feet high, could plunge into the neighborhood. it s just one of the many gulf coast communities still suffering from catastrophic flooding. it s been quite an operation. some of our major thoroughfares have become impassable even as the water recedes, there s washouts. so we have a long, long recovery period. all of this following hurricane ian s destructiv ive h across florida. it slammed into the gulf coast as a category 4 hurricane. entire towns leveled. florida governor ron desantis is expected to give an update on the situation later on in this hour. we ll take that for you live. let s send it down to boris sanchez with our coverage from ft. myers, florida. boris? fred, you just broke the news that we have been dreading all day. initially, when we got up this morning, officials had told us that the death toll from hurricane ian was hanging at around 45 fatalities, and you just broke the news, 64 people killed by hurricane ian here in the state of florida and potent
plus what we know from the doj filing about who asked me have legal exposure. they don t have anything. there is just nothing there. and the legal, political and moral implications of a potential decision to indict the 45th president. all in starts right now. good evening from new york, i am chris hayes. it is a pm eastern, and we just hit the deadline for donald trump s legal team to respond to the department of justice filing that just passed. it looked like it just came in. we will monitor it, that you know, what it is and what it says. honestly, what it says is a little bit of a sideshow at this point, because the one thing we know for sure is that the department of justice is not messing around. they are not messing around with their investigation into classified documents that donald trump kept at his florida home. last night, they dropped the equivalent of a legal nuclear bomb on the ex president, and it came in the form of this 36 page court filing. no, th
s legal team to respond to the department of justice filing and we are letting you know what it is and what it says. and what it says is a little bit of a sideshow at this point. the one thing we know for sure is that the department of justice is not messing around. they are not messing around with their investigation into the classified documents that phone trump kept at his florida home. last night, they dropped the equivalent of illegal nuclear bomb on the ex president, and it came in the form of this 36 page court filing. now that court filing is a response to trump s request for an independent special master, someone who would come from mar-a-lago, looking for privileged documents separating them up. the doj did not really have to respond at such length and they said we have already gone through the review. they said they have already gone through the details. they chose to even file for extra room to get the page limit from 20 to 40 pages and file this big 36-page
of politically motivated violence. and it all comes as president biden is set to give a prime time speech tonight, focusing on the soul of the nation. we ll have more on his message to a divided country just ahead. good morning. and welcome to way too early. on this thursday, the 1st of september. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. breaking news overnight, former president donald trump s legal team has responded to the department of justice s latest filing on the classified documents seized during the fbi search of mar-a-lago. in their 18-page filing trump s lawyer suggested that by launching what they described as an unprecedented, unnecessary, and legally unsupported raid on mar-a-lago, the d.o.j. was quote criminalizing a former president s possession of personal and presidential records in a secure setting. trump s legal team also aggressively renewed its request for a special master, or a third party, to review the documents that the fbi agent
accused the fbi of planting evidence? well now trump admits the documents were stored in cartons. remember when trump s lawyer told the justice department that classified material had been returned? well, investigators found more. lots more. remember when trump s team insisted the documents were safely secured? well, his lawyer now admits the former president frequently had guests in an office where highly classified papers were found in his desk. and once again, he does not deny having them. good morning. and welcome to morning joe. it is thursday, september 1st. can you believe it? no, no i can t believe it. just like nobody can believe any of the excuses that have all been thrown around. i love yesterday, willie, his only argument is, not saying why he had the documents, not saying why he didn t return the documents, not saying why he lied to the fbi when they were asking for the documents, and they were moving them, and instead, he goes oh, oh, it s all a setup, they