Rath. Recordbreaking flooding in North Carolina. Evidence of natures fury. Sglit took my heart out. I raised my kids here. Took my heart out. Done. The death toll climbing. You guys okay . Sections of South Carolina and georgia still under water. Responding as a whole community and unified in the effort. And surveying the damage of parts of florida devastated by this storm where the big cleanup begins. This morning we have complete coverage as we take you to the hardest hit areas. And as we say good morning on this sunday we are in the midst of what might be the wildest weekend and what has been the most unpredictable president ial race in memory. Just hours away from the second president ial debate. Theres the stage in st. Louis and donald trump is dealing with the gravest crisis in his brief but fiery political career. Trump greeted supporters outside of trump tower in new york city saying hes never dropping out of the race but facing an outright revolt within his own party. Theyre rebuking their nominee, withdrawing endorsements and some calling on him to get out of the race. After the release of the 11yearold video which trump can be heard making lewd comments about women. Our Political Team, our Powerhouse Political Team is covering all the angles. George is standing by. Were going to kick things off with tom llamas outside trump tower in new york city. Good morning to you tom. Reporter good morning to you dan. This should have been a week of debate prep. Instead trump tower turned into a war room with Trump Campaign trying to figure out how to deal with this political disaster and trump himself deciding to go after bill clinton. This morning with his campaign in a coma, donald trump looking to be the bait as his best chance for survival. Are you staying in the race . 100 . In damage control for most of the weekend, the republican nominee emerged from trump tower saturday with his fist raised, mobbed by supporters, defiant of the scandal thats rocked his campaign. That 2005 recording surfacing on friday showing trump bragging about sexually assaulting women. Grab them by the [ bleep ]. Trump tweeting saturday i will never drop out of the race and telling the New York Times i am in this until the end. Friend and advisory Rudy Giuliani echoing that. There is nothing going to cause his dropping out. Those comments 11 years ago. I moved on her like a [ bleep ]. Forcing Trumps Campaign to post his campaign apologize friday. I was wrong and i apologize. As well as a statement from Melania Trump calling the crude conversation unacceptable and offensive. Access hollywood identified nancy odell as the married woman trump was talking about hitting on in the recording. She was married. Entertainment tonight releasing a statement reading in part no female, no person should be the subject of such crass comments whether or not cameras are rolling and a series of interviews with howard stern resurfacing saturday, the conversation including stern calling trumps daughter ivanka. By the way, your daughter shes beautiful. Can i say this . A piece of [ bleep ]. And comments on the size of her breasts. She looks more voluptuous than ever. Trumps counter offense turning the focus on Hillary Clintons husband. Bill clinton has abused women and hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims. Trump retweeting clinton rape accusing saying actions speak louder than words, donald trump said bad things, Hillary Clinton threatened me after bill clinton raped me. Clinton denied those allegations and no criminal charges were pursued against the former president. Things are very ugly in this race and they may get worse at the debate tonight. Donald trump leaves this afternoon for st. Louis. His team had a strategy in place for this town hall style debate. Its unclear how much practice they got in. Paula. The playbook might look different tonight. Tom, thank you. Trumps comments eliciting a myriad of reactions from his own party. We turn to cecelia vega ga. Good morning cecilia. Reporter good morning to you just as Hillary Clinton and donald trump are set to face off the republican nominee is facing the political test of a lifetime. All six female republican senators are denouncing his comments and that is just the beginning. This morning so many republicans have so much to say about their partys nominee but none of it is very nice. A whos who, the biggest most powerful names in the gop blasting donald trump. Step aside. Step down. From senators and representatives to current and former governors, former president ial candidates. Former Vice President president ial candidates, conservative pundits. Nobody is going to defend this. Reporter rivals, even allies all unified and denouncing trumps comments using words like locker room garbage, reprehensible, unacceptable. A new low, disgusting, demeaning, vile, disqualifying, inexcusable. The list goes on and on. There is a bit of an elephant in the room. And it is a troubling situation, im serious, it is. Speaker paul ryan saying he is sickened. Others rescinding their support all together like arizona senator john mccain saying he and his wife will not vote for donald trump, some going even further calling for trump to drop out, former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice writing enough, donald trump should not be president , he should withdraw. His own running mate ignoring questions. Governor, should mr. Trump withdraw . Mike pence instead releasing a statement saying he was offended by trump and i do not condone his remarks and cannot defend them. While trumps rivals are pouncing Vice President joe biden, the words are demeaning, such behavior is an abuse of power, its not lewd, its sexual assault. As snl gave its own take of what clintons reaction might have been to trumps words. No official comment from Hillary Clinton, her campaign however, is reacting on twitter calling those comments horrific saying that quote, we cannot allow this man to become president , dan, we are told by aides she definitely will be bringing this up here tonight. I imagine that will be so. Thank you very much. For more lets get it out to abcs chief white house correspondent. Jon karl who is also in st. Louis, the scene of tonights debate. Jon we have republicans calling for trump to get out. Any chance you think hell do that and what happens if he does . Is there a plan in place to deal with this kind of scenario . Reporter well, trump has been adamant and the people around him have been adamant there is no way he is going to drop out of this race. That said, dan, i mean, anybodys guess. The fact that its even discussed as a possibility in october that the republican nominee could be dropping out is absolutely incredible. But no indication from the campaign itself that is even under consideration with trumps inner circle. As for what would happen, dan, it would be a complete disaster because, you know, the Republican Party could in theory come together. Theres 168 members of the Republican National committee. They can come together and choose another nominee. Heres the problem. In a dozen states people have already started voting. And in many other states absentee ballots have started going out having Donald Trumps name on it. Theres no mechanism for dealing with how you would count those votes. Heres the very interesting thing. The Clinton Campaign would be the first to try to block any efforts to do a switch at this point. They say the voting has already happened, the republicans have waited too long. Theres no option for changing. Youre inside the debate hall. Trump is signaling his strategy tonight is going to be to attack bill clinton. Do you think thats likely to be successful . Reporter i think its highly risky strategy and a lot of the people who are still supporting donald trump think it would be a mistake. If you look at the how intimate this setting is by the way, dan. There are 40 chairs there surrounding the candidates. Right next to the this is a town hall debate. Remember, this is a very different dynamic. I think it would be difficult for donald trump to suddenly go intensely personal, intensely negative in an intimate setting. Of course, once again, anybodys guess what he actually does. Jon carl we appreciate your analysis on a huge sunday morning. Paula. Ana navarro is a vocal opponent of donald trump and worked on the campaign of jeb bush and i spoke with her moments ago about this newest controversy and why the access hollywood tapes are just being uncovered now. Thanks for joining us. You have been calling on trump to step down. We have been talking all morning. Theres no mechanism in place to get somebody on the ballot this late in the game particularly if trump refuses to step down. What is the solution . We have to figure it out as we go along. The turn of events over the last 24 hours have been downright amazing and surreal. There are ballots already out there, states already voting, military ballots are out there. In florida ballots are being mailed out as well. So it is very difficult. If donald trump insists on staying on this ballot there are going to be people that vote for him and folks are going to have to do a writein campaign or look at other alternatives. Lets talk about the debate tonight. The moment many are anticipating. Will trump go after bill clintons indiscretions and the claim that he raped a woman four years ago and Hillary Clinton threatened her. Is this the right strategy . For trump to go after that . Of course not. A man is under attack right now because hes been revealed as a misogynist because of his sexist lewd remarks have been made public for the entire world to hear should not be going there. It is just lowering the discourse even much more. It is going down the gutter. At this point, you know, respect the office youre running for. Respect the people of america. Stick to the issues. That being said, im not sure donald trump can restrain himself. When hes got very few other options, the man counterpunches and attacks wildly, thrashes about like a shark who smells water blood in the water. I would not be surprised if he goes there because at this point, what does he have to lose . What is he going to talk about . And weve seen he has used that bill clinton issue in his statements and his response and video statement trying to respond to this situation that developed in the last 36 hours. Well the debate is just hours away. Ana thank you for joining us. Thank you. One more very important voice on this, abc news, George Stephanopoulos and leading our coverage of the debate tonight on abc. Let me ask you what we discussed. Do you think theres a chance donald trump will drop out . And if he does, how does that go . How many different ways can you say weve never seen anything like this before. Thats whats happening again in this campaign, completely unchartered waters. I think jon karl is right. Everything were hearing from donald trump is defiance. Hes never going to get out 1,000 . Heres what to watch for that will determine that. Number one is debate performance. If he doesnt find some way to stop that bleeding the people that youre going to want to watch the response are Reince Priebus, paul ryan, mitch mcconnell. So far they have not said they would not vote for trump. They have not taken away their endorsements. If tonight is a disaster watch for them to say were not behind trump anymore and the flood gates will open. At that point that also is going to put pressure on mike pence. A group of republicans right now trying to convince mike pence to temporarily resign from the ticket as a way to force donald trump to step aside. Theres some hope even though all the difficulties are real. Some hope among republicans if they can get somebody else at the top of the ticket, they can stanch their losses in the senate and house. Are there more tapes out there . Very likely he spent a lot of time on television from the apprentice or somewhere else. Finally, new polls as we come out as we get within 25, 30 days of the election. If they show trump down by digits that can create that kind of pressure. That might force his hand as well. As jon said, this is donald trump who knows what he will do . It might be a series of october surprises. We have seen the speaker of the house paul ryan stand by him. Do you anticipate him to dump trump . It depends on what happens tonight. I think theyre giving him one more chance. Hes gone as far as he can by saying hes not going to vote for him. But he clearly in his own words is sickened by this. I think he will move in lockstep with the chair of the gop Reince Priebus. George. Thank you. You have a big show on this week and his guest today rnc chair Reince Priebus and dnc chair donna brazile. I apologize. Overnight Reince Priebus did back out. He could not come on to defend donald trump. Instead mayor giuliani will come on from the Trump Campaign. Again, thats one more sign right there. That says a lot right there. Interesting. I also want to say that george is going to be leading our live coverage of tonights critical president ial debate which will comoderated by Martha Raddatz and you can watch the coverage from our entire Political Team right here on abc starting at 9 00 eastern. Moving on to Hurricane Matthew downgraded to a post Tropical Storm but still dangerous. President obama declaring a major federal disaster in georgia and florida. While the carolina coast is feeling the impacts from a storm so far killed at least 15 people. Meteorologist rob marciano joins us from charleston. Hi, rob. Reporter the carolina coastline and virginia coastline feeling the impacts right now. This storm making land fall officially just about 40 miles northeast and doing damage here in charleston. Still a ghost town here. They may let people back later on today. Still South Carolina 14 bridges closed an over 300 roads closed and tomorrow schools likely to be closed. At this time yesterday a storm surge engulfing this part of the city. Ewe often make a big deal about that surge. It could do a lot of damage and cause fatalities but three out of four fatalities in hurricanes come from fresh water flooding where the devastating impacts can be and thats what we saw in the last 24 hours upstate. Overnight rescue crews in North Carolina working round the clock responding to more than 500 emergency calls and executing 141 swift water rescues. Roads under water. Hurricane matthew dumping over 15 inches of rain over the state triggering widespread flooding and a state of emergency. Stay off the roads. Stay in your house. Bunker up. In fayetteville drivers trapped and rescuers pulling this woman and her baby to safety. Cmon sweetie. While others evacuated by boats. Over two Million People still without power. Along is the coast. In South Carolina these strong waves ripping apart the pier in myrtle beach. The most dangerous part of the storm, the surge. Even now 12 hours after the storm hit parts of this city are still swamped. Downtown charleston roads turned into rivers. Difficult to get around and gets deeper as you get closer to the rivers. If youre not in the highest parts of the city, youre under water. This morning the National Guard moving in. Residents picking up the pieces. The effects of this once monstrous storm still felt days after it made landfall. Strong winds bringing down trees and power lines. From the carolinas down through georgia. The hurricane bringing a record storm surge in savanna. Forcing authorities to close stretches of interstate 95. And intense rainfall falling across North Carolina and virginia. Lets get right to how much rainfall we think has fallen. Many cases across multiple states over a foot and there you see the estimates from gh winds posted for inland. Matthew creating problems across the east coast. Thats whats going on nationally. Heres the local forecast. Reporter good morning everyone, im meteorologist chris sowers with this accuweather update. The rains from matthew have work into the delaware ands lehigh valleys. Heres the back edge southeast to northeast. Another two hours for south jersey and delaware before skies brighten you mean. You can see its not a nice morning out there. Weve got a lot of rain some of it heavy at times. The exclusive accuweather sevenday forecast, morning rain followed by afternoon sun, high 63. More than all the other hurricanes this season combine and even though it is not officially a hurricanes the causing problems across North Carolina where matt gutman is live for us this morning in nags head. Good morning. Im going to put these goggles on. Now the wind has been booming here for the past probably seven hours and as you noted these are the drags of Hurricane Matthew but still pounding this part of North Carolina. Now, power is out for 600,000 people here in North Carolina and in the outer banks. Our hotel lost power about two, three hours ago. Now, this is my third hurricane in this spot in five years and have never seen the water pile up this high this fast. I want you to take a look down this street. It is a river as far as the eye can see and that is what is so dangerous here. The only vehicles we have seen this morning are rescue vehicles plowing up and down here. Still a very dangerous situation. One of the things thats made it so problematic is that North Carolina has gotten saturated with rain over the past couple of weeks and in 20 inches on top of that plus the storm surge over the past 24 hours makes for a very fatal