Meet the Press NOW — October 10

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See website for details if it's Thursday. Rescue and recovery now underway after Hurricane Milton tears from Florida as a powerful Category 3 storm killing at least 12 people and causing massive power outages, heavy flooding and billions of dollars worth of destruction. Plus, former President Barack Obama hit the campaign trail for Harris for the first time, kicking off his get out the vote efforts as both campaigns look to fire up their banks and rally crucial voters to the polls. With just 26 days to go and former President Trump and voters, he doesn't want to be nice to Vice President Harris as he ramps up the personal attacks on her and blast the White House for its disaster response.

Welcome to MEET the press Now. I'm Chris Welker. We begin with breaking news out of Florida where we now are seeing the extent of the devastation caused by Hurricane Milton after it made landfall yesterday near Siesta Key, Florida, a barrier island of Sarasota. At least 12 people were killed.

More than 3 million lost power and 11 million were at risk of flash flooding and river flooding going around Desantis and traveling through the state and assessing the damage. As people know, we've had massive power outages which was expected. I'd say this is probably similar to Hurricanes Irma and Ian in terms of the number of outages I think we're up to. I think currently now it's about 3.4 million that are out.

I think they've restored about 700,000 since the storm started. This is something that the state has dealt with for its entire history. It's something that will continue to be to deal with. I think what's changed is we've got 23 million people.

A storm that hits is likely to hit more people in property than it would have 100 years ago. Milton came ashore as a category 3 hurricane causing strong storm surge and packing wind gusts that approached 100 miles per hour. Those winds shredded the roof of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.

The Teflon coated fiberglass roof was built to withstand winds of up to 115mph. The stadium that's home to Major League Baseball Tampa Bay rains was supposed to serve as a shelter for first responders. Thankfully, everyone inside the time safely took shelter in the team's clubhouses. St.

Petersburg mayor says Milton dropped 18 inches of rain on the city and Tampa broke its monthly rainfall record in a single day. The Hillsborough county sheriff's office says it conducted more than 500 rescues, including this one of a 14 year old boy stuck in flood waters and floating on a broken fence. Officers say the boy had evacuated to a friend's house for the storm and then tried to walk home when the storm passed and got stuck in the floodwater. It is worth noting this neighborhood is not a flood zone.

Milton sparked a series of tornadoes across Florida, including St. Lucie county on the state's east coast. A tornado there killed at least four people. It lasted about a minute and a half and it was gone.

Walked outside and annihilated the neighborhood. Annihilated. I just noticed the trees uprooted, water pouring down the driveway. My vehicle windows all smashed, dented.

The tiles from the roofs annihilated, punctured into cars, windows blown out. Just devastation. Just never expect the devastation when you walk outside. It's surreal.

I'm joined now by NBC News correspondent Jesse Kirschen. Bradenton, Florida. NBC's Marissa Paris in St. Petersburg.

Also with me is NBC News meteorologist Bill Karens. Jesse, let me turn to you. What appears to have caused more damage? Your assessment?

Is it the wind or the storm surge? Yeah, so I wasn't out here ahead of time, Christine. So I'm going off of what officials have told us. But the estimation from those we spoke with here is that Helene was a water event and Milton has been a wind event, at least where I am on Bradenton beach.

Back there you can see what's left of a home that's in shambles. That is a home that were told was shoved off of its foundation by Hurricane Helene's storm surge. It's supposed to be down here. Kristen, take a look.

This is the lot where it used to sit off to the side. But this is the tale of two stories. Two different storms, two different punches. The one, two punch that was Helene and then right next door here you can see this is a home that the wind were told from Milton overnight twisted it off of the beams that are its foundation.

And you can see what's left of it. I mean, just, you know, devastating to see another home in shambles here. It's unclear how much the debris from Helene factored in to exacerbating damage overnight with Milton. But I can tell you in this community Is officials tell us that a lot of sand has been blown this way.

It's supposed to be along the coastline. And so this area is more vulnerable because the sand dunes, which are fortification, we have water crashing on shore, are not there right now. So if they had gotten devastating storm surge here overnight, that could have been all the more heartbreaking. This is also a community that appears to have learned lessons from Helene.

What I mean by that is official. Cells Around 100 to 200 people remained in this community and rode out Hurricane Hel. There was a devastating storm surge. Officials were worried that with another storm coming, the structures were already in a weaker state of readiness.

They also were worried about the forecasts coming through. And so they ramped up their messaging, they tell us, and they believe that there was no one that stayed on this community. So they believe that everyone evacuated from Bradenton beach ahead of Milton overnight. They did not get the water impact.

But again, all the same, except that people evacuated because you do have scenes like this. We spoke with the mayor of this community for a time ago. Here's part of what he shared with us. It's heartbreaking.

It's, you know, my friends, my neighbors again, 50 years out here and seeing their homes, their livelihoods decimated like this. We'll build back. We'll be better as good or better. It's going to be tough.

It's going to be a lot of hard work again, coming back your life. Kristen, just another look at the devastation. You see. We've got some sheriff's vehicles coming by here right now.

These are really the only kinds of vehicles we're seeing. First responders, search and rescue teams. Again, I'm not looking for anyone in particular point. Just going through the motions, it seems, in this community, thankfully.

But at this point, residents are not being allowed on. But that may be possible as soon as tomorrow. Kristen. Jesse Kirch, I know it has been a very long night for you, and obviously we see the impact that the storm has had there.

Thank you for that report. Marissa, let me turn to you. We talked about the damage to Tropicana Field, which was just stunning if you think about it. That was supposed to actually be one of the safe places to shelter.

How extensive is that damage and did it catch authorities off guard? I can tell you, even on our way here from Tampa, it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between the damage left over from Helene and the damage left over from Milton. We were driving past flooded roads. We saw a lot of debris, which we assume was from Helene.

And then, of course, Carried out by the floodwaters from Milton overnight. But behind me, this is very clearly from Milton. This is very clearly a wind event because remember, Helene was 100 miles off of these shores and caused so much damage with just the water. Whether there was a storm surprise of the flooding.

This behind me very clearly, those powerful winds that went through, you can see what it's sort of the exoskeleton left behind. The pieces of fabric just left flapping in the wind. People who were walking nearby. The witness this overnight described hearing a roaring whipping sound.

And we were able to talk to people who talked to the people inside. And they said that of course, it was a terrifying thing. And they were able to take shelters, about 14 people they worked in security personnel or a related type of business. And what we know is that there were lots and lots of cots.

We've seen those images of the cots inside because at one point it was thought that this could be a staging area for first responders. That did not end up happening before militant made landfall. This was no longer that situation. This was no longer the backup for first responders.

They all moved to other areas. And then, of course, we had those 15 personnel which were grateful to report they are all alive. They're all accounted for, stickers to carry and arrest. You confirmed that as well as the Tampa Bay Rays.

They reached out because this is their home, expressing their gratitude that no one was hurt here. Kristen, it's just a few blocks away, there was a crane that toppled over. We were here reporting yesterday, St. Petersburg was very worried about these construction sites.

Cranes take weeks, and it takes scheduling weeks in advance to lower the cranes. Of course, they had days, in another instance, of not having enough time to do what they needed to do. So one of those cranes did topple over on a building. And you might be able to see, hopefully, there you are.

There's that footage of the debris left behind, the cylinder blocks, the pieces of metal. And then part of that building is completely torn apart again. Another instance, though, where lives were spared. And Kristen, of course, so many questions on whether that was luck or whether the evacuations that we saw on the ground factored into the lack of injuries in both cases.

We know, of course, we're still going to get a full scope of the damage and devastation, what that really means here. But in terms of people who evacuated, we know that there was a lot less pushback that first responders got in those mandatory evacuation zones. And in the state of Florida, they estimate roughly 100,000 people took to shelters within this entire state. Well, the calls to evacuate were just so powerful and dire relief that so many people did heed those warnings.

But the video footage that you're showing us, Marissa, is just stunning. And of course our thoughts with all of those people who are still dealing with the aftermath of this. But with that, let me turn to you. How would you assess the overall impact of this storm?

Obviously it was being forecast to be a historic storm. It wasn't as big, as large as it was predicted to be. But how would you characterize it? I think it's a huge element separately, Kristen.

So storm surge, I'm going to say underperformed. I'd say rainfall performed as expected, if not worse. Wind was as expected, if not worse and the tornadoes were much worse. So in all it's still going to happen as a storm storm.

So the name will be retired, but we can still learn some lessons from this. And of course it was a category 5, only 24 hours before landfall. And we're not always guaranteed that the storm is going to go in inland at 120, which it did. So this was the radar when it made landfall.

And the first thing you notice is there's nothing on the bottom. The bottom side of the storm was pretty naked. There wasn't really any rain. There wasn't really any strong thunderstorm bands.

And those thunderstorm bands, if we get that surge should have been right in here. I' waiting to see if we've like these storm surge pictures on the beach, especially barrier island that shows any destroyed homes and that would be from areas here from Venice to Inglewood and then towards the Port Charlotte point of border. This barrier island should have had the highest storm surge. We know Naples and Fort Myers both reported a five to six foot storm surge.

So closer to that landfall you'd expect this to be a couple feet higher. But so far we haven't seen any pictures of devastation here. Part of it maybe because the strongest winds with the storm were not where they typically are there to the north. And also the hurricane didn't have a big windfield for its really strong winds.

It was kind of small. So that's how it was kind of different than Helene. Now the storm long gone, all of the weather effects are over with. There's just a few showers there in Volusia County.

We did have the winds and this was pretty much as expected with 3 million people without power right through the i4 corridor all the way to the space coast and Daytona Beach. 80 to 90 mile per hour winds. It was like a category one hurricane went through central Florida. The winds have really died down, as you'd expect.

That's why we really started to get some improvements and we're starting seeing a lot more people beginning to get their power back on. And the tornadoes with this before the landfall yesterday were really incredible. Not because we had 38, we've had storms producing many more than this. But the size of these tornadoes were enormous.

I mean, many of them are going to go down as probably what we call EF3s and those are on the stronger end of tornadoes. Very atypical for when you have a landfalling system. So, yeah, yes, the storm surge, Tampa Bay was spared because the Kristen it made landfall south of there. So that was great for them.

And I'm not saying there wasn't any horrific storm surge. But now we're nine hours since the sun came up and I still haven't seen any pictures of it. So I hope it was an underachiever for storm surge. That would be great.

We're all hoping that as well. Bill, just follow up on that point. How much concern is there about potential flooding? With the flooding that's really left, it's gonna be the river flooding because, you know, we did have just a ton of rainfall with this.

Obviously, areas had 18, 14 inches there warm and beef was 13. Even Orlando area had a ton of rain. So when you get this much rain, you're gonna get some standing water. And so far, that's what we've been looking at.

Across the Florida peninsula, the river that we're most concerned with, the St. John's river, is gonna be close to record flooding that goes up here through Seminole county, northwestern DeLand, just outside of Daytona beach here. Also, we had a couple rivers outside of Tampa, so we saw some rivers that need the Crest Christian and some additional flooding. But, you know, we're not gonna see like new evacuations or anything like that.

All right, well, a little piece of good news there. Bill Karens, thank you so much for breaking all of that down for us. We really appreciate it. Joining me now is Erick Royal, commissioner for the city of Sarasota, who is also the former mayor.

So thank you so much for joining us. I know you all have been through a lot. It's been a long night. How are you all doing?

Have you been able to survey some of the damage? Thank you. Yes. First of all, thank you for having me.

And we are safe. That's the most important part. You know, we had family members coming over and staying with us, friends. We had about nine people total in our house.

Spent the last two, you know, the days before the storm setting up and helping people put board up their windows. But now, you know, it was pretty intense when it happened. You know, it was a 130 mile an hour wind. There's significant damage.

And then it kind of stopped and there was a big calm last night. And that's because we were in the eye of the storm. So then a lot of people went outside and we had to pick up, pick back up. And yeah, trees are down in my backyard.

I'm sending some pictures of, you know, street, street lights being out, trees being down on the main street, on our main street. Some of the signs have been just completely destroyed. Significant, significant damage. There's been talks of bridges even collapsing.

But we, but those are just talks. Nobody has. We haven't had a full assessment yet to see what actually has happened. But I can tell you the good workers, employees of the city of Sarasota were out there, I can tell you, at 6:00am Just, just cleaning the streets.

It's truly, truly heroic work that they're doing and helpless. So they deserve some recognition. Absolutely. Commissioner, we are looking at some of those still photos that you had taken, that your wife had taken.

Really gives us a sense of just how extensive the damage was, how powerful the storm was. Have emergency crews been able to start getting out as well, seen in that regard? Yes, they have. You know, the Governor DeSantis prepared for this hurricane as he does with all of them.

He had the largest standing group of individuals that we've ever had in history, just waiting to, for the first to be safe for them to commence work. You know, right now with over 3 million individual, 3 million Floridians without power, us included, we have no power. We didn't have cell phone signal up until about 2:30 this afternoon. So we wouldn't even be able to have this phone call because of that.

But I have heard from people that have gotten their power back. So we're hopeful that they're working on it. They're diligent at pl, does an amazing job. Well, we hope that the power comes back as quickly as possible as you are there dealing with the ongoing recovery efforts.

What are your biggest concerns, Commissioner? Well, biggest concern probably another tropical or water event occurring and coming from the, from the Atlantic. While we're in the middle of cleaning this one up, because this one came as we were in the middle of cleaning up after Debbie and Helene. So, you know, it's almost like when you're out at sea and you're trying to, you're trying to come up and stay above water, but then another wave comes and kicks you right back down.

And I think that's a concern that this community is having. Well, for good reason. We are glad that you are safe. We're glad that so many people did heed the warning to evacuate in the evacuation zones.

Commissioner Eric Arroyo, thank you so much for joining me. We really appreciate it. Joining me now is Florida Congresswoman Kathy Hasr, whose district includes much of Tampa. She joins us from Tampa's emergency emergency operations.

Senator, Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Kristen. So the concern was that Tampa would be in the eye of the hurricane.

Ultimately that was not the case, but still some significant damage there. Walk us through what happened and what the aftermath looks like. Yeah. Coming to you from the city of Tampa Emergency Operations Center.

You know, they have been here for a couple of weeks now following for King, Mayor Casper, of course, Mayor Welch from St. Petersburg. And I really have to thank all of the first responders, our local law enforcement officers, fire rescue, for doing everything they can to keep everyone safe. This has been a very important effort at all levels of governance from the Biden administration to female to the state to our local authorities.

That's what folks expect during a disaster like this. But we're really grappling with a massive catastrophe. Two hurricanes within two weeks time, different impacts, different costs. People are flooded out of their homes from Helene and now without power to recover, without cell service, this is going to be a long term recovery that's going to take a lot more cooperation and new resources.

And I was just speaking to Commissioner Arroyo about this. But Congresswoman, in talking to your constituents today, what are their biggest concerns at this point as you all are cleaning up and trying to recover from this? A short term, it's getting the trees off the streets that are blocking their way home, getting power back on, making sure kids can safely go back to school next week. Our public schools are used as our shelters and it was so important that people heated the evacuation orders and kept themselves safe.

That hasn't happened in past storms. It didn't happen like it should have during Helene. They just never conceived of this. So short term, that's the front burner.

But over the long term, the recovery are these hotter, longer summers, the extraordinarily hot temperatures of the Gulf of Mexico that provide the jet fuel for these storms to rapidly intensify and grow in size. And it's not just the weather. The climate crisis is also about your wallet we have an insurance crisis in Florida. It's very hard to pay your electric bill because they're so high.

So we've got to develop new solutions to reduce climate pollution and also protect our way of life. Lowering costs and making, making sure we'll price people out of being able to live in the sunshine sea. Absolutely. And obviously FEMA has been coordinating the response.

Are you satisfied with the level of coordina have seen from the state and local government? Do you think that enough is being done that the resources are there? Congressman, it's been an extraordinary effort on cooperation. The FEMA administrator was here.

Let me tell you those FEMA agents were here on the ground days after clean, making sure people signed up for disaster assistance.gov and received thousands of dollars to carry them through, especially if they didn't have flood insurance. The, the cooperation has been very robust but this is not where it ends. We have got to work together on a disaster supplemental to rebuild our critical infrastructure, our water systems, our wastewater systems do it in a way that protects the taxpayer dollar. So we're not having these flooding events that knock down power systems and critical infrastructure.

We're going to have some updates to our Air Force base. That's a critical economic engine. The Coast Guard station here nearby had catfish in the hangar and blooded out. We're going to have to survey all of and build them back to be more resilient to these extreme events.

To that point, do you think that Congress should come back before the election to approve more disaster funding? I would be back in a heartbeat but the speaker has made it clear that that's very unlikely and local communities do need time to, to complete their damage assessments. I mean we're not even 24 hours since since Milton hit and they've got to, they have to survey all of the damage. So I did hear from Rosa Deloro, the appropriations, the Democrat and a lot of my colleagues who are ready to jump in and help.

And in fact President Biden called last night. Here's his direct number. Really appreciated that. So we're all in this together and it's really time to make sure that we put people over politics and make sure that our neighbors get the help they need.

Congressman, what was the President's message to you? That he is here for us. He's been in contact with Mayor Jane Caster, with American Welch, as has the Vice President talked with Governor DeSantis. This is going to be a long term rebuilding effort and like I said, to do it in a more resilient way, a smarter way with our population growth and just grappling with the costs and impacts of climate change as well.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. You all are in our thoughts as you rebuild and recover in the wake of this massive hurricane.

So thank you so much. Coming up, we'll get a live update from Florida's east coast as Milton moves further into the Atlantic. And I'll talk to a veteran local meteorologist about what's next in the forecast this hurricane season after two major storms. But first, the campaigns are out in full force today, glitz and key battleground states.

Obama rallies in Pennsylvania, Harris hits Nevada and Arizona, and Trump stumps in Michigan. We have the very latest from the trail of just 26 days ago. You're WATCHING THE PRESS now. Stay with us.

Welcome back. With just 26 days until election Day, former President Donald Trump isn't letting up on his personal attacks on Vice President Harris, doubling down on some of his harshest rhetoric. As our own Dasha Burns reported in real time yesterday at his rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump lashed out against Harris, signaling he has no interest in changing his tone, even if it turns off female voters.

She doesn't even know what hell she is. They ask her a question like a, like a vacuum. What? No, I don't want to be nice.

Somebody said you should be nicer. Women won't like it. I said, I don't care. Today, Democrats focusing on battleground Pennsylvania as former President Obama hits the campaign trail for Vice President Harris for the rally in Pittsburgh tonight.

It's the first, but not the last event Obama plans to headline as the Harris campaign hopes to harness Obama's popularity in the remaining days of the campaign. Joining me now is Kelly o' Donnell in Pittsburgh, where President Obama will be speaking later this evening. And Shaq Brewster is in Detroit, where President Trump spoke earlier today at the Economic Club. Kelly, let me start with you.

What are you anticipating we will hear from former President Obama and what's the strategy to use him in these closing weeks? Well, question for you and me, this is a little bit of a flashback of our days covering President Obama. It's been a dozen years since he was the candidate, and Kamala Harris and Tim Walls believe he remains a super surrogate, one of the important, most consequential voices in the Democratic Party and someone who in a battleground state like here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania can draw them out and make the the argument for Kamala Harris and Tim Walls in ways that they believe can reach voters who may be disengaged voters who need a little push, voters who need to hear the story in another way. Barack Obama can talk about his long friendship with Kamala Harris.

Also, of course, Joe Biden served as his vice president. He chose Harris to be his vice president. And there is a thread of continuity there that he will try to use to argue that the country is going to be better off under the stewardship of Kamala Harris if she is elected in November. It is a tight race, as we know, and using some of a former president's sort of star quality is something that they want to use on the Democratic side with both President Obama and later President Bill Clinton going off in a couple of key battle rounds as well.

Also for Barack Obama, he's been offering advice. He has been offering support in fundraising and doing a lot of the sort of new ways of connecting with voters with direct to different kinds of audiences. But this is an old school rally where one of the best orders in the Democratic Party will try to make the case that Donald Trump would not be the choice for Pennsylvania, knowing how close this is and in particular trying to reach some of the voters where Barack Obama has a strong affinity, namely black men, that would be one area where he can help. And connecting with older voters as well.

Kristen? Yeah, Kelly, if you look at the polls, in order to win, she's got to get up some of those numbers with male voters. Let me ask you, Kelly, she's agreed to do a town hall later this month and some Democrats say, look, she's got a sharpen. So if the answer that she's been giving on her economic proposals, on how she would differ from a Biden administration, what's the reaction inside the campaign?

Any plans to do that? Well, one of the challenges as vice president, she is trying to demonstrate loyalty to Joe Biden for a lot of reasons. Their work together, the way he exited the race, certainly on matters of foreign policy, she and her campaign believe that it's important to have only one voice speaking for the country at a time. But on matters of domestic policy and ideas going forward, that is where she could have a little bit more daylight.

And we've only seen very minimal examples of that so far. And that may be one of the ways where Kamala Harris is challenged to try to show how she would do some things differently in what she describes as a new way forward. It's a lot of the ideas that Joe Biden supports and she's got to try to distinguish that in order to win over some of the undecided voters. Kristen, it's a challenging line to walk, Kelly.

Donald, there's no doubt about that. Thank you for your great reporting as always. Let me turn to you now. Former President Trump spoke today at the Detroit Economic Club.

Of course, it comes as we got new economic numbers showing that inflation ticked up slightly higher than expected. What has the response been from the former president? Well, I'm sure it doesn't surprise you that he definitely mentioned that exact point on stage talking about the latest inflation report, really putting the blame on Vice President Harris. He also went after the Federal Reserve saying that the cut in interest rates that we saw earlier this month was political.

We also heard him go after in the past, you know, jobs numbers saying that they were fake. But you know, earlier in the segment, you talk a little bit about how he said yesterday really promised to dial up the rhetoric against Vice President Harris, saying that he's not listening essentially to advisers saying that he should tone it down a little bit. And that was something that he continued here in front of the Detroit Economic Club. I want you to hear how he mixed that personal attack with his message on the economy under Biden and Harris.

Because of inflation, the economy has been a total disaster. But Kamala says that she can't think of one thing that she would do differently. She said that two days ago in a very unfortunate interview for her. I don't think she has any idea what's happening.

Okay. I think she's dumber than hell. And we've had, we've had enough of that for four years. We're not going to have it any longer because we're not going to be a country if we have it.

You hear that strong language there. And this came over a course of about a two hour speech, nearly two hour long speech here to members of the economic Club. We did hear some substance and new announcements from the former president. You heard him mention, for example, tariffs, the fact that he wants to impose tariffs, especially on companies that ship jobs overseas.

He talked about tax policy, different changes to the tax law that he wants to. But we also heard him talk about insurance rates and I should say talking about the fact that if you pay for interest on your auto loan loans, making that deductible similar to how homeowners do and how they're able to do that with mortgages. So we heard a mix of comments there from Donald Trump going personal, but also some new policy proposals in his extensive speech. Great breakdown of that event.

Jack Rooster, thank you so much. Of course, Helio Donald beforehand. Coming up after the break in update from a veteran Florida meteorologist on what could come next this hurricane season as the region recovers from two major storms. Now stay with us.

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Welcome back. Recovery efforts are underway across Florida as the state deals with the aftermath of Hurricane Milton. While Milton made landfall on Florida's west coast, it's brought damage and flying across the state, including the east coast. This was the scene in one south Daytona neighborhood.

It's captured by our NBC News team on the ground there. Joining now from Daytona beach is NBC News climate reporter Chase Kane. Chase, thank you for joining us. So we know Milton has now moved off the coast, but based on what you're seeing, how significant is the flooding at this hour?

We see a lot of it behind you. When we first got out this morning and we were on the barrier island on Daytona beach and thought, okay, well, maybe the storm wasn't quite as bad as fear. But then once we crossed the bridge back over to the mainland, that's when we realized that so many roads were flooded and impassable. And we talked to the Volusia county sheriff and he said that much of the county is underwater because there were pockets here of Volusia county that got 13, 14, even more than 15 inches of rain.

A lot of that came down in just a matter of a few hours. Really no storm water system can handle that. Cut off entire communities. Lots of people have been trapped inside their homes.

We actually found out with Volusia County Marine, Marine unit who took us out of an airboat. It was showing us just how many neighborhoods are covered in water. And really the only way out for people is either on a boat or if they're willing to walk through waste deep water. Oh, how terrifying.

How are residents doing today? How are they coping? Were some of them caught off guard by the amount of damage that they actually saw today? You know, I think people here unfortunately are getting used to it because this happened just a couple years ago with Ian.

A few years before that it happened with Charlie. We're actually talking with a lady that lives here in the neighborhood and she said at the peak last night, the water was just above my waist. So we're looking at several feet of water in this neighborhood. And again, that's the story that's been repeated over and over.

I last checked at the blue sheriff, they had three confirmed data deaths. You know, they're still trying to get to all the last few people. Communities like Court Orange just a few miles down the road, one of those last places. We're still trying to go and make sure that everyone is accounted for and safe.

And if they need to leave their home, they're able to provide boats and airbo rides out to safety to a warm, dry place. Just unbelievable. And such a tough road ahead. But Chase, we know you've had a long, tough night, so thank you for joining us.

We really appreciate it. And joining me now is veteran Central Florida urologist Tom Soros. He's based in Orlando. We are so grateful to have your perspective today.

Thank you for joining us. Oh, thank you for having me. Glad to be here. Well, we are glad to have you.

We're glad to see that you are okay. Can you tell us how your home, your community is doing in the wake of Milton? It depends on what you mean by community. Everyone in Orange county did fairly well.

Although as the storm came through, it wasn't fair to everyone. It was not equitable, if you will. Here in southwest Orange county, where I live, close to the attractions, we did okay. Our maximum sustainment was probably 60 miles per hour.

I personally never lost power through the night. The eastern side of the county took it a little tougher. They had tornado warnings and more damage. And the closer you get to the coast is obviously what Chase is just Showing you there.

We had a lot of flooding along the East Coast. It's gonna be nasty for a while. Yeah, the flooding just looks incredibly harrowing. Look, you have been covering hurricanes for decades.

How do the hurricanes that we just witnessed compare to what you have experienced? That's a great question. So here's the deal. 20 years ago, we had a crazy hurricane season here in Central Florida.

We hit four different hurricanes in 44 days. Chase mentioned Hurricane Charlie. It blew through here quickly, and it was a major hurricane landfall this season. All of a sudden, we've had three strikes in the state of Florida.

Debbie, we had Elaine, and then last night, Milton. Two of those three were major hurricanes. This is a weird situation we're having all of a sudden. So to compare what we're going through now, now back to 2004 is comparable between those two poles of 0405.

And now it was calmer in Florida as the globe continued to warm. So we're kind of looking at a special situation here where everything's intensifying rapidly and we're getting hit a little more often than we have in recent years. And just to put a fine point on it, do you believe this is a result of climate change? Oh, you know, 100%.

And I can say that with all honesty, and I would say all enthusiasm, but it's actually a lack of enthusiasm. All of this ties back into the fact that the cologne and the climate is changing. We're going through an unprecedented period here. Carbon in the atmosphere.

People kind of glaze over when I start talking about parts per million. But we're warning the atmosphere rapidly back and say, let's pick out 1976 parts per million in the atmosphere. We're running about 331 today. The parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere is about 422.

We've blasted 90 parts per million in the last 48 years. Now, what does that mean? That means we're warming rapidly. A lot of that warmth goes into our oceans and our atmosphere.

So all of a sudden, hurricanes are getting stronger, quicker. Over the last 50 years, Kristen, the number. The percentage of hurricanes that go major has moved from 18%. It used to be just, you know, 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 would go major hurricane status.

Now we're up to 43% of all hurricanes here in the Atlantic basin are going. Category three are bigger, as evidenced by what you just saw. So far this season in Florida, two of our three strikes have been major hurricanes. It's, in my opinion, undeniably because of global change in the temperature.

And it won't just be, as we like to say in my business, it won't just be global warming, it'll be global weirdness. And so more weaknesses coming. Okay. So it's just fascinating to hear you talk about that.

That takes me to my next question, which is how should Florida, how should the the country prepare for brace itself for what will likely be more of these significant and more intense weather events? Well, I think you have to come to the conclusion that we're doing all we can for the moment on some side of the electrical side to try to make people aware of hazards and dangers. Right. So you don't end up saying, hey, don't move to Florida.

I love it here. More people are welcome to come here. Just remember the same used to say the hurricane center back in the day. Dr.

Neal Frank at my first hurricane conference in 1989, told me, he said, you know, Tom, the problem is people don't want to live near the water, they want to live in the water. And that's kind of true. So we're going to mitigate the atmosphere. We're going to have to make sure that we don't keep pumping more carbon in the atmosphere.

It will be a lifestyle change. We will go more electric. We'll change the way we prepare foods. We'll change a lot of things in our society.

We will also change where you can go and where you can live. You can live here, but you have to run from the water and shelter from the storm. The wind will get you if you don't take shelter. Well.

It's a powerful way to put it and learn to watch. Just listen to you. Tom S, thank you so much for bringing us your expertise. We really appreciate it.

I enjoyed being on with you. Thank you so much. You enjoyed it as well. Thank you.

Silicon Hurricane season and campaign season collide. We'll dig deeper into disaster politics and what it means for the race for the White House. Don't go anywhere. You're watching the press now.

Joining me now on set is Deepa Shivaram, White House correspondent for npr, former New York Democratic Congressman Joe Crowley and Brendan Buck, former advisor to Republican House Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner. He's also an NBC News political analyst. Thanks to all of you for being here. Let me start with you.

We just played the sound of former President Trump continuing to promote this false claim that FEMA funds are being redirected to migrants, which just is not the case. One of the politics of this was I spoken to Republicans who say if he wants to win, he should stop promoting these conspiracy theories. He should stay on message and talk about the economy. He should.

But it's kind of what Trump does. Right. This is not a new strategy for him to point at migrants, to point at people who are not white. Right.

His base, and say, this is the root of our problems. And that comes across in so many different points in politics where Trump has used that as his, you know, kind of method here. But at the same time, you know, it kind of gives more fodder. You could say to a Kamala Harris, who's on the campaign trail and trying to show leadership in a moment like this.

Right. Which famously, with natural disasters, is something that we all remember the toilet paper growing up or towel frozen, excuse me, from Puerto Rico. And this is a moment where you really do see some of the contrast. Yeah, Brendan, it's actually.

It's a very good point. Historically, we know that the politics of a storm response actually matters. It's no secret what Trump is trying to do is trying to win over voters in North Carolina and Florida. Do you think what he's doing in the world, will it drive undecided voters away?

For Donald Trump, there's not a question that the answer is not immigration. If it's a disaster, it's immigration. If it's housing crisis, it's immigration. He wants to talk about immigration at any cost.

I don't know if this is an attempt to win the election. I think this is an attempt to potentially lay a predicate for claiming the election was stolen if he loses North Carolina at some point because they weren't helping the Republican areas. That's why. That's why I lost.

I don't trust that there's any, you know, electoral strategic gain behind this. I think he's just throwing up a bunch of ass trying to make people, you know, anxious, which he always thrives in. And, you know, it's for eventually being able to claim those solo. Yeah.

But let me ask you, Deepa makes the point that people do pay attention in these moments to who is showing leadership. Obviously, President Biden and the vice president have been getting briefings. We know there's this big dust up between the vice president calling Governor DeSantis. He said he wasn't aware that she was trying to reach him, but, you know, he's focused on storm response.

How do you assess how she has handled this moment, these two hurricanes, Helena and ML? Well, I think so far, she's done very well in this. I mean, I think in comparison to the Former president who continues to disparage and say these lies about the effects of the federal government helping state governments. It goes back to after the debate, you know, eating the dogs, eating the cats.

If it's the governor of Ohio, Republicans say that's not true. It doesn't matter. They're eating the dogs, eating the cats. He just keeps saying it.

And the same thing here. I think when it comes to the issue of North Carolina, this is a very difficult place to address this issue. It's very rural, the terrain is very rough, and many of the roads have been washed out. Really here is an incredible tragedy.

And a real leadership question is going to be how do we ensure that people that want to vote are going to be able to vote that day? Because I lived through Sandy in Queens, New York. We went, we moved mountains to make sure we had like national, national units for people to vote in. Inter.

Much more difficult to do the circumstances they have there now to ensure the state governments ensure that people want to vote, have the ability to do. There are so many concerns about how it's going to impact voters ability to actually have their ballots cast. I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about women voters. Former President Trump weighing in on women voters.

I want to play a little bit of what he's had to say recently. Everyone's reaction. A guy came up to me today, he said, sir, you really should be nicer to her. The women won't like it.

The women want safety and the women want to have a country that they can be proud of. I think they want to see a country that works and women have a country that works very, very soon. And the women are going to like Trump. I think they like me anyway.

I think it's all. They make it up. People talk about this strategy and we are seeing, quite frankly, historic gender divide right now with Harris doing much better with women voters and Trump doing much better with men voters. We know there's a real effort from the Harris campaign to woo male voters.

Yeah, really considered effort, not only for Harris herself, but of course, her writing walls. You have the second Dominica Em Hoff going to these certain events appearing on these platforms. But at the same time, you know, Harris's strong supine as vice president when she was taking this lead on the issues of comparison rights and abortion has been reaching women. And you're seeing her do that in different ways too recently, right?

This media blitz that she just kind of did in the last couple days, call her daddy. The podcast going on the View, which reaches a Lot more older women. And not just talking about that issue of abortion, but also talking about things like family support, tax credits for children, things like that, where she can really bring a policy lens to talking about the issue of women are not really an issue, if I'm being honest. Everything affects women, Right?

The economy affects women, housing affects women. Anything is a women's issue. And she's bringing that policy lens to it. And that's really where she is kind of trying to find her footing.

Whether or not voters are really using that as their reason to vote for her is, you know, a different question. Yeah, I mean, Congressman, back in 2016, we know that we were talking about what would be in historic gender gap. And ultimately Hillary Clinton didn't get the ball over the finish line. This is a different climate, It's a different race.

It's also the first presidential election after Roe v. Wade has been over. I would also suggest Trump is doing just fine with him. As far as I'm concerned, she's keeping the strategy going.

It's one thing to treat her nicer. It's more important to treat her with respect. And he doesn't do that. He disrespects her all the time.

Initially, I'm not pronouncing her name correctly. It grows from there. He has no respect for Kamala, Kamala Harrison. I think that is really the issue here and that's what really comes through, Brendan.

You know, former President Trump, obviously, he has always had this strategy of trying to get out his base and we are seeing that on display right now. It has worked for him in the past, but the question is, will it work in this moment? It hasn't. It hasn't.

I mean, he lives in that 2016 election where he won and nobody seems to want to catch up the fact that it didn't work in 2020 and in the context of what we're talking about, the one area that he's trying to get out of the vote that may be costing the woman about is he so hyper focused on his little bubble, particularly turning out the BRO voters as you will. He's doing all of these very specialized podcasts that are for young white men. And that's fine if you want to change the shape of the electorate to turn those people up. Do you have to realize that there is a cost to that?

JD Bay is talking about cat ladies and going on weeks long messaging campaigns to disparage single women may really excite some BRO voters. Young white men, I find it so fascinating to say, because the Republicans are talking about women. Tyler Harris doesn't get upstage with Hillary Clinton and racing scene and talk about being a woman that's not running as a woman candidate. That has never been a part of her piece here.

And so when you look at the split screen, it's pretty much just one side that's talking about women as if that's like a vote. It's always a mistake too soon as a strategy. When Donald Trump is doing, he's lashing out at women because he's looking at the same polling wheel voters. He doesn't really know what to do about it.

I don't believe it. It's not true. All right, guys, great conversation. Thank you so much.

Thanks for being here today. Appreciate it. And coming up, we will get a live update from Florida's east coast as Milton moves. Oh, actually, no.

That's the end of the show. Thank you all for being here. Back tomorrow with MORNING depressed. Now the news continues with Hallie Jackson.

Right. Hey, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of the Drink. This month, Demi Lovato is my guest. The global superstar tells me that she is the happiest she's ever been right now.

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