Massive debt. Just their as we talk about the electrical facilities. I think they have 9 billion in debt. Well, any debt thats put in will be coming before that debt. We want to make sure that we put in debt and that debt is absolutely protected. In addition to that, were providing tremendous relief and service also right now. Well continue to provide that for a period of time. Then a new group will come in. The new group will be more building oriented. When things are perfect. So but we do have to come before the existing debt. They have by some counts 120 billion if you add everything, probably about 120 billion. Certainly any money thats put in by people whether its public or private, theyre going to want to come in first position. And thats very important. I think the governor understands that. I would imagine pretty much everyone understands that in puerto rico. Were helping right now. This is costing a lot of money. Having fema, having the military, having the First Responders. And were doing that because we have an obligation to puerto rico. To humanity. We have an obligation to ourselves. We want to continue to do a great job on that. And were doing it. No, but at some point, theres going to have to be reconstruction. Again, the biggest thing is the power plant. Theres going to have to be you know, its pretty bad when you have to say power plants. Or almost coming before bridges. You have power plants that are needed. You have bridges that are needed. You have roadways that are needed. Thats something you dont see when you go into areas hit by hurricanes or disaster of almost any kind. Mr. President electricity for the island excuse me . How much longer for electricity . Well, you know, its a very good question actually. As you know, we have much of the electric is done by generators that have been brought to the island in massive numbers as i said before. The plant itself is going to take a while. We have to build a brandnew plant. Or we have to do essentially a renovation so large its going to be a brandnew plant. But theres never been a case where power plants were gone. So this isnt just like, you know, as i said i dont want to just fix you cant just fix the poles. Theres never been a case where power plants were gone. Between 1 and 10, how do you grade the white house response . The president has answered all the questions. This is ongoing. Were being very diligent given all the data. This is a storm centric approach to what happened. There was a massive devastation and catastrophe. Thats why, you know, the First Responder effort was there. Thats why the stabilization effort is there. Thats why we set some very aggressive milestones to restore energy in puerto rico. Have about 30 of the energy by the end of the month. By the middle of next month, about 50 . And so on. Because we want to make sure that people have that knowledge of were we want to go. What keeps whats going to keep the people there, whats going to keep this going, is knowing we have the backing of the white house and knowing we are going to have the backing of congress. To have the resources appropriate to attend to the storm and then be smart about it, be innovative and restore puerto rico to a better position than before. Leveraging other stakeholders. People that want to innovate. This is our opportunity, again, to showcase that puerto rico, u. S. Citizens of puerto rico, can come out of this catastrophe stronger. I want to ask you a question. For the spirit of these people that have worked so hard and so long, like tom and like brock and like so many others. Did the United States, did our government, when we came in, did we do a great job . Military . First responders . Fema . Did we do a great job . You responded immediately, sir, and you did so, you know, calm and tom and brock have been on the phone with me every day since the disaster. We recognize there are some logistical limitations. We didnt have the ports open for a couple of days. We didnt have airports working at full capacity until about a day or two ago. So that was always a very limiting step. If you consider weve gone, even with those obstacles, weve gone about 15,000 d. O. D. Personnel in puerto rico, about 2,000 fema personnel, hhs and others. The response is there. Do we need to do a lot more . Of course we do. I think everybody over here recognizes theres a lot of work to be done in puerto rico. With your leadership, sir, with everybody over here, were committed to achieving that in the long run. Brock, in the last 50 days, though, to put this into context for america, from the Virgin Islands to california, weve been working in 20 different states, disasters in 20 different states. In the last 50 days under the president S Administration weve registered close to 4 million americans for individual assistance. Thats more than katrina, rita, wilma and sandy combined. Its been a tremendous effort. Mr. President this was actually bigger than anything weve seen. And yet i think our response was better than anyone has ever seen. And, again, we were given an aplus by the man who did this. Did what you were doing for the Clinton Administration and while i dont know him, i would like to thank him for what he said. Yes, sir. Government loans to the power plant, right, not government grants . Were talking about possibly combinations of both. Congress is working right now with the people and representatives of puerto rico. Were talking about potentially combinations of both. Any thoughts on president bushs speech . I didnt see it. I didnt see it. Sir, two days ago in the rose garden, you talked about the Alexander Murray plan, health care plan, as a good shortterm solution. And then you seemed to back off in your evening speech to the haeritage foundation. Your press secretary said you opposed it. I like people working on plans at all times. I think ultimately block grants is the way to go. Youll get Better Health care. Youll get it for less money. It will be more specific. A state is a Smaller Government and it can take better care of its people. Especially where you have wellrun states. Where you have governors that do a great job. If you look at florida, if you look at maine. Maine really was very much anxious to do that. Various states, kentucky. Various states really wanted that block grant money. For the most part, i think we have the vote for that. Theyll be a transition period. Anything theyre working on will be short term. It will be absolutely short term. Because its going to be repeal and replace. So i have Great Respect for the senators. I dont want the Insurance Companies making any more money than they have to. You look at the stock prices from the Insurance Companies from the time of the creation of obamacare, with 300 and 400 and even more than that increases in their stock. They made a fortune off obamacare. The people that need obamacare are decimated. Premiums are up 40 , 50 , 60 , in some cases, over 100 . In the case of alaska, premiums are up over 200 . So anything theyre working on is a very short term. Meaning one year to two years max. Because i think we have the votes. Were certainly within one votes. When youre within one vote, were able to get a vote. Senator cochran is an example. He is not feeling great. I can tell you that. And he got on a plane in order to vote on the budget. I have Great Respect for that man. I think its incredible. But votes are very fragile. We found that out. Weve seen that. Ive learned that. I thought we had it the last time and somebody came out of the blue and voted against it. So now we start the process all over again. But the block grant, the concept of blocking it out, block grants, go to states, thats what people want, and thats what the states want and thats especially what the wellrun states want. Because they will have health care thats so good, far better than anybodys even thought. So, again, i respect very much the two senators youre talking about. I love that theyre working on it. I want them to be careful with respect to the indianapolis compa Insurance Companies. Insurance companies are very good at making money. I want them to be careful with that. We would probably like a very shortterm solution until we hit the block grants. Until that all kicks in. In other words, it doesnt just kick in the following day. Theres a transition period. And if they can do Something Like that, im open to it. But i dont want it to be at the expense of the people. I want to take care of our people. I dont want to take care of our Insurance Companies. Theyve been very well taken care of over the last number of years, believe me. Okay, thank you very much, everybody. Thank you very much. Uranium is a big subject. If the Mainstream Media would cover the uranium scandal and that russia has 20 of the uranium, for whatever reason, and a lot of people understand what those reasons may be, i think thats your russia story. Thats your real russia story. Not a story where they talk about collusion and there was none. There was a hoax. Real russia story is uranium. And how they got all of that uranium. Vast percentage of what we have. That is, to me, one of the big stories of the decade. Not just now, of the decade. The problem is that the Mainstream Media does not want to cover that story. Because that protects people they protect. But the big story is uranium and how russia got 20 of our uranium. And frankly, its a disgrace. Its a disgrace. That the fake news wont cover it. Its so sad. Thank you very much. That was an Epic Oval Office encounter with the press and President Trump. At the end there talking about a story in fact we did do on nbc some years ago, political contributions involved with russia, kazakhstan and uranium. He said that is the real story. Hes been tweeting about it today. Not the russia collusion allegations we he said are a hoax. This was a lengthy meeting with the governor of puerto rico. The president grading himself with a 10. The governor praising the response from fema and from thiS Administration. This at a time when 80 of puerto rico still does not have electricity and 20 of the people do not have clean water. The crisis continues. Grants and loans will be forthcoming as the president said. That does it for this edition of Andrea Mitchell reports. Craig melvin is up next right here on msnbc. Good to see you. Epic indeed. Craig melvin here from washington, d. C. Again we just heard there from President Trump. Roughly 35 minutes there in the oval office. The lions share of that back and forth devoted to the ongoing crisis in puerto rico. It was, in fact, one month, tomorrow, that Hurricane Maria roared ashore there. Gabe gutierrez has been on the ground in puerto rico much of the time since the storm hit. He joins me now on the phone there from san juan. Gabe, i understand that you were listening to the president there. You were listening to the governor. You probably heard President Trump rate the govs response to the crisis in puerto rico as a 10. Youre on the ground there. Is that accurate . Hi there, craig. Well, depends really who you talk to. There are many people on this island who do feel that the federal response has in some ways. A lot of people you talk to in the area where there has been the most power that has been restored has been in this area. However, you still talk to people here and life is still very difficult. Not just in remote parts but also in san juan. This morning we talked with someone who runs a bed and breakfast. This economy is just cripple theed the ed point. He bought solar powers several years ago. Hes been taking in power and distributing it to his neighbors. It is a daily struggle to live in parts of puerto rico. Now, the president said the federal response should be a 10. The governor mentioned there has been some questions about how some of the local response, and theres investigations going on into whether local mayors have mishandled it. Kind of a big picture. Almost 80 of puerto rico is still without power. Think about that, craig. Four weeks after this storm, about 80 still without power. The islands economy has crippled. Yesterday, there was a lot of talk in the News Conference about how to rebuild the power grid. That is the concern among some fiscal conservatives. How much its going to cost for the long term to rebuild the infrastructure here. Yesterday i was at a power plant outside of san juan. Controversial here locally. There are two massive turbines that have arrived. Its part of a contract with a jacksonvillebased company, apr energy. Those turbines are supposed to provide 60 megawatts of power and thats supposed to light up the capital city within two weeks the governor claims. I talked with the chief executive officer of the pouert rico power authority. That agency had gone bankrupt amid allegations of corruption. I asked him how in the world can local authorities fix this power grid in such a short time. Heres what he had to say. This is extremely old technology, you know, a steam power plant with boilers. That is, you know, unheard of. Most of our equipment has over 35 years of service. Where useful life is 30. Certainly it was a disaster. So, again, a massive challenge here for the local authorities. Governor has for the last several weeks been saying he wants Puerto Ricans to be treated just like any other american citizen would be treated. He repeated that message to the president today. Certainly lobbying for more federal aid. The house passing this aid package several days ago. 35 billion for puerto rico and other disasters. I think what were really starting to understand here is this is going to take such a long time to even begin this. Quote will be how it will be to put a patchwork solution or do you, you know, rebuild this power grid from scratch, put electrical poles underneath the ground, do the things you have to do in order to ensure that doesnt happen again. And many residents here in puerto rico are skeptical that the governor and fema and the army corps of engineers are going to be able to meet this time line the governor has put forward. As you heard, he said he expects to have 95 of the island back with power by middecember. Certainly a tall order. It was interesting, gabe, to hear the president do what he has done on a number of occasions since the storm hit. Talk about how this particular storm was worse than katrina. It should be noted once again that during Hurricane Katrina in the aftermath, there were 1,881 people who died. The death toll not to diminish the tragedy there in puerto rico but the death toll at last check, as i understand it, was just shy of 50. Going back to the grade that the president is giving the response here though, this 10, if you polled 10 people on the ground in puerto rico, would any of them give the president a 10 . It would be very difficult to poll 10 people on the ground in port wreckco and they would give him that grade. Puerto rican, even some of the rural areas, you do this over and over again of people you talk to. They say look, we had it bad but it could have been worse. Thats what theyll say. Even though some we spoke with have said they lost their home. But theyre very proud. They want, you know, theres a slogan here in puerto rico. [ speaking Foreign Language ] theres this very they are eager to rise above this and to have this recovery effort move forward. Craig, the situation with the power is really crippling that effort. Its just no matter how any way you look at this, until the power is restored here and until telecommunications are fully restored, theres been improvement in telecommunications, just in the last few days in puerto rico. But, you know, what many people here just want is to be able to start up businesses again. Start up tourism again. Obviously the pharmaceutical companies here in puerto rico that make up such a large part of the economy. So much of this island is run on generating power right now is running on fumes. A lot of people you speak with, you know, the president has rated the response so far a 10. Many of them that weve spoken with say look, a lot of them havent seen fema. We did the story a few days ago where these military veterans are going to the western part of the island. As we understand, there are many remote parts of puerto rico that havent seen any federal aid. Some volunteers from the u. S. Mainland coming from all over the place. Doctors, nurses, california, texas, florida. Going to this remote area just north of ponsay in the southern part of the island and taking 30,000 pounds of medical supplies. These folks we spoke with in that part of the island, they hadnt seen fema. They hadnt seen the federal responders. With that said, we have also been with the military. They have a very large presence here. Theyre going on there. Setting up their medical tents outside hospitals that are still without power. The First Responders are working extremely extremely hard. As we reported, fema has about 1,100 workers here at Hurricane Maria. 4,000 in texas for hurricane harvey. You might say texas and florida have very Large National guard contingencies. And theyre bigger population centers. As you just heard the president say, this is a massive disaster. As you heard the top threestar general here coordinating the military relief effort. This is the worst disaster hes ever seen. So yes, there are many residents here that are frustrated with the federal response no matter what grade the president gives that response. Gabe gutierrez, our eyes and ears on the ground for us there in san juan gabe, thanks, as always. Well check in with you throughout the afternoon. Now to President Trump preferring to talk russian conspiracy theories rather than the controversial gold star families. Even as former president george w. Bush today bemoaned, quote, conspiracy theories. Today on twitter, Pres