they have four shelters opening this morning at this hour here. they can hold about 4,000 people. but the evacuation order right now under way for zone a is about 40,000 people. so they re hoping that they will use those shelters as a last resort and go find family or friends on the east coast of florida or just get out of town. i spoke with the spokesperson for the emergency operations center here in punta gorda and he told me that their motto is hide from wind and run from water. he said a wall of water is not your friend. so you don t want to stick around here in punta gorda. certainly the north of here as you know, there is a lot of concern and the tampa area, the st. peterburg mayor certainly has been voicing his concern saying this could be the storm that they never hoped would come to their shores. and, of course, the director of the national hurricane center saying that this could be the storm of a lifetime and the near worst case scenario for tampa bay and that is be
think do you think it is going to hurt democrats during the midterms? i can t i guess it depends where you are. i can tell you when i speak to my friends and colleagues and my constituents back home, they call me and they say, joe, i can t make these payments for my student loan, what can i do? i said there is things you can do. if you re into the healthcare field, education, government services, i can show you how you can eliminate your debt by working it off. so that is a tremendous opportunity so you can walk away debt free. i think that s a better alternative than just wiping it off and forgiving it. and it leaves people stranded. i think there is a better way to do it and i would have done it differently. do you think democrats can hold the senate? here in six weeks? i think we have some tremendous candidates. every candidate we have is experienced or well rounded and balanced. so i think that s the advantage the democrats would have right now. i know that there is a mov
never had this opportunity to take a major step forward that we re all in sync with, permitting reforms need to be done for the united states to meet the energy challenges. so if you re for fossil fuel and clean fossil fuel which i am, and you have to build you have to build basically pipelines, transmission lines. if you re for clean, which i think most americans will like to do, more that they can in renewables, you got to have transmission lines to develop and to basically deliver because most of that is going to be producing. there is so much that needs to be done here to meet the challenges here for the 21st century. we re not going to go down this path again. we re not going to have this opportunity again when you have democrats, overwhelming majority of democrats are voting for it. they know the challenges. and they see the good that can be done. and this is a first time. and now for the republicans to balk about it, for politics or i don t know why, but i m hoping 15 or 20 co
movement, a moment in time, let s take advantage of it. do you think it is revenge for you supporting the democrat only inflation act? i heard that might be mitch s motive. i don t know. we haven t talked. i ve tried to, but we haven t spoken. but whatever it is, i understand. i ve been around a long time. he s been around a long time. and this too shall pass. but the basic hardship and the true tragedy of all this, if this passes, without us having any meaningful reforms, and stuck forward in m we re goin to decide what the energy pollrpollry policies are and now we have mitch mcconnell and whatever he s done with the republican colleagues, that s strange bed fellos and i m hoping that s not the case. these people have legitimate concerns and we re trying to answer all we can. it is a step forward, a movement in the right direction. and there is no perfect bill. there never has been a perfect