That. The reidout with joy reid starts now. Tonight on the reidout the actions that have unfolded over the last ten months, the leaks, the commentary, the demonizing, this did not surprise us that we reached this day. These judges are rigged. The whole thing is rigged. What's happening here is weaponization at a level that nobody has seen before ever. A tale of two new yorkers. Both facing criminal indictments. Both with a similar style. Maybe the democrat adams could be a republican presidential nominee some day. Because he certainly meets the maga ethical standards. Also tonight, vice president kamala harris on the world stage today, meeting with the ukrainian president as donald trump was selling, you know, watches. Like the scam guy on the street who sells fake guccis. Plus, the politics of hate, with republican congressman clay higgins making vile, racist comments about haitians and mini soldier mark robinson, aka black nazi, reported to have made an extremely disturbing comment about reverend al sharpton. Reverend al is here to respond. But we begin tonight with hurricane helene barreling its way toward florida at this hour. An extremely dangerous category4 hurricane, it's expected to make landfall along florida's big bend coast with winds up to 130 miles per hour. Storm surge along that coast could reach up to 20 feet, which the national weather service is calling unsurvivable. Helene has already brought punishing rain and flooding across florida, and the state capital, tallahassee, is bracing for what officials are calling a nightmare scenario. Nearly all of florida's 67 counties are under a state of emergency. And 19 counties along florida's gulf coast are under some kind of mandatory evacuation order. Helene is an enormous storm, one of the largest to hit the southeast in years. In addition to florida, the governors of georgia, the carolinas, and virginia have all declared emergencies in their states. Tonight, president biden urged residents to listen to local officials with warnings. Take this seriously. From the bottom of my heart, please, take it seriously. The tendency is to say i can do this, but you can't. 20foot storm surge, you can't. Joining me from tallahassee, florida, is nbc news correspondent kathy park. Let's start with whether or not people in tallahassee are heeding the president's warnings. What share of people have evacuated and are there people still left in town? reporter: joy, good evening to you. Well, i can tell you it appears based on some of the conversations we have had earlier this week that people have heeded those warnings and decided to leave the area altogether, and those who decided to stay, they have decided to actually book some of the hotels in the area where the structure is a bit more sturdy. I want to give you an update on where the conditions stand right now. We're starting to feel the outer bands of hurricane helene. You can probably see the rain coming down right now. Here in tallahassee, 55% of the city is under tree canopy, so the big concern is what could potentially happen when you have hurricane force winds over this area for an extended period of time. Officials are concerned about downed trees pulling down power lines, and of course, prolonged power outages. Earlier today, we had a chance to speak with some residents who decided to leave their homes and seek refuge at emergency shelters and the consensus is people are nervous, they're very anxious about the storm. They have lived here for many years and weathered a lot of powerful storms but nothing of this scale. They are worried about the impact that this potentially category4 storm could have on the region. Tallahassee officials have said they have been preparing for days but really, we just don't know what mother nature will do ultimately, as this storm makes landfall. So they are leaning on mutual aid. We know that crews have come in literally from all across the country to help with recovery efforts come tomorrow. Nbc's kathy park, thank you so much, and please do stay safe down there in tallahassee. Let's bring in meteorologist angie lasman. Just give us sort of an understanding and a scale of what category 4 means. It means widespread destruction, unfortunately. Really, the difference is splitting hairs whether you have a strong category 3 or a weak category 4 or potentially a strong category 4 or 5. This is something we have been warning folks about for days and days now. With that latest update, the winds coming up to 130 miles per hour moving at a quick pace northeast at 23 miles per hour. You can see how massive this thing is. That's been one of the stories with this system over the past day or so. As it worked its way north into portions of the gulf of mexico. Those heaviest rain bands are working into the coastline, parts of tampa dealing with that. You heard kathy park explaining the rain that's starting to work into tallahassee. That eye, though, it's showing some signs of strengthening. We have seen it get a little tighter. We, of course, are keeping a close eye on exactly where this part of the system goes because that is the most dangerous. That's where the strongest winds are, where the most robust thunderstorms are. It's right now 35 miles wide and exactly where that lands and where it comes on shore is where the most wind damage is. And to the right of that system, where that eye is, that's where of course we see the strongest storm surge. Here's the timing. As we get into 10:00, closer to 11:00, maybe midnight, that's when we'll likely see landfall. Exactly where that will be, of course, the big bebd area likely being a category 4, that would make it the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the big bend area on record. That says something, of course. We have tallahassee, perry right in that region. Whether they're on the right side, the strong side of the storm, or the weaker side will make a big difference. That system of course will continue working up to the north and take a little time to weaken, dumping plenty of rain across that region. When it comes to the storm surge, we have warnings up. Cedar key, two feet, above the regular sea level there. This is going to expand. We're going to see these numbers sky rocket through the evening. We have not seen the worst of it when it comes to that. That goes for the wind speeds as well as the rain across parts of the appalachians up to 2 feet in some locations. When we talk about a 20foot storm surge, we're talking about a wall of water hitting parts of the state. Talk about sort of where we're talking about, how much damage we're talking about, how much water, how much flooding? to put it in perspective, if you think of 20 feet of storm surge, that's unsurvivable, not just the first level of your house, that's the second level of your house too. Kind of a geography and topography of this region is what is making it a worst case scenario. This is an area that probably is one of the worst spots in the world to see storm surge. We have a really shallow continental shelf. That means there's nowhere else for the water to go. On top of that, the high tide time is happening around 11:30. You have those high tides coming up, that's the natural cycles of the tide, and then on top of that, this big shove of water up against the coast, essentially water has nowhere to go. This means miles and miles inland is where you'll see that storm surge. Not the flooding from the rainfall, this is simply water with nowhere to go rushing in. We have seen the waves coming in in places like tampa. We know what kind of damage this does in places like ian and michael that dealt with this, we have seen the devastation before and unfortunately, that's what they're going to deal with. We're looking at pictures of people outside. I hope this is not somebody recent and they're not playing around out there. One last quick question. It's sort of an obvious question living in florida a long time. There's a lot of denialism about climate change. How does climate change and the warming of the waters, we have heard about really hot water around the florida coastline in the last couple years, how does climate change impact the strength of these hurricanes? simply put, it does impact it. I think it's hard to argue with things like this. Climate central, they're saying 200 to 500 times more likely the sea surface temperatures being this much warmer in the gulf of mexico because of humancaused climate change. And warmer water means more fuel, rapid intensification. I think at this point it's very hard to argue against it simply put, fossil fuels impacting this situation to say the least. Thank you so much. Nbc meteorologist angie lassman, thank you very much. Good mini education for those still unaware. Thank you so much. Shifting gears now in a big way to the northeast. And a huge political scandal. Now, i'm going to tell you for a moment a story of two new yorkers. One from brooklyn, one from queens. Both of whom are facing criminal indictments. Both are accused of taking cash from foreign governments, both are accused of enriching themselves while in office. One of them is the mayor of new york city, eric adams. The other is donald trump. Today, the fbi formally announced five criminal counts against adams including two counts of solicitation of contributions by a foreign nation as well as wire fraud and bribery. Mayor adams engaged in a long running conspiracy in which he solicited and knowingly accepted illegal campaign contributions from foreign donors and corporations. As we allege, mayor adams took these contributions even though he knew they were illegal. Now, it's an allegation that trump is facing as well about the possibility that he took a $10 million illegal cash contribution from egypt around his 2016 presidential campaign. Like trump, since adams took office in 2022, his administration has been caught in several federal investigations. And a statement late last night, adams even sounded like trump when he denied the allegations saying it was a result of him standing up for the people of new york. I always knew that if i stood my ground, all of you, that i would be a target. And a target i became. For months, leaks and rumors have been aimed at me in an attempt to undermine my credibility and paint me as guilty. Enough. I will fight these injustices with every ounce of my strength and my spirit. Given all the similarities one might wonder if you could imagine a world where adams decided to make a run for president as a republican, of course. Why not? he would meet all the standards as the current nominee, potential felon, potential bribe taker. In fact, according to the 57page indictment that very idea pops up as a motivating factor for one of the foreign nationals allegedly making an illegal contribution to the mayor's pocket who believed that adams might one day be the president of the united states. Adams will be arraigned tomorrow in a federal courtroom in the city he serves. Joining me now is catherine christian, former manhattan assistant district attorney and msnbc legal analyst, and the reverend al sharpton, president of the national action network and host of politics nation. Thank you for being here. Catherine, i want to go to you first. Something popped into my head as i was thinking through this and literally i'm talking and thinking at the same time. Could not the mayor appeal these allegations on the basis that the supreme court has said that a political figure can simply take a gratuity and if he characterized it as a gratuity that was paid for a thing after the briber wanted, there's nothing wrong with it? the supreme court said so. You're talking about the mcdonald case. I'm certain that the southern district attorney's office have made sure that this indictment conforms with that decision, that this alleged gift, gifts, were done in exchange for mayor adams and also the borough president doing official action on the behalf, like getting the fire department to approve even though the building didn't pass a fire inspection, to build the turkish consulate. So i'm pretty certain that the southern district would not have charged bribery if they did not believe they had proof beyond a reasonable doubt that conformed with the supreme court decision. Rev, i have to say, this behavior sounds a lot like the stuff trump would do. You know, put some money get some money here, get some money there, a little bribing, a little you know, using money to grease the wheels. Well, we are going to see at trial. I mean, clearly, there are many of us very concerned. Let me say this. I think mayor adams had done a job that many of us felt was effective that he didn't get credit for. Crime was down, city was moving forward. And now hit with this. And what we're concerned about is the standard. You know, he should not be judged by anything but the trial. He should not be removed. They didn't remove senator menendez. They let him perform. And what we're saying is it must be one set of rules. I do not believe damon williams is someone that is the enemy of the interests of people who brought the indictment. I do not feel that eric adams, who i have known for many years, is just a career criminal. And so i think that we need to let that play out. A lot of us talk about meeting this weekend to take a position, but we're clearly not calling on him to be removed, by what standard? we have seen other peopledited, they were not removed. And that would send a signal that maybe this is more political than it is dealing with the merits of the case which we have not determined one way or another in our review. We have our lawyers in national action network looking at that. Let's talk about it. Here's donald trump saying he thinks, he's asked whether he thinks mayor adams should resign. He makes it political. I don't know the mayor well, but he's been fairly generous to me in his statements for a while. I thought you had the worst mayor ever that we had prior to him. I will say this. I watched about a year ago when he talked about how the illegal migrants are hurting our city and the federal government should pay us and we shouldn't have to take them. I said, you know what, he'll be indicted within a year, and i was exactly right. Because that's what we have. We have people that use the justice department and the fbi at levels that have never been seen before. And catherine, that has already become a rightwing talking point. Maga folks are now claiming he's only being indicted bec