Morning, its thursday, august 18th im frances rivera. We begin with the blue cut wild fire that is continuing to burn out of control. It forced more than 82,000 people about 60 miles east of los angeles to evacuate. The fire ignited only Tuesday Morning and has ballooned in size to roughly 40 square miles. Its only about 4 contained. Almost 1,600 fire personnel are on hand battling the blaze. Veteran firefighters say they simply never seen anything like it. The fuels are extremely dry, very explosive this time of year. In my 40 years of fighting fire, ive never seen fire behavior so extreme as i did yesterday. Authorities say it has destroyed numerous buildings, although an exact number is currently unknown. And about 35,000 homes are in the line of fire. And the San Bernardino fire chief has a dire warning for those families when they return. In a word it was devastating. A lot of homes lost yesterday. There will be a lot of families that come home to nothing. Unfortunately the end doesnt appear in sight with very strong winds and historic drought feeding the flames. Beverly white is on the ground with more. Reporter were talking about the blue cut fire, the incident being responded to by multiple agencies here in Southern California. It continues to threaten Rural Communities like write food and feeland. Its still burning in the wilderness behind us. Its taken down numerous homes but they cant count them as of yet buzz active flame is standing in the way. Theyre also concerned for firefighters safety. These communities are fueled by propain tanks. A lot of the foes who lost home are gun owners and therefore the ammunition is popping off as the homes go down in wright wood, im beverly white. Really a tough situation, but there is this one moment of relief to share. Check out mike muller. Look at this endearing moment after a dog apparently ran from a burning structure and leaped right into his arms. It was a rare day on the calendar yesterday, donald trump went without speaking to the press or holding a rally. Along with receiving his first intelligence briefing, the republican nominee held a round table with advisers at trump tower to diskusds what Police Departments can do in fighting terror. The topic that drove 2016 was his decision to bolster his campaign. He added chief executive stephen bannon. In a campaign wide memo Paul Manafort said the change is made for a, quote, exciting day for team trump. Going on to clarify, i remain the Campaign Chairman and chief strategist, providing the big picture, long range campaign vision. He will bring a business like daytoday leadership approach to the ceo that is reflective of our leader mr. Trump. Kellyann will provide seen yore leadership on the road with the traveling campaign. Trump staff is embracing the shakeup and what they see as two actually on message teleprompter guided speeches in recent days. Jason miller told the Washington Post yesterday, if youre watching cable news shows, you could make the case this was the best morning for us in weeks. Yesterday conway said trump would keep the focus on clinton to win back republicans. Some of the voter attrition has been among republicans. Those republicans are saying, i didnt necessarily like the last couple weeks and i want you to know that. I like when you take on Hillary Clinton. There are two people you need to take on, Hillary Clinton most of the time, once in a while barack obama. Mainstream, lobbyists, elitist, go ahead. You look across the match and lobby at her. You dont pick a fight with the ref, you dont boo the crowd. Focus on her. We should probably also talk about her poor fundamental numbers. Hillary clinton has reversed gender gaps. Doing so poorly with men, almost everywhere they dont like her, they dont trust her and do not want her to be commander in chief and president of the United States. That gender gap never gets covered but very much in our sights. Hillary clinton and her team addressed Trumps Campaign shake upyesterday. Despite changes to the leadership, the nominee himself hasnt. I think its fair to say that donald trump has shown us who he is. He can hire and fire anybody he wants from his campaign. They can make him read new words from a teleprompter. But he is still the same man who insults gold star families, demeans women, mocks people with disabilities and thinks he knows more about isis than our generals. There is no new donald trump. This is it. After several failed attempts to pivot into a more serious and president ial mode, donald trump has decided to double down on his most small, nasty and divisive instincts by turning his campaign over to someone whos best known for running a socalled news site that peddles divisive, at times, racist, antimuslim, antisemitic conspiracy theories. And whats become clear from this is that no matter how much the establishment wants to clean donald trump up, get him on a teleprompter, and get him on message, he has officially won the fight to let trump be trump. Donald trump received his first intelligence briefing yesterday, but not before making headlines for something he said before going into the meeting. Do you trust intelligence . Not so much from the people that have been doing it for our country. Look whats happened over the past ten years . Look whats happened over the years . Its been catastrophic. In fact, i wont use some of the people that are your standard, just use them, use them, use them, very easy to use them. I wont use them because theyve made such bad decisions. Retired general Michael Flynn was at his side during the briefing. The nominee may be skeptical of the Intelligence Community, here is what flynn said. He got a good, solid set of presentations from some real professionals. I would tell you that one of the interesting things is people in the Intelligence Community know this, is that they present the intelligence. The policy decisions that a president makes sometimes can be in dramatic contrast to the intelligence they receive. That meeting lasted about two hours and governor Chris Christie leading trumps Transition Team also attended and that at a town hall taped in wisconsin earlier this week, trump discussed the civilian toll of his pledge to take out isis quickly with sean hannity. That will mean bombing on a very at a very high level. Every time that happens, you know what the media is going to do, theyre going to find the one area where there is collateral damage, which sadly happens in every war. Weve been a come passionate nation. How do you do it . General flynn and other of the generals, these are great people. I ask them all the time, if you were right now theyre fighting a politically correct war you go and get them out. How long would it take . Ill tell you what, they are telling me they could do the job very, very rapidly. Now, very rapidly is longer than you would like, but they could get the job done and get it done with precision and get it done. We have no choice, sean. We have no choice. We have to take them out. Donald trump with sean hannity there. New questions are being raised about u. S. Swimmer ryan lochtes account of the reported robbery involving him and his olympic teammates in rio de janeiro. Jack cogner and hunter bence were taken off their flight to home from brazil. They left Airport Police station early this morning. Brazilian police say their passports have been temporarily confiscated. A judge ordered the passports of lochte. A u. S. Spokesman says feegen is still in brazil cooperating with authorities lochte is already in the United States. Brazilian authorities did not ask his client to remain in the country. A judge in rio raised doubts said they gave contradictory accounts of the robbery and the judge noted this surveillance video. It appears to show the men joke and unshaken as they return to the Olympic Village 7 00 a. M. She questioned why if they left the club around 4 00 a. M. It took so long to get back home. Nbcs matt lauer spoke with lochte on the phone and said he is by and large sticking to his account of the robbery which he described to billy bush hours after it allegedly took place. I was with a couple swimmers. We were coming back from the france house and we got pulled over in our taxi. And these guys came out with a badge, police badge, no lights, no nothing, just a police badge. Ey pulled us over. They pulled out their guns. They told the other swimmers to get down on the ground. They got down on the ground. I refused. I was like, we didnt do anything wrong. So im not getting down on the ground. Then a guy pulled out his gun. He cocked it. Put it to my forehead and said get down and i was like i put my hands up. Whatever. He took our money. He took my wallet. Lauer says lochte told him that he and his teammates were not pulled over by the allege robbers as he said sunday. He now says they were at a gas station. One of the robbers pointed a gun, quote, in my direction, unquote but did not directly at his forehead as he previously claimed. Lauer also says lochte told him he and his teammates would not make up this story. Lot to follow with that one. Still ahead, louisianas flooding troubles is far from over. Could a federal rate hike be on the horizon . Well bring you those stories and also a check of the weather when we come back here on msncb. Isaac hou has mastered gravity defying moves to amaze his audience. Great show. Here you go. Now hes added a new routine. Making depositing a check seem so effortless. Easy to use chase technology, for whatever youre trying to master. Isaac, are you ready . Yeah. Chase. So you can. Hhis stellar notebooks will last through june. Get back to great. This week sharpie twelvepacks just three dollars. Office depot officemax. Gear up for school. Gear up for great. Welcome back. Certainly news they dont want, in floodravaged louisiana the forecast calls for more rain. The death toll from the historic flooding has reached 13 and the National Weather service is warning that the bad news isnt over yet. The rainfall started friday near baton rouge and for days now the water has flown south toward the gulf of mexico carving a path of destruction. To two students from michigan working in the louisiana over the summer are among some 30,000 people who had to be rescued in the flooding. I was screaming bloody murder. Trying to call 911. I was screaming. I was like, i need help. I felt like i drove into the atlantic because i felt like my car was doing the titanic type thing where the front of it was just flooded. The trunk was up in the air. Homeland security secretary jay johnson is heading to the hard hit state today. The red cross is mounting a relief operation which is estimated to cost at least 30 million. For more on this and weather conditions elsewhere in the country want to turn into bill karins. Thats what we were fearing, bill, more rain would come aspeci especially right there. It was a punishment, they had to be wondering why do we deserve this . Its amazing. We start with the fire and then we have the flooding at the same time in two separate areas. Its been a harsh reality of the drought in the west and the humid conditions and the heavy rain in the south. As far as the fire weather goes today, story not just encompassing the blue cut a area, we have two dozen large fires burning. Red areas mean the conditions are ripe for fires to spread and get newer. Any new fires form, those could spread rapidly too out there. It continues to be very hot. Focussing on the blue cut fire, they have only 4 containment. Here we are two days later. That shows you how dangerous the conditions are. Only 4 contained. Once again this afternoon with it being so hot out there, do expect it to actually increase in size once again do some racing. Northwest gusts of 40 Miles Per Hour. These gusts would be about 35 Miles Per Hour during the day today. The temperatures out west Southern California all the way through the Pacific Northwest about 5 to 15 degrees above normal. During the afternoon, the air is getting so dry with the gusty conditions it has the humidity levels down about 10, 5 in some cases. Thats just like perfect conditions for fires to burn. So thats the conditions in the west. Also our friends in the northern plains, youre at risk for severe weather. Minneapolis, sioux falls, fargo, the possibility of damaging winds and large hail. I dont think theres too much of a tornado threat. We had great thunderstorms roll through washington, d. C. They are now out in the open atlantic. Theres a few showers left. You may want to carry that umbrella with you this morning. Just light showers out there and there will be additional showers later this afternoon. They did notice thunderstorm activity where eerie and pennsylvania meet there, too, in a new flash flood warning. The forecast as we go throughout the day today, scattered storms warm and humid in the areas of the southeast and northeast we will see conditions slowly clearing out, frances. The water is going downened theyll get in these homes and its just ugly. Its a tough part. Bill, thank you very much. Im going to see you later on and youll help me out with olympic sports. Want to turn now to business where yesterday the Federal Reserve released minutes from the july meeting. Hali gamble joins us live from london. Good morning to you. Hey, good morning, frances. Essentially what were seeing right now is a Federal Reserve thats divided on whether or not to raise the interest rates. One the one hand you have strong Employment Data but there are concerns about brexit. Brexit was mentioned 20 times throughout the series of these conversations. So lot of concerns there on both sides. Now, another story of course that were watching is whats happening with obama care. There will be apparently be a major push by the Obama Administration ahead of the u. S. President ial election to get more people signed up to their health care exchanges. And more people in particular, young people, to these exchanges. This comes after another Major Health CareCompany Aetna said basically they couldnt make it work. The numbers didnt work. They were losing money. A letter earlier in the month to the department of justice essentially suggested it was important to note the company had been a strong supporter of the developing Public Exchange business and tad min stragss efforts to expand that health care to all americans, unfortunately a challenge by the department of justice to the acquisition of successful blocking of a transaction that would have negative Financial Impact on aetna would compare their ability to support exchanging leaving aetna no choice. Serious concerns in terms of whats going to happen Going Forward for this health care legislation. Frances . Well follow it. Thank you so much, hadley gamble live from london. I appreciate it. Usain bolt is ready to sprint his way to another gold medal. Plus, Michael Phelps announced his retirement, but it doesnt look like he is ready to get out of the pool just yet. All the highlights from last nights Olympic Games next. Were back in a moment. 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Hydro boost. From neutrogena®. See whats possible. Hhis stellar notebooks will last through june. Get back to great. This week sharpie twelvepacks just three dollars. Office depot officemax. Gear up for school. Gear up for great. At ally bank, no branches equals great rates. Its a fact. Kind of like bill splitting equals nitpicking. But i only had a salad. It was a buffalo chicken salad. Salad. When agerelated macular have degeneration, amd we came up with a plan to help reduce my risk of progression. And everywhere i look. Im reminded to stick to my plan. Including Preservision Areds 2. My doctor said Preservision Areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula that the National Eye Institute recommends to help reduce the risk of progression of moderate to advanced amd. After 15 years of clinical studies. Preservision areds 2. Because my eyes are everything. Time now to bring you all the sports action from rio de janeiro. Hey, look who we got, bill karins here helping us out with some of that. Bill . Ive been watching a little too much of this stuff. We all are. Its fun. Its almost over. Im getting sad. Usain bolt on his way to a second gold medal in brazil. Last night he advanced to the 200 meter final. Exchanging smiles with rival and friend from canada, andre degrassy as me crossed the finish line. 02 ahead. While bolt is on the right track to compete what he is calling a triple triple, almost sounds like div