You for your time. Appreciate it. That is all in on this tuesday night. Good evening, alex. What is happening in springfield, what is going on in ohio? how can the senate race be so close, but here we are. We showed you those numbers. His ability to outperform the top of the ticket in that state is one of the most remarkable anywhere in the country. Political tenacity is sherrod brown's middle name. Thank you, my friend. More than 5. 5 million people are under voluntary or mandatory evacuation orders in florida tonight as the state braces for the impact of hurricane milton. Polls were waived and highway shoulders were opened to try to ease clogging as florida residents took to the roads to get out of the storm's way. Hurricane milton is expected to make landfall late tomorrow night or early thursday morning and while anything could change in the next 24 hours, milton is expected to drive straight through central florida. The first direct strike by a hurricane in areas like tampa in more than a century. The mayor of tampa issued this stark warning. If you choose to stay in one of these evacuation areas, you are going to die. Now even in less extreme circumstances, preparing for a natural disaster is always a challenge. The government has to coordinate between state and local and federal agencies. Those agencies not only have to prepare for the physical impact of the disaster, they have to effectively communicate to the media and the public how they should prepare and respond. Coordinating all of that is a really, really challenging task and now thanks to donald trump that task has gotten even harder. We are barely a week past the destruction that hurricane helene brought to six states across the country, destroying thousands of homes and killing at least 223 people and already donald trump is lying about it. Here is how trump's narrative about hurricane helene and the federal response to the hurricane compares to what republican leaders in those impacted states, to what they are saying. This is the worst response to a storm or a catastrophe or a hurricane that we have ever seen, ever. Reporter: as of today what has been the ongoing federal assistance days it has been superb. They haven't seen anyone from the federal government yet. The federal government isn't there. I am incredibly appreciative of the rapid response and cooperation from the federal team at fema. I've lived in north carolina for almost 30 years. I have seen a lot of storms come through this state. I am actually impressed with how much attention was paid to a region that was not likely to have experienced the impact that they did. The white house is doing nothing. They have abandoned us. The president just called me yesterday afternoon. I missed him and called him right back and he just said, what do you need? i told him, we've got what we need. We will work through the federal process. He offered if there are other things we need, just call, which i appreciate that. Those are all republicans. The truth of the matter is that as of today nearly 7000 federal personnel have been deployed to respond to hurricane helene. Fema has shift shipped 16 million meals, 14 million liters of water, 200 generators and thousands of tarps. The federal government has spent more than $286 million to help people impacted by helene, but of course you are not going to hear about any of that from the republican nominee for president, the man who may one day oversee that same federal agency. Instead, trump is lying about fema withholding disaster aid in republican areas and lying that fema doesn't have the money to respond to this disaster because the agency diverted funding to the border. Something, by the way, that fema under president biden did not do, but that trump actually did when he was in office and those lies are not just bad because they are lies coming from someone running for president. They are bad because those lies are having a real impact on the actual recovery efforts. Swirling vortex of disinformation is beginning to affect people on the ground. I had an officer come up to me and say why are they saying we are not doing anything? in fact this is demoralizing to all of the people who are working so hard. Those first responders that went into people's homes and pulled them out of windows. Swirling waters. People working around the clock to get oxygen bottles and insulin to people in the remote, rugged areas of the mountains and you are also making some people weary of applying for aid and relief because you have these crazy stories about fema coming in and taking people's land and stopping donations from coming in and it is very frustrating when you are on the ground working hard. With multiple states still reeling from the destruction of hurricane helene and the state bracing for the impact of hurricane milton, trump's misinformation isn't just a responsible, it is dangerous. Today on the view vice president harris was asked what she makes of trump's lying. Here was her response. It is the height of irresponsibility and frankly callousness. So, lives are literally at stake. The idea that somebody would play political games for the sake of himself, but this is so consistent about donald trump. He puts himself before the needs of others. I fear that he lacks empathy on a basic level to care about the suffering of other people and then understand the role of a leader is not to beat people down, it is to lift people up, especially at a time of crisis. Trump has a history of playing political games with disasters. You don't have to take my word on that. Here are two former trump administration staffers and a new kamala harris campaign ad talking about how trump handled disaster relief when he was in office. I worked in the trump administration. Never in 1 million years that i think i would be working in a white house with a president who did not care about the american people. He would suggest not giving disaster relief to states that had not voted for him. I remember after a wildfire in california he would not send relief because it was a democratic state, so we went as far as looking up how many votes he got in the impacted areas to show him, these are people who voted for you. This is not normal. The job of the president is to protect americans, regardless of politics. If trump is elected again there will be no one to stop his instincts. Unchecked power, no guardrails. Safety and security of every american first, whether they voted for her or not. Joining me now is one of the people in that ad, olivia troy. She served as a homeland security counterterrorism advisor to mike pence during the trump administration. She has since endorsed kamala harris for president. Your perspective is so essential as we try to sort through what a second trump administration might be like. I know in the ad you say at one point that you believe that trump, or you realize that he did not care about the american people. Would you talk to me about that realization and how it dovetails with what we are seeing right now in and around disaster aid? sure. I think what was disturbing to me and many others in the national security community who are living this firsthand was moments of true crisis happening throughout the trump administration were basically disregarded at times, for putting aside the greater good of the american people because donald trump was playing partisan politics in situations where normally we would be united as a country and supporting americans in need and what we saw was donald trump at times would have major disaster declarations on his desk for days and we would have to strategize how we would try that out of him to get relief to communities. I point this out specifically because i think people need to understand that the president is solely responsible for approving those disaster declarations. The governor can request them and it goes through a whole process and makes its way through the process up, but ultimately it is the president who signs off. There were numerous times i got phone calls from the head of fema, the head of dhs. Asking, where is that relief? where is that disaster declaration? when is he going to sign it? at times i would go to mike pence and say we need help. I'm getting phone calls on this. We've got to do something. This seems even more cruel than what the public has witnessed so far. It was never excusable that trump was deciding what states got disaster aid based on whether they were red or blue are the counties were red or blue, but now you are seeing today the former president basically hampering recovery efforts in parts of the country that did vote for him just because it does not suit his political agenda. I wonder sort of what you think about this brazen calculation to throw people into harm's way, to basically undermine the assistance of fema in the name of a talking point that he wants to weaponize against kamala harris, which again is not based in reality? it is about him. It is political power for him and it hurts everyone else around him. It is so selfish and reckless and he knows better. He is fully aware of the things that happen in the aftermath, because words matter especially when you are a person running for the presidency once again and you once were the president of the united states. Our government institutions, something donald trump has a long habit of doing. Whether it is the military undermining them or the intelligence community. He undermined the public health community during the covid pandemic. I was a firsthand witness to that when i was sitting in the task force meetings and he was parading doctors from the press room in the white house. But to do this right now is so dangerous, right? because americans are scared. They are in the pathway of another potential storm that is about to hit them and you have donald trump who is showing complete and utter recklessness as a leader and he could be doing the opposite. He could be uniting us in standing strong together in these communities, but he is not and i think it is important to watch his actions because he has a history of doing this. For those of us like myself who saw him doing it in the white house. Now he is doubling down and creating fear and undermining the disaster relief response. It is leading to confusion and that is the last thing that fema and these emergency management responders on the ground need. They don't need that doubt. You know you are doing something wrong when the republican governors of the affected states are saying effectively that's not true, what that guy is saying in terms of fema assistance. I do wonder how you think the climate of disinformation maybe even more, shall we say poisonous this time around because you have someone like elon musk, the world's richest man who owns twitter, now x, helping spread this disinformation. That is a new factor, and x factor if you will and all of this and i wonder about your level of concern given that information on the internet, it is the wild west, but then you have someone who controls some of the levers of power in that atmosphere like elon musk, walking in lockstep with donald trump as they walk the parade of lies, to be heavyhanded with the metaphor. It is completely responsible because he has a large platform and millions of followers and millions of people are seeing what he is sharing, tweeting out and reposting and it is dangerous. Again it is undermining the response happening on the ground. Undermining the leaders and communities. They are suffering so much in this crisis. Look, i've been on the ground with fema. I was there for the hurricane katrina response. I have been sidebyside with these people. It was tremendously challenging on the ground, but also extremely rewarding to see this agency and these people that come together, all of these ngos that come together in the trenches sidebyside in a very nonpartisan way. That does not even cross their mind. Now we have social media working against them where people get mixed information. Fema is already in the hot seat having to do their jobs and what are they doing? they have to put up videos and post on social media to refute some of these conspiracy theories and things that are false information. Now they are spending energy on that and it goes to show the increasingly challenging environment we are facing in terms of social media and especially with people like elon musk who apparently are just as selfish as donald trump is and they don't care about the wellbeing of americans as long as it gives them a boost and gives them an in with donald trump. I think it goes to show the irresponsibility of these leaders and i would say the friendships and the ties that they have when they are so reckless and they don't care about the greater good of the country. The fact that fema has today the kate space on a landing page to rebut misinformation spread by a person trying to run the agency is a level of irony and sickness that i cannot begin to contemplate. Olivia troy, thank you for your time. It is great to have you on the show. Think you, alex. We have a lot more to get to tonight. I will sit down to discuss the war in the middle east and how it figures into his new book, the message. And what does that tell us about her strategy and campaign less than a month before the election? dan pfeiffer and tim miller join me on that, next. With wegovy®, i lost 35 pounds. And some lost over 46 pounds. ♪ ♪ and i'm keeping the weight off. Wegovy® helps you lose weight and keep it off. I'm reducing my risk. 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San francisco's leadership is failing us. That's why mark farrell is endorsing prop d. Because we need to tackle our drug and homelessness crisis just like mark did as our interim mayor. Mark farrell endorsing prop d, to bring the changes we need for the city we love. San francisco's leadership is failing us. That's why mark farrell is endorsing prop d. Because we need to tackle our drug and homelessness crisis just like mark did as our interim mayor. Mark farrell endorsing prop d, to bring the changes we need for the city we love. I saw the governor of arkansas said my kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, kamala harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble. How did that make you feel? i don't think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who, one, are not aspiring to be humble. This is not the 1950s anymore. Families come in all kinds of shapes and forms. That was vice president kamala harris in the middle of a weeklong press blitz speaking about ambitious women on the call her daddy podcast. The podcast with the biggest listenership on spotify among women, maybe even ambitious women. Last week harris appeared on the podcast, all the smoke, hosted by two former nba stars where she talked about legalizing marijuana and black men's mental health. On the view harris proposed expanding medicare to cover home care for seniors, an issue that disproportionately affects women raising children, the so called sandwich generation. Harris then went on the howard stern show where she attacked donald trump on everything from canceling his 60 minutes interview to sending covid tests to vladimir putin and then the vice president wrapped up the day on the late show where she drank a miller high life with stephen colbert. Remember when donald trump used to criticize kamala harris for not doing media? joining me now are dan pfeiffer, former white house senior advisor to president obama and tim miller, writer at large at the bulwark and host of the bulwark podcast. Dan, a little birdie told me you are the mad genius behind president obama's appearance on the zach galifianakis show, between two ferns. Independent of zach galifianakis being one of my favorite comedians, it also appeared there was strategic utility to having him go on and i wonder if you can explain the theory of the case of putting these candidates or in his case sitting presidents in all media situations and who the intended audience is. I can't take full credit. I did have to brief president obama for that, which was a very interesting experience. We did that because at the exact time we were trying to get people to sign up for the affordable care act. The group of people who were most reticent to sign up, the most may be delayed in doing so, pushing it to the deadline as they often are, were young men. This was an audience, between two ferns had an audience largely of young men in that event. That interview that went viral. It increased traffic by 40% on that day and led to a lot of people getting healthcare. What we were doing back then and what kamala harris is doing now is going to where the voters are. The environment is much different now and it is much harder to reach people who are not somehow political junkies who listen to podcasts or watch cable news all the time. They are watching and listening to podcasts. Watching stephen colbert and listening to howard stern. You going to meet them where they are. It is not about dodging the traditional press or anything like that. It is about actually speaking to voters, which you can't do and a lot of the old ways of communication. Tim, i wonder what you think about that. Listen, i think it is great to drink miller high life. I enjoy beer myself and doing it with stephen colbert seems like a super fun time, but there is a question of having a robust back and forth to be challenged to articulate your views that you are not going to get with alex cooper, much respect to the call her daddy podcast. I wonder if that is a larger problem for american politics or is this win at any costs? if you have to do 1 million appearances, so be it. Yes to both. It is a problem for american politics. Also it is an imperative that kamala harris wins this election and she should do whatever is necessary within the norms and laws and her integrity to win this election and everything they have done has been in line with that. I think it is great that dan was ahead of the curve