White peoples choice awards. This morning, al and natalie are live in hollywood with all the highlights from the show, the red carpet and, of course, the after parties. Klan controversy. Why did donald trump refuse to disavow support from the kkk and its former leader david duke in an interview . I dont know what youre talking about. David duke and the Klu Klux Klan here. Honestly, i dont know david duke. The odd exchange that left the billionaire scrambling to explain while his rivals pounced. Well talk to trump in a live interview. Erin andrews and her convicted stalker expected to testify at her 75 million civil trial today. Were live at the courthouse. Cursed cruise ship . Another illfated voyage for Royal Caribbeans anthem of the seas, just weeks after passengers were battered by a powerful storm. 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 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 knockknee knock come 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. Spotlight went for best picture and best screenplay. This oscar amplifies the voice. Reporter brie larson won best actress for room. Thank you to the movie goers. 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 throughout the show also tackled the lack of diversity, with rock getting help from tracy morgan, in a skit recasting this years films with black actors. These danishs is good, girl. Reporter the night also features cameos from minions, droids. Actually, i dont look like 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. 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 clue Klu Klux Klan grand wizard, david duke. Trump claiming to be clueless about duke and the white supremist group. Reporter donald trump again under fire. This time for not what he said but what he didnt say. Donald trump refused to 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 New York Times, the reform party includes a klansman, mr. Duke. This is not the company i wish to keep. Still, the uproar unified even Hillary ClintonRetweeting 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 always calling me little marco. Hes 62. I dont understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 52. His hands are like this. You know what they say about men with small hands you cant trust them. That was just a sampling. If you were hoping for a campaign of ideas, this was 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. Follows shots youve taken at 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 . Well, i never started this, matt. Im way ahead in the polls. 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 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 nervous wreck. 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 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 skrar cratched 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, 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 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. 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 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 of senator jeff sessions, one of 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 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 you after super tuesday. Thank you for your time this morning. Thank you. Thank you very much. Lets bring in nicolle 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. I think theres a question, 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. 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. 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 to testify. Were there live. Plus, would you fall for it . One of us did. On rossen reports, the new trick hackers are using to get in your computer. Just ahead, a clueless 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. Yeah, moms gonna go for it except. I dont have a clue where to start. Hey we hear you. Thats why aarp created life reimagined. Its designed to help you find your true passion with personal advice from coaches and people like you who are going for it. If you dont think this is right for me when you think aarp, then you dont know aarp. Get to know us at aarp. Org possibilities only kraft natural cheese has a touch of philadelphia cream cheese, so whatever you make, is creamier than ever. Choose your match new revlon colorstay 2in1 compact. Expertlymatched foundation and concealer deliver a flawless, complete look that lasts. Choose love in undernourished children all over the world. When you get your vitamins at walgreens, you help give lifechanging vitamins to kids across the globe. Get vitamins here. Change lives everywhere. Walgreens. At the corner of still questions about a body found in a Northern Kentucky creek. Wlwt newsfives andrew setters tells us what investigators have to go on. So far. Kyla woods has a news 5 traffic the winds are slowly starting to die down. For the rest of the 25mph winds overnight. Clouds clear out by noon. Highs in the low to mid 50s this afternoon. Storms return tomorrow afternoon and evening. There is a slight risk for severe weather. Strong winds and hail are the 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. Al and natalie were there up 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 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 granted. I do not take tonight for granted. Thank you so much. Brie larson won best actress for room. Well have more later on. A day before super tuesday, donald trump finds himself at the sen the expect to do very well at the polls tomorrow. Army Staff Sergeant assigned to the pentagon is facing murder charges in the deaths of his wife and a Virginia Police officer. Police say 32yearold Ronald Hamilton killed his wife and opened fire on police. The officer killed, 28yearold ashley gwindon was on her first day of patrol. In other news, itll be another emotional day at erin andrews 75 million civil trial against a man who secretly recorded her and the hotel where it happened. Morgan radford is at the courthouse this morning. Good morning. Savannah, good morning. An exclosive e savannah, good morning. An exclosive e xplosive day expected in court. Erin andrews set to take the stand, making her case as to why she deserves 75 million. Shell also hear from the man she says damaged her career and left her publicly humiliated. High drama in court as erin video of her named in her hotel room are expected to testify today. Her mom likely to take the stand after jurors and andrews listened to last weeks emotional, gutwrenching testimony about how the sport reporters life changed after the Scandalous Hotel video went viral. Shes not the fun person she was. Shes mad. Shes scared. Shes not the girl that we used to know. Reporter now, shell get to tell her side of the story. Its important for erin andrews to testify to really look the jurors in the eyes and to explain to them how harmful this was to her. How upsetting. How much it has interfered with her life. Reporter Michael Barrett who spent 30 months in prison for the crime wont be in the courtroom but is expected to testify by video. Divorced father of two, he was he came up with the scheme to alter the peephole in Andrews Hotel door and use a cell phone to catch her naked. He planned to sell the video. Finding no takers, he posted it on the internet where experts say itll live forever. Many people have individual copies out there. I dont know of any way i cant think of any way sitting here to get it off. Reporter claiming negligence, emotional disstress and evasion of privacy, andrews is suing for 75 million. The hotel maintains its not at fault and that barrett is responsible because he deceived, connived and manipulated the reservation system to get the room next to andrews so that he could take that video. Im mad. I did nothing wrong. I think i should be allowed to go live my life. But this isnt over. The last time we heard publicly from barrett was when he was sentenced back in 2010. When he sobbed in open court, erin andrews could forgive him. Morgan, thank you. Theres new trouble for Royal Caribbean. For the second time in a month, the anthem of the seas has been forced to turn back to port. Tamron has the latest on that. Good morning. This is no love boat for sure. Earlier this month, the massive ship cruised into a violet storm in the atlantic, battling the cruise liner and rattling people on board. Now, more extreme weather and an outbreak of norovirus has another group of passengers on the ship desperate to arrive back on dry land. Reporter its been anything but smooth sailing for Royal Caribbeans anthem of the seas. Earlier this month, a major atlantic storm battering the ship with hurricaneforce winds and waves as high as 30 feet. The more than 6,000 passengers and crew on board, terrified, hunkering down for hours with flying furniture and shattered glass just one day after setting sail. I thought, this is it. Im going to die. Vacation is getting cut short by weather. Royal caribbean announcing on twit