Not backing down. Embattled Alabama Senate candidate roy moore standing strong this morning saying allegations of Sexual Misconduct with a 14yearold in 1979 are completely false and politically motivated. I dont remember that, and i dont remember ever dating any girl without the permission of her mother. Reporter as republicans scramble to do damage control with the special election for alabamas senate seat less than a month away. Also that, plus a Police Chase Ends with a deadly shooting in rhode island. The ucla Basketball Team leaves china without three of its players who are accused of shoplifting there. And black friday comes early. Retailers break out the sales two weeks ahead of schedule trying to drum up more business before the busy Holiday Season. The deals are massive today. Saturday, november 11th, 2017. From nbc news, this is today with sheinelle jones, craig melvin, and dylan dreyer, live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Welcome to today, and thank you very much for joining us on this saturday morning. Im Kristen Welker alongside steve kornacki, jumping in because sheinelle is under the weather. Dylan is here. It is veterans day. We want to thank the men and women of our armed forces for their Incredible Service to this country. We are going to be thanking them all morning long. [ cheers ] we should let our viewers know that sheinelle came in today valiantly despite the fact that she wasnt feeling well. We sent her home. Steve kornacki was going to do our political segment. We said, hey, why dont you stick around for the whole show . This is like the fourth stringer called in the middle of about the second half. Prepared for 30 seconds. Sat down two minutes ago. This is what we call pinchhitter. Is there called a script, by the way . Yes. Well make it worth your while. This is going to be a great show. We want to get right to our top story, and that is the arctic air that millions are waking up to this morning. This is the coldest day of the season with temperatures running well below average for this time for this year. 40 Million People are under a freeze warning from new england down to georgia. Believe it or not, some people in michigan are seeing subzero temperatures, and dylan is tracking all of this. I walked outside today, its frigid. It is frigid. And news for you out of d. C. They have not broken a record low in november for 41 years. Wow. So thats all changed now. Says it all we are breaking record lows across the country. We even had a first snowfall in chicago. Take a look at what weve seen so far in chicago. Weve picked up. 1 inch of snow. Not a lot. Not measurable. It is still enough to make it look like winter. Considering just how nice its been so far this fall. Certainly has been a shock to the system. The reason why it is so cold outside is because we have this big area of High Pressure. When you have clear skies, all of the heat that the earth observed the day before has radiated away into space. Theres nothing really to cap it in. Temperatures have been dropping and dropping. Currently the windchill in burlington, vermont, is ten degrees. The windchill in new york is 18 degrees. 17degree windchill in washington, d. C. , with a current temperature of 26. Its only 18 degrees out in pittsburgh right now. As we go throughout the day, temperatures will try to warm up but just barely getting above freezing in d. C. With a high of 34 degrees. Today, new york city this eveni evening, 31. Portland this evening, 26 degrees. We have freeze warnings posted. These will be in effect through mid morning. You see including parts of new york and stretching down into south carolina. So we are going to start to see temperatures warm up as we get through the next couple of days. It is certainly going to be on the cool side at least for this morning. And then tomorrow morning, well be a little bit better. I was out this morning with the people on the plaza, and they are a little bit frigid this morning. Right. We brought our gloves and our scarves for the plaza when we go out to say hello. Thank you very much for that. Some other big headlines this morning. President trump just touched down in hanoi, vietnam, after wrapping up his trip to the asiapacific summit where he in a brief meeting with russian president Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the summit. This as questions still swirl about russias meddling in the 2016 election. The president speaking out about it this morning. Nbcs white house correspondent, Kelly Odonnell, is traveling with the president and tracking all of these developments. Kelly, good morning to you. Reporter good morning. After the white house made a repeated point there would be no meeting between President Trump and Vladimir Putin, the president himself told reporters he had a few conversations with putin. And while it was not a formal sit down, the two did cover some ground. This morning, President Trump touched down in vietnams capital, hanoi, leaving behind the apex summit in danang where he defied expectations and held more substantive conversations with Vladimir Putin than the white house had first indicated. President trump told reporters on air force one he pressed about russian interference in the 2016 election. The president said, he said he didnt meddle. You can only ask so many times. I really believe that when he tells me that he means it. I think hes very insulted by it which is not a good thing for our countri. President trump said he and putin spent more time talking about their roles in syria and fighting isis there. He added they have a very good relationship. The president s willingness to talk about his contacts with putin counters the white houses efforts to say no formal meeting would happen. Publicly all that was seen were glimpses around the edges of official events. Yet the kremlins twitter page shows putin had time for other leaders. What an honor it is to be here in vietnam. Reporter President Trump did take part in apex colorful traditions. The suit and tie president donned the host countrys choice of blue silk shirt. He was center stage for whats known as the family photo. For President Trump, some of the stage craft was off. He nearly walked past the vietnamese president waiting for a handshake photo. And more on the trump putin conversations. The white house says a meeting today on the sidelines lasted five minutes or less. The president did not talk to Vladimir Putin about north korea which is notable because President Trump has often said he needs not only china but russias help to try to stop north Koreas Kim Jongun and his Nuclear Weapons program. A lot of eyes on that quick pullaside. Thank you for that. And meantime, the fallout from Sexual Misconduct allegations involving Alabama Senate candidate roy moore is growing. Moore has denied any wrongdoing, defending himself in his first interview since his accusers went public. Republican leaders are now scrambling to limit the damage from the allegations. Nbc news Gabe Gutierrez with developments. Good morning. Reporter good morning, roy moore is scheduled to attend a veterans day event here at this library later today. It would be his first public appearance other than the radio interview since the bombshell allegations first broke. Now at least two Senate Republicans have pulled their endorsements from the controversial candidate. You should stand and put your hand over your heart. Reporter this morning, roy moore is not backing down, attacking the explosive Washington Post report that detailed allegations of Sexual Misconduct with a 14yearold girl back in 1979. I believe theyre politically motivated. I believe theyre to stop a Successful Campaign, and thats what theyre doing. Reporter in a radio interview, moore, a combative republican candidate trying to fill Jeff Sessions seat, says he does not remember the main accuser and says the allegations are completely false. He did not rule out dating other teenagers when he was in his 30s. I dont remember that, and i dont remember ever dating any girl without the permission of her mother. Reporter one of the accusers, gloria diesen, claims moore provided her with alcohol when she was 18, below the legal drinking age. Moore denies it. Were also doing an investigation and have evidence of collusion here. Were not ready to put that to the public just yet. Reporter among many republicans, swift criticism. John mccain and mitt romney calling moore unfit for office. Congresswoman Barbara Comstock tweeting, harvey weinstein, anthony weiner, roger ailes, no more. I believe in the second amendment. Reporter the former judges supporters in alabama say the allegations are false and politically motivated just weeks before a crucial special election. Hes a man of honesty and integrity. Hes a man of faith. Its just not in his dna to do anything like that. Reporter the state auditor telling nbc news theres been a long history of romances and marriages with teenage girls. I dont think that he did what hes building accused of. Reporter so you plan to vote for roy moore in the election next month . Yes. Reporter the senate gop campaign arm has severed financial ties with moore now, making it harder for him to fundraise. The special election is in about a month. Moore insists he is not dropping out. Steve . All right. Alabama a very unlikely battleground for a senate race. Gabe gutierrez, thank you for that. Really is a remarkable story, steve. I want to ask you a couple of questions about it. Weve obviously been talking to a lot of folks on capitol hill, republicans, to get their reaction to the roy moore allegations. The reaction in alabama is very different. A lot of voters there say wed rather vote for roy moore than the democrat. Its a deep red state. He could still win this. Yeah. I mean, this is the thing we see its an unlikely battleground. Putting it in perspective, its been 21 years since theres been a senate race in alabama with a singledigit margin. 15 years since its been under 20 points. The thing with democrats is youve had polls even before the allegations came forward, polls showing a five, six, sevenpoint race with him ahead of the game. Now there are questions, weve seen folks in alabama rallying around him. He cant afford much slippage here. He has a much less margin for error than were used to a republican having in alabama. It dominates the headlines as does the president s trip overseas. This morning a big headline. He had the brief pullaside, five minutes according to reporters there, with russian president Vladimir Putin. We know that the president talked to putin about russian meddling. He says, putin says i didnt meddle. The president said, i believe him. And its time to move on. Was the president tough enough in that conversation . Did he achieve what he needed to . You know his critics will say absolutely not. Critics say hes in denial. And this seems a conversation were continuing from last years election when the issue started to arise. I think it runs into a couple of things here. Trump clearly seems to take any question about russias role in the 2016 election as an attack on the legitimacy of his victory. So you can see his instinct is always just to say nothing there, i believe them, this is the democrats trying to turn it back on them. You also see trump and the white house it looks like trying to make this argument that, hey, look, whatever happened not these words whatever happened happened, and now donald trump needs to have a relationship with russia because of syria, because of other big issues in the world, and we cant have him saying putins a liar because its going to complicate that relationship. Tried to make that argument. Obviously theres going to be people who dont agree. Undoubtedly. Particularly as the russia probe continues to escalate at home. Thats what he looks forward to returning to. All right. And we move on this morning with some other very big headlines. News that were following a Deadly Police shooting is under investigation this morning in rhode island after a police chase ended with officers firing dozens of shots at a couple in a pickup truck. Was the use of deadly force justified . Thats the question. Nbcs Morgan Radford has more. Reporter newly released video shows the bloody end of a high speed chase on the streets of providence, rhode island. [ gunshots ] Traffic Cameras capture the white pickup steering through traffic until a police car finally cuts off the vehicle. With no way out, the desperate driver rams the surrounding cars while police close in. [ gunshots ] in total there were over 40 rounds that were fired. Reporter the driver, 32yearold joseph santos, was killed. A female passenger was injured and remains in the hospital. [ sirens ] reporter the couple was not who police expected to find. They were in pursuit of 35yearold Donald Morgan who they say stole a Police Cruiser thursday with a weapon inside. He was captured late friday. Police say their actions were justified, and video from the scene backs them up. That footage shows the acts of the officers as doing exactly what we would want them to do in stopping an imminent and significant threat. Reporter the santos family says he was probably avoiding capture because he was driving an unregistered vehicle with a suspended license. The mother of santos 17yearold son questions the use of deadly force. [ gunshots ] i mean, i dont understand how they could shoot to kill like that. My son needs an answer as to why his father was shot on the side of the road. Reporter nbc news, new york. An air Traffic Controller in North Carolina has been charged with possessing a weapon of mass destruction. Paul george danden was arrested friday after police found a pipe bomb in his home. According to police, his roommeat maroom d roommate made it to use against a neighbor and got cold feed giving it to danden instead. He was followed fired, Officials Saying he did not have any access to the airport. This day is particularly painful for the Texas Community affected by the massacre in sutherland springs. More than half had ties to the u. S. Air force. They will be honored today with a full military salute on the ground on the community hall. 26 people were killed in the mass shooting, including an expectant mother. And a scary moment caught on camera at a boat race off the coast of florida. This powerboat you see spiralled into the air friday, skimming the top of another speedboat and landing upside down at the key west world championship. Rescue crews rushed to the scene felt thankfully none of the four boaters were injured. And through ucla basketball players remain in china this morning just days after they were held and accused of shoplifting. They did not play in a game overnight. Now it looks like the team will be coming home without them. Nbc is following the latest developments. Good morning to you. Reporter good morning. Not only are those players staying behind in china, not headed home with their Team Reportedly today, there are new reports about potential evidence against them this morning. Reports that the players were allegedly caught on tape shoplifting. Short on the three, and ucla escapes with a win. Reporter ucla basketball pulling out a lastminute win against georgia tech in china overnight, but off court no surprise victory for its star freshmen. Langelo ball, cody riley, and hill waking up under house arrest at the hotel. An espn reporter tweeting that theres Surveillance Footage of the players allegedly stealing from three luxury stores. The players questioned for hours earlier this week accused of shoplifting sunglasses from this Louie Vuitton store close to their team hotel. Ball and his two brothers are basketball phenomes with an online show and luxury family brand led by their brash and outspoken dad, lavar ball. Ball appearing at a popup shop for their brand in china and at last nights game, but not talking about the arrests. Ucla and pac 12 Officials Say theyre monitoring the situation. Well, unfortunate situation that theyre not here. Players being treated well. Got no qualms at all in the way theyve been treated. Reporter a trial could mean jail time. Chinas a country with a 99. 9 conviction rate which tells us they dont really offer a lot of due process to their defendants the way american courts do. Reporter this morning, the Team Reportedly heads back to the u. S. Without their freshmen stars. And ucla is reportedly trying to secure the players release. This could last for weeks. We will continue to track it. Kelly, thank you for that report. And dylan is back with another look at the weather. You were telling us about the cold weather moving in which i like. Im one of those people its a little too much i like summer sometimes that can be invigorating. What about the rest of the country . Are they as lucky . They are going to warm up which to me is lucky. That certainly will be something that will pay off. In the northwest, though, another storm system. You see it just offshore. Thats going to make its way onshore. More rain and gusty winds and some mountain snow is lik and weve got another chance of seeing some light drizzle and spotty showers for the next half an hour before the rain officially moves out but we are