Steve as the book released hours ago clients to number one on the bestsellers list. Former press Secretary Sean Spicer here this morning. An abc news exclusive. Former miss america, Gretchen Carlson, taking the reins of the organization in crisis now revealing for the first time how shes going to change it. I plan to make this organization 100 about empowering women. What shes saying about the infamous swimsuit competition and who she may allow to compete. Look at a skier stuck on this lift. Gusts topped 75 miles an hour as resort staff race to rescue them. That person really wanted to go skiing. Hope you are safe and warm wherever you are because millions are waking up to the dangerous cold this friday morning. Temperatures in the east through. Some could face windchills of 50 degrees below zero. Look at the impact. Firefighters in newark, new jersey, battling a blaze overnight in this icy cold. 80 on the scene and you just see them covered in ice working very hard this morning. Lets look at long island in new york. There are the roads. At least theyre clear and moving pretty well but a lot of snow has come down and there is a lot of concern about black ice this morning. Yeah, dont go out if you dont have to. Our team is out there spreading out across the storm zone. Lets start with ginger who is outside our studio here in times square and, ginger, were just starting to see the worst of these frigid temps. Yes, and this is the coldest air for a place like pittsburgh or cleveland that theyve had since february 2015 so its been a little while. Its 10. A balmy 10 out in times square. The windchill 4 below and i know if youre in south dakota or minnesota youre saying thats no big deal but watch what happened in boston. Frozen, socked in, more than 13 inches of snow and the ocean fire truck trying to get through. That coastal flooding, the wind was such a huge part of the storm and now its the cold. Those are actual air temperatures. 3 in cincinnati. Windchill advisories all the way to the deep south and right there in boston this morning. Eva pilgrim, its 2 degrees for you. Feels like, eva, how are you doing . Reporter oh, it is bitterly cold out here this morning. Ginger, this car right here abandoned. It was caught in the flooding here at the Boston Harbor and you can see it is encased in ice. It is not going anywhere any time soon, the driver of this car, we saw this driver rescued by firefighters yesterday, one of many trapped in those icy flooding waters. Ferocious waves, flooded cities and frozen streets creating chaos in boston. Unquestionably the worst ive seen it down here. Reporter oh, my god, i kept seeing it come closer and closer. Its like, oh, no. It was pounding. It was hitting the seawall and going above the telephone poles. Reporter homes and businesses flooded by several feet of water, that water freezing in place trapping entire streets of cars. This happened all in a matter of 45 minutes. Reporter lifeboats deployed in the roads pulling loads of pedestrians to safety and just south a family trapped in their home was rescued by a tractor climbing into the bucket so they could escape. Plus, treacherous driving conditions leaving many without a paddle. One person trying to brave the weather steering straight into frigid floodwaters only making it a short way before the headlights flicker and the engine goes dead. The driver then forced to get out of the car and walk to dry land. Dozens taken to the hospital and the bitter bombs death toll keeps climbing. We immediately knew there was some sort of toxin taking everyone over. A teenage girl killed and three dozen others hospitalized after an entire building filled hallway floors. You cant stay here another minute. Reporter here in boston just to show you how frigid these temperatures are and how encased this car is, you can see this ice going nowhere. The tire completely encased. The wind blowing so hard right now im having to brace myself a little against the car to keep from getting knocked over and that is the major concern here. These subzero temperatures, feels like temperatures we will be experiencing in the next few days like making this road turn into ice. Guys. Brutal. It sure is brutal. Also in long island, more than a foot of snow there. Gio benitez is there. Reporter hey, george, good morning. Yeah, you said it. More than a foot of snow and i got to tell you for much of long island this place was just paralyzed by all of the snow. I want to turn to our drone camera and show you whats going on. In other snowstormses what weve seen it warms up after the snow and starts to melt. Not the case here because were talking about frigid temperatures. Where im standing right degrees. With that windchill, negative 15 degrees. How cold is it . You see that back there, it looks like a bunch of snow. Thats actually a lake thats just totally frozen over, george. And that windchill is going to get worse. It is going to get worse, george, in fact, there is a windchill advisory in effect right now. Thats in effect through 10 00 a. M. Tomorrow. Thanks very much. George, we saw in evas report that coastal flooding in boston. A lot of concern about rivers freezing over in this extreme cold. Coast guard ice cutters are out there freeing trapped vessels. Abcs Adrienne Bankert is on one of them in the hudson river. Good morning, adrienne. Reporter whoo, good morning to you too, robin. Minus 23 windchill here where were standing. Look behind me. This looks like the road but it is the river. This is the hudson. That expansive ice coating this body of water. Were here on u. S. Coast guard cutter 40foot vessel is here to try to break a path in this ice. Were just about to take off here and just see exactly what this crew does on a daily basis, in fact, their trip extended because these temperatures have been so low. Theyve been out here since monday and theyre going to be freeing some other tugs and barges along the river that are stuck that cannot traverse this kind of ice, in fact, a vessel like this one can actually move right through 20 inches of ice without even messing around. They can cut through three feet of ice using a ramming technique, robin, back to you. Sounds like theyve been mighty busy responding to call, adrienne. Reporter they absolutely have. And well be actually with them as they try to free up a couple of tugs and barges this morning. We heard that whoo, how you started. You stay safe out there. Reporter yes. Down south and Road Conditions there getting worse as well as plummeting ice. Drivers dont have a lot of experience with conditions like this and sometimes salt doesnt even work. Reporter thats right, george. You know, what happened here last night much of this ice melted and now there are patches of black ice on the road and then, of course, salt, it doesnt work the colder it gets, the closer it gets to 10 degrees and down here people have trouble finding it because they dont sell it. Essentially the important thing to note anything that melts in water that melts in water, dissolves in water will melt salt and actually used a couple things to try to show you. One is coffee grinds, this is baking soda which wasnt as successful but our winner with a bullet is common table sugar. This is sugar that we laid out about an hour ago and is working and anyone looking for a bag of salt and cant find one can use. Much like salt, has the same limitations to 10 degrees it wont work either. Steve, thank you very much. Got to get creative down south. To that new storm in the white house. Reports President Trump attempted to stop his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, were recusing himself in the russia investigation. This as fallout grows from that bombshell book, fire and fury, our senior White House Correspondent cecilia vega has the latest on all of this. Good morning, cecilia. Reporter hey, robin, good morning. That book hit the stands earlier than expected this morning actually but it is that old controversy thats back in the headlines. Overnight the New York Times reporting President Trump gave firm instructions to the white houses top lawyer to stop his attorney general from recusing himself in the russia investigation saying the president believed it was Jeff Sessions job to protect him. The paper says after the appointment of special Counsel Robert Mueller the president erupted at mr. Sessions for recusing himself and when sessions sent his resignation lett t it. And President Trumps determination to fire former fbi director james comey led one white house lawyer to take the extraordinary step of misleading the president about whether he had the authority to remove him. That fallout from the russia probe featured in the explosive new book, fire and fury, out today. Despite the president s lawyers demanding author Michael Wolff and his publisher, they moved up the release date. We see fire and fury as an extraordinary contribution to our national discourse. That is not how the white house sees it. Its completely a tabloid gossip full of false and fraudulent claims. Reporter in the book former chief strategist steve bannon is quoted attacking the president and his children. Saying of daughter ivanka, people suddenly realized shes dumb as a brick and calling that now Infamous Trump tower meeting between donald junior, jared kune they thought had dirt on Hillary Clinton treasonous and unpatriotic. We asked the president about his old friend. Did steve bannon betray you, mr. President . Any words about steve bannon . I dont know. He called me a great man last night so, you know, obviously changed his tune pretty quick. Thats just a misnomer. Reporter also facing the threat of a lawsuit from the president s legal team, bannon is playing nice. The president of the United States is a great man, you know i support him day in and day out. Reporter but this morning the book has the white house facing questions about the president s mental stability. Wolff doesnt name names but he claims advisers had concerns writing, the worry among staffers trumps rambling and his alarming repetitions had significantly increased and that his ability to stay focused never great had notably declined. Press secretary Sarah Sanders firing back. Its disgraceful and laughable. If he was unfit he probably wouldnt be sitting feels the same way. He is furious tweeting the book is full of lie, misrepresentations and of the author he says look at this guys past and watch what happens to him and sloppy steve so a new nickname for steve bannon, now hoping to stop these leaks that have plagued this administration from the start, a new rule. Aides can no longer bring their personal cell phones into the white house. Were here with sean spicer. Thanks for coming in. Happy new year. Happy new year to you. The president said he authorized no access to Michael Wolff but he did have pretty wide access to the west wing. I think there is a question about what the president authorized and whether or not Michael Wolff set up individual meetings with staffers. I met with him and several authors. As you know, youve been in the white house before, i had never met him. He was writing a book on the president an wanted to introduce himself to me and i afforded him the courtesy and spoke to him several types about questions that clear from what i understand that he met with steve bannon on multiple occasions. And others in the west wing. As far as im aware, yeah, but those are individual meetings set up with those staffers. Steve is the only one that im aware of right now thats actually admitted to meeting with him. He says quite a bit about you in the book. Says your personal mantra was you cant make this blank up. Something i cant say on morning television. Is that true. He asked a question about whether or not some of these instances were i said, you cant make this up but, again, i think one of the problems that were seeing with this book and its not just trump staffers and white house officials pushing back but seeing a lot of Mainstream Media members calling into question the sourcing and even the authors note at the beginning of the book notes that in many cases he took anecdotes and sort of rephrased them. The sourcing as basically the story he writes a story you think is true. No, i think theres some anecdotes that may be true but the problem i have, george, with this book as with many stories is if you cant if its 10 or 20 or 50 that isnt true, the reader is not left to know which is true and which is not. The stuff he wrote about you is true. Some of the quotes he has but the context in which theyre given arent and i think thats the problem. I can Say Something to you right now and you could weave it into a story in three weeks. Is the quote accurate. Sure. Is the con affect in which im giving it in, no. You were one of the sources. Is it smart for the president to try to stop publication of this book . Doesnt that run against the First Amendment . I think there is a difference between defamation and reporting and in some cases where youre making wild accusations about the president and his family he has a right to defend himself. A lot of focus on the possibility of obstruction of justice. We learned from the New York Times again this morning that special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating that in the white house. I dont think thats a think thats been previously reported that that was being looked at so thats not some kind of shocker. Thought shocker but there were new details where we see the president asking his counsel to try to stop Jeff Sessions from resigning, from recusing himself from the russia investigation. Were you aware that have. I wasnt at the time but i think its no secret the president s made it very clear that he didnt want he didnt feel as though attorney general sessions need to recuse himself from this matter. And that he wanted a robust defense of something he doesnt think that hes been wrongly accused of. Did he really say according to the New York Times where is my roy cohen . I dont know what he said. Thats the New York Times according to Anonymous Sources not that im aware of. What you do know . You know a fair amount about the firing of james comey. You had to go out the night that happened. You laid it all on the Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein at that time. Correct. That turned out no the to be true. I went with the information i had at the time. Who gave you that information. I think the counsels office laid it out very clear how the authority to fire rod rosen or the fbi director laid solely with the Deputy Attorney general as far as organizationally how that worked out that there was a letter that the Deputy Attorney general had written to the president , to the attorney general laying out the case for the firing of jim comey as fbi director. The attorney general concurred and brought it to the president. That was the information that i was given and that was the information we know now for several days at least the president had been talking about firing james comey, had talked to Reince Priebus your direct boss about that as well. You werent aware of that at all. No. This article says brooeb priebus turned over notebooks to the special counsel and also been reported that you had several notebooks as well from your time in the rnc and white house. Did you turn those over to the special counsel. All ill say is that as a press person, it shouldnt come as any surprise you write down this reporter called, this is the time they called. This is the questions they had and sometimes the response that youre going to give. Beyond that im not going to comment on the special counsel respect to that. It gets into the episode when you were still at the white house where the president was working on a false statement about don juniors meeting at trump tower and it talks about you being out of the loop on that and you being happy to be out of the loop so you knew nothing about that false statement when it was written . Correct and, again, all ill say is that im not even going to get into the merits of the statement or not but just say i was not aware of the drafting of that statement. It taste mark corolla resigned because he thought it could be seen as obstruction of justice. Are you confident the president did not wrong . As far as what aspect . As far as the campaign and collusion, absolutely. I was there for most of the end part of the campaign. I know that didnt happen. There were several folks in the media that didnt give us credit for colluding with ourselves never mind with any kind of foreign government. So to suggest that happened and the underlying premise of this whole thing i think is pretty clear that there was no collusion. But yr president did nothing wrong with respect to his actions in the white house, the firing of james comey, the putting out of this i think as far as the firing of james comey, its been pretty clear the president has the authority to fire anyone within the federal government that he sees fit isnt doing the duty that is appropriate for that job. So, i dont think theres any question about his ability to fire jim comey or anyone else in the federal government. Do you think he did anything wrong. I dont but, again, its not my job. There is an investigation. Im not going to get in the way of it but as far as i know and from what i saw, no, there was nothing done that i thought was inwrote or illegal. Thanks. Back to ginger. Even colder windchills tomorrow anticipate yes on this map youll see it, philadelphia beating out business mark. For the entire area. Wind chills will be 510 below zero. Dangerous cold today and tomorrow; wind gusts 30 mph frostbite type of weather please be safe outside bring in pets near record lows this weekend 40s return next week watching potential for a wintry mix monday friday today sunny and dangerously cold. Blustery. Highs 1722 winds nw 1520 g 30 mph tonight clear, very cold, and blustery. Lows 39