very good tuesday mornm jim and i m poppy harlow. right now hurricane fiona strengthening as it sets its sights on another batch of islands. but as it moves past puerto rico and the dominican republic, the damage is devastating. look at those images. in puerto rico two people are dead this morning after most of the power on the island is out. it could be days before it is restored. we re looking for gasoline, water, ice. all of the supplies necessary for getting through this. we were hoping it wouldn t be so big. but, well, it was bigger than we expected. and you have to make do with what you have. been through this before. rescuers have saved more than a thousand people from the floodwaters. as much as 30 inches of rain fell on the eiisland. that is like two and a half feet. they try to get to people in more hard to reach areas. this comes five years, to the day after hurricane maria made landfall on the u.s. island. many people who lived through that catastrophe fear
Beyond those who have been so outspoken to push back on that. Will we see other senators come out today and take a flake or corkerlike position on that . Well find out. But right now i doubt it. A standing ovation. I want to bring my panel in. Robert costa, National Political reporter for the Washington Post and bret stephens, an oped columnist for the New York Times and megan murphy, the editor of Bloomberg Business week. Brett, i want to start with you. One trump critic said the ice is beginning to crack. What were seeing with bob corker, with jeff flake, youre going to see more republicans follow suit. Do you think thats the case . Follow suit in denouncing the president . Yes. Or in renouncing their political ambitions. Fair point. This is the key thing. Theres a law in economics, greshams law, bad money drives out good. In a sense what we have is bad republican politicians driving out good ones who are just removing themselves literally
from circulation. There was this conceit amo
fell on the eiisland. that is like two and a half feet. they try to get to people in more hard to reach areas. this comes five years, to the day after hurricane maria made landfall on the u.s. island. many people who lived through that catastrophe fear the fallout and the aftermath from fiona could be worse. now turks and caicos, possibly next in the storm s path. the first major hurricane of the year expected to become a category 4 by tomorrow. let s bring in our cnn meteorologist chad myers, where is the we see where the storm is headed but what is it bringing? how bad. it went over grand turk. that is not grace bay, that is the next kind of set of islands over. but we do know there is already damage on south caicos and east caicos. i ve been watching videos out of the some resorts, so far so good, they re getting winds of 50 to 60. they could handle that. and the hurricane hunter finding wind speeds of about 103 to 115.
not accurate. congress did approve money for puerto rico. $42 billion. not $92 billion. the white house estimates puerto rico could get $90 billion if the years to come. but, again, another reminder facts matter. meantime dorian could be hurricane trng when it hits the island which is still in recovery mode from hurricanes maria and irma two years ago. now fema said it does have more resources in place ahead of the storm than it did in 2017. cnn s omar jimenez is on the southern end of the island and so given what puerto rico is been through and working to recover from, what are you finding? are folks ready? reporter: erica, they ve been through a lot and here we are almost two years after hurricane maria made landfall and it is very much on the minds of many people ahead of dorian s landfall as well. and we re waiting to see exactly how that hits. there are many people who still have not recovered. even from all of the time ago. and this is among those places. this is a home that
ever end. congress approved $92 billion for puerto rico last year. that s a little misleading, only $42 million were appropriated by congress. half of which was committed to and about 12 $1/2 billion has been spent. that s according to our own federal government s disaster relief website. two years since hurricane maria made landfall. in this town alone, this town of 160,000. their damages reached up to a billion dollars, and here we re all this time, places with tarps on their roofs. we ll stay in close contact with you and the folks in puerto rico. omar jimenez, thank you very much. the president of the united states blasts his predecessor and in the same breath praises