Transcripts For MSNBCW MSNBC Live With Alex Witt 20180915

Two feet of rain has already fallen. We have 20 to 30 more inches expected in places. And within the past few hours, the death toll now standing at 5, the number of homes without power in the region inching a lot closer to 1 million. The National Weather service says flooding could be life threatening, and officials are warning residents to take florence seriously. People should not return to their homes or neighborhoods until theyve been cleared by their local officials. And the continuing risk of falling debris, rising waters are potentially a great hazard, also with the loss of power, weve had one tragic death with generator use. Trees and power lines are definitely down across both states. First responders have been pulling off pretty dramatic rescues. We have several reporters in place across the carolinas to bring you the latest on the storms aftermath. Lets go to jacksonville, North Carolina. Thats where theyre facing the major flooding. Im joined right now by joe fryar. Joe, pretty traumatic stuff that you bore witness to, a rescue operation. Tell us what you saw . Yeah, thats right, alex, in the last 24 hours, flooding has become a major issue here. This area where were in started flooding yesterday. The neighborhood is under water, that car way down there almost entirely submerged. This flooding started yesterday, we wanted to show you video we just took within the last couple hours of a neighborhood thats about 15 minutes from here, this morning, one woman tells us she woke up 6 00 a. M. , put her feet out over the bed and they went over the water. The waters have been rising ever since. So much so that in part of that neighborhood, if you walk down the street, the water is chest high, catching many people off guard. One woman lived there since the 1980s, theyve never seen that neighborhood flood. Its happening now. Many people caught off guard, needing to be rescued, boats are showing up in good samaritans, volunteers, strangers, at one point when they were there. The National Guard showing up trying to help people get out of those areas. We spoke with one family that was rescued during all of that, take a listen to what they had to say. We woke up this morning, our house was just flooded. Like seven inches of water. Went to the door and it gushed all in. Woke my family up and said we had to do something. What was going through your mind . Im not going to make it out. Its a blessing to have people that still care about you and risk their lives for you. A lot of emotions right now in that neighborhood. People thankful for volunteers that come in, we want to show you whats happening right now where we are as we speak. If you look down there, some people are making the trek up the water here, you can see just how deep it is, waist high at a minimum, making their way up here. We dont know their story at this point. What they were doing down there, and why theyre coming up this way. This is not recommended for most people to be in this sort of situation and walking. Perhaps it is that theyre trying to flee or theyre trying to rescue some items that they had to leave behind when the water started to come up here. Well keep an eye on this to find out whats going on here. Throughout jacksonville, and much of north and south carolina, as these waters rise from the floods here in jacksonville, its right next to the new river, thats a river thats prone to flooding. They knew theyd see some flooding here. The question was going to be how much, when you add in all the rain weve received here, it started range thursday afternoon, and its been like this ever since, on top of the storm surge, and the tide, thats a big issue, alex . Can you have your cameraman zoom back down there and watch these people as theyre making their way. I think it looks like theres a dog swimming with them as well. It looks like a pet, doesnt it . I mean yeah. Now that theyre getting closer here, you can see that, and it looks like the issue, it looks like two folks carrying at least one dog, and there might even be a second pet coming up from behind, i cant tell if thats a cooler that the gentleman in the orange shirt is holding on to or what, theyre theyre gradually making their way, theyre not dressed in waders or anything like that, this is not a rescue mission or anything. We saw when we were on the other neighborhood a few minutes ago, one woman had three giant dogs in a boat as she was coming to shore. It was hard to control the dogs. I grabbed the leash from one of the dogs to help them out. Dealing with pets in these situations, theyre scared, theyre not sure whats going on, dealing with all this water, as you can see there, it looks like at least one they have a couple dogs, maybe you can talk to them, if i cant i mean, your cameraman has zoomed in, it looks like theyre getting close enough, by the time i ask you this question. Is that a street we see flooded . Im curious about that car. Was that car parked there or you think it was floating over that way . We can answer that for you, alex, this is court street, it is one of the streets that goes through town here. Right about i guess, where im standing here, it was flooded about here yesterday when we first got here, it is a street that keeps going down, that car was not there last night when we were here, so the car definitely did get pushed out by the floodwaters. Experts will tell you, you only need about a foot of floodwater, and that can actually move a car so that car was definitely not there when we were here last night, when we arrived this morning, we could see the car there. Many people who live in this neighborhood tell us, they started to see the floodwaters rise in the morning yesterday. They werent sure how bad it was going to get, many decided to get out of here, not everyone got out, they didnt think it would get this high or this bad. My producer brian here, well see if we can grab anything with these folks coming in. How are you guys doing . Were live on msnbc right now. Did you guys go in to try to rescue some stuff or were you there . Were evacuating. Theyre evacuating right now. Do you mind if i ask you a few questions . No, we wanted the story, i wabtded to see what the story was with those guys and their dogs many theyre evacuated. Are they back up . They arent. Okay, we will hope to find out from joe via phone. Well talk to our producers and let you know what happened with those dogs. They look to be okay which is good news. Moving over to tammy laettner. I know there were downed trees and lines all over the state. Did you enl counter those kinds of difficulties trying to make your way to conway . The drive wasnt bad. Weve seen significant flooding. This is a road thats completely washed away. Ill step out of the frame so you can see it. If you want to follow me over here, i want to show you more significant flooding this is only about 20 miles inland from where we were on the coast. And what a difference, because the flooding is significant. If you take a look at this house, its significant flooding. We have a house, a car. You can see this, this is just the beginning of what they fear theyre going to get. They told me theyre still extremely concerned. The water from North Carolina, all the flooding they got up there, it has to go somewhere. Theyre afraid its going to come down here to south carolina, its going to flow into their rivers where it will crest when those rivers crest in this county, they will flood the roads here. I called them a short while ago, are you still concerned about the main road in and out of murt el beach flooding . They said, we are. This could happen any time in the next three days to a week. And we have no control we dont know whats growing to happen. We have to wait and see much thats whats on their mind. Theyre keeping an eye on this, they dont know when or if its going to happen. Theyre watching carefully. Ill bet. People who are watching tv, and lets say they dont see their home looking in the malaise that the one behind you is, but they think their home is in a safe place and theyve evacuated. Have officials given orders yet as to whether people should go back to their homes or still stay away . This will county is still under mandatory evacuation, no one is being allowed back in. From tammy now we go to good et, hes in new bern North Carolina, which has been pretty drenched and watering soed spot. Talk about what youve seen there. Every time i think the storm is over here, we get hit by another band of rain, its a good reminder of the size and scale of this thing. How this disaster is not ending for anybody in this region. The water level has stayed high enough to be a problem since thursday afternoon. We have seen additional rescues today. Theres been folks out in these big trucks with tires that come up to about my waist. Working their way back through these neighborhoods. On the intensity scale, what we are no longer seeing is the high winds and heavy rain. The water can be up to my knee, my mid thigh. Especially if you 3450i9 be elderly or infirm. We are seeing folks who thought they could ride this out, maybe their house didnt get flooded. But their street did. Theyre running out of medication, food and water, theyre getting a sense of the scale and scope of this thing, that its going to be a problem for a couple days. Even as the water level is starting to come down now, as the rain starts to stop. The noose river, which has been the big water maker here. Theyre getting ready for another water event in a few days. Much like tammy was talking about in south carolina. When that river crests from this water thats falling all over the state. If this storm swings back north, that has to get back out to the ocean somehow, and its likely to come out to the same river the storm surge originally pushed it up. You could have secondly flooding that happens all the in the middle of the week. Garrett, how much have you seen, part of the footage that we saw in your report while you were talking we saw First Responders, neighboring . How much of that are you seeing where you are . Quite a bit. We shot that in this neighborhood. What youre seeing is a meticulous effort by First Respond irs to go door to door and house to house, and make sure if theres anyone remaining in these homes, theyre doing that on purpose and not because they dont have anywhere to go. We heard of a couple welfare checks. Weve had this problem here ourselves today, just today, weve lost some of the cell towers here this morning, even though without power we had been able to communicate, its been much more difficult to do that this morning. Theres a lot of angst, a lot of nerves here the fact that someone who might have been okay thursday night when the power was out, is still out of it now, Everyone Needs to be checked on again. Coming up, look whos talking. The man who would take a bullet for President Trump is having a change of heart. Next. Your mornings were made for Better Things than rheumatoid arthritis. Before you and your rheumatologist move to another treatment, ask if xeljanz xr is right for you. Xeljanz xr is a oncedaily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well enough. It can reduce pain, swelling and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. Xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma and other cancers have happened. Dont start xeljanz xr if you have an infection. Tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts and higher liver tests, and cholesterol levels have happened. Your doctor should perform blood tests before you start and while taking xeljanz xr, and monitor certain liver tests. Tell your doctor if you were in a region where fungal infections are common and if you have had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. Dont let another morning go by without talking to your rheumatologist about xeljanz xr. President trump has now declared parts of North Carolina a major disaster, paving the way for federal aid. The governments response to florence comes as the white house deals with the Major Development in the mueller investigation. The president s former Campaign Manager Paul Manafort, now agreeing to a deal with the special counsel. The president s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen is talking to muellers team. The news coming one month after cohen pleaded guilty to Campaign Finance violations. Both developments renewing speculation over whether the special counsel will get even closer to President Trump and his family. Lets bring in katie rogers, White House Correspondent for the new york times. Lets get right to it, jeff. Starting with you, any sense that the white house had any idea that Paul Manaforts plea deal would be coming their way . Its hard to say if they did. The white house has been following this closely along with people all over the country. The president watches it closely, both getting updates from his attorneys, as well as watching television. Its hard to say whether they saw it coming. Definitely a blow, after the president has previously praised manafort for not breaking under pressure from the special counsels team. The question will be, what does he have to say, and what does he have to share. Certainly he was someone involved in critical moments in 2016, particularly being part of that meeting at trump tower. Which the special council is looking into, and being able to describe perhaps more in detail what happened there, and how that fits into the broader puzzle of this russia investigation. You bring up the president speaking in growing terms about Paul Manafort, that in the wake of Michael Cohen, agreeing to a plea deal. You have to wonder if hes going to comment on it now, what in the world will he be saying. Now to you, katie, i want this Cooperation Agreement to be put in context for all these latest developments to come out of the investigation. Were talking about george p papadopoulos and the 14 days he got sentenced to behind bars. Its a huge deal. Paul manafort was not in any stance to cooperate as little as a month ago. We know he was waiting for clues on whether or not he might be granted a pardon, as those hopes diminished, he clearly rethought his legal strategy. One of the most crucial questions, the special council might have for Paul Manafort, is one that they are trying to put to the president , which is, during the campaign, what is the extent to which your campaign had any contact with russia, this question specifically mentions Paul Manafort, whether or not your campaign reached out for assistance, they have been trying to get the president to brooch this question. And in addition to dozens of others, Paul Manafort may now provide the answer on the other end without the president. So the president is we did hear from donald trump jr. In an interview he gave on wednesday. Lets listen to that, part of it. Your father has denied reports that hes worried you may be in legal jeopardy because of the mueller investigation. Are you scared you could go to jail. Im not, because i know what i did, and im not worried about anything of that, it doesnt mean they wont try to create something. Weve seen that happen. Do you think hes still confident this is not going to touch him at all . Its impossible for me to say that, but i think he and others will be watching closely to see what manafort says for sure. What he said, also mirrors what the white house has said and Rudy Giuliani has said. Which is what manafort has said and manafort is doing or was accuses of in the charges that end ended up bringing limb down have nothing to do with the president. The question is whether or not that ends up being true and whether or not that ends up being something they can maintain. For now, the white house is saying, look, this has this doesnt have anything to do with us, and that said, im sure that theyre watching it closely, and may have cause for concern. Katie, the president never being specific about this, but kind of dangling the carrot of the possibility of a pardon for months. What do you think it says in the end that manafort ended up trusting Robert Mueller over trump . Im not in his head, so i dont know. I know that as that possibility seemed to diminish as we also reported that the president had discussed this possibility but ultimately backed away from, you know, people read those reports and are aware of where the president what the president was thinking at the time, and the development we saw this week with manafort shows that he decided to take a different deal. Guys, i want to switchgears here now, and talk about this decades old allegation of Sexual Misconduct against brett kafanov. He has denied this claim by a woman who remains unnamed. She says he assaulted her in high school at a party. What more are you learning about how this has created friction, not only between democrats and republicans on the Senate Judiciary committee. But democrats who are mad at feinstein for her handling of this, keeping it to herself for a couple of months . Yeah, there seems to be some con sister nation about that choice, and why she handled it the way she did. The broader question is whether or not this will have a greater impact on kavanaughs chances of ending up on the supreme court. Its part of the democrats efforts to raise kbe ever questions about him, multiple questions they have raised. In general, the train seems to be moving in the direction of him getting confirmed and probably getting confirmed in time to be on the court this fall. When it starts in the beginning of october. When the term starts. Katie, i want to play for you what jane muir first reported against kavanaugh. She talked about this woman whos making the claims, here it is. This is not somebody who was smoked out by people trying to bring kavanaugh down. She was troubled by what she knew. She thought she had information that was important, that she wanted to share with the authorities. Do you see anything beyond what jeff and i were talking about, whether or not this presents a problem to Brett Kavanaughs con firmation. Congress, i remind you that its a body that has not yet passed legislation presented earlier this year to overhaul its own really convoluted system of women and men reporting harassment or assault. And if anything, congress treats cases like these within its own ranks as little more than speed bumps. The fact that its being presented by republicans as sort of a last ditch dirty political trick, absolutely as jane said, reinforces this womans belief from the outset that she was not going to be believed and her reluctance to come forward. Indeed, katie rogers, jeff mason, thank you for weighing in, appreciate it. Bill nye the science guy has a theory about why recent hurricanes are so dramatic. This is an insurance commercial. But lets be honest, nobody likes dealing with insurance. Which is why esurance hired me, dennis quaid, as their spokesperson because apparently, im highly likable. See, they know its confusing. I literally have no idea what im getting, dennis quaid. Thats why theyre making it simple, man in cafe. And more affordable. Thank you, dennis quaid. Youre welcome. Thats a prop apple. Id tell you more, but i only have 30 seconds. So heres a dramatic shot of their tagline so youll remember it. Esurance. Its surprisingly painless. So youll remember it. Leave the structure, call 911, keep people away, and call pg e right after so we can both respond out and keep the public safe. Pg e wants you to plan ahead by mapping out escape routes and preparing a go kit, in case you need to get out quickly. For more information on how to be prepared and keep your family safe, visit pge. Com safety. The death toll related to Tropical Storm florence is on the decline. At least 385 rescues have been made in pretty hard hit new bern and that number is expected to climb. Florence is slowly weakening and will likely become a tropical depression sometime tonight. Lets go to Kerry Sanders in Carolina Beach, North Carolina, where things do not look like a tropical depression or anything close to it. They have not let up where you are. Florence is just not moving, at such a slow pace, its brutal here. Unrelenting wind and rain, let me step out of the way and show you the surf, you can see how its still pounding the coastline here. Its almost mesmerizing to look at those waves rolling in. The surf had been, before the eye passed over us. Gentle, because the wind was coming out of the north west. When we got the eye, the winds shifted it started coming from the southeast, when it was coming in from the east it was pushing the wraevs up that way. You can see the waves are more or less coming straight on to the beach. And alex, if Mother Nature is doing one thing to protect herself, its those sand dunes along there, those naturally occurring sand dunes, which quite frankly governments help to protect by doing plantings on them, prevent the water from coming in, and in this particular case, the storm surge has been really minimal in part because of those sand dunes. Nonetheless, on this eye land on Carolina Beach. The bridge to the mainland remains closed. Nobodys allowed to come back and forth, because its too dangerous, where you can see with the wind blowing here. Too dangerous to drive a vehicle over the bridge. The Authorities Say things look like they have fared relatively well. Relative is the key word. Some roofs have come off. Some building walls have collapsed. No injuries, and i guess one of the most depressing things, at least for the folks who live here, its a population of 6,000 that survives on tourism, is that the pier on the north portion of Carolina Beach has been basically taken down by the fury. 70 of it is gone. Power, does that remain how about any kind of flooding. Good to see the sand dunes. Do you think a lot of people did heed evacuation warnings . Yeah, its almost a ghost town here. Almost everyone is gone. Theyre probably going stir crazy at this point, the way its sitting on top of the community and not letting up. The city manager tells us they have received no calls for emergency help, nobodys reached out saying help get over here. The authorities when they went out, they saw the National Guard doing patrols. The storm surge that came over was not as dramatic, at least here as feared. Other areas, we have seen that historic storm surge flooding. As you said, relatively speaking, good news for those 6,000 residents, you hang on to your hat, well check in with you, hope you still have it on. As Hurricane Florence is pummeling the southeast coast. Some are arguing Climate Change is causing storms to intensify. Bill nye the science guy is joining me from our l. A. Bureau. I want to get right to it request you again. How and if Climate Change is playing a role here. Talk about the consequences that have and does it specifically affect hurricanes . The reason we tie thighs storms to climate complaining, is the ocean is warmer than its ever been, since its been measured by humans 37 when you get that much sea water, 10 trillion gallons of water. A gallon is not that big a thing, but when you have 10 trillion of them, its quite a bit. Were talking about quadrillions of jewels of heat. That comes from decades of keeping the ocean warmer than it would be without human activity. Now, everybody, as we like to say. Its difficult to tie any one storm to the big picture of Climate Change. This is absolutely consistent. The fires are absolutely consistent with models of Climate Change. When i come with these shows, thank you, people are happy when its a prop bit, when i have props to show. Todays props are books, these are books written about Climate Change. These are written by scientists. Roy spencer of all people was able to get an editorial in usa today. I very much enjoy the hate tweets which will come up here in the next ten minutes. Theyre big fun for me. The hockey stick graph goes back to 1995. A couple of these books are written my dr. Michael mann, the guy who started it, this is how contrarians introduce Climate Change. These are various graphics i have shown on television over the last 10 years. This is how contrarians view Climate Change. You can see the world is getting warmer. You may say look, its steady. No, the worlds getting warmer. Heres a graphic i showed on the bill oreilly show 10 years ago, where the concern was that 2008 was going to be the hottest year on record. I put my money where my mouth was. I am more than happy to bet somebody 10,000 that 2010, 2020 will not be the hottest decade on record. None of these guys will take this bet. I chose 10,000 because thats what m. I. T. Romney was going to bet rick perry when they were running for president. I thought thats a number conservatives throw around. This is not, i did not make this a political issue. People on mainstream science did not make this a political issue. Im not going to take that bet, because im of the belief we have not seen the hottest year on record. Every year you think its going to be and its not going to be. Youre saying these storms we are seeing are actually getting either larger or stronger, more powerful than we saw 10, 20 and further years ago . Lets go back. When you start micking any one storm, thats when the contrarians start cherry picking data. Ignoring the bigger picture. Lets talk broad context. Fires out west. Dead trees in montana, because the pine bark beatle can survive the winter, if youre a farmer in the heartland. I have a lot of people my family has a lot of people in the south. I get it, if youre a farmer here in the bread basket, the midwest, you know the par sites, the pests are showing up earlier and sticking around later. And that costs you money. You got to have more inputs and pestici pesticides, herbicides and other selective untiling. You got to do all that, because the world is just a little bit warmer. Now, im from the u. S. This is where i was born, i cant help it. I want the u. S. To lead the world in addressing these things. Right there on the beach he was talking about the plantings on the sand dunes. Well, the sand dunes are generally created by snow fences. You may call them dune fences, that get buried as the wind blows the sand. And so there are steps you can take. Theres a natural wall that helped the storm surge in that area be less severe. Thank you for listening. Climate change, Climate Change, Climate Change. Im going to take this a step further. You say youre an american. Im a california girl. Im proud of all the advances Governor Brown has made. Climate is his thing. Most recently this week, i had to chuck el when i read, hes going to have a satellite launched that is a california satellite to track the environment and he says, were putting up a satellite. I was like, you go, Governor Brown. Hes putting his money where his mouth is. Im telling im being told we have to go. Were so glad to see you, thank you bill nye the science guy. Thank you. If california says you cant import cars, thats going to be costly. True. Coming up the manafort problem. 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He didnt have close contact with President Trump while he was president. But he did have contact during the campaign. Tough question, whether or not alleged crimes committed to get somebody elected president is an impeachable offense. We dont know the answer to that. Joining me now, john lauro. Its one of the most Significant Developments that has occurred since the special counsel has been appointed. Manafort is motivated to cooperate in all areas, whether its tax fraud, money laundering, acting as a Foreign Agent and certainly anything with respect to his activities as the Campaign Manager over a four month period. All of that is open to review. Once you decide to cooperate the prosecutors own you. Let me put it that way. Youre there to provide information in anyway possible. And hes looking at a stiff sentence and trying to reduce that, i expect hes going to cooperate very vigorously. Vigorously, i mean, he will tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, right . Theres no chance he will still try to hedge things under these circumstances or at least he shouldnt about. Hell be an idiot if that happens. Hes facing between 10 and 20 years, thats not going to happen, hes got to tell the truth, one thing thats very important. Hes a damaged witness because of all the crimes he was involved in, in order for the prosecutors to use him, they have to find corroboration, factual evidence that really supports what hes going to say. Hes the most important cooperator to date that the special council has. After this deal, hypothetically speaking here, if the president were to pardon Paul Manafort. Youre shaking your head, thats just never going to happen. I cant imagine it, because he has admitted to so many serious crimes, if the president pardoned him, the question would be asked why, theres no justification for pardoning somebody with this kind of criminal record. 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Join over 250,000 patients who have chosen humira. Ask about the 1 prescribed biologic by dermatologists. Humira. And go. It was terrifying, we were up in the attic. Those who chose to stick it out, forced to keep above water and wait for help. It was a bad decision. Getting around in the floodwaters, can be treacherous. Waters flowing over into the yard fp. There are gators out here. Yikes. Thats part of a report by craig melvin a little earlier today. On the situation facing many. The white house says the president has issued a disaster declaration for several counties in North Carolina, allowing federal monies to be available to the storm victims. Lets bring in russell honoree. He ran the response to Hurricane Katrina between the department of defense and fema. Welcome back to the broadcast. Im curious as we look at all these images of this terrible flooding out there. Knowing theres even more rain on the way. The National Hurricane center is saying it could lead to catastrophic flooding. How significant is this to you . Are you envisioning a scenario that we could be talking about in the i dont want to sound alarming, but the worst part of this storm may be yet to come because of the rainfall. Because all that rain where its stalling now is going to go into valleys. People live in those valleys. And rivers will overflow. So the worst part may be yet to come in terms of flooded homes. And the challenge now for leaders, the governors and the staff and the National Guard and the Weather Service and fema, with the search and rescue team and the volunteers like the cajun navy and army north with general buchanan along with the National Guard, is to figure out where its going to flood in the next six, 12, to 18 hours. Because the models will show which rivers and how high theyre going to get. Now we need to evacuate those people who have been doing good up to this point, but theyre going to be the flooding increase from the runoff will be something that probably nobody in this generation has seen, that will far exceed what matthew did. Thats what leaders need to be doing now, is sorting out what town is going to flood next and get the people out before the flooding starts, and make sure we knock on every door. We need to probably do a level one search, which is knock on every door, get people out, let me em know that theres going to be a flood and get them out now. Were showing video of people going door to door. Im curious, sir, as we come up on the anniversary of Hurricane Maria, how does the government mitigate all the obstacles it came across in response to the devastation there in puerto rico . Well, i think the government has maneuvered on this storm. The difference when maria came, fema was already overcommitted with harvey and irma. Lets face the facts. It wasnt designed to handle three category 4 storms in one year. We hadnt envisioned that. We crossed the line, we set a new normal. But what were doing for this storm, we should have done for maria, which is to maneuver on the storm. The army north Headquarters Commander is already in the area of operations, meaning north to south carolina. We got ships waiting to come ashore. The storm has a vote. The storm wont break as much, depending on the category, when it comes in. Its indiscriminate, it will take the power grid down. We should have in retrospect, and were still dealing with this storm, had we postured ourselves with the type of assets we have now ready to go in, weve got an expeditionary military. Its built to go overseas and fight wars. We could have done the same for maria. That being said, those lessons have been learned, and theyre moving on this storm. Lessons learned indeed. Retired Lieutenant General russell honore, thank you, general. President trump is tweeting his praise for fema, First Responders, and law enforcement. Moments later, doubling down on his denial of the death toll after Hurricane Maria last year in puerto rico, saying the toll went up to 3,000 like magic and in all caps, no way. Lets bring in want director of progressive programming for sirius xm, also the senior fellow at the National Taxpayers union, and the former coalitions director for the House Republican conference. What do you think the president insists on pushing this false narrative about the death toll from puerto rico . Frankly, what happened in puerto rico is an absolutely unacceptable tragedy and the president should have no problem saying so. This is an example where a little political recall would serve the president well. One of the last things president obama signed into law in conjunction with a Republican Congress was the bill that took puerto ricos finances under control of the federal premises and attempted to right what was a sinking ship for quite some time. This is a bipartisan history of things that have gone wrong in puerto rico. What we should be doing now is looking at how we can prevent future problems there. There are a series of issues that have to do with the islands finances as well as their infrastructure that clearly are in disrepair and we have so far had no answers for making sure that Something Like this doesnt happen again. I know you want to weigh in on these competing messages. What do you make of everything . Its a hard thing to wake up as a citizen of this country and to be reminded that the president may not care about your life, he dogs not care about the folks that are not in his hard right wing base. And thats what these tweets represent. The president s focus is always how the news impacts him personally and not necessarily the wellbeing and the safety of the citizens which he is sworn to protect. And these tweets are some of the most vile tweets hes ever tweeted. I think actually these may be the worst things hes ever tweeted, the denial that lives were actually lost, regardless of the exact number, theres far too many deaths in puerto rico. And all he did was go there and throw paper towels at people. Oh, we remember that. People are very upset about just the callous nature. He is denying really, people lost family members. Absolutely. So maddie, with the respect, and Speaker Paul Ryan stood with the president on all this, so what kind of a problem does this present for the republicans overall . Frankly, going into november there are a lot of competing narratives here. I think the president tweeting about maria will be lost in a slew of new tweets over the next six weeks. But i think that republicans have a respondsibility here to set the record straight on puerto rico, which is that there are issues that need to be fixed in order for the territory and the americans living there to have the safety and security that all americans have. That should be a nonpartisan goal of anyone in congress now. How much will this play into the midterms, zerlina . It will, because if democrats take back one of the chambers, there should be investigations into the failures of the federal expense. I agree with mattie, making sure this any happens again, because its completely unacceptable and the president is demonstrating that he has no empathy every time he reminds us that he doesnt think 3,000 people died in puerto rico under his watch. Ill tell you, like minded from both sides of the aisle on this broadcast, well make a note of that. Good to see you, thank you, ladies. The ending to a story Nbcs Joe Fryer told us about at the top of this hour. 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