out of office, including campaigning with democrats. you re live in the cnn newsroom. hello, everyone. thank you for joining us. i m fredricka whitfield. welcome to a new 11:00 a.m. eastern hour here on this sunday of the newsroom. florida under a state of emergency this hour, as tropical storm ian gains strength. ian is expected to become a hurricane today, and may peak as a category 4 storm before weakening and making a direct hit on florida as early as wednesday. we re expecting an update from governor ron desantis minutes from now. our reporter is in the weather center. cnn s priscilla alvarez is traveling with the president in wilmington, delaware, who announced a federal energy for the state. so let s begin with you, alison. you just got an update if the national hurricane center. tell us what you re learning. let s look at the breakdown. the sustained winds are at 50 miles per hour, gusting up to 65. that forward movement has increased, up to 14 miles per hour to t
Efforts, as well as provide additional assistance. this is a storm the white house has been monitoring and is now getting ahead of and freeing up those federal resources for when it makes landfall. fred? all right. thanks to both of you. let s bring in now fema s assistant administrator ann bank. so good to see you. how are you all trying to get ahead of this storm? thank you, fredricka, thank you so much for having me on today. as you can see behind me, we are fully activated in preparation for this storm, and thanks to joe biden s swift approval of the emergency declaration that was requested by florida, we re now quickly moving in, not only specialized teams, but commodities, things like food and water. what should people across florida be doing right now? as you heard alison, when we talk about a possible hit within the gulf side of florida, it could be between tampa or even
Puerto rico when talking about how they re preaching for hurricane florence as it barrels toward the east coast. the president was in the oval office. he had just finished a briefing with the fema administrator brock long and cited maria as one of his administration s most successful times since he s been in office. of course that was a storm that devastated puerto rico, killed roughly 3,000 people, and left millions without power for months. so the president raised a lot of eyebrow s when he made comment like this the job that fema and law enforcement and everybody did working with puerto rico was tremendous. i think that puerto rico was an incredible unsung success. reporter: in that same valves meeting, president trump brought up the denials of his two former top staffers. his chief economic adviser gary cohn and staff secretary rob porter. boefth w both who played pivotal roles in
Bob woodward s report about the white house. he said he appreciated their denials and showed that bob woodward s book is fiction, making it clear where rob porter and gary cohn issued the denials in the first place. thank you. democratic senator jeff merkley of oregon claims the trump administration is diverting hurricane relief money from fema to fund immigration and customs enforcement just as the hurricane season is starting. merkley released a homeland security document showing a transfer of $9.8 million. the document says the money is coming from the travel, training, public engagement, and i.t. budgets, not disaster relief. senator merkley insists the white house is diverting money from response and recovery budgets to fund additional immigrant detention camps. he says any shift in funding will make it even more challenging for fema to respond to natural disasters. history will be made one way or another in new hampshire this november. voters in the first
Of his administration s most successful times since he s been in office. of course, that storm devastated puerto rico, killed roughly 3,000 people, and left millions without power for months. the president raised eyebrows when he made comments like this the job that fema and law enforcement and everybody it working along with the governor in puerto rico, i think, was tremendous. i think that puerto rico was an incredible unsung success. reporter: in the same oval office meeting, president trump brought up the denials of his two former top staffers, his chief economic adviser gary cohn and staff secretary rob porter. both who played pivotal roles in bob woodward s tell-all book about the trump white house. president trump said he appreciated their denials. he thought that they were excellent and thought they showed that bob woodward s book is fiction, manage it pretty clear where rob porter and gary cohn issued those denials in the