In the middle of a tragic loss. Look at these people in a shelter. The president was in missouri, as you know, and this is what he said today. I have seen the resilience of the american spirit firsthand all over this country. To the people of houston and across texas and louisiana, were here with you today. Were with you tomorrow and we will be with you every single day after to restore, recover and rebuild. Martha some of the most red stories online today are still about the first ladys shoes. Or what a desire to see the right photo open hug and sensible shoes trumps, shall we say, their concern for the actual story of how effective the response is or is not for the people of texas. I dont think he understands human scale of misery. I dont think he can connect with the compassion that you normally have when you see a disaster like this. Very little in terms of empathy of this president or talking to the people of texas. Today President Trump visited texas but he forgot empathy with him. But he did bring a hat. When he greeted the crowd, it was felt perhaps more like a rally. I did not hear him speak about the victims of this flood. Is there something missing here . Martha theres this picture sprawled across a piece of wood from a texan summing up what we just heard, that they blame trump this man wrote. And then this cartoon from politco that goes so far to mock texans. They sent a statement when they heard we would be looking at this cartoon and hearing from karl rove about his thoughts. Thats coming up as well. First, carl bigby. Hes here from national and Community Service on agencies providing support throughout texas and louisiana. I have to ask you first of all, what goes through your mind given what you are shoe focused on when you see these responses against the improper amount of empathy and theyre not sure if the hug was right or if the shoes were right . Its amazing. It shoes the medias true colors here. President trump authorized unprecedented funding and resources out the gate. You think he doesnt have empathy for this . President trump sent 63,000 families immediate aid through fema. Right now we have 100 plus military aircraft down there, 1,000 americorps members. What else do you want . People down here including americorps, the National Guard. Were there to save lives and get people out of their flooded hopes. President trump is holy invested in this operation and its disgusting to see media politicizing this because they dont like the president. So in the end, its going to be judged based on or should be based on how efficient all the programs that you just talked about turn out to be. Whether or not the government and the capacity that is capable and this is an enormous task being undertaken here. Its not going to be perfect. How well you do the job in the end. How confident are you the systems in place are not going to produce theyll produce good stories coming out of this day after day after day as the president said theyll be there for . This is my second week on the job. So it was a nice warm welcome. The team at americorps that i have is phenomenal. We have been in and out of this. Talk about people from all walks of life in this organization. Nobody has mentioned that. The focus is on the mission. Fema has done a phenomenal job. The president gave Carte Blanche to state and local officials with Governor Abbott saying what do we need, what can we provide. He made it happen like this. This unprecedented. Katrina, sandy. The president has authorized things at an unprecedented rate. I hope the media realizes that. Martha you served your country. What to you think when theres this measure put out there in terms of what empathy looks like and how everyone understands it and what we expect from president s . We all remember bill clinton would bite his lower lip and i feel your pain. George w. Bush was often brought to tears. Thats the man that he is. Hes an outwardly emotional person. You know President Trump. Maybe he isnt wired for that sort of emotion but he likes to get stuff done. He absolutely does like to get stuff done. Thats what he ran on and what hes doing right now. President trump instead of sitting down and feeling sorry for himself or feeling anything like that, hes turned that energy to productivity. He goes down there and holds up a microphone and the texas flag and projects strength. A lot of people find solitude in that. These people have literally lost everything. When you see the president of the United States come down to where you are, wave a texas flag and say we got your back, it means a lot to the american people. Americorps, fema, were down there doing this work and were going to be there for five years. Martha im sure they thank you for that. Carl, good luck with the work ahead of you. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Martha so Hurricane Harvey hammering eastern texas now. The city of beaumont is now a watery wasteland. Flash floods are ravaging the area as we people. People came to this shelter to get dry and they had to be moved again because they were flooded out. Steve harrigan joins us live from koonce, texas where the situation is just as dire. Good evening to you. Martha, a steady rain here. Weve been watching volunteers pulling people out of subdivisions all day. For the people that want to stay in their house, people are also ferrying out supplies to them. Kelly, tell me what youve been bringing people today. Today i brought supplies to people in dallas. They had canned food, bread, medicine. They were trying to get it to their families. You cant reach your family but youre here helping other people . Yes. I have family in the orange area. We cant help them down 69 or 96 because the road is blocked off because of the floodening. Martha, the roads have isolate saad many people. They cant get to their family to help, but theyre helping who they can here. When you get 49 inches of rain here in the past five days, it completely isolated certain towns. This town, sour lake, 16 miles down the road, 10,000 people, no one has reached it yet. We saw boats set out there to find a way there. This water actually gets to be about seven, eight feet deep when you go a few more feet out. Right now, its volunteers saving people. Back to you. Martha thanks to them as well and for talking to you tonight. Flying over texas today with the Air National Guard as they conduct rescues. Trace gallagher has more. Hi, trace. Hi, martha. Were above the neighborhoods in houston. You can see how much the water has receded in houston. Its amazing how its going down. We have flown from here to beaumont, to port arthur. Its just devastating. The water goes all the way. Were talking about 60, 70 miles. And now you get back to houston. The devastation and the water rise that we saw just yesterday has done down dramatically. There was a golf course over there. It was covered in water yesterday. We had weve been in the helicopter the past 3 1 2 hours and we saw an amazing rescue of a family. Watch this. Theyre leaning over the edge over there. Im not sure how close we can get. We dont want to get in their way because theyre busy. They dropped the basket down. Theyre clearly looking for somebody. And then as soon as that person gets in, they will hoist the person up. As a rule, the people taken up in the basket are fairly immobile. Here we go. This is the first rescue victim. This is a child. And her mom. Right . Over and over again, can you imagine . Being a child like this, breaks your heart. You know . 9 or 10 years old. She should be in school today. School started monday. She should be in school today. Instead, shes hoisted up in a blackhawk helicopter basket with her mom because their lives were clearly at risk. Gives you an idea what were dealing with here. Shes crying. Her mom is crying. I know our signal is in and out here. I know were going to talk back to you. But i wanted to show you this before we finished up. We make our way back over houston. Wow, i mean, the water has gone down here. Its rising in beaumont. The encore that this storm provided today was absolutely stunning to so many people. Amazing. Trace, you have given us a front row scene for the rescue that happened. It breaks your heart. Look at the faces of the mom and her child. Imagine how terrified they must have been, being lifted up through the air into a helicopter. But thank goodness for the steady hand of the people organizing the rescue. Its incredible. Trace was in and out there. We want to stick with him. Hes giving us great coverage. The next guest is on the front lines of Hurricane Harvey as well. Fort bend county sheriff troy nails has been in the water for five days conducting rescues, nonstop evacuations southwest of houston. Hes contributed to the more than 5,000 rescues, 1,000 a day, since this started in that area so far. Joining me now by phone the man you see here, sheriff nails. Good to have you here tonight, sheriff. Good evening. Martha how are you holding up . Were doing fine. You know, everything the last several days, of course, very hectic, very stressful for anyone that would call Fort Bend County home. Today was the report of our First Casualty as a result of the flooding. We had two individuals, a husband and wife, drown today. They drove their vehicle through high water and the high water swept their vehicle into the ditch line and then overturned. Of course, they died. Just a sad story. Martha awful. Seems that so often thats the case when people try to get into their car and go somewhere. What are you telling people that you havent been able to reach yet . We just talked to steve harrigan. Hes talking about a mile 16 miles down the road that nobody has gotten to yet. What do you want them to know tonight . Several thousand people, thousands upon thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes. The volunteers down here bringing in boats, air boats from around the state, actually from around the country, has just been a remarkable effort on behalf of everyone around this country to get people out of their homes, to safety. And then what did we see yesterday . Something wonderful. We saw some sunlight. And the sun was shining yesterday. And today. So theres people feeling that. Its over. The worst is not yet to come. The brazos river continues martha thank you. I hear what youre saying about the rising brazos river. Thanks for all youre doing. The country is astounded by your bravery. We want to go to the mayor, this is getting underway. Mayor turner houston with a live News Conference. Theres a number of people that have already stepped up and i cannot be so pleased for the fact that our Corporate Leaders are really stepping up in a major, major way. Not only in terms of their financial contributions but in terms of supplies and clothes, baby formula, you name it that many of the people in our shelters need. Many of those things, all of those things that i talked about have been provided by walmart. I cannot thank walmart enough for their generous contribution to people in their moments of need. Theyre one of several corporations. Dan barkley is here today as executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs at walmart along with several people who are with him, flew in this afternoon to look at take a look at what is happening at george r. Brown, the shelter. They already provided a number of items that people needed. And to add to what they have already given, dan also came on behalf of walmart to make a contribution to the relief fund of 2 million. So i really want to thank them for their generous contribution to the relief fund. Its certainly is going to be needed as we move forward. Thats just one part of their give. The remaining portion is contributing another 18 million, a 9 million match where people go and purchase and up to 9 million they will match it by another nine. So the total gift theyre giving to the texas gulf coast region, people factored in 20 million. Two of the 20 million for specifically targeted for houston and harris county. Im appreciative of their generosity. Also demonstrates the spirit that we have of corporations in the private sector in our community. Dan, thank you on behalf of the city of houston. [applause]. Thank you, mayor a real privilege for us to stand here shoulder to shoulder with the people of texas. We are texans ourselves. Weve been in these communities for many, many years and we hurt when our fellow texans hurt. As the mayor said, weve been here with supplies, associated. Over 11,000 of our own associates that have been impacted by the storms. Theyre working hard to get the stores back open so they can serve the customers and make sure they have the goods they need. Our Truck Drivers have braved the bad weather. They made over 1,000 truckloads of supplies. A lot of that is water and other staple stocks that is needed particularly at the shelters. Todays announcement to say were going to step up even more. 20 million commitment as the mayor said, 2 million going here and also in a way in which our own customers as they want to support efforts, well match every dollar with a double of that match up to 10 million. Many of those dollars will go to these sheltering operations to make sure not only that they have the personal hygiene goods and other things like water, but if theres things that we can do for families with kids, make sure they have board games, video games to bring some sort of normalcy to a period of hectic drama and strife is just a little bit more that we can do as a company to say were here to help. So we understand that the days and hours and weeks and months to come will be difficult. This is going to be a long process and were here to say that walmart will be there every step of the way. Thank you. Thank you, dan. Thank you for the corporation, walmart, the contributions. Walmart will join Companies LikeWaste Management that have given a pledge to give 1. 5 million with the same relief fund, nrg making a contribution as well and a number of others. Government sectors cant do it alone. We need the support of the private sector and we have some very generous companies. Thats when anybody says woe is houston. Dont feel sorry for us. The sun came out yesterday. Martha were going to keep a close eye on that. A lot of companies are generous and doing that kind of work for these areas. Thats a good thing. Keep a close eye on that. Last night they told us about the curfews. Theyre still in effect and keeping guard around the convention center. As the days go on, tensions rise. Thats a big concern. Well keep an eye on the News Conference and if anything more comes out of that. News tonight that President Trump is ready to ask congress for cash for harvey relief. Keep in mind, we have new fox polls tonight. Fox has a congress has a 15 approval rating. Ours are higher than that. According to the new poll. So theyre not doing so well. In 2012 when super storm sandy hit the northeast, some members of the texas delegation voted against the federal relief bill. Earlier, new Jersey Governor Chris Christie reminded folks of that and urged representatives to put that divisiveness behind them. He didnt let his fellow republicans that went against his relief bill off the hook. Watch. They were playing politics with it. They were getting ready to do what they wanted to do for 2016 and make themselves like the most conservative person. Im urging members of congress of new jersey, dont hold a grudge. Kevin bring did is from the house and ways committee. He represents folks in houston. Our hearts go out to your district and all of the people that you know that are affected by all of this. We want to thank you for taking the time to be here tonight. We know you have a lot on your plate. In terms of the relief effort that will come from congress, what do you make of the criticism of what happened the last round . Yeah, lets start about the immediate needs. We have two big challenges right now, this is an extra innings disaster. So in southeast texas, this is an area that just got hammered with hurricane ike and rita. They have never seen even in those the flooding that they have today. So were still seeing evacuations, the flash flooding, the rescues over there. In our communities, we were plucking people from rooftops yesterday. Today the water is receding. Our focus is helping people in shelters, how to assessor that damage and what to do to take care of them. Our focus continues to be on that. Martha no doubt. When you do return to washington or when this bill comes up, i would imagine that youre going to be a strong passionate voice for wanting that money to go to texas. I just have to ask you, last time we talked about sandy there were a number of conservatives, yourself included felt there should be an offset in the budget for that money. Is that something that you want the pursue . Yeah, look, lets review that. I voted for sandy funding. I didnt for the sandy plus poor funding. I want to make this point about governor christie. If he has a beef with this, fine. Theres a time and place for this. I noticed while he was on the airwaves trying to extort some petty political payback, what i noticed at the very same moments we had Law Enforcement officer trapped and dying in his car, a family van with six kids and family members swept to their death and an 89yearold gran mother that we lost forever. While Emergency Responder were working day and night to save people, in my view, theres a time and place for that debate that governor christie wants. This isnt it. When Hurricane Sandy was hitting new jersey and our east coast, we were pulling for and praying for them. So i think theres a time and a place for all of this debate. But i frankly think that governor christie owes an apology to Emergency Responders out there busting their tail and volunteers doing the same to save peoples lives while he was on the airwaves trying to score cheap political points. Martha very strong point. Welltaken. Congressman brady, as you say, theres subjects for another day. I know youre passionate about tax reform and the president spoke about it. Hope you come back when youre focused and have the luxury of turning to other things. Obviously you have a strong focus right now. This was a good day, too. I appreciate the president s support