it an unsung success is beyond comprehension just from the perspective of 3,000 dying. presidents are judged by how they respond to natural disasters, they are, and how well they can harness the federal, state and local resour resources. could the president be inoculating himself from criticism by saying this is going to be tremendously wet, the worst ever, no, no, maria was a success? yeah. there s probably some of that. it s a hurricane, whatever donald trump says is going to be the best, the biggest. whatever hurricane coming in, it s going to be the biggest. it may well be in this case. him sort of casting back defending that record or just not really knowing potentially what happened in, you know, in puerto rico, i think that s also a possibility. the storm inside the white
of his administration s most successful times since he s been in office. of course, that storm devastated puerto rico, killed roughly 3,000 people, and left millions without power for months. the president raised eyebrows when he made comments like this the job that fema and law enforcement and everybody it working along with the governor in puerto rico, i think, was tremendous. i think that puerto rico was an incredible unsung success. reporter: in the same oval office meeting, president trump brought up the denials of his two former top staffers, his chief economic adviser gary cohn and staff secretary rob porter. both who played pivotal roles in bob woodward s tell-all book about the trump white house. president trump said he appreciated their denials. he thought that they were excellent and thought they showed that bob woodward s book is fiction, manage it pretty clear where rob porter and gary cohn issued those denials in the
first place. kaitlan collins at the white house. thanks. democratic senator jeff merkley of oregon claiming the trump administration is diverting hurricane are. money from fema to fund i.c.e. just as hurricane season is getting underway. merkley released a homeland security document on tuesday showing a transfer of $9.8 million. the document says the money is coming from the agency s travel, training, public engagement, and i.t. budgets, not disaster relief. senator merkley insists the white house is diverting money from response and recovery budgets to fund additional immigrant detention camps. he says any shift in funding will make it even more challenging for fema to respond to natural disasters. let s bring in politics digital director zach wolf live in washington. tremendous to have you on the show today. the statement about hurricane maria, almost one year after it hit puerto rico, unsung success. some say that s reminiscent of george w. bush saying this fema
tremendous. i think that puerto rico was an incredible, unsung success. texas, we have been given a pluses for. florida, we ve been given a pluses for. i think in a certain way the best job we did was puerto rico, but nobody would understand that. i mean, it s harder to understand. it was a very hard, very hard thing to do because of the fact they had no electric before the storms hit it was dead, as you probably know. so we ve gotten a lot of receptivity, a lot of thanks for the job we ve done in puerto rico. the unsung success, the president s talking about there, the death toll from hurricane maria was formally raised just this month to nearly 3,000 people. it took nearly a year for power to be fully restored to the island, a failure that helped contribute to hundreds of deaths in the aftermath of that storm. that s the record that donald trump is today celebrating. our president who today pumped his fists when arriving at a september 11th memorial event,
by now, you ll probably need to go to neighbor s house because this could be a long, long storm. thank you very much. president trump continues to insist the federal government is ready for this massive storm by way of example, he s touting his administration s response to hurricane maria in puerto rico last year. the job that fema and law enforcement and everybody did work along with the governor in puerto rico was tremendous. i think the puerto rico was an incredible, unsung success. texas, we have been given a pluses for. florida, we ve been given a pluses for. i think in a certain way the best job we did was puerto rico but nobody would understand that. it s estimated nearly 3,000 people died as a result of maria. it cause 90 billion dollar in damage and wiped out power for months.