Another illfated voyage for Royal Caribbeans anthem of the seas, just weeks after passengers were battered by a powerful storm. This time, bad weather and a norovirus outbreak forcing it to return to port today, monday, february 29th, 2016. Announcer from nbc news, this is today with matt lauer and savannah guthrie, live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today on a monday morning. February 29th. You dont say that very often. Every four years, actually. Exactly right. Did you watch the show last night . I stayed up all the way to best costume design. Proud of myself. Thats about 9 40, Something Like that. I know. Way to go. Chris rock seemed to have the time of his life. Seemed to enjoy that. Took the controversy right on. There were surprises. Al and natalie spent the weekend out in los angeles. Theyre still up. What a night it was. We havent gone to bed yesterday. It was so much fun. I got to see chris rock at the comedy store, and he did a preview of the oscar performance. It was spot on. He was amazing. Definitely getting rave reviews. It was, as you mentioned, a big night for leo, spotlight, mad max. Chris rock responded to the lack of diversity among the knockkneeknockcome nominees. Reporter leonardo finally won best actor for the revenant. Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take this night for granted. Reporter inarritu got backtoback wins as best director. Picture and best screenplay. This oscar amplifies the voice. Reporter brie larson won best actress for room. Thank you to the movie goers. Thank you for going to the theater and seeing her film. Reporter the best surprise was best supporting actor. Sylvester stallone losing out to mark rylance in bridge of spies. Thank you so my fellow nominees. I dont know how they separate my acting from your acting and the Wonderful Films youre in. Reporter chris rock took on the controversy immediately and often. Im here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the white peoples choice awards. Reporter alternating between punch lines and poignancy for his opening monologue. Is hollywood racist . Damn right. We want opportunity. We want the black actors to get the same opportunities. Reporter numerous skits the lack of diversity, with rock getting help from tracy morgan, in a skit recasting this years films with black actors. Im the danish girl. These danishs is good, girl. Reporter the night also droids. Him. He happens to look rather like me. Reporter toys. To infinity and beyond. Reporter even the vice president. Im the least qualified man here tonight. Reporter who introduced a powerful performance by lady gaga. You dont know reporter highlighting victims of sexual assault. [ applause ] as you see, it was an emotional moment. A standing ovation there for lady gaga. Overall, mad max fury road grabbed the most awards with six. Actress for the danish girl. The big short won best adapted screenplay. Well talk more about this later in the morning. Thanks for the recap. We appreciate it. Well also be talking about all the parties, as well. Lets turn to politics. Race for the white house, important week tomorrow. Super tuesday battles looming large for Hillary Clinton and donald aiming to build their leads. Well talk to donald trump live as he finds himself in another controversy, this time over race. Lets begin our coverage with peter alexander. Good morning. Good morning. Even for this campaign, this was a stunning development. The republican parties prohibitive favorite to win the nomination, donald trump, refusing to condemn former clueKlu Klux Klan grand wizard, david duke. Trump claiming to be clueless reporter donald trump again under fire. This time for not what he said but what he didnt say. Donald trump refused to criticize the Klu Klux Klan. We should all be united in se saying the plan is irrep reporter voting against trump is against your heritage. I dont know anything about david duke. Would you say, you condemn them and you dont want their support . Well, i have to look at the group. I dont know what group youre talking about. Im talking about david duke and the Klu Klux Klan here but i dont know. Honestly, i dont know david duke. Reporter after the interview, trump said he did disavow duke. And trump has known who duke is for years. Explaining his decision not to run as a Reform Party Candidate in 2000, trump then told the party includes a klansman, mr. Duke. This is not the company i wish to keep. Still, the uproar unified even fierce democratic rivals. Hillary clinton Retweeting Bernie Sanders who blasted trust as a hatemonger. Trump is also fending off questions after retweeting a mussolini quote. You want to be associated with a fascist . No. I want to be associated with interesting quotes. Reporter the website gawker revealing it made up the quote, baiting the billionaire. Little marco rubio, a total, total weather weight total featherweight. Hes 62. I dont understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 52. His hands are like this. With small hands you cant trust them. That was just a sampling. If you were hoping for a campaign of ideas, this was clearly a disappointing weekend, including attacks over who wet their pants and who sweats too much. Clearly, rubios decision to dive head first into the ugly back and forth shows that even his team now believes that their stay above the fray approach wasnt working. Peter alexander, thank you. Donald trump joins us now on the phone. Mr. Trump, good morning. Good morning. Let me just start off where peter just ended up. Im sure youve heard marco rubios latest shot at you. Him. Fair to say, both childish. Who has big hands, small hands, big ears, who sweats, who is a loser, who chokes. Can you blame people sitting across the country and around the world for saying, wait a minute, these guys are running for the most important and powerful job in the world . Matt. Im not sure people would agree with that. Sure. But im way ahead in the polls. Rubio came out and started doing it because hes desperate. Hes 20 points behind in florida. Hes a noshow in florida. The people of florida wouldnt elect him dogcatcher. Frankly, he got desperate and he started doing personal attacks. When somebody does a personal attack, you hit them back. I hit him back hard. Dont the voters deserve to hear answers to their questions as opposed to childish attacks . I do. When you have a person running that gets personal, i believe in answering back. I answered back and i will continue to answer back. You know, it hasnt helped him in the polls because his polls have gone down since hes doing it. He did it because hes desperate. Hes losing florida, losing all over the place. I dont blame him for doing it. His other approach was not working, so i dont blame him. But it is politics, matt. Its something that happens. He was desperate. Hes down in the polls, hes a i watched how i watched his meltdown against chris christie. And he wanted to go different approach. I think weve cleared that up. Lets talk about another issue that has bubbled up. This is your comments on a cnn program. You were asked about david duke, former grand wizard of the kkk. You said three times in the interview, i dont know who david duke is, and you refused to disavow or distance yourself from him. People are skrarcratched their heads over that. You disavowed david duke two days prior. Why were you presenting you didnt know who the person was . Why not disavow david duke, disavow the kkk . Whats going on . First of all, he talked about david duke and other groups. You said three times, i dont know who david duke is. Excuse me no, no. I know who he is, but i never met david duke. When you talk about it, i never met david duke. On the reform partys platform because duke was a member of it. Im saying to myself, how many times do i have to continue to disavow people . The question was asked about david duke and various groups. I dont know who the groups are. I said, would you do me a favor and tell me the groups . He was unable to tell me that. He says, im just talking about david duke and the Klu Klux Klan here. You said, honestly, i dont know david duke. Im sitting in a house in florida with a bad ear piece they gave me. You can hardly hear what he was saying. What i heard was various groups. I dont mind disavowing anybody. I disavowed david duke and disavowed him the day before at a major News Conference, which is surprising because he was at the major News Conference. Cnn was at the major News Conference and they heard me easily disavow david duke. Now i have a lousy ear piece frankly, he talked about groups. I have no problem with disavowing groups but id like to know who they are. Itd be unfair to disavow a group if they shouldnt be disavowed. I disavowed david duke. If you look on facebook right after that, i also disavowed david duke. When we looked at it, the question, i disavowed david duke. All weekend long on facebook and twitter and, obviously, its never enough. Ridiculous. There is a piece in the New York Times yesterday after the republican establishments efforts over the past couple months to derail your campaign. Governors got together and met and talked about writing a letter to the american people, disavowing your brand and your candidacy. In your opinion, right now on the eve of super tuesday, has the republican establishment lost its opportunity to stop you . A reuters poll came out. Im 44 and 45 and others are at 11 . Id love to win texas. Its the only place im a little down to a sitting senator that hasnt done a thing for the people of texas. I think i have a chance of winning texas. I think ill win florida in two weeks because rubio is a noshow. Hes done a terrible job for florida. Hes defrauded florida. He never shows up for votes. I think ill win florida. You said yesterday even though im doing very well you said yesterday you feel in a sense if the republican establishment gets together and has some organized way to try to defeat you, that theyre violating their pledge to you. If thats the case, whats your next step . What would you do . If they violate the pledge, which possibly theyve already done, as you understand, i will do something that would make them unhappy. I have millions of millions of followers. We had the endorsement yesterday the most respected people in the senate. We attended an event that was so incredible in alabama, with 35,000 people. I dont know if you covered everybody covered it, but i dont know if you talked about the number of people. 35,000 people in a big football stadium. Right. He said hes never seen anything like that and hes been in politics 30 years. Hes never seen an event like that, with that kind of people. We have tremendous support. Frankly, the Republican Party should get behind me. Were opening up to the Republican Party. When i won in South Carolina, we got far more votes than the democrats got. If you look at our votes verse the democrats, we got more votes. More votes than we got four years ago. Were opening up the party. Democrats are calling in. Lets choose that its a far bigger party. Ive done a Great Service for the Republican Party. Lets choose that as a good place to stop, mr. Trump. Hopefully well get to talk to thank you for your time this morning. Thank you. Thank you very much. Lets bring in Nicolle Wallace and steve kornacki. Good morning to you. Lets talk about what mr. Trump said. Has he put it to bed . Your conversation with him is extraordinary, in that it was the first time i heard him blame the ear piece for whatd you say . Old campaign trick. Press your ear and pretend you cant hear. What is right about what he says is that the Republican Party is trying to take steps toward him. Then he refuses to disavow david duke. Cuddles up to putin. He says things that make it necessary for us to run ten steps back. The article in the New York Times talking about efforts over the last couple months by the gop establishment, what was the headline to you . I think its the failure. Theres been concern for a few months among republicans that trump could do this. He could pull away. Could they have done anything in the first place to stop him . There was a failure in the time to get behind any other candidate. It says a lot about the other candidates running. Cant get behind a vacuum. Exactly. The failure was in theage age analysis that there were three lanes and each contest was separate. It was wrong. Its not like basketball where you have different brackets. The fight should have been taken to the front runner. Its the failed strategy, that they had to first destroy one another. There was a democratic primary on saturday night. Hillary clinton won bigger than a lot of people expected. She put up astonishing numbers, specifically with africanamerican voters in South Carolina. She did better with black voters on saturday night than barack obama did against her in the same state eight years ago. Close to 90 of the black vote. Shorten the campaign with that victory . Steve, thank you very much. Nicolle, thank you. Al has a check of the weather. Super tuesday, weather will be a factor. To be the, tonight, we have a chance of storms from Oklahoma City to Wichita Falls. Strong wind gusts and pingpong size hail. Tuesday, a bigger area from pennsylvania down into louisiana. This also involves the super tuesday states. Arkansas, tennessee, alabama, georgia and virginia. 22 Million People at risk. Damaging wind gusts and we cannot rule out tornadoes. Were really going to be watching this closely. Today. Mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 60s. West winds 5 to 10 mph. Tuesday. Partly sunny. Highs in the upper 60s. South winds 5 to 10 mph. Wednesday. Part ly sunny. A chance of showers in the morning. Highs in the upper 50s. Thursday. Mostl y sunny in the morning. Then partly sunny with a chance of rain ors in the teo. Highs in the mid0s. Iday. Pt nny wh rcent chance showers. Highs ine lower 50s. Saturday. Mostl y sunny. Highs in the mid 50s. Ny. Most nny. Highs od0. Coming up in the next half hour, we have Winter Weather to talk about. Mr. Lauer . Al, thank you very much. Coming up, a big day at erin andrews 75 million civil trial. The Sports Reporter and her convicted stalker both expected plus, would you fall for it . One of us did. On rossen reports, the new trick hackers are using to get in your computer. First, this is today on nbc. Steve today is your lucky y. Wo man surprised oh, my goodness mark youve just won a thousand dollars woman thats amazing thats amazing shrieks woman ok, nice job. Mark, way better than yesterday. Steve yeah . Woman i am still missing that raw emotion. Woman pretty awesome for a tuesday, but tomorrow is hump day, so lets really bring it lucky for life. Win a thousand dollars a day, just ahead, a clueless appearance. Oscars most awkward moment. We wonerere. And here. And here. Here. And here. Uh, here. Also in here. Back there. Behind here. Even next to these guys, here. In the nations largest, independent study, rootmetrics just named verizon Number One Network for the fifth time in a row, here. So when the other guys claim theyre the best, remember theres only one, number one. And now well pay up to 650 to switch to the best network. This one right here. Twenty more years of this job . Yikes. My kids say go for it, mom. Be that woman who does what she loves. Knows what she wants. Except. 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Get vitamins here. Change lives everywhere. Im ben thompson. Investigators are on the scene in cleveland county, after a deadly explosion. The blast happened just before midnight last night on stamey road in fallston, when a truck ran off the road and crashed into a home with two propane tanks outside. The explosion destroyed the house. Two people died in the blast. Crews are still on the scene, putting out flames that are still sparking up. Its a pretty mild morning lets get a check of the first warn forecast with larry sprinkle. Today. Mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 60s. West winds 5 to 10 mph. Tuesday. Partly sunny. Highs in the upper 60s. South winds 5 to 10 mph. Ly sunny. A chance of showers in the morning. Highs in the upper 50s. Thursday. Mostl y sunny in the morning. Then partly sunny th a ance of rain showerin theternoon. Is the mid 50s. Iday. Parynny wi 50 rcencnce showe. Ghs in eor 50s. Saturday. Mostl y sunny. Highs in e mid 50s. Sunday. Stly sunny. Highsound 60. Coming up. Well update you on a deadly hit and run crash in charlotte. And larry has another check of the forecast in half an hour. Good to be alive right about now good, good, good to be alive right about now 7 30, monday morning, leap day, february 29th, 2016. What are we going to do with the extra day . The oscar red carpet has been rolled up for another year. The stands are coming down at the dolby theater. Late and up early now. The first hour was fun to watch. I dont know what happened after that. The 88th awards ended with a surprise with spotlight taking home the award for best picture. In the acting categories, lee Leonardo Dicaprio got his first oscar after several nominations. I thank you all for this amazing award tonight. Let us not take this planet for