up to the bay bridge. showing a little lighter traffic but still backed up. plenty of backup if that's what you're looking for. >> something for everyone. >> right. that's what's happening "today in the bay." we'll be back with more live local news in a half hour. good wednesday morning. our top story, president biden taking on vladimir putin. >> what he is saying this morning about these nuclear threats from russia. it's october 12th. this is "today." >> grave mistake. president biden hammering vladimir putin over the invasion of ukraine saying he underestimated the will of the people and the world's response. >> i think he is a rational actor who miscalculated significantly. >> his new message to an increasingly isolated russian leader as the attacks across

ukraine intensify overnight. on the record with his key senate race tightening, pennsylvania democratic candidate john fetterman sits down. his first in-person sitdown after a stroke. >> after having that stroke, i understand much more the challenges that americans have day in and day out. >> why that interview was conducted using closed captioning and his message to voters with less than a month to go until election day. "today" exclusive, the miracle rescue of three fishermen who spent 28 hours floating in shark-infested waters. their ordeal, and how they managed to survive. they are right here in our studio to share that story with us. smashing success. nasa reveals its mission to alter an asteroid's path, well, it actually worked. >> this is a watershed moment for planetary defense and a watershed moment for humanity. >> inside the celebration for an historic event that could one day help save the planet.

those stories, plus legend lost, tributes pour in for angela lansbury, a beloved star of stage and screen for nearly eight decades. ♪ beauty and the beast ♪ >> we'll look back this morning with love at her life and career. and comeback complete. >> alvarez belts it deep to right field! kiss it good-bye! >> down to the final out, the astros stun the mariners with a game-winning home run. and the road to the world series heats up in dramatic fashion. today wednesday, october 12th, 2022. >> announcer: from nbc news this is "today" with savannah guthrie and hoda kotb from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. and good morning, everybody.

welcome to "today," 7:00 a.m. on the west coast. nice to have you along with us starting your wednesday morning with us. >> wow, what a game last night for the astros. alvarez really had a moment. that is how you finish a game. we're going to have a lot more on that. >> going right down to the wire. more on that in a minute, but let's start with the latest out of ukraine. president biden weighing in overnight in new interview saying vladimir putin totally miscalculated when he invaded the country, but stressing that he thinks the russian president is still a rational actor. >> biden's comments coming amid what has been a brutal week in ukraine, new attacks hitting more cities overnight. >> we've got reports this morning including inside moscow where they are reacting to president biden's new message. let's start with nbc's richard engel on the ground. richard, good morning. >> reporter: we are in mykolaiv in southern ukraine. this was the region's administrative headquarters destroyed by a russian cruise

missile. earlier today i spoke with the most senior ukrainian official in this region, and he said that ukrainians are now dusting off old cold war preparation plans, modernizing them when it comes to evacuations and shelters. this after increased nuclear threats from russia and those comments by president biden overnight. as russia widens its assault against ukraine firing missiles far from the front lines at cities including zaporizhzhia, kyiv and lviv. president biden speaking to cnn, accused president vladimir putin of putting the world at risk by threatening to use nuclear weapons. >> i don't think he will. but i think it's irresponsible for him to talk about it. >> reporter: u.s. and nato officials say they do not see evidence russia has deployed or plans to use nuclear weapons. the president calling putin a rational actor saying he'd misjudged ukrainian resistance

to russia before the invasion. >> i think he is a rational actor who has miscalculated significantly. >> reporter: but president biden accused putin of playing with fire on a level not seen since the cuban missile crisis 60 years ago this month. >> he in fact cannot continue with impunity to talk about the use of a tactical nuclear weapon as if that's a rational thing to do. the mistakes get made. and the miscalculation could occur. no one can be sure what would happen and could end in armageddon. >> reporter: russia is, arguably, at its weakest point in the war. low on troops, it has implemented a partial draft ask has even offered pardons to convicted prisoners in exchange for combat tours low on weapons, russia's increasingly reliant on iranian drones with russian arms production squeezed by sanctions. in rare public statements the head of the british intelligence service, gchq, says russia's military position is

increasingly desperate. >> russia's forces are exhausted. the use of prisoners as reinforcements and the mobilization of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts speaks of a desperate situation. >> reporter: and little can be more dangerous than a desperate nuclear power led by an unchecked leader who promised a quick victory but may be facing a slow and humiliating defeat. in addition to dusting off those old cold war-era nuclear preparation plans, ukrainians are calling on the united states and other allies to quickly provide them with air defense systems to protect against those iranian-made drones russia is increasingly using. >> richard engel leading us off from ukraine, thank you. also this morning, russia is announcing arrests in the bridge explosion that led to this new wave of violence in ukraine.

nbc's chief international correspondent keir simmons joins us from moscow keir, what do we know about who russia thinks did this and how this was carried out >> reporter: well, hoda, president putin is speaking a short distance away right now describing this explosion as a terrorist attack and accusing ukrainian special services, russian intelligence saying it has arrested eight people including five russians, ukrainians, and armenians describing a complex for explosives it says wrapped in plastic in a truck around the black sea into russia and then into that bridge ukrainians on television describing that description as nonsense and ukraine has not claimed responsibility for this attack. >> meantime, keir, it looks like president biden, he weighed in on the possibility of a meeting, meeting with putin at the upcoming g20 summit. what do you know about that? >> reporter: yeah, that's exactly right. president biden saying i have no intention of meeting with president putin.

but, for example, if he came to me at the g20 and said i want to talk about the release of brittney griner, i'd meet with him. i understand from russian officials that they haven't decided whether president putin will go to the g20 president biden saying that he is not prepared nor is anyone else prepared to negotiate with the russians about staying in ukraine. meanwhile, hoda, president putin's speech once again full of rhetoric and accusations, there is no sign of compromise here in moscow. >> keir simmons for us there in moscow, thank you. president biden is warning that saudi arabia will face consequences after opec last week announced a major cut in oil production white house officials say higher oil prices will help russia an opec member country finance its war in ukraine, and the president indicated congress will take action when it's back in session >> i won't get into what i have in mind, but there will be consequences.

>> asked whether it's time for the u.s. to rethink its relationship with saudi arabia, the president said yes let's turn to the midterms new attention this morning on a crucial senate battle in pennsylvania democrat john fetterman locked in a tight race with republican dr. mehmet oz and sat down exclusively with dasha burns for his first in-person sitdown interview since he suffered that stroke dasha is with us now from pittsburgh hi, dasha, good morning. >> reporter: good morning. fetterman's campaign has been open about their candidate's need for closed captioning to read our questions as we ask them because of side effects of his stroke nbc news agreed to that accommodation. this is a critical time for fetterman as his lead over republican dr. mehmet oz is narrowing in a pivotal race that could determine the balance of power in the senate. >> everything about it is changed. basically having a conversation with your wife to having a conversation with your children.

>> reporter: pennsylvania democratic senate candidate john fetterman explaining house he's coping with the after effects of the stroke he suffered in may, just days before the primary nbc news agreed to fetterman's request to use a transcription program during this interview because he's still experiencing auditory processing issues from the stroke meaning he can't always understand what he is hearing. walk me through why we need the closed captioning, how it works. >> it's really just how things happen because i sometimes will hear things in a way that's not perfectly clear. so i use captioning. i am able to see what you are saying in captioning. >> reporter: stroke experts say it's not a cognitive issue and fetterman says he still is fit to serve if elected. >> i always thought i was pretty apathetic -- em tpaempathetic, e

me, empathetic, that's an example of the stroke. i thought i was empathetic before having a stroke after having that stroke i really understand much more kind of the challenges that americans have day in and day out. >> reporter: when you have moments like you had just now, what's that experience like of not quite being able to get the words out in a way that you want to >> i don't think it was hard. s it was just about having to be thinking more slower to just understand, and that's -- sometimes that's kind of the processing that happens. >> reporter: aside from releasing a letter from his cardiologist on june 3rd, the campaign has denied requests for his medical records. don't voters deserve to know your status now? >> as i said, being on -- in front of thousands and thousands of people and having interviews and getting around all across pennsylvania, that gives everybody and the voters decide, you know, if they think that it's really the issue. >> reporter: fetterman's opponent, trump endorsed celebrity dr. mehmet oz called his health into question.

>> john fetterman is either healthy and dodging the debates because he does not want to answer for his radical left positions, or he's too sick. >> reporter: but fetterman hoping it's another health issue that will turn voters out in his favor. >> dr. oz makes fun of me if i miss a word. he missed two words and that is yes or no on the national abortion ban. >> reporter: oz is focusing on crime, hitting fetterman on his record as head of pennsylvania's board of pardons where he advocated for the early release of some convicted murderers. >> reporter: for voters who say i'd rather prioritize the safety of me and my kids in and around philadelphia than prioritizing clemency or lower sentences for criminals, what do you say to those voters >> i actually have a record in fighting crime as mayor of braddock during four terms. >> reporter: and we did find that in small talk before the interview without captioning it seemed it was difficult for

fetterman to understand our conversation. >> and you had mentioned that last night on "nightly." since then other journalists who also dealt with fetterman came forward and said they had a different experience >> reporter: yeah, and that's completely fair that that was their experience we can only report our own i will say it's important to note that according to the campaign itself our team was the first to be in the room with fetterman for an interview rather than via remote video conference myself, my producer and our crew did find that small talk before that captioning was difficult because of the auditory processing issues i mentioned. stroke experts do say that this does not mean he has any cognitive impairment, doesn't mean his memory or cognition is impaired and he can fully recover and fully recover from this and once the closed captioning was on, he was able to fully

understand my questions throughout that 25-minute interview which we will publish in full online later today. >> dasha burns in pittsburgh for us, thank you. all right. craig joins the table now. a success story from space. >> good news good morning to you. there is a huge celebration at nasa and johns hopkins university this morning with new data showing that small spacecraft they slammed into an asteroid worked better than they could have hoped, knocking it slightly off course. nbc's tom costello has been covering this for months now tom, does this mean we could have a strategy now to deflect asteroids that might be headed our way? >> reporter: it could. # i mean, listen, this asteroid never pose add risk minding its own business orbiting another asteroid nasa wanted to see if it could push it off its course so it might one day use that same strategy when an asteroid is heading our way and it all worked perfectly

look closely you are seeing the moment of impact 7 million miles away when nasa's dark spacecraft slammed into a harmless asteroid named dimorphos, kicking up a massive plume of dirt and rock stretching thousands of miles in space. okay, here is the nose camera video taken from d.a.r.t. as it went into its fatal dive at 14,000 miles per hour. scientists at johns hopkins and nasa celebrated the bull's-eye, but now they know their mission into the darkness of space worked d.a.r.t.'s shove cut the tiny asteroid's orbit time around the bigger asteroid by 32 minutes. nasa had hoped to cut it by just ten minutes. yes, that is a big deal. >> now, this is a watershed moment for planetary defense and a watershed moment for humanity. >> reporter: here's why.

if nasa can push an asteroid off course, then it may be able to deflect big asteroids that one day do pose a risk to all of us on planet earth. for proof that we need some kind of defense, just look at all the dinosaur fossils sitting in the world's museums. they ruled the earth until they were wiped out by a massive meteor crashing into the planet 65 million years ago fast forward to today. >> for the first time ever humanity has changed the orbit of a planetary body. >> reporter: and just maybe humanity has its first planetary defense system from a future mega meteor if we get enough warning. >> nasa and other space agencies can have decades of warning time, can track these things reliably for 100-plus years. >> reporter: a 100-year warning would, hopefully, be enough. the good news, nasa says it doesn't see any planet killers headed our way. >> i believe that nasa has

proven that we are serious as a defender of the planet >> all right so if they could push an asteroid off its course long before it gets to earth, it would be the best option blowing up an asteroid or targeting it with a nuclear device, those are still options, but that would also create massive debris fields and potentially even a radiation issue in space so this kind of a push or a shove really seen as the best option of course, the bigger the asteroid, the bigger the shove, and earth's telescopes need to spot that asteroid in time to launch that defense. decades or 100 years, guys. >> it it's great to know it work the. >> give the asteroid a little love tap. >> move it over. on the other hand, we have the bruce willis defense in our