our plans for tax reform. as you know, the president has traveled to missouri. he traveled to north dakota and senator heitkamp joined us for that visit. our aim is to make this bipartisan. we think it will make it a better bill. better for our country to include their ideas, but at the end of the day what s most important is we deliver tax relief for the american people. shannon: we continue to hear a lot of chatter behind the scenes about bipartisan conversations going on. mark short joining us live from the north lawn of the white house. bill: fox news alert from puerto rico. they are waking up without electricity across the island facing utter destruction after hurricane maria. landslides, flooding as that storm made its mark. today the category 3 hurricane expected to move through the
i think it impacts you more than the people you re helping. there are deferment of student loans and make it possible to get more volunteers out there. you get a big educational grant package he end of it. you get a living stipend while you re there. i ve seen these programs firsthand and traveled all over the country. these are people from all walks of life that have nothing in common prying to getting here and they re brothers by the end of their one year of service. shannon: you talked about getting into texas. how long do you think it will be before you have a presence that will be able to beef up in puerto rico? we have people in puerto rico as far as we know right now sheltered in place. we haven t heard much from them. there is no power and no phones. have limited contact with them. we wish them the best. i m sure they re not watching the right now because they don t have ability to but we do hope that we can get down there, provide them the resources because these people
devastation problem. but even there we re working very hard. but florida is doing really well. texas and florida we give an a plus. puerto rico was absolutely obliterated. they got hit with winds they say they ve never seen winds like this anywhere. got hit as a category 5 storm, which just literally never happens. so puerto rico is in very, very, very tough shape. their electrical grid is destroyed. it wasn t in good shape to start off with. their electrical grid is totally destroyed and so many other things. so we are starting the process now and we ll work with the governor and the people of puerto rico. puerto rico is a whole different category in many ways. but it is in fact, all you have to do is read or turn on the television and you will see a place that was practically leveled.
but it s in very, very very perilous shape. very sad what happened to on puerto rico. so that is just an update on the three primary virgin islands are i don t even have to say. just take a look at the picture. they are flattened. areas around there have been flattened. so these were storms that they haven t seen in many years. very sad actually to see it. but we will start the process. as we ve proven, we have incredible teams. fema has been beyond who would have thought after texas, they go to florida, and then they go to puerto rico and other places is, louisiana took a little bit of a hit and they recovered really well. they have done a fantastic job in louisiana. alabama took a hit, but they recovered. alabama has been fantastic. so many people went to alabama during the florida storm and likewise georgia.
the st. john s river is at the end of this street, and that is where all that water has been pouring in and will soon be pouring out. as i walk through the streets, you can tell all of the houses are pretty much evacuate and dark. but interesting enough, i see small fish swimming in the streets. and that is just a sign of the fact that all of this is water that came from somewhere else, and hopefully will go back to somewhere else in the near future, as you heard the mayor saying there. it could be several weeks before all of this is cleaned up, before all of the tide has been pushed out and these streets returned to normal. chris? all right, catie beck, thanks. msnbc weather contributor sam champion joins us live from miami. and sam, it s interesting talking to catie up there in jacksonville and you down in miami, which are two areas when you look at the path of the storm you don t think are going to get it the worst. but when you look at flooding implications. yeah. it does see