Back in the headlines, a new documentary on the amanda knox murder case reigniting questions over her guilt or innocence. Either im a psychopath in sheeps clothing or i am you. This morning well talk to the team behind that controversial project. And error on the diamond. A guy tries to pop the question during a baseball game but drops the ring. Look at this poor guy. The frantic search captivating fans in the stadium and watching at home. Well tell you if it all turned out happily ever after today, wednesday, september 28th, 2016. Announcer from nbc news, this is today with matt lauer and savannah guthrie, live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. And good morning, everyone. Welcome to today on a wednesday morning. We start with sad news coming out of the middle east. The breaking news is the death of one of the defining political figures in the world. Former israeli president and Prime Minister shimon peres. Nbcs Kelly Cobiella has a look at his life and also his legacy. Kelly, good morning to you. Matt, good morning. A man of vision and peace, the essence of israel. Just some of the tributes pouring in this morning for shimon peres. He was 93, hospitalized two weeks ago after suffering a stroke. The face of israel, the elder statesman, the eternal optimist. Overnight shimon peres lost his last fight, dying of complications from a stroke, his family by his side. He worked tirelessly for israel, from the very first day of the state to the last day of his life. Reporter peres served along israels founding fathers. First a hawk building the military and nuclear program, a strong supporter of jewish settlements in the west bank, and later a dove. Peace with israels arab neighbors became his lifes mission. Let us take the risk of trying peace rather than allowing the risk of war. Peres led secret talks with the palestinians, ending in the signing of the 1993 oslo Peace Agreement and this historic handshake. All three awarded the nobel peace prize. Today former president bill clinton called peres a genius with a big heart who used his gifts to imagine a future of reconciliation, not conflict. And from president obama, a light has gone out, but the hope he gave us will burn forever. Peres retired two years ago but stayed involved, recently criticizing president ial candidate Donald Trumps policies in an interview with bloomberg tv. The worlds will not separate people. This morning israels Prime Minister led a minute of silence for the man who served his country for seven decades as both Prime Minister and president. Israels warrior for peace, gone at 93. The state funeral now planned for friday in jerusalem. Israels Foreign Ministry says they expect leaders and dignitaries from around the world to be there. Matt, savannah. Kelly, thank you very much. Former president george w. Bush also released a statement saying his family will miss peres and his grace, dignity and optimism. Hard to overstate his importance to world affairs. We move to politics now. Lets get you the state of the president ial race. 41 days left to go until the election and donald trump will hold backtoback rallies today. The first this afternoon in iowa followed by an event in wisconsin later tonight. Hillary clinton and her onetime democratic rifval, Bernie Sanders, will share the stage in New Hampshire when they appear at a college event. Theyll be discussing the cost of education. And the numbers are in from monday nights debate. An estimated 84 Million People tuned in. That makes it the most watched president ial debate ever. Weve got a lot to get to. Our decision 2016 team is ready to go. Well start nbc National Correspondent peter alexander. Good morning. Reporter good morning to you. Donald trump now has 11 days to try to improve on his debate performance but hes already fielding new questions about his judgment and temperament, all of it about a new feud with a former Miss Universe. 20 years later, still criticizing her as overweight and the Clinton Campaign thinks it can capitalize. Donald trump back on the trail and back on teleprompter, trying to frame monday nights debate as a win, touting unscientific online surveys. Almost every single poll had us winning the debate against crooked Hillary Clinton big league. Reporter trump insisting he intentionally went easy on his rival. I watched her very carefully and i was also holding back. I didnt want to do anything to embarrass her. Reporter Hillary Clinton enjoying her own victory lap. Did anybody see that debate last night . Oh, yes. One down, two to go. Reporter her husband praising the performance. Instead of personal insults, she ran it on issues and i was tickled to death. Reporter president obama tweeting her vision and command showed that shes ready to be our next president. Clinton mocking trumps claim that he was given a faulty microphone. Anybody that complains about the microphone is not having a good night. Reporter this morning for the first time were hearing from Alicia Machado who said that trump repeatedly bullied her for gaining weight after she was crowned at the age of 19. Here with natalie morales. What were the names that he called you. Miss piggy, miss housekeeping, miss eating machine. All to your face . Yes, all the time. Reporter the Clinton Campaign unleashing this new web video where machado said she was forced to work out in front of the cameras. She weighed 118 pounds or 117 pounds and she went up to 160 or 70. Reporter trump making no apologies. She gained a massive amount of weight and it was a real problem. Reporter the political discourse taking the low road. Former president ial candidate howard dean highlighting trumps case of the sniffles, accusing him without any evidence of using cocaine. The sniffling, the grandiosity, the delusions, the pressured speech, you know, this guys already proven himself to be unstable. The question is why is he unstable . Reporter overnight Donald Trumps campaign responded to howard deans comments calling them beyond the pale. As for that battle to woo women, the latest is that michelle obama, one of the most popular women in america, will be campaigning today in pennsylvania for Hillary Clinton. Shes also part of a new ad praising clinton as a good role model for americas children. Matt and savannah. Peter alexander, thank you. By the way, well have a lot more with natalies interview of Alicia Machado coming up in our next half hour. Mark halperin is here, the managing editor of bloomberg politics. Good to see you. Good morning. One of the things about debates, the campaigns get to see what works, what gets traction and they go out the next day, the candidates do, and either refine those messages or double down on them. Based on what we saw on the campaign trail yesterday, what does each campaign think worked for them monday night . Hillary Clintons Campaign thought almost everything works. They thought donald trump gave them plenty to work with. I initially thought there wasnt an oops moment for him but there was on his attack on the former Miss Universe. So they think their confidence is sky high and you saw in the clip in peters piece, shes as confident as ive seen her as a candidate. Donald trump is doing what a lot of candidates do. They lose a debate and they pretend they didnt lose and try to bully their way through it. But there are people around him who know that the message of washington change is a good one. The message of attacking a woman for being overweight or eating too much is not. And hes got to change that. Lets talk about that because you say thats an oops moment. In the moment he was not as strident as he was the next day on a callin show where he brought it up by himself. He wasnt asked about Alicia Machado but he transformed this into a second day story saying she gained so much weight. He turned this not into only a second day story but a third day story and a fourth day story. If he thinks this is going to go away, i think this is wrong and the clinton people have no intention of letting it go away. It affects peoples perceptions of him about women, about hispanics, but also about whether hes a gracious person. Theres this other thing that he continues to talk about yesterday, this idea that he did not go there, that he showed restraint against Hillary Clinton when it comes to issues in her marriage. Its this thing where you get to go there by saying youre not going there. Its like if i said im not even going to talk about that suit youre wearing and i just did. So is this working . I dont think it is. I think its a distraction from, again, the winning message, there are a lot of people around donald trump that will say the winning message is shes been in politics a long time, washington isnt working. Things like bill clintons personal life, benghazi, even her email, a lot of republicans say you can talk about this other stuff but its not to be about expectations. And this is for a lot of people distraction. He has demonstrated in the recent past an ability to change. When the polls were in freefall and Kellyanne Conway came on as campaign manager, he did seem to adjust. Do you think that will happen again . Were all waiting for the postdebate polls in the battleground states, does he go down. Ironically the best thing might be if he does go down. Typically the only way he changes course is when the polls show him changing a little bit. By the way, theres nothing wrong with your suit. Now to a developing story overnight, officials are pleading for calm after a deadly officerinvolved shooting that happened in Southern California. Protesters gathered at the scene of the shooting last night, a Shopping Center in el cajon which is about 30 miles east of san diego. Earlier today officers were called in over reports that a man was acting erratically. Now, police say he was not armed, but they say he pulled an object from his pocket and pointed it in a, quote, shooting stance toward the officers and that prompted one of the officers to open fire. The man died several hours later at a hospital. There are some new developments today in a major banking scandal. Wells fargo is launching its own investigation into millions of accounts opened without customer consent. Key executives are paying up. Nbcs jolene kent is here with that. Wells fargo is forcing its ceo and others to forfeit millions of dollars in compensation and this might only be the beginning. This morning major fallout at wells fargo. Here are the transcripts. After a brutal grilling on capitol hill. Have you returned one nickel of the money you earned while this scam was going on . And the board will do i will take that as a no then. Wells fargo board of directors says it plans to revoke 41 million from ceo john stumpfs compensation package. This comes just weeks after the bank disclosed it created as many as 2 million fraudulent accounts without permission from customers. More than 5,000 employees were fired in the process. Carrie tolstedt also penalized. She left the bank ahead of her scheduled retirement with no bonus or severance. She will also forfeit 19 million in stock awards. But she could still reportedly walk away with nearly 100 million. Wells fargos board of directors has also retained a law firm for an independent investigation, during which the ceo will not be paid a salary. Theres criminal behavior, theres unethical behavior and theres sometimes just simply bad business. Former employees now suing wells fargo in a Class Action Lawsuit. Some tell nbc news the fraudulent behavior was a direct result of pressure from managers. What felt strange was how adamant they were that every customer had to have seven accounts. Some say they tried to sound the alarm. I had long detailed emails sharing with them some of the things that i was witnessing. Shareholders now pushing back too, also filing a new Class Action Lawsuit in northern california, saying, quote, the fake accounts goosed the stock price, directly benefiting executives. Thats securities fraud. Neither wells fargo executive will receive a bonus this year. The ceo originally stood to make an estimated 123 million when he retired and he is not done yet. Hes going to testify in front of the House Financial Services committee tomorrow, so this is only just beginning. The board of directors now saying that there could be more action on the horizon. A lot of public special in this one, thanks very much. Former republican president ial candidate Chris Christie is facing some new allegations coming out of that socalled bridgegate scandal. A key witness for the prosecution is now claiming for the first time publicly that christie was in fact aware of those lane closures that led to a massive traffic jam. Nbcs Stephanie Gosk has the latest on this. Hi, steph, good morning. Reporter good morning, savannah. The George Washington bridge is the busiest in the world, so when four of these access lanes were shut down unexpectedly in 2013, this place was a nightmare. When people realized that it had been done deliberately as a form of kind of political revenge, there was an uproar. Now federal prosecutors say that governor Chris Christie, despite his denials, knew what was going on. Two days into the 2013 lane closures on the George Washington bridge with cars, emergency vehicles and school buses stuck in massive traffic jams, new jersey governor Chris Christie spoke with two former Port Authority officials, David Wildstein and bill baroni at that years 9 11 memorial service. In a federal courthouse on tuesday, wildstein testified that during that conversation, his boss, baroni, told christie, governor, there is a tremendous amount of traffic in ft. Lee. Please know mayor sokolich is frustrated. A democrat, he did not endorse christie for governor. The governor sarcastically replied, using wildsteins online pen name. Well, im sure mr. Edge would not be involved in anything political. Governor christie has repeatedly involved any involvement or knowledge in what would soon be called bridgegate. Once again this week the governor was forced to respond to accusations that he knew more than he admits. Christie has not been charged with a crime. I had no role in authorizing it. I had no knowledge of it. And there has been no evidence ever put forward that i did. Reporter wildstein pleaded guilty to his involvement and is now the prosecutions chief witness in its case against baroni and christies former deputy chief of staff, bridget kelly. Both are fighting the accusations. Bridgegate dogged christie during his president ial campaign. He knew about it, totally knew about it. Reporter now one of trumps surrogates, the scandal that undermined christies hopes to become president , is still far from over. To reiterate, the governor has not been charged with a crime. There have been calls in this state by some democrats to start an impeachment process, but with little time in his term and no substantial evidence, that seems unlikely. Savannah. All right, Stephanie Gosk, thank you. Scientists are saying the first baby has been born from a controversial new technique that combines dna from three people, the mother, the father, and an egg donor. The goal was to prevent the child from inheriting a fatal genetic disease from the mother, who had previously lost two children to that illness. Doctors say its not the first socalled threeparent baby, but it is the first time modern techniques have resulted in a healthy birth. Fertility specialists from the United States and britain did the experimental treatment in mexico. It has not been approved in the United States. Al is here. Time to get our first check of the weather. Good morning. We start out west where theres some wildfires still burning. This santa cruz, california, aerial view, we are looking at homes that are threatened, hundreds of people have had to evacuate. This fire only 10 contained. And in arizona, phoenix, arizona, the dust storm, a haboob making its way in, just a massive wall of dust. They have the threat of that again for today. As we move to the east, weve got wet weather over the great lakes thanks to that upper level low. Were expecting a lot of rain in the midatlantic. 9 Million People under the flood risk for hazardous travel, urban flooding, has rain really starts to develop later today from the midwest into the Midatlantic States, as two surface lows start to bring in moisture from the atlantic. Well look for the heaviest rain from virginia, maryland, pennsylvania, right on into friday. Dreary conditions. We do need this rain in the northeast in new england for drought but the heaviest rain is going to be a bullseye right around washington. Upwards of 7 inches of rain through Northern Virginia and parts of washington. Were going to get to good morning. Im meteorologist bill henley. Enjoy the sunshine this morning. It will be fading this 4 aftern. And theres a chance youll need your umbrella. Scattered light showers later today. Temperatures warm into the 70s for philadelphia, the suburbs and the Lehigh Valley. 74 in trenton with partly sunny skies. More clouds building at the shore, some lateday showers, even a chance of a thunderstorm at the shore. While smyrna and Rehoboth Beach start with sunshine and clouds and a chance of showers this afternoon, 72 in