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I'm Peter Alexander in Washington, which is four weeks till Election Day and plenty of action to cover from the campaign trail. But at this hour, we do want to begin with that breaking news as millions in Florida brace for Hurricane Milton that officials are warning could be the most dangerous storm to hit that region in more than a century. And making matters worse right now, the storm is barreling towards the same area that was hit by Hurricane Helene just a couple of weeks ago. Right now, let's show you build.
It is a category for a storm, wind speeds, nearing category five level. It may weaken as it comes ashore, but it is expected to remain extremely dangerous when it makes landfall along Florida's Gulf Coast. Possibly around the Tampa area. The expectation is this will happen tomorrow night.
The storm surge alone could be historic and Milton is expected to remain at hurricane strength as it crosses the entire state. That means it arrives as a hurricane and leaves Florida as a hurricane. And as we speak, millions of Floridians who are under mandatory evacuation orders are fleeing their homes. Others are filling sandbags you may have seen on TV today, boarding up their windows ahead of what could be catastrophic flooding.
This is a time lapse of Milton from the International Space Station today. You can see how wide it is and it keeps growing in size. Fifty one of Florida's 67 counties are under a state of emergency, hurricane and tropical storm warnings extend throughout the peninsula and the Keys. And Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis offered this dire warning just minutes ago.
You should be executing your plan now. If you're going to get out, get out now. You have time today. Time will be running out very shortly.
If you wait any longer, of course, there's a lot of mandatory evac that have been done. The approaching storm forcing President Biden to postpone a plan trip overseas. He was brief early today on the latest on this storm and he delivered this message from the White House. This could be the worst storm hit far in over a century.
And God willing to wovey, but as I was looking like right now, everyone, everyone currently located Hurricane Milton's path to listen to local officials and follow the state's instructions and everybody's heading out. And if you're under evacuation orders, you should evacuate now, now, now you should have already evacuated. And so matter of life and death, that's not hyperbole. It's a matter of life and death.
Life and death, President Biden says also responding to concerns about the spread of misinformation as administration officials keep pushing back on misleading claims about FEMA's resources and its recovery efforts that are being spread in part by former President Trump and some of his allies. I ask President Biden about that issue and here's part of our exchange. So what's the risk of political figures sharing misinformation during this time? The fact of the matter is, I think we have a, I've been able to contact all the governors.
They are sticking up for what they've asked for, but pointing out that they're satisfied with everything they're getting. Look, those who do it, do it to try to damage the administration. Well, that's going to take care of ourselves. But it misleads people, puts people in circumstances where they're panicked.
And it really is, it's going to sound reasonable phrases on America. It really is. Part of my exchange for the president just a few hours ago, NBC's Marissa Parr joins me now from Tampa, NBC's Dana Griffin, is in Naples, Florida. Al Roker has the latest on Milton's track at this hour.
Al, we're going to get to him in just a moment. But Marissa, how are the evacuation operations looking right now in Tampa? This is the place likely to be harder than anybody else. Hey, Peter, well, I can tell you the calm that we're seeing on the ground right now.
Obviously, we'll look so different once Milton does make landfall. But we on the ground, we've been here for a little bit now. We've watched that progression as those evacuations continue. We have seen those clogged highways in one direction, by the way, to higher ground to safety, whether that's further north, further south or further on the other side of the coast.
But with that, of course, comes all of the traffic. And with that comes concerns about the fuel. We have seen so many posts on social media about exactly that, Peter. So we wanted to go and see for ourselves.
We visited gas stations around here in Tampa. And what we actually found in that process was this long line of tank trucks. We're talking about these massive fueling trucks waiting to refuel. We spoke to some of the drivers.
They said the demand is so high right now. And one of them, I asked them, what do you want to say to people who are desperately trying to make their way further? But they're worried about the gas shortage. He said, hang in there.
We're coming. Here's what we heard. I mean, we went from stations, you know, there was still normally one load a day to two, three, four loads a day. And by the way, we also saw state troopers waiting for those fuel trucks to make their way to the highway so that they could escort them.
We've seen videos now of exactly that so they can make it to those gas stations faster. We know that Governor Ron DeSantis has implemented not only suspending tolls, but opening up the shoulder of highway. So again, one extra way, one extra lane, some more people can hit the road faster. But time really is running out here.
And what I will say is in terms of on the ground, something that is pretty notable for me is I've been here for several hurricanes in the Tampa area. It's usually pretty relaxed here. A lot of times they felt like they've gotten lucky, they've gotten spared, but this is the first time that I'm hearing them say they think that this might be the time that their luck runs out. And I have not come across a single person on the ground who says from zone A or even zone B that they are not evacuating.
Some of the same people who did not evacuate for Hurricane Alene, they said that that opens their eyes. They have now found a way. And even if there's a barrier, I've come across people who had financial barriers, Peter, we know that there are shuttles, we know that there are free Uber rides. So we know that the message has seemingly gotten out to people who need it.
Again, those evacuations, those orders and warnings seem to be heated here in the area. First and Tampa risk, I want to get to our colleague, Dana Griffin right now, who is in Naples. Dana, give us a sense of the situation there and it's striking. I know he's still maybe what just shy of 24 hours out, but to see people just enjoying the beach in this window.
And really frankly, I think they're hoping most people will be making their plan and executing it. Yeah, Peter, it's very stark, considering where you see Marissa is and people aren't heating warnings. They are taking it seriously here, but it almost feels like it's a vacation for people in Naples because as you can see behind you, there are at least 2,000 people here, several surfers in the water, several families coming up, I just spoke to one couple, I said, are you in Naples? Are you in the evacuation zone?
No, but they are in the city and they said that they are staying put. You've got some other people I spoke to earlier who said they're not sure if they're going to evacuate. And this is why it's so concerning. We spoke with a mayor of Naples earlier today and she said that they do not have the number of evacuations that they were hoping for initially.
She says she hopes that people will be leaving today, possibly early tomorrow, but she says people should be very concerned and pay attention to what's happening with the storm because although we are miles south, at least 150 something miles south of where that direct impact is projected to hit, we can still see several feet of storm surge flooding in this area. By chance that storm war to make a turn, Naples could be impacted on a greater scale. Listen to what the mayor of Naples told me. Even with Ian, we weren't in the threat zone and then all of a sudden we were getting a direct hit.
So as far as I'm concerned, these storms are unpredictable. So don't think that just it can't take a quick turn and we need to be prepared for that. So these people that have evacuated, they need to stay put and if you're at home, you need to stay put because you cannot go out when this storm starts to hit and the winds are going to start tomorrow afternoon late and they'll be surges and high tides before then which will create severe flooding. It's now a curfew in the city of Naples and Peter, this beach is technically closed.
But as you can see, they cannot enforce it. Peter. David Griffin on the ground in Naples for us. Let's get to our friend Al Roker right now.
Al, we just heard from the mayor there in Naples talking about the potential for a late pivot. I mean, you don't know this track until the last minute. We have a pretty good sense though of where it's looking likely. What is that track and when do the hurricane strength wins begin?
Well, they're going to be starting really soon, Peter. And in fact, right now, there's a 520 miles southwest of Tampa. It's got winds of 155 miles per hour, seeing even on the infrared satellite eye developing. And so tomorrow night, we're looking for landfall probably around 11 to 2 a.m.
as a major hurricane. Is it a three? Is it a four? It's not going to matter, to be honest.
The devastating impacts for Tampa Bay and the West Coast are going to be felt. So here's what we're looking at. Between 5 p.m. 4 a.m.
The most extreme conditions for Tampa, 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. for Fort Myers, a little further south. Now the storm surge, 10 to 15 feet right now on the current track with Tampa.
But if that moves a little further north, those search numbers could go up 9 to 12 inches of rain. Fort Myers. Again, that could be the same situation. Now, early Thursday morning as this system comes across, it's going to still be a hurricane, whether it's one or two, still bringing big problems, destructive winds, flash floods.
Here's what we're looking at as far as the city impacts Orlando, 12 a.m. to 8 a.m. on Thursday, 2 a.m. to 8 a.m.
in Jacksonville. And we are looking again, three to five foot storm surge, not the storm surge, not a problem, obviously for Orlando. It's inland, but up to 90 mile per hour winds. And here's the problem.
It makes landfall. Sometimes when you say 11 p.m. to 3 a.m., this system, Peter, is going to expand. It may not strengthen as much.
But what happens is, if it gradually weakens, it's going to increase in size. Right now, about 200 miles in diameter, those tropical force winds. But look what happens when we get near landfall. The wind field is going to nearly double it.
What does that mean? And when it comes to storm surge, well, the larger storm pushes more water, funnels that into the coast. And that's where you see those storm surge warnings stretching from the keys all the way to the north of Tampa, Peter. Alex, is striking?
Is anything on this storm? Right? It's going to arrive as a hurricane and leave as a hurricane. No matter what happens, the weakening is very limited.
Over the course of the time, it takes a pass. Absolutely. And so what this means is, as it approaches, these storm surges, as we said, are going to be really destructive. We're talking 10 to 15 feet from Tampa all the way down to almost Fort Myers, 10 feet, six to six feet, Fort Miles to Naples.
And as the system exits, we're going to see another storm surge on the backside along the eastern coast. Now, severe weather is always an issue with her hurricanes, Peter. 14 million people at risk. The tornado threat is real.
In fact, from Daytona Beach, say Greens, Naples, Miami, Key West, all the possibility of tornadoes. And of course, torrential rain. We're talking about the north central Florida peninsula, upwards of 18 inches. That's a high risk of flooding for Orlando, Tampa, and Sarasota, Peter.
Yeah, that's a lot of rain expected there. Al Roker, we appreciate your forecast here. We do want to get to Sandra Tapu Maneshi as the chief of the Sarasota County Emergency Management Team. And we've been, I've been listening to your announcements to the people in the community there.
What percentage of your county is under a mandatory evacuation order right now? Yeah. Well, thank you for having us on. And a great opportunity to remind people that they really need to be evacuating if they are in one of those three levels that we have level A, level B, and level C.
Really, that's at least half of the county. And that's one of the biggest evacuations that's not the biggest of Sarasota County has ever called. So that just says how serious this storm is. Any plans to expand that order or to those people who may not have received an order the message to them is what?
Yeah. So at this time, we're working very closely with the National Hurricane Center and they do not believe that our storm surge threat is going to go higher than 15 feet. And so we feel comfortable with that level C zone being the highest that we're going to need to go. So, you know, we tell people if you live outside of the evacuation level, it's okay to stay put.
You don't have to go and evacuate. You know, if you're okay with being out of power for a few days and kind of living in that post hurricane elements, it's safe for you to stay. And in fact, we want you to take in friends and family who are in the other evacuation areas that they don't have to go hundreds of miles and contend with all of the traffic across the state. What worries you about those residents who say half of the county who may ignore the evacuation orders that they face?
Yeah. Well, you know, we've seen it time and time again, down here in Florida, we also we've had three hurricanes in August here, right? And so we know that storm surge is a killer and we do not want people to be on any barrier island or in any of these levels of evacuation. It's just too dangerous.
You're not going to be able to survive 10 to 15 feet of storm surge. So that really is a big concern. If for a lot of people right now, if they haven't made a plan, if they're in a position to wash us from those homes, what is their window? When is it too late to evacuate?
How much more time do you think is appropriate? Yeah. So as we're looking at the onset of tropical storm force winds, really we want people to be in there wherever they're going to be going by today, at the end of the day, ideally, but there is a few hours tomorrow until about midday where you could probably get somewhere safely and you'd still be okay. You know, we do have evacuation centers open and people who are watching can go to our county website at segov.net and we have the ability to transport them and Uber, we just learned is putting out a free code.
So there should be no barriers to people getting to these evacuation centers if they need somewhere to go. If you're waiting to midday tomorrow, you're really pushing your luck. I imagine you would be the mayor in Arizona tells NBC News that city debris removal to stop because the dump is closed ahead of Milton. How much debris remains right now that is really a variable that you don't often face in a situation like this.
One storm so close to another. Yeah. That is one of the biggest challenges. We are literally still recovering from Hurricane Helene and typically you get weeks and months to be able to clean up this debris.
We had literally a couple of days and so, you know, we have still some collection teams that are out going curb to curb to continue doing that until we're going to have to shut down operations with the wind increase. But, you know, the great story is we have been hearing some awesome stories about neighbors helping neighbors, getting dumped or getting a pick up trucks and helping calls on the debris over to the landfill. So it's great to see people helping each other, but it is one of those things that we know we're going to have to contend whether it is still some debris left out from Helene despite all of these efforts to try to get picked up as quickly as possible in just a couple of days. If you have a national audience right now, any other message you think important to share for those people who may not hear it again from you?
Yes. You know, we learned very, very hard lessons during Hurricane Ian in 2022. We have people who tend to make comparisons. What did the last storm do when it came to our area?
And we don't want people to do that. Every storm is different. And so you need to listen to local officials if you're in an evacuation level and that is being evacuated, you need to leave and don't wait. This is the time to do it.
It is not worth putting your life in the light of your loved ones at risk. Time to act as now. Chief of Sarasota County Emergency Management. We appreciate your being with us so much.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
We're going to bring you any major updates as we get them. Also here ahead, coming up just four weeks. Of course, still, Election Day for President Trump is doubling down on the rumors and false claims about the federal disaster response efforts as Vice President Harris is forcefully pushing back. Plus new warnings from U.S.
intelligence officials at America's enemies are looking to target U.S. elections even after the races are called. You're watching Meet the Press Now. Drive off in a new Hyundai launcher today with $0 down during the Hyundai Advantage sales event.
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Offer includes 1% loyalty rate reduction for qualifying customers. Visit HyundaiCanada.com or your local dealer for details. Welcome back with just four weeks until Election Day. Hurricane's and disaster recovery efforts are now taking center stage on the campaign trail.
After falsely claiming that FEMA was diverting hurricane disaster resources to help undocumented immigrants and that the federal government was intentionally ignoring Trump's supporters in some disaster areas. Former President Trump is continuing to attack the federal response to Hurricane Helene. So we're almost $300 billion for Ukraine and yet they're offering people $750 for the worst hurricane that anybody's seen. But more importantly than that is they don't have the people, they're not doing, it's a bad, it's a very bad thing.
Biden said the response has been robust and well-coordinated, Mr. President. Yeah, well nobody says that. He doesn't know.
That's what President Biden said. He doesn't know what robust is. You know anything I do, they'll say, oh it's political. If I do anything good, no matter what I do, they'll say, oh, it didn't for politics.
I mean they could have gotten there way before me. So because facts matter to be clear, FEMA says that that $750 is an initial direct relief payment for emergency supplies, things like food and water while they assess a person's eligibility for more money. The staffer says that the agency has the resources to deal with both Alene Zapramath and Hurricane Milton. Meanwhile, as part of her week-long media blitz, Vice President Harris appeared on the view today and pushed back against Mr.
Trump's rhetoric accusing him of playing politics with the hurricane response. The idea that somebody would be playing political games for the sake of himself, but this is so consistent about Donald Trump. He puts himself before the needs of other, I fear that he really lacks empathy on a very basic level. The care about the suffering of other people and then understand the role of a leader is not to beat people down, it's to lift people up, especially in a time.
So let's bring a couple of our reporters covering the campaigns here in Gilchrist is outside the White House. He covers the Harris campaign. Derek Hake is on set with me here. He's covering the Trump campaign.
Aaron, let's begin with you as part of this media blitz. We also heard her speak about NBC's reporting that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is ignoring her phone calls about the hurricane. What more can you tell us about that back and forth? Yeah, Peter, it really has been a back and forth over the last day or so with the reporting that the Vice President had called Governor DeSantis a couple of days ago.
He didn't accept her call and he said that he's done that he didn't know she had called to begin with and then suggested that her calling him was really a political move because she is the Vice President, not the President, and he's talked to President Biden and felt as though he's had a fine relationship in these sorts of situations dealing with President Biden and the FEMA Administrator for that matter but then a call from the Vice President served no purpose to him other than potentially a political purpose for her. The Vice President responded to that in interviews she's done today both on the view and on Howard Stern's radio show, essentially saying that she's been reaching out to governors on both political sides and just to hear about what their needs are, whether their needs are being met as she says a Vice President would do and she believes it is the Governor of Florida playing games by not taking her call by not willing to engage with her on what his state's needs are and how FEMA and other parts of the federal government Peter can respond. Aaron, we haven't really seen Harris engage a lot of misinformation false claims that Trump has made on Helene before yesterday. Is that by design or they worried perhaps that they'll be accused of playing politics by calling out Trump on that specifically?
I think she's been doing that as we've been watching these interviews today and she's done two fairly lengthy segments with the viewing with Howard Stern and she did address the concerns that she has about former President Trump saying things on the campaign trail about what the administration is doing or from his perspective not doing to help people who are dealing with both Hurricane Helene and the hurricane that's to come in Florida and she called them out as really not being helpful to the process by putting people in a mindset where they think that the help isn't available to them. We heard both President Biden and FEMA leaders say over the last couple of days in particular that they have deep concerns about people not looking for the help that is available to them because they consumed bad information coming from people like Donald Trump, President Biden eluded to that himself today and so there's a hope that people will go to the President's call for this, the Vice President's call for it. People will go to their trusted sources and their local governments for example to get the information that they need to get the resources that they need to come through these two storms. Yeah, Aaron Stikwood, that's for a second.
I want to bring him to this conversation. Garret in so many ways is just so predictable. We've seen this in the past with Donald Trump, particularly as it relates to intersection of disasters and politics. Here specifically, we have seen him again over the course of the last 24, 48 hours falsely accusing the administration of diverting disaster relief funds to migrants instead.
We know there are separate funds that address these two different issues beyond that. We've heard about him saying that this response is even worse than Katrina. We got a long way to go on this. Obviously, we both experienced Katrina.
That was a one of a kind awful storm here. But what is the thinking? What is the sort of hope from the Trump campaign in terms of what they get out of this? Well, look, I mean, I think they want to tie Kamala Harris and Joe Biden together as much as they can.
And they want to make it look like this is yet another government failure. Harris' numbers have been improving on basically all the metrics that we pull, whether it's on the economy or who might be more fit to lead. In many cases, Trump still leads. But here they have essentially a new front that they can open up by suggesting without really any evidence to back it up.
That this has been somehow botched response by the federal government. It's almost as if they're going to put this sort of result out here and wait to see if the facts catch up to it down the line. But as we've talked about on this broadcast before, they are almost impervious to fact checks on this. There's nothing that we can say that will sort of shame them enough into backing off these unproven, unfounded lines of attack on FEMA and on the federal response.
And the challenges we've witnessed with so many others is that this sort of undermines institutions, particularly FEMA, where you need FEMA in a time of emergency of a crisis. They do have funds. Maybe not as much as some may want. But there are funds and they're more likely to be coming here.
Are there voices inside Trump or Marco Rubio, perhaps, and others who are saying, hey, just heed the message of the National Weather Service, let the experts do the talking. I think on the front end of storm response and preparation, you might get some of this, but on the back end, I mean, this is the problem that we've seen within the Republican party for the entirety of the Trump era. I think there are voices that sort of raise their voice, they raise their hand for a little bit to question this, and they're very quickly cowed. Donald Trump doesn't want us to believe in institutions, he wants us to believe in Donald Trump.
And I think most of the Republican party with an election 28 days ahead is following that leave right now. Yeah, that's a smart point. Aaron, let me bring you back. And I want to talk again about Harris here, this media blitz we've been talking about.
There had been plenty of criticism before that she wasn't doing tough enough interviews, wasn't doing interviews at all. She did 60 minutes. Donald Trump, of course, didn't. She had more appearances today.
The view, Howard Stern. I want to play a little bit of what she said. Listen. Would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?
There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of, and I've been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact. Aaron, I'm struck by that answer because as we were just speaking with Garrett here, talked about how the Trump folks are trying to tie Harris to Biden and that, as our reporting suggests, there are some that say Harris needs to distance herself from Biden, at least on some issues. But here really, she couldn't bring up an example that she thought that she were not aligned on. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
And the reality is that the vice president has had to walk this fine line of being loyal to the president who put her in the office that she's currently in, but also trying to make sure that she can appeal to people who want something different, who are looking at voting for her, who want something different than Joe Biden. And so I think this was an example of how complex and complicated that can be sometime. We did hear her say in the course of that response, the full part of that response that one thing she would do differently is she would have a Republican, at least a one Republican in her cabinet where she'd win the election in November, trying to say that that would distinguish her in some way from what President Biden has done with his cabinet. And so it remains to be seen, Peter, whether we might have a moment in the future of the next couple of weeks where we hear the vice president say something much more direct that really separates her from President Biden.
And her argument as we saw in 60 minutes is that she's the candidate who's looking for common ground trying to find consensus, it's why she says her position has changed, changed on some issues, tracking immigration among them, Garrett again to you, the Trump campaign. I announced a couple of stops this week, one in Aurora, Colorado, another in Coachella, California, Colorado, California, neither one of these places is going to turn anything but blue this fall. Why is he heading to those different destinations? Well, the Aurora one's easier to explain.
He thinks he has a message there waiting for him. He's been amplifying these claims again of highly dubious claims about gangs having been as well in gangs in particular, migrant crime as Trump describes it, having taken over parts of the city of Aurora. Again, a narrative he puts out the facts, chase it, and then he can go there and continue to try to highlight something that he thinks will be a defining issue in this race. Coachella, I think this is a little bit of a tougher sell, but the theory as I understand it is that they think that this allows them to reach the Latino population there, kind of highlight the growing, shift among Latino voters towards Trump away from Democrats.
And that essentially they can make any stop into a national narrative stop going to California on a Saturday morning halfway across the country, I think we can debate their relative utility of that. But it's part of the sort of frame that they want to put on this election about who's supporting Trump and why across the country, not just in the seven-dollar ground state. You talk about Canada's time being their most valuable asset. That's a lot of time on a plane to go out to Central California and clearly they think it's going to help them in some form.
Garrett, nice to see you. Aaron Gilchrist, appreciate your reporting. As always, coming up next right here, new reporting on how some of America's biggest foreign adversaries are hoping to amplify doubts and is so chaos about the results of the November election. You're watching Meet the Press Now We Are Live.
Welcome back. As you know, while the presidential race is going to be very tight and there is a strong possibility that it takes many days to determine who wins the White House. Now U.S. intelligence officials are warning that foreign adversaries are going to try to so doubt about the results, a senior official telling NBC News that foreign actors, including Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, are going to try to undermine trust in the election process, including by amplifying false claims about ballot tampering and legitimacy of the elections themselves.
And joining me now on set is NBC News Justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Delaney. Can we talk about all the efforts by foreign adversaries to try to, you know, muddy up the waters before the election? This is even after the votes have been cast, but you can see that sort of American purgatory is we're waiting for an answer to who won this thing and have these foreign adversaries engaging all this. We know that officials do everything they can to make us aware of this, but what specifically can they do to try to combat this?
There are things that the intelligence community can do that they don't talk about, Peter. For example, the U.S. Cyber Command and the NSA out there roaming around the internet. They can take down foreign adversaries' servers secretly, but their biggest mandate really is to get the word out, particularly if there is disinformation that would tend to dissuade people from going to the polls or after the fact, you know, gin up false allegations of fraud.
And the problem is, it's not really clear how they're going to do that. I asked the Attorney General in a news conference about a week ago, who's in charge of telling us if a video is fake? And it's not really clear who is. He said it's a whole government thing.
The FBI feels very reticent, particularly when we're talking about Americans spreading disinformation, even if it came from a foreign source. So it's a devil of a problem, and it's not clear that the government has a full handle on it. And the intelligence officials, as we just talked about, they talk about Russia, China, Iran, they talk about Cuba here, do they all share a same preferred candidate, a same set of goals, or do they differ? Interestingly, they do differ.
The intelligence community says that Russia definitely prefers Trump, and that Iran has a pretty expressed preference that Trump not be elected. China's really just sort of trying to pursue its own interests in playing in state and local races and trying to obfuscate the views of China. But the real issue that they reported on in this most recent thing is, you know, and all three of the adversaries want to destabilize the United States to sow chaos. And so if there is a big fight about false allegations of fraud, that plays into the hands of all U.S.
We talk about the Department of Justice and the Russian-controlled media outlet RT, Iranian cyber actors as well. And a lot of ways I think people here say, isn't that just symbolic? There's nothing you really can do to crack down on these folks. What do they hope to or seek to accomplish by that?
Yeah, so these people are overseas. They're outside the recent U.S. Justice. The main thing they're accomplishing is essentially issuing a press release laying out the facts of what happened there.
It's much easier for them to do that in an indictment that goes into court than it is for the CIA or the NSA to declassify their intelligence reporting. So the Attorney General was very frank. I asked him about that as well. He said, that is the main purpose of these cases, and they may do more of these because it's the best way to get the information out to the public.
Communicate to the American people. And here's what you need to be aware of going forward. Kendall, I appreciate you reporting always. Thank you so much.
And after this break, extremely powerful, extremely serious, alive update from Central Florida's residence brace for this monster storm that is Hurricane Milton. We're going to have the very latest again on that track as we wait for a new update at the top of the hour you're watching. Meet the press now. Welcome back to this hour.
We keep monitoring the path of Hurricane Milton as it barrels towards Florida's west coast and it is expected to remain at hurricane strength as it crosses the entire state. This, as you see, is a massive storm. Take a look at this video. It's known as Hurricane Hunters Flight Inside Hurricane Milton to collect data flown with these guys before.
They are brave and what they do is critical. You see the plane violently shaking and objects flying as a result of the storm, creating serious turbulence on board when I was there. I remember the pads on the ceiling. Joining me now is NBC News National Climate Reporter, Chase Canes in Orlando, Florida for us.
Chase Orlando is forecast to get some major winds and flooding. Are people there taking this sufficiently seriously right now in terms of preparation? What are you hearing from people on the ground there? Candidly, I have a bunch of loved ones in the Orlando area and they realize this is a whopper coming.
It sure seems like it, Peter. I mean, there has been a lot of interesting hours, long lines to get sandbags here in Orlando in Orange County. You know, they remember what happened a couple of years ago with Ian when this area got 13, 15 inches of rain and there were hundreds of people who had to be rescued from their homes and from these vast rising waters. They also know that just, you know, a regular storm that comes from a dumpster in our rain will flood certain parts of the city.
Orlando is also the place where a lot of folks from the Gulf Coast from the West Coast of Florida are evacuating too. We talked to one family that decided to evacuate here from Port Charlotte because they stayed for Ian. They wish they hadn't. They also had water within just a few feet of their front door from Helene a couple weeks ago.
So they said with Milton, not taking any chances. I have my elderly parents. I have a young child. So the decision to go, you know, we might be inconvenienced but we're going to stay alive.
It's very scary with the storm surge. They say that it's unsurvivable and that's enough to scare the pants off your homes can be replaced but lives can't. So you heard from them there. They decided to evacuate and there are not many rooms left here in Orlando just farther up to the north and Jacksonville and the Atlantic coast, no hotel rooms left so people may be driving into Georgia just looking for a place to stay here.
Obviously Chase is one of the most powerful, one of the most preferred destinations, favorite destinations in the country right now because I'm part of those theme parks there, any word from them and their status in the coming days? Yeah, just a little while ago, Disney World announced that they're closing down early tomorrow afternoon. That's the same time frame for Universal. They're also closing early tomorrow afternoon.
See World Bush Gardens closed tomorrow and in the morning Orlando's airport is going to shut down to commercial flights so they can keep the airport available for emergency aid for relief or basically like emergency services after the storm passes through. So things are quickly starting to come to a close here Peter is the storm approaches. Yeah, you can imagine them using relying on the folks in Orlando to help bring the resources they need in and taken down I4 over to Tampa if that area gets hit as badly as we think as it may. Chase Kane with the reporting in Orlando.
Chase, thank you so much. I want to bring in former FEMA administrator and former head of Florida emergency management. That is, of course, excuse me, Craig Fugate, Mr. Fugate, I appreciate your being with us.
Florida is still dealing with the debris removal while also bracing for another major hurricane. Can you talk about the unique challenge that that is causing right now, that leftover debris from Helene and how it can complicate the efforts and even the search and rescue operations that are likely to begin as soon as Milton passes? Well, I think the debris is just going to add to the complexity of recovery from this storm. Yes, Milton comes in.
As soon as debris is going to get mixed in with new debris, and as long as people have evacuated out of those areas, I'm less concerned about that. I think for Florida, this is really, we saw this in the O4 hurricane season where you're having to go from storm to storm and you're having to focus on life-saving, life-saving and getting infrastructure back up and then resetting before the next disaster. And that's what's striking is we talk and we show our audience and video right now, we're looking at pictures as people get out of town that looks like it's after the storm already came with all that debris just lining the roads there, potential to become projectiles that are hitting buildings, homes, flooding alongside the waters over the course of these days. We've talked about the National Hurricane Center.
Administrator Fugate talking about this extreme rapid intensification, the likelihood that it will expand its size as it approaches. What does that tell you about what the damage is likely to look like? What, in particular, we're going to be dealing with here? The widespread, and again, people need to focus on the impacts.
We talk a lot about Tampa, but we also need to be talking about Sarasota and Manatee and the county south of there. As well as you point out in Orlando, this storm is forecasted across the state as a hurricane. So not only are we going to see the coastal areas getting impacted with storm surge, we'll have hurricane force winds that are much of the panesalists across the state. That leads to widespread power outages, trees down, impassable roads and extremely heavy rainfall.
So this is what you would, you know, when you talk about hurricanes, this is basically all of it. Most important thing right now is the evacuations in the coastal areas, people getting ready for the storm as it gets there tomorrow, being prepared for extensive power outages and for a lot of people that are not in evacuations on treating us like a tornado, knowing the safe place to go in your home with your supplies and your family to stay there during the storm and unlike a tornado, which is over quickly, this is going to take hours to move through your community. You're talking about Orlando there. We my in-laws live there.
We had this conversation over the last several days. We made a plan. They're executing it today right now, but you're right. And all the years they've lived in Orlando, a lot of times they're in the cone, they get some of the rain and some of the flooding, but here they're going to get those hurricane force winds likely as you note here.
The director of the GAO's Homeland Security Team Administrator, if you raise concerns about staffing at FEMA saying that the agency is pretty low in people and that the impact it could have on morale could be significant. What are your concerns as it relates to the severity of the staffing shortage and can FEMA handle that strain? I think the general accounting office business report on every time there's a big disaster. FEMA's always had challenges with being staffed at what it says it needs at the full level.
But in response to disasters, they have the flexibility and the ability to pull people from other parts of the country, other parts of FEMA, as well as other disasters that are more stable and older to focus on the initial response. So this isn't going to affect the initial response. What it does do sometimes is slow down recovery in other disasters. And we already know that those older disasters are going to need coverage to provide more funding to do the permanent repairs and rebuild it.
And Mr. Feud, you know how critical those touch points are when the FEMA folks connect with the citizens on the ground, the victims who need your help right now. I know you're in the business of information, not of politics, so I want to be careful on how I ask this. But what concerns does it raise for you without assigning blame to any individual here?
What concerns does this rise in disinformation and misinformation raise in terms of the ability to get those people who need care, recovery relief, the information, the details and the access that they need to that? You know, when I was at FEMA, we accepted we were going to get criticized. And sometimes, you know, we could do a better job. But what really concerned us is when the information was telling people not to apply for assistance, that they should have been applying for it and slowing down the recovery.
And I think that's the concern we have. And that's why I think FEMA is doing a lot of work, trying to get the information out there, that they do have the money, they are able to do the initial response to these disasters, there is assistance for people who don't have insurance and ask the disaster to run falls, how to get that assistance. And there's a lot of noise out there. And I'm afraid that concern is when people don't apply for help they should have been applying for, they somehow misunderstand their eligibility and they miss that opportunity because it's going to be critical for a lot of families to begin the recovery after the storm of that financial assistance.
Greg Fugate is a former FEMA administrator joining us here live. Mr Fugate, I appreciate your time and everything you're doing to help the folks in that community. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
Still to come here, the state of the razor thin race for president and the fight for Senate control just 28 days to go. Our panel is next. You're watching the press now. Welcome back.
As we have noted four weeks to election day, believe it or not, and we have new polling for the New York Times and the Seattle College of Shows Vice President Harris with a slight edge against former president Trump. Those numbers notably are well within the margin of air. You see the three point advantage he has right now with the vice president is getting some credit from voters on issues of characters seen as more trustworthy and more fun for what's that that is worth in the former president. Voters also see Harris is more caring saying she represents change and that she would help him personally.
But more voters still pick Trump when it comes to being a strong leader and joining me now is our panel. Adrian Kaloon, the former bureau chief, not former. I just made you, I just retired you the bureau chief and you're in Washington for the economist of the media across the democratic strategist and former communications advisor to president Obama, Mark Short, former chief of staff to vice president Mike Pence and an NBC news contributor. Adrian, let's talk about this a little bit.
So you got these new polls right now and inevitably right, we know that the electoral college usually means that the person who wins this thing have to win it if they're a Democrat by a lot because their advantages that are built in for the Republican right now, three points may not be enough. It's not as much as Joe Biden had a couple of years ago. This is clearly a tight race. What do you think at this point can still meaningfully move this race one way or the other?
Well, I think momentum is in Harris's favor. The previous New York Times, the NFL had them tied, which is not where she needed to be if she was going to win in the electoral college. So the fact that it's plus three is better for her. Plus three is maybe on the nice edge of where she would need to be in order to win the electoral college because the tipping point state is going to be Pennsylvania, Wisconsin places that are two points more Republican on average than the national polls.
So for her, the consolation is that it's moving in the right direction, but she should be nervous because Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton also were ahead by more at this point in the race than she is now. Mark, you like me? You're a football fan. The things that we mentioned in that poll are all the intangibles.
She's a little bit more fun. Maybe they like her charisma, her accessibility here. But when it comes to the issues, the economy, immigration, some of these specifically, that's where Donald Trump still has an advantage one that has shrunk, frankly, in the course of her joining the campaign. But that's still, if you focus on those things, the place is where he benefits most.
Not only does he benefit the most, Peter, but those are the issues that continue to rank top in the issue set. So the favorability, like ability, it just doesn't rank as high as you are in the economy. Yes, right. And that's an incredible frustration for many of us because I think it's somewhere to 2022.
I feel like the win was, was that Republicans back, but when you not made a lot of election in IR candidates, voters turned them away. And I feel like we're in a similar scenario where I think Trump has a very low ceiling. And I also think from the dynamics of him being so polarized, it's still to be a terrible strategy to convince our FK junior to get out of the race, because people who have decided not going to vote for Trump, you didn't have multiple places to go. You've now consolidated the anti-Trump vote behind Harris.
I see what you're saying. So all of a sudden, if they've been voting for RFK junior, it wasn't the first place. It's not Donald Harris. Now, and the way things are going, Kamala Harris now doing some more media, right?
There was criticism she was being to, soft in terms of the people she was selecting for interviews. She didn't have the views. She didn't do cold bear later. She did do 60 minutes.
Donald Trump didn't. Does she need to make herself more present in these waning weeks? Well, I think she's doing just that. She's doing traditional media.
She's doing non-traditional media. She's expanding the younger voter base trying to get those votes out. She's also doing everything that she can in the battleground states with a recognition that places like Pennsylvania matter, with a recognition that Michigan matters. She's doubling down in Georgia.
We're seeing that expansion broadly. And I think that for her, it's also understanding and her campaign does that the economy is the number one thing people are voting on. So just today, we saw that she continues to talk about this opportunity economy. We see that she has outlined plan that would extend Medicare benefits that provide in-home care for individuals who are stuck in that sandwich generation and have to take care of aging and elderly parents, many of whom are sick.
I think that those are things that are going to matter at the ballot box. Let's play part of what she said in 60 minutes. Take a quick listen. Here you go.
Was it a mistake to loosen the immigration policies as much as you did? It's a long standing problem. And solutions are at hand. And from day one, literally, we have been offering solutions.
What I was asking was, was it a mistake to kind of allow that plug to happen in first place? The policies that we have been proposing are about fixing a problem, not promoting a problem. Okay. She took tough questions for which she gets credit right now.
Are her answers sufficient to bring in those undecided voters? Or is it better to sort of focus your attention on getting out the vote more broadly? Well, I think that both candidates are focused on getting out the vote more broadly. But I think for her specifically when it comes to immigration, she also is nailed down in every interview she's done up to this point as well.
That this is not a new issue. We've had immigration and immigration reform on the table now going on what, over four decades. This is something that we have been trying to work on. And Congress has kicked the ball backwards and forwards over and over again.
There was a plan in action that was a plan in place that was derived from Republican legislators. And Donald Trump basically pulled the rug from under them. So I think that it's important that we acknowledge that in addition to the fact that it took us years to get into the mess that we happen to be in across multiple administrations on the left and the right. And I don't think that it's going to be a very quick fix.
Mark, let me ask you about the storm right now. Obviously, that's where our attention is going to be for the next 48 hours and probably for a lot longer. This is a really bad one about hit Central Florida. Right now, there's been a back and forth between Kamala Harris and Ron DeSantis.
He said he didn't need her call basically that she would only call for political purposes. Like he used to work for a vice president of the United States is a normal for a VP of the United States to reach out to governors and others in times of crisis and to see how the administration may be able to help. Sure, it can be. I mean, there's no doubt that Donald Trump leaned on Mike Pence for a lot because he had a relationship with other governors.
He'd been a governor. I think it's different in this case. I think the Florida governors have a tradition of handling hurricanes while they want to get the presidential help. But I don't think there's evidence that she's been playing that role for the last three and three quarters years.
It seems like it could be a more political purpose right now. The jury's your response to that. I mean, the thinking is right. Like as someone who watches this from a distance, you're like, why is this even a fight?
Like, why can't we all disagree? Okay, we had a conversation. It was nice. We move on, right?
It's just it seems like the politicization that we're witnessing as it relates to the disaster relief more broadly is something that obviously in this heightened political climate is going to take a ton of our attention in the next few days. Yeah, you can imagine a two minute call not taking up too much of the governor's time. You know, and you can say I'm busy doing things and you can move on to reach out. Yeah, I mean, that's a normal human interaction that people have all the time.
But I also think that to go back to your point about misinformation and disinformation, you know, this idea that you've seen percolate that all that the federal government is going to give is this $750 check. I think that can have, you know, quoting Kamala Harris when she said that. I think that can have the effect of actually having a lot of people think that the government has left them behind when they haven't, with a lot of relief efforts underway. So, you know, I wish we would go back to the Serena where storms were kind of off political limits, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Well, great. Fugate, obviously, who doesn't really have a side in this. I thought what he said was most interesting, which is that his concern, right, is that the people who need this aid will then no longer believe that that aid is available to them. It may not get the aid that is there to benefit their lives.
Let's talk politics. One more time on the lower down ballot level. Let's talk about the Senate race in Wisconsin right now. Our friends at the Coca-Cola Report just moved Wisconsin from Lean D to toss up right now.
The warning for Democrats in that crucial blue wall state. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, some of the polling has not been great for Tammy Baldwin. Erkofte has been running a better campaign, but with this, we'll do.
I was talking to some folks on the Baldwin campaign. What this will do is that it will get them money, will get them attention. They still think that they'll eek it out, maybe not even eek it out. You know, they think that she's a popular incumbent and she'll do well.
She certainly, I think, is in a better position than Sherrod Brown, who's running in Ohio. And generally, I think Democrats would much prefer if they had the Senate numbers than the presidential numbers were in the Senate candidates. They're uniformly basically running ahead of Kamala Harris. Mark Montana, another state we're watching right now.
You got Tim Shee going against Tester in that state. That's one of the ones that the Republicans think they have a real shot to pick up right now. Shee creating a little bit of controversy saying that women were quote indoctrinated on the issue of abortion. What's going to decide a race like that?
I think the reality is that Montana has changed so much. And I think that race has pretty much decided Peter. I think that's a great business. The reality is that we always thought we could take out Tester and always fall short of doing that.
But Montana is no longer an eight or nine point state. It's 15 or 16 point difference Republicans in the presidential year. So it's really hard for Tester to hold on that seat. I think that's the Republican column.
And I think these have a great campaign and underrated campaign so far in Wisconsin. The last off of you really quickly, Michigan, Slotkin and Rogers debating tonight. This is another critical issue. Oh, absolutely.
I think that Slotkin is going to perform well. At this point, Michigan is one of the states that everybody is watching, obviously because of the uncommitted vote, because of the extent of the Arab Muslim population. Their vote a lot is going to be coming down to Michigan on top of what we've seen with workers rights and arguments for the United Ottawa. Two candidates with real national security credentials too.
So that'll be top of mind as we have that conversation tonight. Nice to see all of you. Appreciate you guys being with us. We're back tomorrow with more Beat the Press now that he continues with Hallie Jackson.
He was a young Marine. She didn't care about convention. They made a life together. Then one night, the Marine died.
And then the death investigation took a while, unexpected, and utterly bizarre turn. I'm Josh Maguots, and this is Trace of Suspicion, an all-new podcast from Dateline. Listen to all episodes of Trace of Suspicion now, wherever you get your podcasts.