Cell phone left behind. Now reports her mother is receiving ransom texts. The fbi on the case when youve been fighting for it the incredible rescue. A hiker fighting for her life. Trapped by a 1500pound boulder. Firefighters on the scene. You guys ready . All units ready for lift . Their twohour operation in the snow and ice flying her to safety. Good morning, america. We hope you are well this morning. A lot of people bracing for pretty wicked weather. A lot of people out there and hundreds of flights have already been canceled across the country. Take a look at how delta is making it a little easier on their passengers. Imagine looking out of your window and see theyre unloading 700 pizzas they ordered to keep their passengers full. Pizza makes everything better. I guess it means youre in for a long wait then. We have a lot to get to and we are covering a number of big stories coming out of washington this morning. President trump hosting his first meeting with chinas president in maralago. North korea and trade both on the agenda. And the white house is talking tough on syria in the wake of that horrifying chemical attack. The Vice President says all options are on the table. We will look at what those are in just a moment. And the battle is on over Supreme Court nominee neal gorsuch. Democrats going all out to keep him from being confirmed. A volt is expected today. Yeah, expected right around midday. Well begin with President Trumps summit with chinas president at maralago. It kicks off later today and Jonathan Karl will be there. The north Korea Nuclear threat front and center and President Trump called out the chinese for not doing enough on that front. Reporter north korea was clearly sending a message when they conducted that missile test this week and that message was heard loud and clear. The north korea threat is now at the top of the agenda for this meeting with chinas president. President trump is not only calling out the chinese for not doing enough to contain north korea, he has said that the United States is prepared to act alone if north korea if china doesnt deal with the threat and that all options are on the table. Now, george, trade, of course, is also front and center at this meeting. As you well remember, as a candidate, donald trump talked endlessly about the chinese, about their unfair trade practices, since becoming president , though, he hasnt really done anything about it. So this is a big test. Can he come away from this meeting with the chinese with anything tangible, any Firm Commitments on either trade or north korea. In his first phone call he had to back down from some previous statements he made about taiwan. Reporter absolutely and also the big thing he promised he was going to declare china a currency manipulator, a move that would have serious repercussions, that has not happened either. Meantime, this is coming after something of a shakeup on the president S National Security team. Steve bannon, his political adviser now off the National Security council. Reporter this is a big one, george. Ban nones role on the National Security council, the socalled Principals Committee was jai alai controversial. He was abruptly removed from that. I am told that the new National Security adviser h. R. Mcmaster made this a condition of coming in and taking this job but there were clearly tensions between ban none and jared kushner, the president s soninlaw who has taken a much bigger role on National Security, a clear demotion even at the white house theyre trying to minimize the implications. Yeah, Jared Kushners portfolio growing every single day, jon karl, thanks very much. President trump taking on the crisis in syria saying the chemical attack crossed many lines. Here is what we know this morning. Reports say at least 80 people were killed. Making this the deadliest chemical attack there since 2013. The Syrian Civil War is now in its seventh year. Russia has an estimated 4,000 troops in syria. America has about 900 troops training and assisting rebel forces to fight isis. Lets go straight now to our chief Foreign Correspondent terry moran from london with more. Good morning. Reporter good morning, amy. Theres mounting evidence this morning and strong denials. A total denial was issued that the Syrian Government perpetrated the chemical attack. Instead he blamed rebels for stockpiling chemical weapons that he claims were released by a Government Air strike, but experts and doctors treating the victims say thats just not possible. President trump says tuesdays deadly chemical attack in syria has gone too far. That crosses many, many lines beyond a red line. Reporter standing alongside a key u. S. Ally in the middleeast King Abdullah of jordan he declared he has a new stance on the Syrian Civil War. Its already happened that my attitude toward syria and assad has changed very much. Reporter hes still placing the blame squarely on the Obama Administration. The Obama Administration had a great opportunity to solve this crisis a long time ago when he said the red line in the sand. It is now my responsibility. Reporter the rocket explosions are now believed to have exposed hundreds of syrian civilians to a combination of chlorine gas and sarin. How the u. S. Responds now is a critical test of the white houses relations with russia, syrias key backer. We cannot close our eyes to those picture. We cannot close our minds of the responsibility to act. Reporter and high drama at the u. N. Security council where u. S. Ambassador nikki haley leveled harsh charges right at russia. Russia cannot escape responsibility for this. Reporter but when he was asked whether he planned to take military action, draws his own red line the president declined to say. Terrible affront to humanity. I can tell you, terrible. Will you take action against syria . Youll see. Reporter the real problem for President Trump as it was for obama what can be done . Punitive air strikes are one option but even limited steps like that can have unexpected consequences including potential russian casualties given how many russian boots are on the ground throughout syria right now. Its a real problem, george. Okay, terry, thanks. Well dig into that with Martha Raddatz right here in new york. So, dramatic escalation in the rhetoric from the president and his u. N. Ambassador in just the last 24 hours but as terry pointed out the options are difficult to work through. Theyre very difficult, george. I mean, first of all you have to decide what the goal is here. Is it to punish assad . Is it to prevent him from any more attacks, or is it to get rid of assad altogether . There are several options known by the acronym d. I. M. E. First of all, diplomatic, try to pressure russia to pressure syria, deliver a message to russia that things will start blowing up in syria unless you make movement. That is a highrisk move. That is the downside. Next intelligence. Try to bring down assad by spending sending in special operations troops, cia missions, secret missions there, again, very high risk of casualties for americans and others. M, thats the military option with the big m. That means send in cruise missiles and try to hit command and control centers, anything you can do but that could widen the conflict. Cow really have a new enemy and lastly, economics, shut off banking for assad. Shut off anything you can economically for assad but that could have backlash too. The big question how prepared President Trump really is to take any of these escalating actions for the last year weve heard so often from the president how determined he is to stay out of this fight. Exactly. His language is often so imprecise. Yesterday when he said, you know, many lines have been crossed. Im sure a lot of staff was thinking, okay, what are we going to do next . There are always plan, contingency plans but they would have to update the intelligence but i expect some sort of action after what President Trump said yesterday. Okay, Martha Raddatz, thanks very much. Now to the Supreme Court showdown. Democrats taking to the senate floor trying to filibuster neal gorsuchs confirmation. The vote set for this morning. If he does not get enough republicans may use the socalled Nuclear Option to confirm him. Our Congressional Correspondent mary bruce is on capitol hill with the latest on that. Good morning, mary. Reporter good morning. Well, neal gorsuch is headed for confirmation, but its likely to come at a steep political price. Senate republicans this morning are expected to go nuclear in order to get over that democratic opposition. Theyre going to use whats known as the Nuclear Option, changing the senate rules to confirm gorsuch by a simple majority vote. Now, amy, this goes beyond the usual partisan politics up here. This shows that the two parties simply cannot Work Together and will ultimately fundamentally change the way congress does business. Even reluctant republicans up here are warning of the fallout. Senator john mccain saying that anyone who thinks this will ultimately be a good move for the senate is and i quote an idiot, a stupid idiot. Theres another ongoing battle on capitol hill. That push to revive health care reform. Initially we heard that the white house was hoping to take action this week. Now it doesnt look so likely. Reporter dont hold your breath for any vote before Congress Leaves Town for the next two weeks. Right now the fight over health care 2. 0 is looking a lot Like Health Care 1. 0. The white house is eager for a win. Theyve been hoping to resuscitate and trying to resuscitate these talks but now the president is saying this is all part of continuing negotiations. Now, those talks did continue last night. House Speaker Paul Ryan up at the white house talking with the president and the Vice President about their next steps but even the speaker says this is going to likely take a few months at least. Amy. All right, mary, thank you. Long time coming on that. We move on to new evidencefree allegation from President Trump. He told New York Times that he thinks president obamaS National Security adviser susan rice committed a crime with her handling of intelligence. But offered no explanation nor information to back up his claim. Our senior White House Correspondent cecilia vega has that story. Good morning, cecilia. Reporter hey, george, good morning. This isnt the first time President Trump has accused someone in the Obama Administration of committing a crime without having any evidence to back it up. First that wiretapping claim, now the president is pointing fingers directly at susan rice. Just before President Trump stepped oftento the world stage, behind the scenes in the oval office, he was lobbying bold allegations against the Obama Administration. Without offering any evidence, the president accusing former National Security adviser susan rice of committing a crime after her admission that she asked for the identities of americans picked up by surveillance in a process known as unmasking. In an interview with the New York Times the president calling it one of the big stories of our time. When asked if he thought rice committed a crime, he said, quote, do i think, yes, i think. Vice president mike pence saying intelligence committees will get to the bottom of the allegation. I would say that the American People have a right to know if there was surveillance of any private citizen in this country and the identity of those citizens was revealed. People have a right to know why. Reporter rice denies she did anything wrong. I leaked nothing to nobody and never have and never would. Reporter sources tell abc news Trump Campaign and transition officials were among the unmasked individuals caught up in surveillance during investigations into russian meddling into the election. A spokeswoman for rice says im not going to dignify the president s ludicrous charge with a comment. Rice says she simply needed to know those names in order to understand the significance of the intelligence reports. She says she was just doing her job. We cant be passive consumers of this information and not and do our jobs effectively to protect the American People. Reporter so, again, unmasking in and of itself is not a crime. Leaking unmasked names is but you heard susan rice there in our story adamantly denied that she leaked any of those names. Also in this New York Times interview, george, the president once again called the russia story, quote, a total hoax. Okay, cecilia, lets dig into this with dan abrams, our political analyst matthew dowd and, dan, lets begin with the law here. It almost cant be stressed enough. Unmasking, a term we learned in the last few day, is not a crime. Not just that its not a crime but pretty routine for someone in her position to make that sort of request. I want to be careful here with the legal analysis too because i could start telling you about what the Legal Standard would be, right, that a federal prosecutor would have to believe that he or she would be able to prove that her intent was political and thats a tough, tough thing to prove. The problem with even going down that road is that there is no evidence at all to suggest it was that as opposed to the routine. Heres the issue, there are hundreds of requests that are made every day by people with her level of clearance that if done for the wrong reasons, if done for political reasons, if done on behalf of a Foreign Agent could be possibly criminal. But lets not Start Talking about possibly criminal unless theres something, something to back that up. Really important point. You know, the caution there, matthew dowd, is really important from dan, yet, you had the president of the United States making this charge. Yeah, theres an old expression talk doesnt cook rice, right, so talk by donald trump is not going to put ambassador rice into trouble on this in the course of this. I think hes in a difficult situation. Hes got all these other controversies, this smells like a diversion. This smells like im going to talk about Something Else. Hes done this numerous times throughout the campaign and throughout his presidency when Something Else when a fire is burning in one place he tries to start a fire in another place. You know you saw, dan abrams, susan rice not even respond to this. And i almost wonder sometimes how we should all deal with it given the fact its the president saying this, yet, making the claims without any evidence at all. Right, well, look, is it possible, right, that Something Like this could happen . You say could susan rice be political . Of course, she could be political. But in order for the president to make that kind of comment, you would hope that there is some evidence to back it up. Not speculation, not maybe, not could be, not possibly but, yes, there is secretary of state that i am basing this on and now im going to tell you why. Because if hes not going to tell us why, lets not talk about it until there are charges pending, until theyre moving forward with a serious investigation, et cetera. Its just reckless. He faces a crucial part of his presidency with these meetings with the premier from china. Hes got an issue in russia. Hes got an issue in the middle east with syria and now got a huge issue he has to deal with in russia. I was thinking today starts the masters which im sure will be on television in maralago. He is about to face his own amen corner. Three big issue, the 11th, 12th and 13th hole hell face and deal with all three. All of them words and credibility matter. Matt dowd, dan abrams, thanks very much. Michael. Thank you, george. Now were going to turn to those dangerous storms hitting the south and moving east. Take a look at the damage in georgia after a reported tornado tore through the state and Abcs Steve Osunsami is on the scene in atlanta. Good morning, steve. Reporter good morning, michael. It is amazing no one was hurt here by this. When you look at how long and how large this tree is, this is whats left of the root. It clearly fell in the right direction. The family who lives here on the other side of this tree has a car that stuck in the garage that is not leaving until this tree is removed. 15 million americans will be in the middle of it this morning as the storm continues to move east. Families in parts of georgia were kept up overnight with heavy rains and strong winds that knocked down trees out the power. It rained so hard roads quickly turned into rivers. This fire