it's all fake news. it's phoney stuff. it didn't happen. >> even after the big press conference big questions remain on ethics and russia. >> while you were sleeping at 1:25 this morning the senate took the first steps with a major vote towards ending obamacare. most likely be on the same day, same week but the same day, could be the same hour. >> plus what you're doing in selfies could lead to new ways of stealing identity. o record breaking storm systems trending flooding. some are making the best of it. thank you notes from the first lady. >> thank you inauguration day

for as i like to call it let's move. >> "early today" starts right now. good morning. i'll miss the two of them when they are gone. >> i'm frances rivera. donald trump's two controversial picks seems to have survived following days of heavy questioning. but we begin with the explosive day in new york. trump holding a news conference that ran the gamut. he made headlines from new cabinet nominee to the border wall, obamacare and his business dealings. but it was unsubstanceated allegations of russia. clapper said he spoke with trump. he continued i emphasize this

document is not a u.s. intelligence community product. and president-elect trump again affirmed his appreciation for all the men and women serving in the intelligence community. n >> reporter: at trump tower a moment months in the making but not washington front and center instead moscow, russia dominating donald trump's first press conference as president-elect. for the first time acknowledging what intelligence officials believe about foreign interference in our election. >> as far as hacking i think it was russia but i think we also get hacked by other countries and other people. >> reporter: the president-elect talking about reports of a memo issued outlining personal, lewd unverified allegations against him. >> i'm a germophobia. >> reporter: senior intelligence official with knowledge of this document tells nbc news trump was never briefed about it. backing up his argument.

>> it's all fake news. it's phoney stuff. it didn't happen. >> reporter: trump said during the campaign no one on his team had contact with the kremlin but his stance towards russia has been problematic even in his own party. >> if putin likes donald trump, i consider that an asset not a liability. >> does russia have any leverage over you financial or otherwise and if not will you release your tax returns to prove it. >> i tweeted out i have no dealings with russia. >> will you release your tax returns to prove what you're saying about no deals in russia. >> reporter: trump did scold putin for trying to meddling in the election. >> he shouldn't be doing it he wouldn't do it. >> reporter: his toughest talk saved for u.s. intelligence agencies. >> it was disgraceful the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be false and fake. >> reporter: also at the podium plenty of paper work the trump

team says proves he's doing due diligence to avoid conflict of interest. ivanka trump stepping away ahead of her move to washington creating a trust for his assets but not a bhiend trust before inaugurati inauguration, hiring an ethics officer. any profits from foreign governments who book rooms at his hotels will be donated back to the u.s. treasury department and his business won't do any new foreign deals despite just this weekend he says the opportunity to do just that. >> i was offered $2 billion to do a deal in dubai. number of deals. and i turned it down. >> reporter: trump says these steps are sufficient. >> i can run business and run government at the same time. >> reporter: he's right. as president he's exempt from federal conflict of interest laws. >> despite trump's business

manassas the head of the office of government on ethics calls it inadequate. >> it doesn't meet the standards that his nominees are meeting and every president in the past four decades has met. >> however there's no question who is in charge. >> i hope at the end of eight years i'll come back and say oh, you did a good job. otherwise if they do a bad job i'll say you're fired. >> to those confirmation hearings two of donald trump's controversial picks as trump spoke to the pick. rex tillerson repeatedly under pressure to answer for his past dealings with russia. >> if putin were to instigate -- >> you're relationship with mr. putin. >> what are you going to say to vladimir putin. >> we must be clear about our relationship with russia. russia today poses a danger. >> and now the head of the

foreign relations committee is giving his sign off i believe mr. tillerson has the potential to be an outstanding secretary of state. however, it's not necessarily a done deal as tillerson faced heavy scrutiny from republican senators including marco rubio who came out swinging regarding putin. >> do you believe that vladimir putin and his cronies are responsible for ordering the murder of countless dicy dent journalists and political opponents. >> i do not have sufficient information to make that claim. >> none of this is classified. these people are dead. >> marco rubio has not said whether he would support tillerson's nomination. senator jeff sessions faced a second day of questioning in his bid to serve as the nation's next attorney general. his own colleagues all testified against him calling sessions unfit for office. >> i want an attorney general

who is committed to supporting law enforcement and securing law and order but that is not enough. >> we need someone who will stand up, speak up, and speak out for the people that need help. >> to have a senator, a house member, a living civil rights legend testify at the end of all of this is equivalent of being made to go to the back of the bus. >> still sessions nomination will likely pass through committee for a full vote on the senate. just a few hours ago at lindsay lohan 1:25 a.m. the senate took its first major step to unwind the affordable care act. >> on this vote the ayes are 51 the nays are 48. the concurrent resolution is agreed to. >> the vote was part of a budget mechanism that will allow republicans to repeal the president's signature legislation with just a simple majority and despite republican

success democrats did their best to up end the entire vote through bursts of protests. >> no for the millionth. >> the republicans have no plan. no plan. >> the full process of repealing the health care act will likely take weeks if not months. >> here on the west coast you're recovering after getting slammed with brutal winter weather. first responders and volunteers rescued dozens of people in northern california after floodwaters trapped them in their homes. officials say many roads will be closed indefinitely due to damage from water and mudslides. >> farther north more than a foot of snow has been dumped on parts of oregon leaving some drivers to give up and abandon their vehicles as conditions there deteriorated quickly. other travellers managed to get around via snowboard. check in with bill karins about the extremely active storm out west. are we done yet?

>> last little bit of storm is going through today and then a little bit of a break. may have to get another big storm next week. right now a lot of heavy rain moving into central california, san francisco getting a break after heavy rain. batch of moderate rain north of st. louis. we'll deal with this storm during the day today. the storm itself doesn't have the punch the last couple did. we'll still add a couple of inches. we'll get a period of rain today from los angeles to oceanside to san diego and the storm will weaken and head on out. when we went to january 1st we were about 60% to 80% of the snow pack, now in the sierra we're about 100% to our hour window. northern california the storm misses you as it heads to the

south. we filled up a lot of reservoirs and just clean up the mess. just ahead wait until you find out what many blue states are doing to keep donald trump off the ballot in four years. >> take a look at these photos. this could be the next big thing in identity theft. can you figure it out? we'll tell you in two. and we can use less. charmin ultra soft gets you clean without the wasteful wadding. it has comfort cushions you can see that are softer... ...and more absorbent, and you can use up to 4 times less. remember, that's charmin in there... no wasteful wadding! we all go. why not enjoy the go with charmin. for lower back the search for relief often leads here.s, today there's drug-free aleve direct therapy. a high intensity tens device that uses technology

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(burke) and we covered it, february third, twenty-sixteen. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ >> thank you barack for proving you're not a lame duck. but my very own silver fox. >> yeah. thank you, mrs. obama, for being a strong, smart, independent woman, an activist, a style icon and a great dancer. and showing us all what it would

look like if beyonce married a much nerdier jay-z. >> that's my boo. long jeans and all. >> got rid of the jeans. >> the jeans are gone. that's a way to say good-bye michele obama with jimmy fallon doing thank you notes in her last late night appearance as first lady. >> some akonic moments with michele obama, the dancing. so she's going to be i think greatly missed. leading the news this morning the irs is planning to crackdown on fraudster but it will delay tax returns. the effects of low to middle income americans, those folks are using it to pay their bills, they are the most vulnerable. the irs say scammers and organized crime syndicates have been filing fake tax returns.

the irs say delays could last a few weeks. president-elect trump hasn't been sworn in but many states are taking steps to keep him from being re-elected. hawaii is trying to push a law through to prohibit any person from appearing on its ballot unless they released their tax returns. no telling if and when these bills would become law, however an ap poll taken last year showed two-thirds of registered voters say it's very or somewhat important for a candidate to release their tax returns. as we all know trump has yet to release his returns. this is an important alert to selfie lovers, includes us. stop flashing the peace signs in your photos. guess why? that's what japanese scientist from the national institute is saying. they are warning people smartphone cameras are so good it's possible to actually identify the fingerprints off of

those peace signs you're holding up there. the cameras are so good. they can use those fingerprints, use them by biometric sensors allowing access to your phone, computer and other things like online banking accounts. researchers say i.d. thieves match fingers to photos. lay off the peace sign. >> fascinating to say that technology is that on point and that good you can zoom in and get that. just ahead a fallout on wall street from donald trump saying drug companies quote are getting away with murder. plus michael jackson's daughter is outraged how her famous sfaerk portrayed in a new movie. you're watching "early today". per roll

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minnesota judge overseeing prince's estate will see who qualifies as a heir. no will has is your passed a and dozens of claim have emerged since he died of an accidental overdose pain kill per. the miami heat's plane slid on an icy milwaukee airport. good news, the team says everyone is okay. lester holt sits down with president obama aboard air force one in an nbc primetime special,

barack obama, the reality of hope. it airs tomorrow night at 10:00, 9:00 central time right here on nbc. right now donald trump's first press conference in six months sent shockwaves through a certain sector of wall street. >>gram lovers may be in for some annoyances ahead. landon dowdy is following those stories for us. >> reporter: wall street posted solid gains on wednesday but one sector didn't follow the rest of the crowd, health care stocks got hit after president-elect donald trump singled out the industry for moving production overseas. he also says the government needs to create a new bidding process for drugs. shares of drug makers fell sharply. meanwhile instagram is about to start generating a little character by inserting ads into its new stories feature. it will be placed in person's collections and photos. they will play automatically as you jump from one post to

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get made what kind of actors they make. there's a movie surrounding the egyptian movie where they had christian bale. natalie portman is speaking out about hollywood's gender wage gap. portman revealed her co-star ashton kutchner was paid three times more than her back in 2011 for that romantic come my called "no strings attached." she wasn't as angry as she should have been just fines the disparity crazy and ashton kutchner is back being portman up for speaking out on the issue tweet sewing proud of natalie and all women who stand up foreclosing the gender pay gap. >> something we saw after the sony hack. a drone crashes into the space needle and caught on camera. and dog is man's best friend.

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this is the scene at the oregon zoo in portland. he's not complaining about the zoo. heavy snow blanketed the enclosure for this asian elephant named sam. he's enjoying the blast of arctic weather. of course a polar bear taking full advantage of the new snowfall to enjoy a full-body snow bath. a lot of residents were not thrilled with heavy snow in some case as lot more than expected. the drought situation, we're going to get the new numbers out a couple of hours from now. this is where we stood as we went. our total was 84%. we'll get more in central california out of the drought situation and out of that drought category. that will being a great news. a lot of reservoirs jumped up. amazing. some places you can watch how

fast they were filling up and millions of gallons in hours. football fans in san diego are furious after news broke that the nfl's chargers will announce their move to los angeles later today. >> as a life long chargers fan it's like total kicking me. >> this die-hard fan expressed his anger by throwing eggs at the front entrance of the team's headquarters. he also posted video of it on social media. the chargers have played in san diego since 1961. so, still not a far drive away from san diego to los angeles. >> really hard that chargers blood runs deep. police and the faa are investigating a drone that crashed into the seattle space needle. the reason to's camera was recording video. watch here. it went haywire and careened into the roof. the guys up there were setting fireworks when it happened.

the drone was damaged but the space needle was unharmed. so far no word on who owns the drones but they could face fines in the thousands and even after that crash the drone is still recording. >> i thought the drone was part of the fireworkers up there installing. interesting. a man is on the road to recovery this morning thanks to his loving pet. bob broke his neck after slipping in the snow outside his house determined to keep him alive, though, in freezing cold temperatures this little fellow stayed by his side for 20 hours until help arrived. in fact he kept bob warm by licking his face and laying on top of his body. she barked nonstop until his neighbors found him. he was rushed to the hospital and immediately received surgery. he says he's eternally grateful to his dog who is truly the man's best friend. >> wow. hugging their pets tighter. >> i'm frances rivera.

>> thanks for watching "early day". hatove our battle with rain continues.

road to collapse in the cause a east bay. scott/vo plus massive flooding in hollister.. as pacheco creek overruns its banks. our battle with rain continues. massive flood anything holster. people and animals flee to high ground. nearby residents worried about all that water. the reason there is a bright spot in their forecast. today in the bay starts right now. very good morning to you. >> the rain finally moving out, but the damage has been done. we continue to track the aftermath left behind across the bay area after back-to-back storms. >> meteorologist kari hall