged the enthusiasm of Trump supporters who bet big. On college campuses, students might spend their free time betting on football or basketball. I bet $10,000 on Trump.

But thanks to a court decision just weeks before the election, this week, young Americans also legally bet on the presidential election. At the University of Pittsburgh, Luke Perry and his friends bet on Trump. I don't know any girls really that bet, but me, I know all my guy friends bet it. Perry put two grand on Trump using a regulated exchange called CalSheet, netting $1,400 when he won. It was a dream. It was awesome. It was like Christmas came early for me. One of at least three platforms where election betting is legal, Kalshi advertised coast to coast, drawing more than $450 million in wagers.

Tarek Mansour is the CEO. We are a risk-on country that like to have skin in the game, like truth, like to basically engage with things and understand them better. And these markets are a mechanism for doing all of the above. But experts say there are real concerns with allowing betting on elections. In the election game, if you want to call it that, we are all on the field. The voters are all on the field. It's analogous to sports betting if the competitors themselves were betting on the game. And there are problems with that potentially. Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley took aim at the apps prior to the election.

That is instead just turning election into a casino. Election bets are nonetheless taking over social media. Kalshi even paid Perry to promote his bet on his accounts. But Perry says he voted for Trump before placing his wager. It is kind of a game, really. I mean, you campaign and the goal is, you know, to get 270, you know, points. Brian Chung, NBC News, New York. And next, a flood of racist text messages arriving on the phones of Black Americans in several states. What we know after the break.

The FBI says it is investigating a series of racist text messages sent to Black Americans across the country in recent days. Some of the victims believing it's tied to the election. Sinclair Esamois reports. Corinne Freeman was at home with her kids on Wednesday when she got a text from a number she didn't recognize. It was this odd, ominous feeling text message basically saying, hello, you've been selected to be a slave on a plantation and you're scheduled to get picked up on at 12 a.m. on November 13th. How did it feel when you got that text message? Well, I was immediately disturbed. And she's not alone. Social media sites have been flooded with people from New York to Florida who say they've gotten

these racist messages. Freeman and others believe the text may have been sparked by the current political climate. I think that this is intentional to scare people of color, Black people, into a reality that we don't want to go back to. The wording of the text appear to differ. Some have misspellings. Others address individuals by name. But the theme is consistent, telling recipients they've been selected to pick cotton. All of the people NBC News spoke to who got these messages are Black. Several universities confirmed their students have reported receiving the text. Clemson says they came from numbers associated with online spoofing sites. It remains unclear who is behind the messages, but tonight, TextNow, which offers free phone numbers online,

tells NBC News at least one of its accounts may be involved, writing in a statement in part, we do not tolerate or condone the use of our service to send harassing or spam messages, adding they shut down the accounts and are working with authorities. For recipients like Corinne Freeman, the digital hate is fueling her real-world concerns. I am overwhelmed with anxiety and fear about how I'm going to help my children make sense of the world that they have to navigate as Black children. Zinclea Samoa, NBC News. We'll take a short break here.

Up next, the good news about a man you'll want to meet biking his way across the country fueled by kindness. There is good news tonight about a man who has become a social media sensation as he journeys across America on just two wheels. Here's Gotti Schwartz. On the wide open roads of America, an experiment in humanity for Yi Fei Xu. Far from his Shanghai, China home, he's been cycling across the U.S. for more than four months out to prove a universal truth. You believe in the good of humanity. Yeah, I want to show that human nature is good. And for him, the truest test comes down to how a country responds to a hungry stranger

just passing through. So this is what you hold in front of people's houses when you approach them, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Knock the door. I say, hello, I am a socialist, come from China. Can you offer me some food to eat? I'm so hungry. And it's that smile too. That's the smile that opens the door. His biggest rule of the road is the most difficult. No money, only goodwill. You help me a lot. And if you think there's no way he could make it across the U.S. without spending a cent,

I come to use money. Thank you. then you don't know the Americans he's finding day after day. What are some of the things that you've learned about America? To be honest, before I came here, I had a different, and you could even say, slightly negative perception of America. But so many people here have offered to help me without expecting anything in return, and it's really touched me. A two-way street of kindness felt by those who have crossed his path. I feel like I got more out of it than he did.

I gave him a meal. He gave me a huge lesson and just the generosity that he's experienced throughout this trip. At the end of this journey, Yifei hopes to bike around Australia and Japan and eventually around the world. But on this day, under the blue sky, this is freedom. This is freedom. Yeah. Journey fueled by generosity from sea to shining sea. Gotti Schwartz, NBC News. We'll have to catch up with him again as he makes progress. That's nightly news for this Thursday. Thanks for watching. I'm Lester Holt. Please

take care of yourself and each other. Good night.