So what could luke aikens possibly do to top that . Well ask him in his first live interview since that remarkable stunt. Defending the decision. The president of the International Olympic committee explains why he did not ban all russian athletes from the games. You cannot punish a human being for the failure of his or her government. As more members of team usa arrive in rio and the countdown is on for the games to begin, today, tuesday, august 2nd, 2016. Announcer from nbc news, this is a special edition of today countdown to rio with matt lauer live from rio de janeiro, brazil, and savannah guthrie, live from rockefeller plaza. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to a special split edition of today on a Tuesday Morning. Beautiful shots of rio. Matt has made his way to the boardwalk just off copacabana beach. Fridays Opening Ceremony just three short days away. I see you with the jacket there. We have to remember, this is winter in rio. It is winter. Were dead in the middle of winter. Temperatures during the day can get up into the 80s when the sun is out. Its a lot chillier today. Probably 70 degrees. Its a little overcast and the wind is blowing. We are along the prominad at copacabana beach. It goes all of the way along this cove and its a busy and popular place. The beach is right here obviously. But during the day, all times of the day, youll find people here walking, strolling with their kids, exercising. Exercise is very popular here because they all want to look good in those tiny little bathing suits they wear on the beaches and because, savannah, were at the olympics, we sent our researchers and interns and our production assistants out on their morning run for starbucks this morning, so they should be back any moment now. Meanwhile, coming up, well have a lot from rio including that story you just talked about. Thomas bach commenting on their decision not to ban the entire russian team from these games. You know about sugarloaf, right, savannah . Sugarloaf mountain. Exactly. That iconic granite peak. Hoda and i took a journey up there yesterday. The view is spectacular. Well have that for you as well. Looking forward to that. Lets start with the president ial race. Our new nbc News Survey Monkey online tracking poll following her nomination at the Democratic National convention, Hillary Clinton now leads it. Donald trump, 50 to 42 . Thats a sevenpoint jump from last week. Nbcs Hallie Jackson has the race covered this morning. Shes in columbus, ohio. Hallie, good morning to you. Reporter good morning. That online poll you just referenced shows a sevenpoint bounce now for Hillary Clinton coming out of her convention as her rival, donald trump, faces new fallout today from multiple controversies. He often calls her crooked. Now donald trump has a new name for Hillary Clinton. Shes the devil. Reporter that insult coming as trump slams the endorsement of Bernie Sanders. He made a deal of with the definitely. Shes a devil. Reporter a new fiery attack. The gop nominee not backing off criticism of the khan family whose son was killed in iraq. As far as im concerned hes a hero. Horrible things were said about me. Reporter trump later adding the son wouldnt have died because i wouldnt have been in the war if i was president back then. Reporter the gold star parents keeping up their own attack. Some good, hearted, sincere, genuine patriotic american falling in his trap. Hes a snake solesman. Reporter another military mom confronting trumps vp. Mike pence forced to defend his running mate on the campaign trail. The last 24 hours have seen an avalanche of republican responses. Almost all praising captain humayun khans service. John mccain said trump doesnt have an unfettered license to defend those who are the best among us but mccain and other republicans still not unendorsing the nominee. I support the nominee of the party. I would not have said what he said in the way he said it because the family had a right to speak out. Reporter democrats digging in. I mean, is there no limit to which this guy will descend . Reporter all this as clinton faces her own controversy over her emails. Fact checkers giving their worst rating to her response to this question on fox news. Fbi director james comey said none of those things that you told the American Public were true. Chris, thats not what i heard director comey say. Director comey said my answers were truthful. Reporter clinton getting backing from billionaires like Warren Buffett laying down a challenge to trump. Release your returns, buffett said. Im under audit, too. Reporte there are no rules. Reporter heres Something Else making headlines for trump this morning. His comments to a usa today columnist about the Sexual Harassment complaints against fox news roger ailes. When asked what he would do if his daughter was treated the way that ailes allegedly behaved. I would like to think ivanka would find another career or company if that was the case. As an author points out, most women arent able to quit her job and why a woman should upend her career because she ended up in the crosshairs of some harasser. Hallie jackson on the trail. Thank you. Lots to talk about with mark halperin. Good morning to you. Trying to figure this out with donald trump. This story has been kept alive for four days. Is this strategy on his part or has he lost control of this . I think about president george w. Bush who received this kind of criticism from many people including Cindy Sheehan but he didnt engage with Cindy Sheehan. He disagreed with that criticism but didnt attack her. I dont understand what trumps strategy is. You would be in the same place as a lot of republicans including senior republicans. No one has ever behaved quite like this in president ial politics. Hes gone after people before in the past. John mccain and others and succeeded by showing strength but hes chosen to keep up a long running battle with the most sympathetic people you can imagine, gold star families. Pushing off otherwise negative stories about Hillary Clinton that may lead all of the headlines. Greatest frustration for republicans who want him to win is you have the remarks that Hallie Jackson mentioned about Hillary Clinton talking about the fbi investigation where she clearly wasnt accurate. Youve got gdp growth numbers. Sluggish. Weak economic numbers for the incumbent party. A lot of republicans are wonder why donald trump continues to fight with the khan but why isnt he focusing on these issues at a time when he did not get as good a convention bounce as Hillary Clinton did. Meanwhile, you have Top Republicans like speaker ryan, senator mcconnell, john mccain, speaking out denouncing this attack on the khans personally and khan service. You dont see them rescinding their endorsement of donald trump. You dont see many of them on camera saying things. This is an uncomfortable situation for republicans. You have lots of family members im hearing of prominent republicans, sons and daughters and spouses saying this is not good. This is not the right way. You should consider unendorsing. I think most of them want to wait for the first debate. They still hope trump wins. They still feel their electoral fate is tied to donald trump. If they unendorse, theyre worried the whole party goes down. They want to wait for the first debate. Polls dont look great for him right now. Still close enough they hope that he can come back and party can be unified in the fall. He made that intriguing comment yesterday about the system being rigged. Some people interpreted that as hes laying the groundwork already that if he loses he can say, well, there was something unfair about the process. Do you interpret it that way . Theres that possibility that he wants to have a hedge against the loss to say i couldnt win because the system is rigged. Its bad for the country. We need bipartisan, nonpartisan sense that elections are fair, the kind of chaos that donald trump sows may be about himself and not good for the whole country because this election is going to be hotly contested. No matter how close or not close it is. Mark halperin, thank you. Lets move to new cases of zika leading the cdc to issue an historic travel warning for parts of miami as crews there do whatever they can to stop that virus from spreading further. Nbcs Kerry Sanders is right there in the thick of the battle. Kerry, good morning. Reporter good morning, savannah. These are the weapons of war. An airplane that flies owe over neighborhoods at night and early in the morning, just down over neighborhoods skimming the neighborhoods, letting out a thin mist the insecticide and also fogger trucks. This is isolated in a onesquare mile area of miami could spread the mosquitoes population is not squashed immediately. This morning, the streets of the popular miami neighborhood filled with clouds of insecticide. An urgent counter attack. The enemy . Mosquitoes carrying the zika virus. We are very active in making sure we do everything we can to control the spread. Reporter this morning, Public Health officials with a warning. Pregnant women advised to avoid the wynwood art district. If pregnant women are living there, they should avoid the area. Reporter and rushing in a Response Team from the cdc. Alarm bells going off after the cases tripled from 4 to 14 in less than a week. My primary concern is obviously the apparent connection with microcephaly. Reporter this doctor is a doctor in the affected area. Now women are concerned about the zika virus. Reporter and growing concern throughout florida that fear of zika will put a damper on the states crucial tourism industry. While officials worry zika may spread, word about the virus still has not. You didnt know . No. Are you concerned now you hear it . Im not pregnant. Right now, im here and im already here. Were not leaving. Reporter the fogger trucks and airplanes laying insecticide down have another problem. That is rain which dilutes the insecticide which creates rain where the mosquitoes breed. Savannah. Kerry, tough situation. We have dr. Nationalie azar wit the latest on the issue of zika. We have a warning of the zika. What are the chances it can be confined to the small little area . Well, savannah, so the issue is this. What we always banked on is the urban infrastructure in the country will not facilitator allow the epidemic to grow the way it has in south america and latin america simply because the advisement and guidance is stay inside and in air conditioning and use your screens. There is a lot more information and education about this. We have some of the preparedness. Some of the concerns in the last 24 hours is is the insecticide working . And although people are told to remove standing water, it is a bug and can grow and lay eggs in a size of a bottle cap. This is a challenge. To say the least. I wondered why the warning was confined to just the neighborhood. I get that is where we know for a fact this zika mosquitoes are. It is not like mosquitoes have borders. Why not make it bigger in an abundance of caution . I think the answer lies, savannah, this is an actively Ongoing Investigation and surveillan surveillance. I think this will change on a rapid basis. As we discussed earlier, the mosquito doesnt travel that far. It has a pretty narrow spectrum where it can travel. It is the human beings who hijack the bug and start traveling and thats where we are concerned about the spread. That is what we were talking about before the show. Does it go from mosquito to mosquito . No. It goes from mosquito that is infected and bites a human being. That human travels and does what he or she does. Then it moves on. And the mosquitoes lays eggs. That is how generation of the mosquito population can get out of control. We will watch it closely. Dr. Azar, thank you. Lets head back down to rio and matt. Savannah, thank you very much. More and more athletes and spectators arriving here every day with the Opening Ceremony now just three days away. The big news here today, though, the comments from thomas bach defending the ioc decision not to ban the entire Russian Olympic Team in the wake of the doping scandal. Nbcs keir simmons is at olympic park with more on that. Reporter good morning, matt. We will hear more details about the Opening Ceremony. You can see the venues for fencing and wrestling and basketball. Overnight, more arguments over any of russias athletes should be allowed to compete. This morning, brazils incredible coastline, the stunning setting for the olympics has many athletes arriving in rio overwhelmed. Like the u. S. Volleyball team who say complaints of unfit an accommodations have not hit them. The village has been wonderful. The food has been great. Just the scenery with the waterfall and pool. Yeah, its wonderful so far. Reporter but russia still doesnt know how many of its athletes will be allowed to compete. Its track and field team banned after the doping scandal investigated by the ioc committee. Overnight, the ioc president defending, not banning, the entire russian team. This decision is about justice. Justice has to be independent from politics. Reporter a final decision may come today. Just getting the sample ready. Nbc news was given a tour of the Antidoping Agency lab at kings college. This is the sample. Reporter and many russian athlete samples were tested. Many top athletes had their samples tested here. Reporter new waves of doping are always emerging. More times or not we are ahead of the cheating. That is the unfortunate part of the process. It is not the competition one would like to have. Reporter other athletes getting in the spirit. Enhancing their bodies in a fun way. Ryan lochte dyeing his hair blue or is that silver . The dramatic change already causing a slash as team usa athletes prepare for their moment on the world stage. And tonight, they will decide who will be team usas flag bearer at the Opening Ceremony. I know, matt, tomorrow to today you will be the first to reveal who the flag bearer will be. And that is a huge, huge honor. Keir, thank you very much. Still to come from rio, savannah, we will profile Serena Williams. In the hunt for a medal in rio. Hoda and i will take you for the tour of sugarloaf. The iconic mountain. Thank you, matt. We have mr. Roker here. Back from the weekend. Thats right. We are thinking about weather for the Opening Ceremony. Americana stadium in rio de janeiro. You can see in matts picture, the weather was looking good. On friday at 7 30, clear skies and mild conditions. Temperatures as they start the parade of nations about 72 degrees. Closer to home, flood watches for missouri. Including st. Louis. Nevada all the way to new mexico. Looking at monsoonal moisture. Flash flooding and gusty winds. Haboobs will develop. Rain anywhere from 2 to 3 inches of rain between teluride to tucson and albuquerque. There is a good chunk of rain in the southeast as you get into the West Virginia area and on into georgia. Anywhere from 2 to 4 inches of rain possible. Well get to your local forecast coming up in the next 30 seconds. Good Tuesday Morning. Im meteorologist kari ham. Its 58 in the peninsula. 59 degrees in the south bay. Some clouds to start out the area in spots. Up to 90 degrees in the trivall trivalley. Upper 80s in the north and south bay. 67 in San Francisco. 79 in the peninsula. It will be slightly warmer today as well as tomorrow and then we will have a nice little cooldown and it will be just in time for the weekend. Thats your latest weather. Thank you. The man behind that death defying 25,000foot jump out of a plane without a parachute has made his way to today. Al and i have just one question. Why . A profile of Serena Williams. Her fourth Olympic Games going to record setting fifth olympic medal. A profile of her after some messages and this is today on nbc. Coming up, matt gets blown ah, my poor mouth breather. Allergies . Stuffy nose . Cant sleep . Enough. Take that. A breathe right nasal strip of course. Imagine just put one on and pow it instantly opens your nose up to 38 more than allergy medicine alone. So you can breathe, and sleep. Better than a catnap. Shut your mouth and say goodnight, mouthbreathers. Breathe right. Although just 4 foot 8, simone thats why she trusts tide pods. She knows small can be powerful. Tide. Number one rated. This is 100 useful for a 100 fresh mouth. Whats it like to not feel 100 fresh . We dont know. We swish listerine®. As do listerine® users. The very people we studied in the study of bold. People who are statistically more likely to stand up to a bully. Do a yoga handstand. And be in a magicians act. Listerine® kills 99 of bad breath germs so you can feel 100 in life. Bring out the bold™. Why are bananas bendy . Probably because they grow towards the sun. How do they know where the sun is if they dont have any eyes . Well, because they can. Feel it. So. Bananas have feelings . I. Guess thats what im saying. Do you hear that, alfie . Bananas have feelings sorry, banana, this isnt personal. Mmmm the family favorite. Yoplait. If you want to carmax will give you seven days to consider their offer. Why seven days . Science. Join me as we walk through the seven stages of decisioning. 1. Consideration. 2. Questioning. 3. Deciding. 4. Queso. 5. Nap. 6. Sudoku. 7. Tambourine practice. I think i made my point. Theyll give you an offer for your car, you take seven days to think about it. A developing story in the Central Valley where five a very good morning to you. A developing story in the Central Valley. Five feel with dead in the crash of a charter bus. It happened about 3 30 this morning northbound