People. Theres at story that were following here on hardball tonight. Thats the news that robert mueller, the special counsel, now wants to talk to some of the president s current and former white house aides like Reince Priebus, hope hicks, and sean spicer. In other words, the fbi investigation is edging closer to the president himself. But back to Hurricane Irma this weekend. Right now current models show the devastating path of the hurricane hitting the south coast early sunday morning, then sawing its way up west of central florida, bringing with it coastal flooding, high winds, and of course heavy rain. President trump urged floridians to take heed. This is a storm of absolutely historic destructive potential. I ask everyone in the storms path to be vigilant and to heed all recommendations from government officials and law enforcement. Floridas governor rick scott pleaded with the citizens to get out of the way. Lets watch. If youre told to evacuate, leave, get out quickly. The roads will fill up quickly, so you need to go. Im a dad and im a grandfather. I love my family. I cant imagine life without them. Do not put yourself or your familys life at risk. If youve been ordered to evacuate and are still home, please go. Today is the day to do the right thing for your family and get inland to safety. Well, more than 600,000 people are under mandatory evacuation orders in Miamidade County alone. Those who rushed to get out clogged roads and turned major highways into parking lots. Some spending hours in line at the airport. Hurricane irma, which is the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the atlantic, is projected now to hit as a category 4 storm, something the state has not seen since andrew. This time there are 6 million more people sitting directly in harms way. Hurricane irma has already left death and destruction in its wake. The hurricane pummelled a string of caribbean islands, leaving at least 21 dead and thousands of course homeless. Those lucky enough to survive woke to apocalyptic scenes like this of demolished homes, schools, and businesses. Roughly 95 of the tiny island of barbuda and st. Martin were completely devastated. A new danger lay on the horizon. Another category 4 hurricane churning towards the caribbean. Thats hurricane jose. Thats off there to the east. In the meantime, floridians on both the east and west coast are bracing for what is expected to be the worst storm in decades. For the latest, im joined by nbc news meteorologist bill kai karins whos in the msnbc weather center. Is anything new from last night . Is it still going to arrive sunday morning . Is it as strong as we thought . What gives right now . Chris, the big thing from when i talked to you last night is last night we were still thinking worstcase scenario is possible for the miami, ft. Lauderdale, West Palm Beach scenario. Weve shifted that to the southwest portions of florida, including ft. Myers and the marco beach area. Its still going to be bad in miami beach, west palm, but this does not appear to be worstcase scenario anymore. You can see the menacing eye. Thats closing in on the northern coast of cuba. Theyre going to get raked with it for about 12 hours. You can see a wider view. This storm just blew up so wide. Not really the intensity. It didnt get more intense, but in size its huge. The cloud field goes from jamaica, down here, to areas of the northern and central bahamas. Soon those clouds will be arriving in areas of especially south florida tomorrow morning. So the latest on this storm, 155mileperhour winds. If you get in that eye, especially the Northeast Corner of the eye and its still moving west at 12. The further west it moves, the worse it is for cuba. Were going to wait and see if we get more turn to the north. The one saving grace for florida would be a weaker storm. Were going to get hit no matter what. We dont want it to be a category 5. Maybe a category 3 would be 100 times better damagewise. It depends on how much it interacts down here with cuba overnight tonight. This is 2 00 p. M. Saturday afternoon along the cuban coastline. If thats onshore, notice the cone of uncertainty for cuba possibility over land. That would be a weaker storm. That would help us in south florida. As of now, the core stays off the coast. It actually gets stronger over the warm waters in the florida strait. 145mileperhour winds, maybe category 5 from everglade city, alligator alley, back over to the naples area. What that means for that region is they would get the worst storm surge. 8 to 12 feet is the prediction for this area of south florida. Thats a devastating storm surge. If your emergency manager is telling you to evacuate, get out. You dont want to be stranded on your second floor. Thats possible down here in this region. Miami, boca raton, through ft. Lauderdale, five to ten feet storm surge. Thats no joke either. Youre on the dirty side of the storm. The winds coming off the ocean. Youre still going to get nailed. Its not like youre getting out of this. You just may not go through the eye of the storm. Let me end with this and tell everyone what it would look like windwise to go through that eye. Here as we go through the timeline, this is during the day tomorrow. Hurricaneforce winds arrive during the afternoon in the keys. This is worstcase scenario for all our friends from key largo to marathon to key west. This is going to be one of the worst storms in their history. By the time we get to sunday morning, theres the eye. Theres the 130mileperhour gusts. That arrives in marco island in naples as we go throughout sunday afternoon and evening. This would be right in the center of the storm. Notice its not like its a picnic over here in areas of miami. Were still going to have winds gusting to 100 miles an hour. Thats still a ton of damage a lot of power outages. It just wont be as extreme as what we could see on the southwest coast of florida. By the time we get to sunday night, ft. Myers, 111mileperhour winds. Itll weak an little bit. But we even think tampa and orlando could get 90 mi mirmmileperhomir mileperhour gusts. I was in land when charlie went through with 90mileperhour winds. Trees were down, power out. Its really whos going to get devastated the worst and may not have homes to return home to. Bill, explain how hitting landfall in cuba might take some of the punch out of this. Ill go back over here. Cuba, especially eastern cuba, has some pretty tall, big mountains. It looks like it avoided the big huge mountains. Mountains are really good at tearing these things apart and weakening them. It missed those. Now were going to talk about mostly the northcentral cuban coastline. That cone of uncertainty shifted a little further south. Everybody said its still tracking west right now. The more west it goes, the further west it goes into cuba i mean, im not happy that cuba would get it worse than they were expecting. For everyone that has their own property, of course they care about their own private stuff. If you hear overnight the storm made landfall over florida and its still over florida tomorrow morning, that would probably mean maybe instead of a category 4 or 5, maybe we get down to a category 3 instead of a 5. So thats one of the things to watch, chris. This forecast track, im not going to spend a lot of time analyzing the models like last night because it seems pretty set in stone, its coming over the keys into southwest florida. The key now is at what intensity. The Hurricane Center still says it could be a category 5, which would be really andrew was a 5. If you go back 25 years, go google the pictures of what andrew did. Thats what southwest florida could look like. Bill karins, youre the best. Thanks so much. Nbcs Kerry Sanders is covering the storm from miami. Thank you for this. I was thinking about those spots mentioned along the florida keys. Ive been there. Key west, its all exposed. Its there ovin the ocean to be hit directly. Places like little palm island, like marathon. Theyre on these Little Islands that you can jump from one to the other all the way up to miami. Nothing protects them. Reporter well, fing yi thin you need to understand f youve never been to the keys, if you look this way and see the Atlantic Ocean and you look this way and see the gulf of mexico, you understand how thin those keys are. In some cases, not even as wide as a football field. So yeah, very narrow. The national Hurricane Center says that nobody should be in the keys. It could hit there as a category 5. Nobody would survive on the keys. The keys are mostly empty. There are people, despite the fact theyre urgently told to leave, that police make repeated visits and say you need to leave, that for whatever reason decide to stay. As we just heard, you know, 1992, hurricane andrew, i went through that. Let me give you a comparison. If you were to look at hurricane andrew and look at irma, irma is more than twice the size of andrew. And remember, also, andrew made a hard turn. It was unpredicted until the final hours when it came ashore. So for all those people earlier in the week who heard about the possibility of irma maybe making a turn up the east coast and feeling relieved on the west coast, theyre now recognizing that that was false hope. These predictions with all of the Super Computers and some of the greatest Scientific Minds at the national Hurricane Center, this is a tough thing to predict. Now it appears the west coast of florida could see some of the worst storm, tidal flooding, the storm surge and of course we may even see that much further la inland as well. Here in the miami area, we have huge evacuations and people showing up at shelters today. The county opened up 40 shelters. In some cases, they just didnt have enough room for all the people showing up. People coming from right here from south beach, tourists from brussels, tourists from germany. Some of them literally grabbing ubers and telling the uber driver in broken english, take me to this address, and then standing in line. Now, the folks who run the school here that handle the shelters have asked the red cross to please send more people because there were so many people who decided to essentially shelter in place, stay in south florida. The hope was that more people would move north, evacuate north. With somewhere between a half million or so people deciding to stay here and somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 people going to the shelters, this is unprecedented. They are literally writing the book on how to handle it as this is happening. Chris, the Power Companies have put already prestaging more than 14,000 crews in certain spots so they can react once irma passes through. Florida power and light handles south florida over to southwest florida. They believe between the 9 million customers, theyre calculating a record 4 million will lose power. Of course, on the back end, no power in the heat and all the other associated problems, the effort will be to get this state at least back up and limping along. Chris . Another amazing report from nbcs Kerry Sanders in miami. Lets go up the coast to West Palm Beach where were joined by the West Palm Beach mayor. Let me ask you about this whole thing about evacuation. I keep thinking when i cover this, being in a Movie Theater or a broadway theater, and realizing theres only a couple doors and wondering how everybody is going to get out. You only have route 75 and route 95. Is there enough exits for your community to get north . Yeah, it appears thats happening. Hello, chris. People have been evacuating. Were happy to see that theyre doing that. Route 95 was bumper to bumper headed north very slowly, but people are moving out. But we are telling them to evacuate in the county, to go to the county shelters, not to leave the county because its probably the best thing they can do at this point. So what percentage of the people in west palm are going to stay in place and face this . Its really hard to say. We know there are people who are remaining in the evacuation areas. Many people have left, but of course people are staying. So its really hard to say what the percentage is. What about those high rises down there . Suppose youre living in a condo with 10 floors or 15 floors. Is that a smart thing to do, just stay in place . Or make a run for it . Well, a lot of the condos are in the evacuation area. Weve asked them to leave. You know the old adage run from water and hide from wind. So were hoping that if they stay there they have a place in their condo where they can go thats protected and safe to hide from the wind. Okay. Great having you on, even on a bad night like this and a bad weekend coming. Thank you. Anyway, lets turn now to our friend i was going to say al franken. The great al roker in miami beach. You are the veteran, sir. Youre laughing because you have a good heart, but you have a mental image now of everything youve covered. Wheres this fit . Reporter well, i got to tell you, chris, this storm is i mean, okay, lets take a look at hurricane andrew. Hurricane andrew was about 400 miles across, give or take. This thing at its biggest was 650 miles across. Hurricane andrew went east to west in four hours across florida. This thing is going to come in, wherever it comes in, and its probably going to run along the spine of florida for about 24 hours plus. Its so large. Its larger than the width of the state of florida, not including the peninsula. So were going to see storm surge on both sides. There are storm surge warnings on both sides. Right now and people could get hung up with the idea, oh, its not a category 5. Well, guess what, its a strong category 4. Its only two miles below what would be a category 5. And between where it is now, where its battering the bahamas, itll skirt along cuba and turn to the north, theres a swath of extremely warm weather anywhere from 86 to almost 90 degrees. In fact, it looks like there will be strengthening. It will make landfall sometime late saturday night, probably closer to early sunday morning, late sunday morning as a category 5 possibly in the keys. People shouldnt focus on where its going to land. When you look at that path, look at the cone of uncertain itty. Anybody within that cone is going to be affected by this hurricane. Where is our friend al roker going to spend the weekend . Ive been thinking so hard. Where are you going to post yourself . Are you going to be like captain ahab holding on to the mast, dan rather of old . Sflr reporter no, no, no. This is not about proving anything or whatever. We are going to well be on the beach tomorrow for the today show for special reports, then were going to high tail it inland, away from this storm surge. Thats the other thing. This storm surge is going to come in at high tide probably. Its going to be anywhere from 10 to 12 feet. Let me give you an example. Sean reese, my producer, sean is about how tall are you . Hes 67. I know him well. I know that man. Reporter double this guy. Double this guy, that is your storm surge. In fact, thats what im going to do during the hurricane. Im latching myself to sean. He looks like st. Christopher to me. Carry you across the river. Reporter thats right. Reporte we want everybody to head north. Thank you, sir. I hope you get through this weekend with another story to tell, maybe a better one than we thank you. Thank you so much, al roker. Coming up, well talk to the curator of the hemingway home and museum in key west. Ive been there. Its where hemingway wrote some amazing literature like farewell to arms. Were going to go to it. That curator is going to stick it out. Its not much of a house except for the history. By the way, even as the national Hurricane Center says it youre in the keys, it may not be survivable, that guy is sticking. Plus, 5. 6 Million People have been ordered to leave south florida in advance of Hurricane Irma. What about those who cant get out . Looks like the roads are clearing up, you can make progress there. What about the sick, the elderly and the poor . Well also get to those in prison. Thats an interesting predicament for everyone. Plus, big political news tonight. Special Counsel Robert Mueller wants to interview current and former white house aides in the russia information with some big boldprint names like spooicer d priebus and hicks. Our coverage continues after this. Chop that thing down. The clarity you seek. Lies within the creditwise app from capital one. Creditwise helps you protect your credit. And its completely free for everyone. Its free for everyone . Do hawks use the stars to navigate . I dont know. Aw, i thought you did. I dont know either. Either way its free for everyone. Cool. Whats in your wallet . Trust 1 doctor recommended dulcolax. Use dulcolax tablets for gentle dependable relief. Suppositories for relief in minutes. And dulcoease for comfortable relief of hard stools. Dulcolax. Designed for dependable relief. You dont let anything lkeep you sidelined. Come on thats why you drink ensure. With 9 grams of protein, and 26 vitamins and minerals. For the strength and energy, to get back to doing what you love. Ensure, always be you. Welcome back to hardball. U Hurricane Irma is barrelling toward the florida keys, and the forecast is bad enough that the keys National Weather service tweeted this is as real as it gets. Nowhere in the florida keys will be safe. You still have time to evacuate. Well, ed rapoport of the national Hurricane Center says if youre hunkered down in the keys, hes not sure its a survivable situation. Thats pretty blunt. But not everyone evacuated. The staff at the earnest hemingway home and museum are planning on riding out the storm on the iconic property where hemingway wrote farewell to arms. Im joined by the homes curator, david gonzalez. Dave, thank you. Ive been to that wonderful place. Ive been to the room up above the garage where hemingway did some of the writing. Ive been to look at the swimming pool. Ive seen the cats. And youre going to fight for it. Youre going to stay there. We are. First of all, chris. We invite you into our home every night. I think youre a fine journalist. Its with pleasure i welcome you into our home tonight. Thank you. Tell me about your decision to stick it out. This property here is its a very singularly unique piece of property. We sit at one of the highest elevations of land in all the florida keys. The home is also constructed of 18inch blocks of solid limestone. Its been here since 1851, has suffered no damage in any hurricane since the date it was built. What about the wind speed coming in the windows . Are you worried about that . As youll see behind me, weve already boarded up the house. We also have generators, three of them, here on the property in the event we lose power. Were prepared to go ahead and fire up those generators, keep our refrigeration system and some airconditioning systems running. We have ten employees that have decided to stay here on the property that actually lived in lowlying areas in unsafe housing. They came to us. Weve taken them in. Now they are safe. You know, its giving me the image of like key largo, one of those 1930s movies where the whole movie takes place with this terrible storm going on outside. Meanwhile, a few people are getting involved inside in all kinds of intrigue. Do you have a romantic sense that makes you want to stay there . Well, i do, chris. I actually live here on the property in the guest quarters and also own the home next door that was any grandfathers home. That home, by the way, was built in 1933, and it still stands today. Been through dozens of hurricanes here in key west. Well, its a beautiful home. Iconic place that we all like to visit. I love going down to key west. Its a fascinating place. And thats the pearl of the city right there. Right mibehind you. Dave gonzalez, an honor to have you on. Sticking in key west. Thank you. Its an honor. Up next, Hurricane Irma could lead to one of the largest evacuations in u. S. History. What are officials doing to get people out safely before the storm bears down sunday morning at the latest . Youre watching hardball. Harrys meeting clients. From far away. But they only see his wrinkles. Hes gotta play it cool to seal the deal. Better find a way to smooth things over. If only harry used some. Bounce, to dry. Yeah he would be a less wrinkly, and winning at life. For tech advice. Dell Small Business advisor with one phone call, i get products that suit my needs and i get back to business. Ends sunday welcome back to hardball and our coverage of Hurricane Irma. All day long today weve watched a steady stream of tourists trying to get out of miami. Look at them there at the airport. Lines at the airport were long throughout the day, as you can see. Lets get an update from nbcs Gabe Gutierrez at the Miami International airport. Gabe, youre all alone there. Reporter yeah, exactly, chris. A quiet contrast from what we saw earlier today. All those chaotic scenes of tourists trying to get out, stranded travelers. Now its eerily quiet, the calm before the storm. This airport has really winded down operations. Airlines throughout florida have been winding down flights. The last one here out of miami, our American Airlines flight was supposed to leave a half our ago. So whats been happening throughout the day, chris, is that authorities here have been loading on these stranded travelers on to buses and taking them to emergency shelters. Weve heard Horror Stories of people on cruise ships that had to be dumped off here in miami and had no place to go. These are tourists not from this area, may not have family in this area, and did not expect to be in the path of a hurricane. So again, tens of thousands of cruise passengers were affected. We spoke with several people separated from their luggage. Some of them had medicines inside, cancer medicines that they wont be able to get to for at least several days. So authorities here now say the best thing peek can do ople do down in these shelters. Theyre not going to close the airport temporarily. They will offer cots to sleep in. But authorities are stressing this is not a shelter. Nearly 700,000 people are evacuating south florida and heading north as irma bears down on the state. Gabe, im just curious. Sometimes people travel with enormous amounts of luggage. Were the people traveling that you saw were they like refugees . Did they carry a whole lot of their stuff . Reporter well, you know, many of them were tourists. Like anyone checks their baggage. They might be making a connection, trying to get to international destinations. We spoke with one guy going to argentina. He didnt expect to be in this path. He had checked his luggage. He was connecting through miami. They wouldnt give him his luggage. They say theyre going to lock it away for several days until after the storm passes. This guy had some personal belongings in there, couldnt get to them. Another woman was trying to get to colombia. A lot of International Travelers here. She had that medicine she couldnt get to. The question is where are these people going to go. Some of them are wondering if theyre going to the shelter. They cant go to hotels. Thats all booked. Its really a mess out here for those folks that were not prepared for this and those Cruise Ship Passengers we talked to, they said they were given very little warning, basically dumped off here in miami and told good luck, get to where you need to go. Nbcs Gabe Gutierrez at Miami International airport. As the storm moves closer to florida, its up to state officials to execute the plan they believe will ensure the safest conditions for as many people as possible. As history shows, there are never easy solutions or decisions to make in the face of an oncoming storm. As the mayor of new orleans in 2005 was blamed for ordering an evacuation but doing so less than 24 hours before Hurricane Katrina made landfall. That effort was too little toorlittle, too late. Houston mayor Sylvester Turner faced a similar dilemma with Hurricane Harvey last month. He determined millions would be worse off trying to escape the city than if they stayed put. As kwusa today reports, irma could create one of the largest Mass Evacuations in history. Im joined now by Charlie Crist and daniella la cava. Thank you for joining us. Zbo governor, ill start with you. Im beginning to think this is what countries who go through war have to prepare for. This is evacuations, refugee situations, almost to use the word apocalyptic isnt quite overdoing it. Its a very difficult situation. A lot of times its delicate to try and figure out what the right call is. From my point of view, everyone has their own style, but you want to keep calm. You want to make sure that people are prepared. Make sure theyre well informed. When you make a call of an evacuation, you make it with all the facts you have at hand in order to make a common sense decision like that. And err on the side of caution and make sure that youre protecting the people and its all about safety first. I cant stress that enough. You know, youd rather be criticized for evacuating a little too early than a little too late, as you just talking about with new orleans. So i think weve gotten it right here. An awful lot of people have already evacuated. In large measure, i think, chris, because of what happened in texas, we just witnessed what happened with harvey, and so people are taking this very seriously and thank god they are. Commissioner cava, thanks for joining us as well. I love miami. Its got all the diversity in the world. It is a world city, if there ever was one. Ive been to university of miami, friends down there. When you travel around the beach, you realize how close to sea level it is. Absolutely. Its 4. 9 feet above sea level. So it really is exposed to any kind of surge. Tell me about that and what you face. Well, yes, we are ground zero for Sea Level Rise, first of all. Obviously when theres an extreme weather event and its coming to us, we are really in trouble. So weve taken this extremely seriously from the very first moments it looked like it was heading this way. Our county mayor called in the troops, activated the plan. We do have a playbook here. We have been through this before. We just celebrated last week the recovery 25 years later from hurricane andrew, which was a devastating storm. This is three times as big. And we do have our houses that have been built to a higher standard based on what happened with that storm. Weve learned a lot about what we need to do to be prepared, and we activated. So now were activating even more with the huge storm surge thats predicted. We have called for evacuation of 600,000 people. You know, miamis a real city. Its not just a place to go in the wintertime. You know that better than anybody. But ive got friends who are lawyers down there and people working those big buildings just like any other major city. Are those big buildings safe in a storm like this where its going up to 175 miles an hour, or well over 100 miles an hour perhaps . Are they safe in those buildings . You know, many of the downtown buildings are being evacuated. Theyre in the zone a or zone b, which are mandatory evacuation areas. Also, we have a problem. Theres still a lot of construction going on in downtown miami. We have major cranes. Those cranes have not been dismanndi dismantled in time for the storm. Anybody thats near a crane has been asked to evacuate as well. So we have zones, coastal zones. Next up the inundation from storm surge is not only along the coast, it could be along the canals, could be along the river. So very exact maps that are telling us who needs to shelter immediately and evacuate. The old stories, the further south you go in florida, the further north you get because of all the people who have moved down there from the north, especially new york and philadelphia. My question is, do you have so many people down there that you really dont have enough exits . Ive asked this before in this hour because ive looked at this clogged route 95. I wonder how many days notice would you have to have to get people out of there reasonably given the traffic clogging that goes on, on 95 . Yes, and also the keys. Because theres only one way out from monroe county. Thats right through miamidade. So evacuation from the keys was called a day earlier before evacuations started in miamidade. A lot of people heeded the call right on time. There was an orderly evacuation, still going on. People are still safe if they leave, but they need to pretty much now hunker down. So starting monday, people were evacuating, and then the mandatory evacuations were called in miamidade on wednesday and thursday. Well, u. S. Congressman Charlie Crist, always great to have you on the program, even tonight, even though its a bad night for everybody. Scary situation. And commissioner cava, thank you ve for joining us tonight. Up next, a massive hurricane can be just as dangerous as the storm itself. How do officials deal with the aftermath of a storm this magnitude . This is hardball, where the action is. When you have something you love, you want to protect it. At legalzoom, our network of attorneys can help you every step of the way. With an estate plan including wills or a living trust that grows along with you and your family. Legalzoom. Legal help is here. Unstop right there im about to pop a cap of mmm fresh in that washer. 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I would look at forms now and wonder what do i mark . Because im everything. And i marked other. Discover the story only your dna can tell. Order your kit now at ancestrydna. Com. Remember hurricane andrew was one of the worst storms in the history of florida. Irma is more devastating on its current path. We are being very aggressive in our preparation for this storm, and every floridian should take this seriously and be aggressive to protect their family. Welcome back to hardball. That was governor rick scott of florida invoking the lessons of hurricane andrew in light of Hurricane Irma. The storm has already devastated parts of the caribbean. Were looking at the damage now, wiping out 95 of some of the islands in its path, 95 . Now in this country, that same storm is about to bear down on the florida coast with 7 Million People sitting in harms way. So how do officials in this country prepare and recover from a disaster of such a magnitude . For this, were joined by the former director of foreign disaster at usaid. And allison hill. Let me ask you about what were seeing in terms of the evidence so far of the power of this hurricane going from east to west across the caribbean. So in the area its made landfall, it has been an absolute buzz saw. It has flattened several of the Leeward Islands in the caribbean. Its been fortunate onward from there. Its missed haiti, missed the dominican republic. Now it might shave the northern coast of cuba before it goes on to florida. Tell me about the island of barbuda. I was not familiar with that. Now that island is apparently gone. The reports are that up to 95 of the structures on that island are damaged or destroyed. People are evacuating now because it might be getting a second hit from jose. I sometimes think these kinds of situations tend to bend us towards nonpartisanship. Is there i mean that, which im usually very political, but i get the feeling the ability of our resources is pretty much a constant under whoever is running the country. Thats correct. This, i do think, will inspire bipartisanship. It already has in terms of passing the aid bill this afternoon. Its a hopeful thing. What do we do . I know we cant prevent hurricanes. We cant really tell people where to live. Its a free country. You can say all you want about the ninth ward in new orleans. Theres a history there where people want to live and choose to. Its going to be a problem. In florida, its right near sea level. Its only five feet above sea level down in miami. Its always going to be pretty exposed to any surge. The reality with disasters like this is you save the lives before the disaster with the policy, the building codes, the zoning codes, and then the early warning. If you get some of those wrong, people will die, and theres not much you can do about it in the event. Where people get angered, its like ray nagen down in new orleans. Ill get 90 of the people out. 90 isnt winning. 50,000 people were left behind. Im always struck by that picture of all those school buses. Hundreds of school buses sitting down there in new orleans not even turned on and under water because nobody moved. The good news is that we learned a lot from katrina. So we now have experienced managers running fema. We prepositioned supplies. We have new rules that all medical facilities have to have emergency plans. So theres its an iterative process. Were going learn there were mistakes made here, no question. We are far better off than we were during katrina. Well, politics is a learnings profession. I hope we learn it fast. Jeremy, thank you. Alice, thank you. More live reports tonight from on the ground in florida, but first new reporting on the russia investigation. Thats coming up right now. Word that special counsel bob mueller is going to interview people in trumps inner circle, including hope hicks. Wow. She knows everything. Former aide sean spicer, he doesnt know as much. Reince priebus, theres a very interesting guy to talk to because hes smart politically and knows what he heard and knows what it means. Youre watching hardball. For your heart. Your joints. Or your digestion. So why wouldnt you take something for the most important part of you. Your brain. With an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain Health Supplement in drug stores nationwide. Prevagen. The name to remember. You give us comfort. And we give you bare feet, backsweat, and gordos. Everything. I love you, but sometimes you stink. Soft surfaces trap odors. Febreze fabric refresher cleans them away for good. Because the things you love the most can stink. And plug in febreze to keep your whole room fresh for up to 45 days. Breathe happy with febreze. Dental professionals recommend using an electric toothbrush. For an exceptionally fresh feeling choose Philips Sonicare diamondclean. Hear the difference versus oral b. In a recently published clinical study, Philips Sonicare diamondclean outperforms oralb 7000, removing up to 82 more plaque and improving gum health up to 70 more. Its Sonic Technology cleaning deep between teeth. From the most recommended sonic toothbrush brand by dental professionals. Switch to Philips Sonicare today. Philips sonicare. Save when you buy now. Welcome back to hardball. The Washington Post is reporting tonight that special Counsel Robert Mueller has notified the white house that his investigators intend to speak to six current and former advisers to the president himself in connection with the russian probe. They include sean spicer, Reince Priebus, hope hicks, and white House Counsel don mcgan, among others. The documents mueller has suggested strongly suggest the topics he and his investigators would broach with the aides. Those include the warning signs that the former National Security adviser might be compromised by the russians, as well as the white house role in crafting a misleading statement to defend donald trump jr. White House Counsel ty cobb did not comment on this report but told nbc news the white house will continue to be as transparent and cooperative as possible in an effort to see this through to an appropriate resolution. In other words, blah, blah, blah. Im joined by carol lennick who broke this story. Give us the the reporting here is interesting because it suggests that the investigation is moving forward. Well, several weeks ago indeed, it is moving forward. Bob mueller, the special counsel, is described as a fairly methodical investigator and prosecutor, but he also kind of knows the pieces of the chess pieces that are out there and where hes going to move them. So several weeks ago he notified the white house with his team of the kinds of people at the white house he expected he would likely interview. Theyre sort of the whos who of the white house. Some of them are no longer at the white house. But they are the names you would associate with donald trump. Hope hicks, a longtime confidant in this campaign at least, somebody he trusts very, very implicitly. Reince priebus, the former chief of staff, the president s white House Counsel, and of course somebody everyone knows, the former White House Press secretary sean spicer. You know, bob woodward, whos a very good investigative reporter, is very good at triangulating his interviews. You get somebody, you say, you know, we know a lot about that conversation you had in the hallway on tuesday, blah, blah, blah, of whatever day it was. Whats your side of it . So you put the person in a position where they have to Start Talking or else theyll be talked about. Is this the kind of thing the prosecutor will do, trap people into explaining . Like, Reince Priebus heard everything. You hear stuff at the table in the white house mess. Youll hear stuff through the walls. Youll hear all kinds of stuff. But you find out whats going on because youre political. How deep can he delve in just that kind of questioning . I think that surely he is going to be doing this in a very organized way. I mean, lets not kid ourselves. Hes not interested in the gossip necessarily from the white house mess. Hes interested in how did the white house discuss beforehand and what did the president say about firing jim comey, the fbi director . Right after the president asked allegedly the director to please drop the investigation involving his National Security adviser. What, for example, did these aides that are around the president s shoulder, what did they hear the president say when he was crafting a statement with his son on air force one about how to spin describe the reason that his son, donald trump jr. , met with a russian lawyer in the middle of the campaign . You know, these overheard conversations are these people are also players. Remember that Reince Priebus, the former white house chief of sta staff, is a person that the president asked to leave the room when he met wiprivately wi jim comey. All of these people have a piece of the puzzle. It seems to me that bob mueller is interviewing on the outside of the circle, and hes going to move closer in and in until he hears everybodys stories and see where theres overlap and where theres not. Keep in mind, hes also asked the white house for a ton of documents. So his teams going to be reviewing those documents and comparing them to what people actually tell him actually happened. Thanks, carol. Let me ask you, jeff, about this thing. Maybe not gossip. Maybe that wasnt the right word. As tip oneil said, the walls have ears. And the way these investigations work is mueller, who has compiled this team of at least 36 highcaliber attorneys, someone described them to me as legal killers, they start at the bottom of the food chain and work their way up. There are at least six people we know they want to talk to. That number is going to multiply through these conversations. They could potentially implicate other people. Carol mentioned the point about the president dictating that statement about donald trump jr. s trump tower meeting. Its not a crime to mislead the public knowingly or otherwise, as the president did with that statement that we now know was false and misleading. He said the meeting was about adoptions, when it wasnt. That could point to intent, and it could point to attempts to conceal information. That is what the special counsel is looking for in this larger obstruction of justice. Do you think the counsel knows what the president s hiding, what the kernel is of his fear . I dont have any reporting of that, but i can tell you the pace of this investigation suggests that might be the case. Carol, do you think based upon your reporting and those of your colleagues, bob mueller knows what the kernel of fear is that trump holds apparently because of all of his resistance to this investigation . I know bob mueller knows more than we do. Well said. Thank you, carol. Not for long thanks to people like you. Thank you so much. Carol has been one of the leaders in finding out whats going on. Up next, florida is no stranger to hurricanes, butting Hurricane Irma be the big one . We keep hearing things like that. It is scary, especially for the people down there. This is hardball, where the action is. We come into this world needing others. Then we are told its braver to go it alone. But there is another way to live. A way that sees the only path to fulfillment is through others. You dont let anything lkeep you sidelined. Come on thats why you drink ensure. With 9 grams of protein, and 26 vitamins and minerals. For the strength and energy, to get back to doing what you love. Ensure, always be you. The miami herald has called irma the storm everyone has long dreaded. Im joined my Tampa Bay Times environmental reporter, craig pittman, author of oh florida, maybe not, but weve spent time down there with the hanging chads and the disputed election down there of 2000, but this is Mother Nature and i wonder if people think of it as al gore would say, Mother Natures talking to us. Is that how people read it . They see this as a cycle of trouble . Another cycle . I think its more of a cycle. We get these hurricanes every year. Just about. Florida gets hit by more than any other state and so its just a part of life here. When Hurricane Season starts in june through when it ends in november, people are trying to Pay Attention to that and track it and take the right steps. The problem we have though is that we have so many new people who move in here all the time. Weve got about about 900 new people move ng every week, so a lot of those folks, this is the first time theyve experienced this, so its a pretty traumatic event for them. Do you feel this is a big one . I would call it a big one. The idea of the big one, the big hurricane that comes in and sweeps this landscape clean and washes away all the florida corruption and so forth sh thats more of a literary conceit. We had the 1928 hurricane that inspired the novel the eyes are watching god. The 1935 hurricane that inspired key largo and you know, theres one in johnny mcdonalds novel, condomini condominium. Thats a literary thing. Which one killed the railroad . 1935. That was a powerful message. They had this beautiful train ride. You could take to key west. Knocked out by a storm and never rebuilt. Just mankind stepped back and said we cant handle Mother Nature down in the keys. Cant build a railroad, which would have been fabulous to take. But then built a road and you can drive down there. What i was going to say is hurricane andrew hit here 25 years ago. It was a category 5 hurricane. So strong it blew the instruments off the national Hurricane Center and that didnt stop people from coming here. People rebuilt. We built with stronger building codes, but people rebuilt and the growth continues. Not much can stop the growth machine in florida. Craig, you are a character and you are with the Tampa Bay Times. Thank you for coming on hardball on a dreary, scary night. Another challenge for state officials in florida as irma moves in is evacuating the states prison population. Hadnt thought of that, had you . Im joined by Tallahassee Bureau chief for the miami herald. Prisoners, ive been move iing about how theyre moving and its a little bit of relief for people stuck in stir, now, they get to move somewhere else. Whats it like for people in hard time in florida . Well, they strted out with evacuating about seven work camps and Community Release centers and then they increased that and now, they have evacuated 31 centers. And theyre not sending these people out of the state. Theyre sending them to other prisons, the ones that are more solidly built. The cinder block big institutions so those places are are getting very crowded. And you know, this is a prison population e, weve had just a long a month ago, we had a lockdown in all florida prisons because of the potential for a coordinated riot effort. So things are getting tight. You know. All across the state. Are some of these Cool Hand Luke kind of prisons, theyre work camps, chain gangs still active there and used add punishment . No. We dont have the chain gangs, but we have work, you know, a lot of work camps. Boot camps. Theres a lot of Community Release and thats the lower security inmates that are working those and now, theyre moving, theyre sending them back into the prisons with the higher security folks, so, theyre hoping that everyone keeps literally keeps their cool, but this is, we still dont know what the status a lot of floridas prisons are the facilities are, have had problems. Even when there hasnt been a storm. I think this is a little bit of a tinderbox and something to watch. Whats the word lately . Is there, the piece i read this afternoon suggested there was a little bit of a morale pick up because people were stuck in place in cells with little recreation time were getting to move around at least. I would think getting on a bus would be a plus over most of your life. Really, im being serious. And they are actually working very hard and helping morale. Theyre giving people more phone time so they can contact their relatives theyre giving them more canteen access. Whats canteen time . Whats that mean . Well, you know, giving them more opportunity to go and buy food. You know, they have to use their extra money. Okay. Its amazing reporting. Thank you. Tall hahassee bureau chief for e great miami herald. Be right back after this. Dad molly, can you please take out the trash . sigh dad molly trash whoo mom hey, molly . Its time to go bell ringing class, lets turn to page 136, recessive traits skip generations. Who would like to read . molly i reprogrammed the robots to do the inspection. Its running much faster now. See . Its amazing, molly. Thank you. were back and going to jacob on the beach as irma moves closer to florida. There you are in the dark. In this area, miami beach, Barrier Islands outside of miami, people have been preparing for a Sea Level Rise, a gradual one due to Climate Change for quite some time. The politicses have put this as a priority issue, but nothing can prepare you for a five to ten maybe 15 foot Sea Level Rise due to the waves and its quite possible hi going to hit this beach in just a matter of time. I spent the day earlier driving around with the miami beach fire rescue. They got about 91,000 People Living within their jurisdiction. They said for the most part, everybody is out for now, but we did stomaumble upon a couple of Senior Citizens who decided to stay. One woman luckily was picked up by her son. There are people out here that i can tell you that decided to just stay put. Whether or not that is a good decision, youre going to have to wait and see. The Fire Department says if youre not out now, get out. No other option. I think the phrase in real estate is ageing in place. I can understand stubborn behavior. Im one of those. Thank you, jacob. Thats hardball for now. Thanks for being with us. Chris hayes picks up coverage right now. Good evening from miami beach. Im chris hayes. We come to you live from south florida which in about 36 hours is when irma is expecteded to make landfall as one of the most powerful storms the to hit the united states. Weve been covering this region going back more than a year. Reporting on in miami areas you neek of vulnerability to extreme weather in the area of Climate Change. Today, weve been talking to residents, official, ablgt how
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