And its set to make mothers day weekend a washout. Dylan has the forecast. And breaking his silence. I was target number one. Bill oreilly speaks out during his first interview since he was canned by fox news amid allegations he sexually harassed a number of women at work. The former tv star calling it a liberal hitjob and promising hes not finished fighting, today, saturday, may 13, 2017. From nbc news, this is today live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Good morning, welcome to today on this saturday morning. Im sheinelle jones. Glad to have you with us. Im craig jones. Dylan dreyer is here anan early happy mothers day to you. And to you as well. It is exciting. We hope the weather improves. It looks like most of the country it will improve, even around here. The first mothers day would it would be nice. Ill will that to happen. Lets begin with our top story this morning. The growing backlash over President Trumps firing of james comey with the search for a new fbi director starting today, questions are swirling about a new controversy, whether or not the president secretly taped conversation witn the white house walls. Kelly odonnell is live with more. Kelly, good morning. Reporter good mornin sheinelle. Well, first the president will make his first commencement address of the graduation season heading to the conservative Christian Camp of Liberty University in lynchburg, virginia. And youre right, there is new progress in the search to find a replacement for fired fbi director james comey. Comey has not spoken out himself, but the New York Times said hes willing to testify but only in public. The Senate Intelligence committee tells us that hes not going to appear tuesday as invited but they are working on his schedule to find a time. This all comes with comey likely having quite a bitto public feud. One tweeted word from the president set off a new controversy, tapes. I talked to the president , the president has nothing further to add on that. Reporter what the president already implied is a threat. James comey better hope there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press. Reporters peppered the white house. I remember according to the by centu biceniic t tapes . There are no tapes. What about the fact that you said there would be tape recordings . That i cant talk about. All i want is for comey to be honest. Reporter at issue, what was said between the president and then the fbi director over dinner on january 27th, just one day after the White House Council was warned about flynns full statements by then acting attorney general sally yates. In an interview with nbcs lester holt, the president said comey cleared him. We had a very nice dinner. And at that time, he told me, you are not under investigation. Reporter comey has not spoken publicly, but associated dispute the president s account and also say mr. Trump asked comey for his loyalty. The president denied that. No, no, i didnt. But i dont think it would be a bad question to ask. Loyalty to the country, loyalty to the United States is important. I dont now hoe thw that got th because i didnt ask that question. Reporter today th search for a comey successor begins with job interviews led by attorney general Jeff Sessions. Sources identified these four candidates, including acting director Andrew Mccabe and texas senator john cornyn. I will tell you we are looking at candidates right now who could be spectacular. Thats what i want for the fbi. Reporter and the tweeted there were, quote, tapes, is already spurring action from democrats who fired off a letter to the White House Council here, saying they want to know if, in fact, there are any recordings. And if they do exist, saying they must be preserved under the president ial records act. Something to keep all the records of the administration available to the public. So either way, the white house is under pressure to say if the tapes exist or if they do not. Sheinelle . Craig . Kelly odonnell from the white house. The kielly, thank you. Lets go to josh earnest who served as White House Press secretary under obama. Is it illegal to secretly record white house conversations . And are there laws about what needs to be done with the recordings . It is unusual and has bn problematic since Richard Nixon was taken to the Supreme Court over hiding tapes. Under d. C. Law, you can do a meaning if one person involve in the conversation knows it is taped, thats legal. If the president is taping other aides in conversations hes not involved in, that would violate d. C. Law. So if director comey was at the white house a day after sally yates was there to talk about general flynn, the inappropriate question about whether he was under investigation and now threatening, if you will, the former fbi director with the possibility of the tapes, at what point does this sound like obstruction of justice . I think its a point that there is evidence that donald trump would privately and publicly try to change the outcome of the investigation. I would say he has not yet shown that. The Current Evidence wouldnt make that case. But when we told our lester holt that he thinks he can speed up or slow down the investigation, he believes hes in charge of an investigation of his own aides. He showed either complete misunderstanding of how this works or worse, the belief that he could do that kind of impeding. So hes getting closer to the line. To be clear, that was the charge against nixon and clinton as well in the impeachment proceedings. The impeachment included that. Fridays briefing with shane spicer when asked if any taping is done at the white house, he repeatedly said nothing further to add and no comment. But listening to trump when doing the fox news interview, he refused to comment about it. What does that say . It certainly seems President Trump is seeking to sew a climate of paranoia and confusion inside his own white house. Everybody who now walks in the gates on pennsylvania avenue has to wonder if their conversations will be recorded. And that doesnt just include visitors, that includes members of the white house staff who have to be wondering whether or not their conversations are being taped. This is a style of management, style if you can call it that, that President Trump fo t familyowned real es business. Its not a useful strategy for running the greatest country in the world. And i think we have seen that on display over the course of the last week with the evolving explanation and evolving search for the truth that, frankly, has shaken confidence that a lot of people have in this administration, including among members of the president s own party. Josh, i want to get your take on Something Else the president said during the fox news interview yesterday. Here he is yesterday with judge judy. Take a listen and well talk about it on the other side. Are you moving so quickly that your Communications Department cannot keep up with you . Yes, thats true. So what do we do about that . We dont have press conferences and we you dont mean that. Well, you just dont have them, unless i have them every two weeks and i do myself. Weapon dont have them. I think its a good idea. First of all, you have a level of hostility that is incredible. And its very unfair. Your reaction press secretary, josh earnest. And for folks who do not follow them as closely as we do, what is the purpose of the Daily Press Briefing . The purpose of the Daily Press Briefing is to have a Senior Member of the president s staff empowered to come out and spend an hour every day in front of the press corps on record on camera answering the questions, answering whatever qutis come toheind of journalists. This is an exercise in transparency and accountability. Its critical to the success of our government. There are not many countries around the world, very few, in fact, that participate in an exercise like this. But what is troubling, i think, particularly about this, craig, is its not a situation where the White House Communications staff is struggling to keep up with rapidly changing world events. What the White House Communications staff is struggling to do is to keep up with the rapidly changing story emanating from the oval office. We have seen multiple different explanations for why president tr they dont need a new communications strategy. They just need to go back to the basics and start telling the truth. Thats an interesting point. I want to jump in here and take a step back and run through what happened monday through friday, monday we have sally yates testifying that Michael Flynn was compromised as National Security adviser to the president. On tuesday you have trump firing fbi director james comey. Then to wednesday, we get one explanation about the motive for the firing. On thursday, that explanation shifts. Friday, the president makes what some have characterized is a threat to the former fbi director. I mean, would you say, even by trump standards, this was an extraordinary five days. Ill start with you, ari. Donald trump is a good communicator and wants everyone to think about the dialogue. So theres the tapes, theres the dinner, will he or wont he Cancel Press Briefings . We are at a point now to focus on the plot. As you just outlined, the plot is the midstream firing of an fbi director for a stated reason they have now admitted is false. That raises questions for americans, not on a political basis, but on the basis of the rule of law. If the first reason was false, why do you believe the second . And do you want to factcheck it because theres the possibility that if the person was fired for the wrong reason, it could compromise the rule of law. All americans should care about that. Ari melber, well leave it there, josh earnest, thank you to both of you. You can catch aris show the point at 5 00 eastern only on msnbc. Now to what could be a big mothers day weekend washout for 50 Million People today. A nasty noreaster moving up the east coast right now. Well check in with dylan tracking the storm. What is the latest . The reason this is affecting 50 Million People is because it is up and down the northeast coast. Thats where we have obviously our biggest cities. So well take a look at what were going to see. Its calling a noreaster characterized by stronger northeast winds and heavy precipitation. And that is exactly what were seeing. On today, we are looking at the heaviest rain from d. C. To philadelphia to new york city. Then into tomorrow, well start to see that heavier rain begin to move up into new england. So here you see the heavy rain falling across southern new jersey, also down near delaware. Heavy pocket of rain near norfo norfolgi a well. Look how quickly this storm is moving. Its kind of a little bit ahead of schedule. So well see the heavy rain through philadelphia and new york, but by early sunday morning it moves up to boston. Even by 5 00 sunday evening, it is portland, maine, to see the heaviest rain clear out a little bit. Although we wont see t of sunshine on sunday. Then monday the storm will try to pull away. Boston still seeing a couple scattered showers as well. As for rainfall amounts, a widespread one to two inches, but isolated higher amounts closer to three inches. Winds gust 30 to 40 Miles Per Hour. If you are traveling today, i think that is going to be the biggest trouble on the roads. Watch out for delays at the airport. Guys . Dylan, thank you. Well get to the rest of the National Forecast in a moment. Hospitals and businesses are still struggling to recover this morning a day after the massive worldwide cyber attack paralyzed them. This morning the race to recover is proving difficult. Nbcs kelly kob ecobiella is with the latest. Reporter hey, craig. It appears the virus is still spreading this morning, now affecting computers at chinese universities. Basically windowsbased computers in the u. S. And across the globe could be at risk in what some experts have called a cyber apocalypse. Around the quorld this morning, organizations with big Outdated Computers like Britains NationalHealth Service are paralyzed. The bug forced Emergency Rooms in england and scotland to close, stop surgeries crippling doctors offices. We are isolated with access to records or access to millions of information on patients. Reporter russias interior ministry, several chinese universities and tennesseebased shipper fedex were affected. Although companies in the United States largely dodged a bullet thanks to spam filters. The virus called wannacry infects Computer Networks first through email, rapidly expanding across the company, locking computers and demanding 300 in bitcoin to gain access. Security experts say the virus exploits holes in software security, first identified by the National Security agency. Then leaked by hackers. The goal . Not patient files or data, just money. It makes the files on your system unreadable. So really the only way to unlock the files is by paying a sum of money. Reporter last ye a hospital in l. A. Paid 17,000 to unlock their file was hit. The department of Homeland Security warned u. S. Users to protect themselves by updating systems with the latest patches, not clicking or downloading strange links or files in emails and backing up data. And this morning euro poll and British Intelligence agencies are investigating, but it is not yet clear who is behind this. The virus gives users one week to pay up or lose all their files. The organizations in some countries including russia and spain have been able to isolate the bug and regain control of some of their systems. Craig . Sheinelle . Ransomware, thank you. The teacher accused of kidnapping his former High School Student is behind bars, a day after appearing in court. Maya rodriguez is live outside the courthouse in nashville, tennessee. Maya, good morning. Reporter good morning, hearing about being put on house arrest while awaiting his trial, but prosecutors argued with him about the time he and his student were on the run. Todd Cummings Family spent friday in court hoping to let the judge release him until trial. They are still very much in support of him. Not saying they condone the actions that he did, but they still provide moral support for him. Reporter but the federal prosecutors used cummings own words against him showing he lied in the letter left for his wife. In the letter he writes, i am on my way to Virginia Beach and maybe d. C. Just to think. But an fbi agent testified, that wasnt true. Instead, he went on the run with his 15yearold student. Cummings were on a multistate trip first heading south into alabama and mississippi and later west to nevada before ending up neear sn diego. Investigators tried to reach mexico in a cay ykayay in rrupyi t fli i ed to mexico. During one month on the run, cummings said he had sex with the 15yearold, quote, most nights. And cummings and the teen ditched their phone. And cummings disabled the gps in the car. Still, they were spotted in a remote condo in california, more than 30 days after leaving tennessee. On friday cummings sister testified before a judge saying she and her parents would sup supervise cummings but it was too much of a risk to be under house st a grand jury. For now, cummings remains in federal custody. Dylan dreyer is back with a check on the weather. The west coast looks nice for the weekend. Look at this, i would say from the western rockies all the way to the appalachians, we are seeing nothing but really sunshine out there. Minus a couple spotty showers near chicago. The weather is looking pretty fantastic. The Northern Rockies do have a couple snow showers in the forecast, but for the most part, temperatures are nice and comfortable in the 70s and the 80s. The 80s across southern texas with a high fire threat down to florida. We will see showers begin to develop. That should help a little bit with the drought situation, but we have a lot more than were going to get. The heavy rainfalls across the midatlantic and the new england area. Heres a peek out your window. Inch of rain since yesterday afternoon, but now it is tapering off in the metro area pulling off to the north and the east and the rest of the day. The rest of the day is looking cloudy with afternoon highs in the upper 50s. And then for mothers day on sunday, near 50 in the morning. And then by noontime, the upper 60s. A bit of a blustery wind and a partly sunny sky. Then monday and tuesday in the 70s, you have a heat wave after that into the 80s to near 90 toward the end of t wk. Thats your latest forecast. Dylan, thank you. Bill oreilly lashing out in his first interview since being fired by fox news. And well look at the reallife cliff hangers to highfiling fistfights. But first, this is todayn nbc. Our look back time for a look at the week that was. Politics dominated the conversation. But there were other story that is caught our attention. Ones you may have missed from a Nuclear Scare to another airplane brawl. Tragic new details emerge about the death of a penn state at a Fraternity Pledge event. The 911 call released. We have a friend whos unconscious. Was there any alcohol or anything involved, do you know . Yes, there was. Timothy piazza left to die 12 hours after falling down th