Meet the Press NOW — October 7

If it's Monday, the world marks one year since Hamas's October 7 terror attack on Israel that killed more than 1200 people and plugged the Middle east into a deadly multi front war as nearly 100 hostages remain in Gaza with no end to the fighting in sight. Plus, with less than a month to go before election night, Vice President Harris is about to deliver remarks on the October 7th anniversary as former President Trump lashes out of the White House. In an incendiary interview, the National Hurricane center says Milton has explosively intensified into a Category 5 storm as it heads towards Florida's storm battered west coast with thousands now under orders to evacuate. Welcome to Meet the Press Now I'm Yani Shaw, sender in Washington on this somber October 7th.

It's been one year since the brutal Hamas attack on Israel. It was the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust. Today at 6:29am Sirens blared across Israel as people stood in silence remembering the 1200 people slaughtered by Hamas and the more than 200 others who were abducted and taken hostage inside Gaza. At least 97 of those hostages are believed to still be alive inside Hamas's underground tunnels.

And hundreds gathered, including Israel's president, at the site of the Nova Music festival near where Hamas fighters breached the Israel Gaza border and killed an estimated 364 festival goers. the memorial, they played the very last music track played at the festival before it came under attack. My colleague Ralph Sanchez was there and spoke to some of those relatives who lost loved ones that day. Take a listen.

How is it to be back here when you're on? It's hard. It's hard. I'm shaking the beer.

You go all the way and you see this amazing, beautiful place and you realize the horrible herald that was here. It's been a year, but it feels like we are still the same date, still October 7th. For you, it's still October 7th. If you could speak to more, what would you tell them?

I'm sorry that I wasn't here to say your name. And he's my little cousin so I'm supposed to be the only that protects him and that he did not deserve this. But I'm proud of him because he left this world a hero. At the White House, the President and first lady participated in a candlelighting ceremony and a moment of silence.

In a statement marking the one year anniversary, President Biden said, quote, on this day of remembrance, which also falls during the holiest days of the Jewish calendar, we honor the indomitable spirit of the Jewish People and warn the victims of October 7th. Since that horrific day one year ago, the situation in the Middle east has become increasingly deadly and unstable. Israel's aerial assault and ground invasion of the Israel of Gaza in an effort to dismantle and destroy Hamas has killed tens of thousands of civilians. It's also reduced much of the area to rubble and created a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

And the conflict itself appears to be expanding with Israel now fighting Iran and its proxy groups on multiple fronts. NBC's Aaron McLaughlin joins me now from Tel Aviv. So Aaron, what's the mood like in Israel today? Of course, at a somber day.

And what are you hearing from people? Yamiche that the mood is somber. I was just in Tel Aviv, the heart of the city, a place known as Hostage Square. Thousands of Israelis had gathered, many of them openly weeping at the memory of what happened on October 7.

It is clear that this is still a gaping and open wound for this country, one that deepens every day. And that is certainly true for Realischitz. She's a resident of kibbutz near Oz, one of the hardest hits of the kibbutzim. We visited her at the kibbutz over the weekend and it's clear that she's still haunted.

Maybe because I was not here to help my family members. 7 October I left 10 hours before she was visiting Tel Aviv, but was in close contact with residents who she considers family. As Hamas militants tore through her kibbutz for hours, challenged by the Israeli military, murdered, murdered, kidnapped. A quarter of kibbutz near Oz.

Rider kidnapped or killed. Each home now a ghostly monument. Rita shows us where Carmela Dan and her granddaughter were hiding and burned alive. They were hugging each other.

That's how they found them. How come the army was not here in eight hours? A year later, you still don't have the answer. To me something is not right reads 84 year old father in law Oded was kidnapped on October 7 and taken to Gaza.

She said she doesn't know if he's dead or alive, but she wants this government to do more to prioritize the hostages. She said she's worried with this ever expanding war that they're going to be forgotten. And it's just such heartbreaking images to see you standing there with her and in that place that just still looks like it happened just yesterday. And you of course also just mentioned that it's standing more.

So I want to ask you about it. As we mark one year of this war, Iran's proxy groups have been launching attacks toward Israel what more do we know about. Yeah, that's right, Yamiche. There was an attack today from Yemen, a missile fire intercepted by Israeli defenses.

That's becoming kind of weekly occurrence since I've been here. And then of course you have that front there in Lebanon. Ongoing fighting today. According to the Israeli military, they dropped 100 Israeli fighter jets, hit 120 Hezbollah targets in a matter of 24 hours.

The civilian death toll there, of course, is rising as Hezbollah continues to fire rockets toward is of those rockets making it through the air defenses, hitting the streets of Haifa. No one injured here in Israel. And then of course, you have the situation unfolding there in Gaza over the weekend. Israeli military once again ordering the evacuation of northern Gaza, some 300,000 Palestinians there.

The Israeli military is targeting for the fourth time the Jabalia refugee camp. They say that Hamas is sort of rebuilding there a year later, which raises questions about how successful, given that Hamas is much smaller, it's much smaller in size, the Israelis will be with offensive in Lebanon. Yeah, so many questions on this one year anniversary. There are multiple fronts being fought there.

So thank you so much for your reporting. Let me now bring in Ambassador Dennis Ross, former U.S. special envoy to the Middle east and NBC News Foreign affairs analyst. Thank you so much for being here.

So we're now one year into this war. What's your assessment over things stand in the Middle East? As you see, fundamentally, Israel has a number of remarkable military achievements. I think the problem is more that they don't have a strategy right now that allows them to translate military achievements into political outcomes.

What you just heard, Marin was in Jabalia, which is a refugee camp, which I've been in many times in the past. The Israelis have cleaned that out several times and they've gone back in. So if you're going to translate what are significant military achievements in Gaza, where Hamas is no longer a military, but it still represents a terrorist group, you have to focus on what can replace an Israeli presence the more Israel can begin to be thinking about what replaces it in Gaza. In Lebanon, they weakened his balance to the point where the Lebanese government could reestablish itself, reestablish Lebanese sovereignty, reestablish the Lebanese army throughout the country.

Here, examples of where Israel's military achievements having weakened Hamas and Hezbollah having weakened what Iran calls the axis of resistance. Israel would be in a position where you begin to change the region dramatically for the better. But you have to have a set of political objectives in mind. You have to have in mind how you create an end game.

And that's not clear at this point. Well, as you're talking about sort of how this war has evolved here and what Israel's been able to to do and accomplish, I want to also ask you about the Biden administration because they've been saying since the beginning of this war that they're working to prevent it expanding. We're now seeing Hezbollah and Houthis and the Tehran now involved. Was that a failure?

Is that a failure, that Biden administration, or was it an. After all that, given the complex issues going on in this region, this is where we're going to be. Look, almost by definition, this was unbelievably complicated with Hamas wanting to trigger a much wider war, the US Doing to try to prevent the wider war. The problem was that you had Hamas not really interested after November in another hostage deal, at least not the leader of Hamas left the Sinwar and Hezbollah made a decision that it was going to keep firing into Israel as a way of trying to tie the Israelis down.

Inevitably, it let the Israelis try to raise the cost of Hezbollah of continuing to be firing rockets into Israel, even if it was confined mainly to the northern part of Israel. It was keeping nearly 70,000 Israelis away from their homes. As Israel decided to raise the cost of Hezbollah, it became also increasingly convinced that our efforts to bring that kind of fighting to an end, we're not going to succeed. And that's why I think it'll happen nearly a year that the Israelis decided right now we're going to pretty much try to weaken Hezbollah.

They destroyed the entire leadership of Hezbollah. They killed Hassan Nasrallah. And so now you have those two fronts, and then you have the deciding that they're going to fire into Israel as a way of avenging what the Israelis are doing. But they're doing it in a way where they hope it'll be limited.

You have this remarkable situation where Iran does not want to look like it's weak, so it's going to fire into Israel. Israel does not want to look like it's weak, so it's going to retaliate. It's very difficult to try to control this. We have a significant military presence there.

We should be warning the Israeli, the Iranians, I think we are, that if they, if they continue this, they draw risks of drawing us in. I can tell you one thing about the Iranians. The one thing they do not want is to get into a direct conflict with the United States regime. Survival is the first priority for the Iranian regime.

The one thing they see threatening that survival is a direct war with us. So they don't want that. We still have to, we have to use that fear as a deterrent, use that fear to try to also ensure that we contain what's happening between Israel and Iran right now. Well, thank you so much, Ambassador Ross, for your analysis during this, of course, critical time here in sportswear on India like today.

It's great to have you. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you.

Let me now turn to retired General Joseph Hotel. He's former commander of U.S. central Command and distinguished senior Fellow at National Security at the Middle East Institute. So thank you so much for being here.

As we mentioned, we're still waiting to see how Israel's going to retaliate against Iran. You just heard the ambassador talk about this. This week Israel's Defense minister will meet with Secretary Austin at the Pentagon. From a military perspective, how much will the Israelis, how much do they consider what the Pentagon has to say here given how the last year has gone?

Thank you. It's good to be with you again. So I think certainly the Israelis will pay attention to what advice that the United States gives to them through our military channels or through our political channels we have a long term partnership and relationship with. So they will certainly, certainly take on board the advice that we provide them.

That said, ultimately, you know, the decisions to retaliate to go back after Iran are largely going to be Israeli decisions, are completely going to be Israeli decisions and they're going to be looking for, for some specific objectives out of this. I think one of the things important for people to keep in mind here is that Israel does not necessarily want to return to the status quo. They do want to, they do want a weakened access. They want to weaken Iran, they want to weaken Hezbollah.

They certainly want to weaken Hamas on their, you know, that they have to deal with going forward. And so they're going to continue to, I think try to extract as much pain as they can on those actors as they, as they move forward militarily with that point. If you're saying that Israel is trying to have as much pain for these groups and for the sort of people that are fighting on this multi front. Well, I wonder what do you expect Israel's retaliation to look like now when it these strikes, these strikes with Iran?

And I wonder, you think they'll go after particular Iran's nuclear facilities? Yeah, I mean I think this is the $64,000 question right now is, is what this, excuse me, what this response actually looks like. I mean they have the opportunity to go after Certainly after the facilities associated with nuclear weapons program and go after oil and gas facilities. These, these, these are both significant prestige locations for the, for the Iranians and the court in the case of oil and gas would have almost immediate impacts on the, on their economy and perhaps on the economy within the region.

They can also go after the more traditional military targets that would be Iranian command and control locations, air bases, missile launch sites, stockpiles with the intent of reducing those cap. So there's a lot of things that they can, they can do. I think, I think we have to take Iran at its, or Israel at its word when it says it is going to, it is going to strike back hard. And the last time around they principally were messaging the Iranians.

I think certainly there will be a message in this response, but I think we're also getting all that punishment. They will try to hold something at risk that is very, very important to, to the Iranians. You said that this is largely a decision by Israel. But with that in mind, what role do you think the US should be playing here and what Israel's response looks like?

Should it be something bigger than just providing intelligence? Do you think we should be doing more as the United States? Well, I think, I think we are doing a lot and there's probably a lot that is ongoing that we're not seeing. Certainly a meeting between the, our Secretary of Defense, the Minister of Defense of Israel is an important aspect.

I'm certain there are discussions going on at the sub cabinet and certain other departments of our government with their counterparts in, in, in Israel. So the first thing we should do is we should stay engaged. We should be communicating with our, with our principal partner in the region, in this case Israel. Second of all, we've got to continue to maintain a strong military presence in the region.

This is important as we saw last week, and not only helping defend Israel, but really helping, helping the conflict really get more out of control than it already is. I do think, I do think our, our, our presence in the region does have a deterrent effect. That said, you know, Iran I think was compelled to respond last week. I think they're hoping that there will be an offering part of this.

But I think these are the types of things we should be continuing to do and then reassuring our partners across the region that, that we are committed to this and we want to move this beyond conflict more into the diplomatic political realms because it's the one year anniversary and some look at the bigger picture here. We know that Israel's goal is to dismantle Hamas and Hezbollah. Do you think Israel's strategy in Gaza and now Lebanon has been an effective one? When you think about that goal, has Israel really done enough to fight the ide, the ideology behind Hamas and Hezbollah, when you think about sort of how they thought about this?

Well, in many ways that's a very difficult task for military, military organizations to, to conduct. I mean, I think what we've definitely seen is we've definitely seen a weakening of the so called Iranian access here, whether it has been Hezbollah or Hamas or Iran itself. We've seen a number of assumptions that have previously been in place. For example, that Hezbollah could deter Israel from taking action.

That's clearly not the case. And, and Israel has certainly taken it to Hezbollah over the last couple of, couple of weeks. So, you know, certainly the military can do a lot, but we learned this in is that ultimately unless you take measures to address the underlying problems that give rise to many of these tensions and this violence, you're going to continue to deal with this going forward. And as somebody who's watched the Middle east for a long time, has served there and as many of our viewers I'm sure appreciate, there are deep underlying tensions in the region that have yet to be addressed and they're not going to be, they're not going to be successfully addressed militarily.

The military can do things to bring people to the table, but they're not going to address the underlying issues of Palestinian, Israeli relationships, of the toxic narrative and activities that Iran is pursuing without more, more focused efforts in that particular area. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, General for joining us. Thank you.

Good to be with you. And coming up, the 2024 candidates mark at the moment a look at how Vice President Harris and former President Trump are honoring the one year anniversary of October 7th terror attack. That's next. Pl Hurricane Milton's explosive intensification as a Category 5 storm barrels for Florida.

We have the latest forecast and potential impacts ahead with Al Roker. You're watching me the Press now. Welcome back with less than a month ago before election day what Vice President Harris and former President Trump are spending today marking the anniversary of October 7th attack on Israel. Moment ago, Vice President Harris and Second Gentleman were planting a memorial tree in honor of the victims of the vice President's residence here in Washington.

The vice president pledging her continued support for Israel's right to defend itself and said she will continue working for the release of the hostages. Former President Trump marked the anniversary with members of the Jewish community in New York. Later today he will Also attend a remembrance event at his golf course in Florida. Trump also did several interviews about the anniversary where he attacked the Biden administration's Middle east policy and once again said Jewish people must vote for him.

Do you think Biden and Harris have been holding back Israel from winning? I do. I think everything they do is the opposite. In particular, him.

Now, he's a dumber person than him, but he is the worst foreign policy of anybody in history. Probably nobody's done more for the Jewish people than I have. Nobody's done more for Israel as a president. Maybe beyond being a president, I should get.

I should get 100% of the vote. No person has ever been better to the Jewish people, probably no person, period, to the Jewish people and Israel. Let's now go to our NBC News reporters covering the campaign. Garrett Haig is with me on set.

He's covering the Trump campaign. And Magaba is covering the vice president, of course, Vice President Harris, and she's already outside the White House. So I'm gonna start with you, Monica. The vice president and her husband just wrapped up planting a tree in honor of the October 7th victims.

How else is the VI president marking this anniversary? Yeah, we heard in remarks from both of them there at the Naval Observatory at their residence the significance of today and their pledge to continue to fight, to try to secure the release of those hostages and to raise awareness about the atrocities of that day. And it followed President Biden earlier at the White House holding a candlelight ceremony with the first lady and a rabbi and offering a prayer as well. And this is, of course, the mission moment where we're talking about everything that happened, but where politics has certainly been a part of the conversation.

And we've seen this over the last couple of months in terms of the Muslim and Arab American communities and trying to decide whether they're going to support Vice President Harris or what they have said about former President Trump. And over the weekend, a group of imams did end up backing Vice President Harris, saying that they argued that former President Trump posed a danger to overall, their communities and their feelings of being safe if he were to be elected, to have a second term in office. So this is a. To really reflect on everything that took place.

But also, we can't ignore how this has sort of interfered with the race at times and been critical, especially in places like Battleground Michigan and other places where that vote could be very close, since it's going to be on the margins. Yamiche and Micah, you mentioned that endorsement. We also have an abandoned Harris movement That needs to be abandoned. Biden announced, abandoned Harris, how significant is the sort of tension there when you think about how close the selection is and the debates we're seeing happen among Muslims in terms of whether I have to support her.

And that is why you saw Vice President Harris when she was in Michigan just on Friday, meeting with some representatives of that community behind closed doors. That's something that she has done before. It's something that back when President Biden was at the top of the ticket and when he was trying to navigate that issue, there were certainly tensions, there were many protests at his event. So this is something certainly that the vice president has said she wants to engage on.

But you're right, these are communities that are critical in certain places at certain can have influence and that have raised this question of the vice president maybe not coming out and they say being forceful enough in terms of putting some distance between where the Biden administration has been when it comes to the war in Gaza and where the vice president sometimes leans in on this issue. And she has at times gone a little bit further. But that is a critical constituency and one certainly that the vice president is trying to court, while of course, being very respectful of what today marks and the incredibly somber anniversary we're all discussing today. And I also want to ask you, we've seen a sort of media blitz when it comes to the vice president.

Tell me about sort of the thinking there, the strategy there, because you went from not really doing that many interviews to having a bunch lined up this week. Yeah. Tonight she'll be doing 60 Minutes along with her running mate, Governor Tim Walls. She's also going to be appearing on a late night show.

Tomorrow she'll be in New York doing Colbert. She's going to be on the View. But also in the last couple of days, she recorded a really popular podcast interview known as Call Her Daddy, focused on reproductive rights and abortion access. Take a listen to exchange from that.

So he who, when he was president, hand selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade. And they did, just as he intended. And There are now 20 states with Trump abortion bans.

So this is the same guy that is now saying that. This is the same guy who said that women should be punished for having abortions. This is the same guy who uses the kind of language he does to describe women. So, yeah, there you go.

This is a platform that reaches millions of listeners. So this is part of this strategy from the Harris Walls campaign, trying to get out there in front of some different audiences of non traditional media, which we're told will continue this week not just for the vice president but for Governor Walls as well as they've been under to do more of this kind of thing. Thanks so much for your reporting, Monica. Now, Gary, interview that former President Trump gave when he was talking about Jewish voters, he said that he would if he loses, that the Jewish people and Jewish voters would be to blame.

What more are we hearing from him? We're still dealing with a lot of same racially charged rhetoric we get from Donald Trump on the other day of the year. In that same interview with you, Hewitt, he talked about that you have murderers free in this country and non detained immigrants. And we've talked about quite a bit on this program based on some ICE numbers in this case suggested the crime was in their genes and that there's a lot of bad genes in this country.

It is the kind of language that would be disqualifying for so many other candidates. But it's become something run of the mill for Trump, especially when he's describing immigrants. It's incredible really to think about the fact that he can say all of this and just roll with it and it doesn't really even make a big headline anymore because he just continues to repeat these things. As he said, sort of end career ending for other politicians.

But I want to also ask you about Butler, Pennsylvania. He was back there. What was that trip like? Because of course it was the scene of the first assassination attempt.

Yeah, look, the days after the first assassination attempt, a really high point for the Trump campaign. He rallied the whole party around him. He obviously survived a bullet to the head. Joe Biden was on the ropes.

I think part of the purpose of this visit was to go back and try to recapture some of that magic from mid July. What we know about Trump, though is he operates in a fairly narrow emotional bandwidth. So yes, there were some notes about Unity, about Cory Comparator, the firefighter who was shot and killed. There are also some conspiracies and some of the same sort of hints about more conspiracies to come at the end of the election.

Take a listen to two minutes that kind of jumped out. We'll talk about another side. Over the past eight years, those who want to stop us from achieving this future have slandered me, impeached me, indicted me, tried to throw me off the ballot and who knows, maybe even tried to kill me. We have to save our country.

So you have to get out and vote. You got to get out and vote. You got to get your friends and vote because you know they play a lot of tricks. This particular other side, Trump, they're playing footsie with two conspiracies that we know that he will continue to talk about.

First, the idea that there is a mysterious today who is responsible for the assassination attempts against him. There's no evidence of that of any kind. And second, he's continuing to suggest that any, any outcome of the victory for him in 2024 because of dirty tricks, cheating or stolen election. Like he continues to say about 2020 as we keep talking about conspiracy theories.

And in keeping in that vein with Donald Trump, he's also been studying conspiracy theories and false claims about Hurricane Helene and saying that Republican victims aren't getting aid. He's also been saying that FEMA has been redirecting money to undocumented migrants. Things are not true from what we can tell from what the admin shows. Why though does he keep on doing this, especially when aides and campaign aides keep winning?

His aides and talk about policy and other things, do they want to be having this conversation? I think there's a universe in which the government's response, if it is indeed poor or insufficient in these states, particularly North Carolina and Georgia, that is a worthwhile issue for the campaign. That's not necessarily what Trump is doing here. I think this relates to your first point, Yamiche, which is Trump is sort of impervious to the kind of fact checking that would only hold a normal politician back from us.

And it's not for lack of trying. We can point out over and over again that these things you're saying are not true when you think you want to describe it as a strategy. Not just him saying whatever he wants to say in any given moment. I think he understands that his voters and the people who are inclined to listen to him and might become his voters are far more interested in what he's going to say than what a sort of nevish, nerdy journalist fact checking him say is wrong.

He's hoping what he says resonates with them emotionally in a that way that our kind of finger wagging facts never quite do. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah.

Well, thank you so much, Garrett. And up next, the latest update on Hurricane Milton as it heads to Florida as a massive category 5 storm. Plus we'll head to North Carolina as conspiracy theories and lies cloud the youth game operation that's still underway there. You're watching me the press now as the day wraps up, the scoop on what's been happening with here's the Scoop, the podcast for NBC News with your host Gas in the studio, we'll take a deep dive into today's top stories with NBC News's trusted journalist.

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Florida's Gulf coast is bracing for another major hurricane. Hurricane Milton has rapidly strengthened into a Category 5 storm with 175 mile per hour winds. The National Hurricane center describes its intensification as explosive and warns that its impacts could be potentially catastrophic. Forecasters say it will likely make landfall as a Category 3 or 4 hurricane by the middle of the week, with the Tampa area currently right in its path for Officials are preparing for what could be the largest evacuation since Hurricane Irma seven years ago, with at least six counties already issuing mandatory evacuations for some of their residents.

Authorities are warning that Milton's storm surge could double that of Helene's. And even as those evacuations begin, crews are still removing massive amounts of debris from Hurricane Lean, which hit Florida less than two weeks weeks ago. Governor DeSantis says those operations will continue even in mandatory evacuation zones through Wednesday. NBC News Outlooker joins me now with the latest on Milton.

So thank you for being here. What's the latest track and how much of the potential impact zone is still dealing with Helene's Hurricane Helene's aftermath? Well, I'm going to tell you, this is really going to be catastrophic right now it's got 175 mph wind. It's a Category 5 storm.

It's 700 miles southwest of Tampa. But with that system now, what we're going to be watching is this path. And the path has been fairly consistent for the National Hurricane center makes landfall sometime Wednesday evening between 6pm and 12am as a Category 3. But at least don't pay attention to that.

Category 3 winds. Anywhere from 111 to 129 miles per hour, those winds extend out. The tropical force winds will extend out about 80 miles from the center. The hurricane force winds about 30 miles from the center.

So that's going to be a wide swath. Still the same areas that dealt with the aftermath of Helene. Yeah, I also, as you were looking at the path there historically, how unusual is Milton's path coming from the west? And a question I had to ask you for my cousins in Florida, my family in Florida, how should people be preparing for this?

Well, they really need to prepare because here's the thing. First of all, this west to east track is not, not that uncommon. But it is uncommon. The last time we had a Category 5 storm coming out into the Gulf infecting Florida was Michael back in 2018.

But the areas that we worry about, obviously storm surge, we're talking about from Cedar Key down to Marco island, anywhere from 4 to 7, but at the most, 8 to 12ft. And if this comes in right around high tide, add another 3 to 4ft on top of that. So we've got storm surge. We also have severe weather.

Whenever you have severe weather, especially in the white, the right quadrant of the storm, you've got the risk for tornadoes. And we got 11 million people from Daytona beach all the way to Key west at risk as well. And then we take a look at the rainfall. This is flooding, rainfall anywhere from 5 to 10 inches.

But we could be looking at 15 inches of rain. What we've been seeing is these storms have been really overproducing. So I don't think that it's going to be uncommon for us to see anywhere from 8, 9, 10 to 15 inches of rain out of that. And that's going to really increase that flood.

That flash flood rescue definitely remarkable and scary when you look at those numbers. I want to also ask you, how does Hurricane Milton compare to Hurricane Helene in terms of size? Okay, let's take a look. Here's the deal.

First of all, the path, as you can see, veered off a little bit. Helene came straight up out of the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea and then up to the east of Tallahassee, whereas Milton is coming across more west to east, as you said. But size wise, this is a much more powerful storm. The maximum winds, 4, Milton, 80, they were 80 miles per hour.

And now we're talking 24 hours away and all of a sudden we're at 175 mile per hour winds. Never got close to that for Alene. So this is a much stronger storm, a much more powerful storm. And even if those, the numbers come down as far as the category, you should tell your family and friends down that area, do not pay attention to the category.

Pay attention to the risk that this, this poses because this is going to be a catastrophic storm. Yeah. Pay attention to the strength and really get prepared. Thank you so much, Al Roker, for all your reporting.

You bet. And President Biden has already approved an emergency declaration for Florida ahead of Milton's arrival. And the Biden administration also continued to assist in recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene. The Pentagon is deploying an additional 500 active duty troops to help with the response in North Carolina.

Helene is now being blamed for at least 235 deaths, making it the deadliest hurricane the mainland United States since Hurricane Katrina. Meanwhile, misinformation about the federal response is complicating recovery efforts. And for President Donald Trump is among those spreading that misinformation. He has been falsely claiming that the federal government is withholding aid to Republican disaster victims.

He's also been falsely claiming that disaster relief funds were being diverted to house undocumented immigrants. All that, of course, as I said, is not true. Now, Antonio Hilton joins me now from Burnsville, North Carolina. So Antonia, what are recovery teams top priorities right now?

Hey, Amish. Well, there are a number of types of recovery teams. We traveled the other day with the National Guard, with members of FEMA and other first responders by helicopter. And when you do that, you get to see just how challenging all this is.

We're right now in Burnsville in the mountainous regions here in the western part of the state. And you see how thick the canopy is, how hard it is for them to figure out, well, where we want to land our helicopter. How do we see through those trees to spot the people who are still missing, who may need help? And then when they do drop, often people have fled or homes have been absolutely destroyed, and it's hard to find the people to actually give the aid to.

Then they're already on the ground teams, they're going out communities like this one. And then there are just the Neighbors helping neighbors. That's where I am right now. You see people making some hot meals behind me here.

But this is part of a massive setup in the Brazil community. As you can see back through here, there are some cars. I've been here waiting for hours in some cases to get cases of water, cleaning supplies, diapers for their children, all kinds of goods. People are coming here also to get clothing.

You know, it's warm right now, it's October and we're in the mountain, so it's going to start getting cold pretty fast. And people are worried about what that's going to mean for a lot of families here. So the reality of just what, what this recovery is really going to look like, especially people in the smaller towns farther away from the cities. You know, it's really that rally setting in right now because they're understanding it may be months before they have things like running water back and their infrastructure even resembles something close to normally niche.

Wow. Months before they have running water. But as you said, neighbors helping neighbors. So an important part of that story.

I also want to ask you how local authorities are reacting to all this misinformation and how that's really impacting recovery efforts from hurricane. Well, local officials and authorities are doing everything they can to combat it, from the governor's office to Republican senators here, to just the regular on the ground folks, like from the fire department to local churches, trying to explain people their options are. And I want to also make really clear that this conversation, it kind of has to be split into two sides. One is that there are very legitimate complaints, especially in the smaller mountain towns, that the federal aid is moving too slow, that were 10, 11 days out.

They haven't seen one female rep yet because they live in one of these smaller places where the roads have been cut off and no one's able to get up to their house, their farm. And that's true and those stories deserve to be told. I think it's really important to emphasize that. But then there's the willful misinformation spread by a lot of people who aren't even here in the state.

And you know, it's harmful. It's confusing, you know, to tell people that the money's being stolen, that if you work with FEMA, they get to steal your property. These things are not true. But they do have a real impact on people.

And it makes people feel like they've been abandoned by their own government. It makes them fearful to actually make that phone call to FEMA or fill out that application and so people here are just urging people to kind of slow down for a moment and let the people who are on the ground, whether it's the neighbors helping neighbors or it's the governor, do what they need to do because there's a very real need here. And that noise, least of the officials here, is not helping the mish. It's so important for you to break that down that there are legitimate concerns, especially places that are hard to reach.

And there's been information that's making things harmful and dangerous. That's really, really important and critical reporting. So thank you so much. And Tonya, those images that you just see are just heartbreaking.

So thank you so much for your reporting. And this weekend at a rally, former President Donald Trump continued to politicize the tragedy of Hurricane Lynn by again basically accusing President Biden and Vice President Harris of abandoning victims. The federal government is doing a very bad job. They are not doing the job.

It's a real bad one that they have to get people there because they don't have people. They don't have the people. Kamala wined and dined in San Francisco and all of the people in North Carolina, no helicopters, no rescue. Kamala Harris has left them stranded.

They have. This is the wor response to a storm or a catastrophe or a hurricane that we've ever seen ever. Probably worse than Katrina. That's hard to beat, right?

As we said, former President Donald Trump has been pushing false claims like that for well over a week. Meanwhile, even as Trump and his supporters claim a lack of leadership from the White House today, an aide for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is telling NBC News DeSantis is not getting calls from Vice President Harris about storm recovery because they deemed they seemed, quote, political. This afternoon, DeSantis pushing back on that reporting, saying he was unaware that she called. Very interesting.

Joining me now is our panel. Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for the New York Times, and NBC News political analyst Samantha Myrick. He's the president and CEO of People for the American Way and former mayor of Ithaca, N.Y. and Sarah Chamberlain, president and CEO of the Republican Main Street Partnership.

So thank you all for being here. Peter, I want to start with you. Andy Caesar reporting right now. You know, as we said, the government is pushing back is that he has been refusing to take calls from Vice President Harris because he sees her outreach as political.

Now, we've always seen politics in certainly hurricane country. We all remember how political got but I wonder is that there's something different happening here we are in the misinformation and all other stuff is going on. Yeah. I mean, it's coming right in the thick of a political campaign, of course, but we have seen political campaigns sort of halt for a minute at least the nastiness of the partisanship while people back in there to help people in need.

Right. Obviously, Hurricane Sandy comes to mind 2012, when President Obama and Governor Christie, a Republican who's supporting his opponent in the last days of the2012 campaign, got together because it was more important to figure out how to make, you know, New Jersey safer from the storm damage. We've seen that other instances as well. It is shocking or not shocking at least telling that today, of course, it's all about politics.

It's all about what can be blamed rather than what's actually happening with the needs are on the ground. No doubt there are criticisms being made, there almost always are in these terms. And there are probably things that the feds haven't done that they should do, as we just heard. But to make it all about politics, of course, obscures what really needs to be done.

Makes it all about a game rather than actually, you know, the needs of people on the ground. Yeah. And Sarah, as Peter's talking about sort of the politics of all this yoga, lawmakers in states like North Carolina have been already defending the federal response, even though it's okay, there are legitimate concerns there. You do have North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, who is now pointing fingers, claiming his statement on political posturing after the storm was talking about politicians like Vice President Harris.

Do you think this needs to be separated from the drumbeat of misinformation? What you're seeing, you're reading of what the senator is saying. I think the misinformation is sad. I think the senator is trying to backtrack a little bit from his comments of this is not political, this is we need to help the people.

Our congressman from Republican partnership, that's his district, he is all over this. He's actually returning money to anybody who gave him money that needs it back. So they're trying, a lot of the elected officials are trying to remove this from politics. But it's sad that it keeps coming back to this is men and women of this country are struggling.

Yeah. And so, I mean, it's remarkable because now you have FEMA putting up a website to counter rumors. You have the White House sending out memo saying this is all misinformation or at least trying to point out the misinformation. I wonder, when you think about this, what do you make of how we got here and the fact that Trump is continuing to do this and what that means.

Right. It's extraordinarily dangerous. I mean, it's dangerous for the people in the path of this storm and the next one, but it put all of us in the crosshairs of a larger, scarier, deadlier storm. Right.

I mean, there's lies, there's damn lies, and then there's sedition, and that's what this is. There's always been politics around. I ran for office four times myself. There's always been a chance to say, hey, I could run an operation better than the other person.

They didn't pave the street fast enough. They didn't get sandbags in place fast enough. They didn't get recovery funds in fast enough. And either because of cronyism or competence or whatever, but that's not what Trump is doing here.

It's not what the extreme right wing is doing. What they're doing is claiming, once again, that if you have a problem in your life, you can blame that squarely on migrants. Right. If the storm disaster recovery is difficult because you live in a rural area and the federal government isn't getting there fast enough, that's not because the Democrats didn't fund female enough.

It's because they're funneling money to somebody else secretly on the side. They're funneling money to migrants. Historians have warned us forever that this is how democracy ends, and this is how you end up not only with enormous civil rights abuses, but also genocides. Yeah, we need to.

We need to be very, very wary about what we're seeing right now, because it's larger than just the storm. So what they say, it's larger than the storm. I wonder what we think, the speed of this misinformation, what that tells about. What that tells us about the election and sort of this November and what could happen there.

Yeah, I mean, look, you know, that's been Trump's strategy along. It's stoking the doubts and distrust and skepticism, institutions that have been growing for years, even before he came on the scene. Right. If you look at the poll, it shows Americans are very, very suspicious right now of banks and government and Supreme Court and the media and, of course, political parties.

And that's something that Trump has tapped into. And it was successful formula for him in 2016. It may be a successful formula for him in 2020, but there are consequences to it. And the consequen at a time when people need to be able to rely on something, rely on the authorities to their advice, their guidance and their help.

They're disrespectful because they're told by the leaders to be disrespectful. Yeah. And Sarah, as we're talking about what might happen post election, we're seeing something that's been happening now for four years, and that is that top Republicans in Congress, including the speaker of the House, refused to definitively say that former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election on Sunday shows this weekend, which seems sort of bizarre to even say out loud, but take a listen to what they've been saying, Christian. Joe Biden was elected President 2020.

It was an unfair election in many ways. Joe Biden is president. Can you just simply say Trump lost. Joe Biden was elected President 2020.

That's why we have runaway inflation. That's why we have more than 10 million illegals in this country. And to go back to the point about the 2020 election, it was very irregular. This is the game that is always played by mainstream media with leading Republicans.

It's, it's a I got you game. You want us to litigate things that happened four years ago when we're talking about, about the future. Can you tell you you want me focus on the future? You still delay in the past?

No, we need to move past 2020. We need to move into 2024, talk about issues Americans care about. They don't care about 2020 for their Biden want. When he's, he is, he was elected president.

He was sworn in. We need to move past that and talk about the crisis going on this country. Are you concerned about the voters and the supporters that made Donald Trump the nominee, that they have not moved past this? We're very concerned about that because certainly if Trump is not winning, we do not want to repeat of what happened four years ago.

It's so scary. And Peter, you wrote this weekend about Donald Trump. He said, quote, he has always been and have often been untethered to the truth. But with the passage of time, his speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane, and increasingly fixated on the past, having worked it in your times and final sense since it's long.

But that is, that's a much better. What does this mean? You think that the party is still here? Yeah.

Well, look, I mean, we spent a lot of time talking about President Biden's age. Obviously, that became a real problem for him and forced him to drop out of the race. We didn't spend as much time looking, I think former President Trump age seems three years younger and he doesn't walk the same sort of stutter step that President Biden does. And he doesn't seem frail as President Biden does.

Obviously he's got energy, so he's not having the same age related issues. But if you watch the tapes of his rallies and you compare them to the past, you do see a change. And the change is that he is growing less focused, more rambling, and sometimes, yeah, even more untethered from the truth. Yeah, I can talk to you for a while, but we have to go now.

So thank you so much. And still to come, the barriers to voting. And now nation is a critical voting block in a critical spinning state. You're watching me throughout us.

Welcome back. Today is the final day to register to vote in several states, including battleground Arizona, where voters have until midnight to register. And both campaigns are mobilizing to get members of Arizona's Native American tribes to the polls. NBC contributor in Indigenous Journals Aliza London.

Travel to the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona for this report on Arizona's White Mountain Apache Reservation. Volunteers known as firekeepers are hard at work going door to door. They're registering fellow travel members to vote in time for November's presidential election. Republican Democrat field operations manager Jandy Craig says that the point isn't who they vote for, is that they're able to vote.

People feel like it's very complicated the process of registering to vote. And so we do the best that we can as a group to share information. More than 300,000 indigenous Americans live in Arizona. There are 22 federally recognized tribes.

Their vote is essential and coveted in this swing state. President Biden narrowly won Arizona in 2020, the first Democrat to do so in 20 years with strong support from citizens of the Navajo Nation. But former President Trump has had an advantage with indigenous voters nationwide. Both parties are working hard this fall to win over native voters.

At a recent rally in Arizona, Vice President Kamala Harris publicly acknowledged tribal leaders. I will always honor tribal sovereignty and respect tribal self determination, while the GOP is courting votes on social media through groups like Navajos for Trump. But many potential voters face huge hurdles. That's why Jamie Parrish launched the nonprofit Arizona Native Vote.

We know the 101 ways it is hard to vote. However, we're doing our part to pitch in to help people overcome some of those barriers. The challenge is language barriers, a proof of citizenship requirement, which can pose a problem for elderly indigenous people who don't have traditional birth certificates, and in some instances, no physical mailing address. A lot of reservations have the same experience of, you know, not having official road names.

That means in some cases volunteers like Jandy must physically draw a map on the voter registration form. And then I would draw to say this is where the fire station is describing to election officials where a would be voter lives. And then the voters have to actually get to the polling stations which for many can be 50 miles away or more. Ally Young started guided the polls as a means of getting other indigenous people to rule polling stations by carpool or even by horse.

We heard elders talk about their memories of their parents saddling up and because they knew the importance importance of voting and exercising that right first time voters Nalani Lopez and Caleb Socie are likely voting for different candidates in November but say they'll be voting for the same reason. We have people we've gone through so many setbacks and so many things that they didn't want to hear. They didn't want us to make our voices heard, our ancestors, you know, more resilient and persevere through hard times. I feel like gives that more instinctive value to then vote today.

We're back tomorrow with Marita Press. Now the news continues with Hallie Jackson right now. 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. But getting there, it wasn't simple. Demi opens up about starting in Hollywood young and why she now thinks she may have started too soon. She talks about recovery, her new man marriage and the deeply personal reason behind her new cookbook.

The Drink is always about the journey to the top and this was an honest conversation about what that takes. Hope you'll listen and follow the Drink wherever you get your podcast.