hello, i'm wolf blitzer, from wherever you're watching around the world. hurricane irma, one of the strongest atlantic hurricanes in history, it's ripping through the caribbean right now, with winds gusting 225 miles an hour. the storm on a collision course for florida, where millions and millions of people are in its path and mandatory evacuations are already under way. we'll take you there live. and a confusing twist, very confusing, the president sending mixed signals in his controversial decision to end the dreamer program, is he backing off his threats? brand new developments just

coming in. but we begin with the breaking news, hurricane irma is roaring through the caribbean right now, the current forecast puts it on a collision course with florida, our meteorologist allison chinchar is tracking it from the weather center. allison, tell us where the storm is headed and the overall forecast for florida. >> right now it is current in the caribbean, already made impact on newspaper ruseuss communities there. it's moving west around 15 miles an hour. the winds are around 185 miles an hour, gusting to 225 miles an hour. but everyone wants to know, where does it go from here? in the short-term, we expect it to kroecross over the dominican republ republic, it after that point,

when irma takes a sharp right hand turn, it could make that sharp right hand turn early, going barred the bahamas, it could sharpen it's right hand turn directly towards florida. given this is several days out, this is still an if rather than when. all of the forecast models are pretty much in agreement, right up until that sharp right hand turn. some of them take it to the east of florida and take it up to wilmington, north carolina. others take it straight up through miami. this is where the confidence gets a little bit lower, as to whether it goes when it makes that right hand turn. for now, the fact is this is an incredibly strong storm. category 5 strength making it over the virgin islands as we speak and making it over to puerto rico. however puerto rico has been

experiencing those really strong rain bands over the last 2 ho4 s hours, we still have hurricane warnings for haiti and the turks and k-kay coes. we also have tropical storm warnings out for the southern edge of the the dominican republic and haiti, where we don't really expect the winds to be quite as strong, but the storm itself is still expected to produce impacts, especially because of the storm surge. these areas show you, even though it's a category five storm, this region is where we expect to have minute mum tropical storm force winds if not potentially higher, so, again, wolf, regardless of exactly where the u.s. landfall is, whether it's florida or stk

south carolina, all of those regions should start preparing. >> there's a new and seems to be record breaking hurricane, heading right toward florida and puerto rico and other places, we'll see what happens, we'll know in a very short period of time, but it looks like something that will not be good, believe me, not good. >> the center of this massive hurricane, as we have just heard from allison, expected to reach puerto rico any time now, around the island, people have been stocking up on water, food and emergency supplies, let's go to layla santiago, what are the conditions like right now, what kind of preparations are in place? >> reporter: well, wolf, we're certainly feeling those heavy rain bands that alilison was talking about. this is the northern coast of

puerto rico, this is where we will see the strong impacts of hurricane irma, as she arrive a as she approaches puerto rico. we're not only seei ining aggree waters off this coast, but we have been feeling the wind, the rain has been coming down for several hours now, many people already going to shelters, there are 460 of them that are on this island, and the governor is saying time is running out. i can also hear roofing being impacted by this approaching cat go gat category 5 storm. just as she was closing up chop, and locked the door to her business, looked over at us and said now this is in god's hands and that has certainly set the tone of what people are feeling,

certainly a lot of fear in hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. >> it may be weeks in puerto rico, maybe even months before power is restored? why is the electrical system in puerto rico such a huge concern right now? >> let's rewind a little bit. this is something that they are actually kind of used to here. power outages are common and let's also look at the time here, we are in hurricane season, so this is a caribbean island, that is as used to as much as one can be to these tropical storms. but this according to the governor of puerto rico has never seen a storm of this magnitude in its recorded

history so there's a lot of concern about power outages of what's to come, because they already have experience dealing with this, but nothing of this magnitude, the destruction and the damage that could be coming and could be catastrophic. and let me put one more thing into perspective for you, this is an island that has something else looming above, and it's not this storm, it is an economic crisis, they are $70 billion in debt, so if there is destruction, rebuilding here, they can't afford it and no one really knows how it will be paid for. >> billions and billions of dollars, that's going to be the cost of this enormous reconstruction, not only in puerto rico but in texas. we'll be speaking with the governor of florida shortly, rick scott, but as this hurricane irma barrels closer and closer to the united states,

capitol hill and washington is talking about harvey, last night the congress passed an emergency harvey funding by an overwhelming margin. but if the trump administration gets it, the way that funding bill will be tied to the debt ceiling debate that r&b going. let's go to our correspondent sarah murray, she joins us, explain the donald trump administration's strategy here by tying these measures together? >> reporter: from the view of the president, they need to get all of this done, they need to do the harvey funding, they need to raise the debt ceiling, so why not do it all together. he says he's sick and tired of them not bellying up when he needs them to do something. we know that trump met with some congressional leaders here at the white house, the president also agreed to tie a three-month debt ceiling relief to half i

have relief. so it's possible that this turns into an even bigger package than we were anticipating. >> and the daca decision, the attorney general of the united states, jeff sessions, he announced yesterday, the program is being phased out. later president trump tweeted this. and i'll read it to our viewers, congress now has six months to legalize daca, something the obama administration was unable to do, if they can't, i will revisit the issue. but this morning the president was asked if he was having second thoughts about doing away with the daca program, and he's having second thoughts, these seem to be mixed messages, what do we take away from these comments? >> reporter: it seems like the president is giving himself a little bit of wiggle room after a devastating news cycle for him yesterday but that's cold

comfort for those that will be affected by this decision, or if the president decides not to actuating to see if the president will intervene or congress will intervene and now that they have handed over all this information to the federal government, they're not secure that if it does expire tharks're not going to quick dreamers out of the country. if they encounter someone who is in this country illegally, they don't turn away, they will put you in front of a judge. so not a lot of comfort for the clearly 800,000 people who are affected by this. >> i want to get to the whole dreamer comment in a moment.

but hurricane irma, you have already received some record rainfall there, some flooding, we're going to be talking with the florida governor rick scott in a few minutes, but are you encouraging residents in your district to evacuate or just prepared to ride it out. >> what we have been encouraging our people in district 19 to do is to get all the information of the first responders, the emergency operations center and we have been sending that owl to everyone in the district to make sure they know who to call, if a tree falls down in their yard, who they call to get the power, to have our people to be as prepared as possible. like governor scott said, prepare for the worst, but hope for the best. >> and what do you anticipate happening in your part of florida, in your district? >> as your weather person said, it's pretty uncertain where the

northerly turn occurs, it may interact with that cold front that's coming across florida, if it goes the way the weather service is predicting now, it will go to the east of us but right over naples. >> this is a huge monster storm, last hour, congressman, as you know, the house of representatives, your house, approved the emergency spending request to deal with the enormous cost of hurricane harvey out in texas and louisiana, do you support the white house now wanting to tie that emergency fundi ining effoo also raising the nation's debt ceiling? >> i'm not really schooled up in these legislative machinations, being a business person, but i want to do whatever helps that money approved and also get the debt ceiling things behind us. all this talk about the debt ceiling for someone who runs a business is perverse, the debt

ceiling is a lagging indicate for. >> the 100 or $200 billion that it will cost to fix texas and who knows what it will cost to fix the state of florida, fema will be out of money by friday, and with irma expected to hilt your state very soon, where is the money going to come from? >> absolutely, wolf, we're going to absolutely have to raise the debt ceiling and pay for these repairs to these areas that have been devastated. you're correct, it's so big that no matter where it goes, it's going to have significant impact on orlando and maybe jacksonville amount so you support what mnuchin said that

funding for harvey and irma should be tied to the nation's debt ceiling? >> i don't care if they tie them or not. we can't allow either of these things to happen. we can't default on our debt. >> the administration's decision to end daca, to phase out the protections for the so-called dreamers. if congress can't fix this in the next six months, he'll, quote, revisit the entire issue? >> i thought he was putting the bright light right where it ought to be, on the congress, who has the responsibility to deal with immigration, for the first time since 2007, congress has gotten right to the edge of passing immigration reform and it stumbled both times, so

hopefully we'll be able to take advantage of this daca to draft a fundamental reform so that we know who's here, so that people don't overstay visas and question get some of the skilled people in here to do the approximate work of building the economy. >> do you think president frump will revisit the issue if congress can't get it done? >> if it's not done by the congress it will be, but i think congress is going to do its job and put behind us the presidential overreach that put daca in place in the first place. >> he said this about the very, very dangerous situation involving north korea. listen to this. >> we had a very good phone call, it lasted for a long time, president x ooii would like to

something, we'll see whether or not he can do it. but we will not be putting up with what's happening in north korea. i believe that president xi agrees with me 100%. he doesn't want to see what's happening there either. we had a very, very frank and very strong phone call. >> mr. president -- [ inaudible ] >> we'll see what happens. certainly that's not a first choice, but we will see what happens. thank you. >> not a first choice, the military option. you're in the house foreign affairs committee, congressman, what do you think the first thing should be in dealing with north korea? >> if we look at it from kim's point of view, he says for the past 30 years, we have done some aggressive things and the united states gets mad and we have a summit and they enact a sanction or something here or there a and then it all goes away, and he

continues to upgrade the program and now his son's upgrading the program, so we have two generations of continued nuclearization. so if it were me, i wouldn't be too willing to talk to north korea. i would tell them to talk to china, china is is one that can solve it diplomatically. and it might be good for kim to realize that there's a different approach from the united states. that we're not going to come to the table, talk and then go back away. >> congressman frances rooney of florida. thank you. good luck to all the folks in florida who are potentially in danger right now. florida clearly is on alert as this historic hurricane barrels towards the state. i'll speak live with the governor of florida, rick scott and talk about the evacuations that are already under way and what's planned next, there's breaking news that donald trump jr. set to be questioned until

overall russia investigation for his role in the infamous meeting at trump tower in new york city last year. you're going to hear who he'll be facing. and up on capitol hill, there's other developments, including a first on cnn right now, hillary clinton like you have never heard her before, brand-new confessions btz her marriage, the new name she's citing for her election loss. we have a copy of her brand-new book, we'll share details with you, that's coming up. nd energy, to get back to doing what you love. ensure, always be you.

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to any of its ingredients. we're fed up with your unpredictability. remission can start with stelara®. talk to your doctor today. janssen wants to help you explore cost support options for stelara®. we're following the breaking news, hurricane irma slamming into the caribbean and hitting the british virgin islands. now florida could be in the bull's-eye of this category 5 storm this weekend. florida governor rick scott, thank you for joining us.

what can you tell us about the mandatory evacuations that are already under way in at least part es of your state. >> i was just in the keys this morning, we have mandatory evacuations there, if you look at this as a major storm, it's way bigger than hurricane andrew, which was 25 years ago, it's got more wind, more rain and more storm surge, and down in the keys, people are leaving, we're also doing preparations in miami-dade, we're opening up shelters around the state. we're making sure everybody gets their food and their water. i want everybody to be prepared. i always tell people, we can rebuild your house, we can't rebuilt your house, take the time to prepare today, don't

wait until tomorrow. >> what about those millions of people that live in dade county,or broward county, where ft. lauderdale is, or palm beach county, should they get in their cars and start driving, should they get on planes, i don't think there's many flights available any longer, what do they do? >> the biggest thing is, watch wh what's going on. listen to your community officials. get three days of water and good per person. get your evacuation plan, you can go to florida disaster.org to understand the plan. we're making decisions about evacuations as we follow this storm this. storm could go up our east coast, our west coast or up through the middle of the state. so we need people to get prepared all across our state right now, we just don't know where it's going to hit us.

>> we have spoken about this a lot through the years, you have a lot of senior citizens, retired people, elderly, many are in nursing homes, what happens to them? >> we are already evacuating hospitals down in the florida keys, so we'll work to evacuate the nursing homes in our hospitals as we need to. we're bringing in all the resources with ---we need. we'll have 6,000 members of the national guard, and they'll be doing things like helping with sheltering, helping with evacuations, making sure evacuation routes are clear, so we're talking to everybody and trying to solve everybody's problems, we have normal shelters, we have pet shelters, we have special needs shelters, not just in our southern part of the state, but opening up around the state so people can move and get out. the best thing is get ahead of this, if you can go someplace

inland, generally that's better t to do. but most importantly, watch what the storm is doing now, follow the news. >> i know you got to run, governor, the traffic tomorrow, friday, saturday, people trying to get out of harm's way, what are you doing to make sure that people can get in their cars and leave if they have to? >> you can go to www.s www.s..floridatraffic. it in the ski keys this morning traffic was totally fine this morning. we're doing everything we can to keep it flowing, if you have a chance to evacuate, it's best to evacuate, but listen and do it when your local officials tell you to evacuate. >> i know this is a huge, huge

crisis for everyone in florida right now, governor rick scott, thank you for joining us. florida senator marco rubio is also joining us on the phone right now. what is your advice to your fellow floridians at this critical moment, senator. >> i think they need to continue to do what they're doing is to get ready. fortunately florida has extensive experience, you get ready for these because you just don't know how it's going to turn out. obviously you have to pay careful attention to what the national hurricane center is aina i -- any time there's a can category 5 storm is heading towards you, you have to prepare. people are making preparations author their homes and their families. >> if this hits miami, let's say, hopefully it doesn't, it moves away, but let's say it

does, are those buildings, those high-rise buildings, the cranes that are there, building new buildings, are they ready to sustain a category 4 or a category 5 potentially that's out there. >> i'm obviously not a technical effort official to give you information on that. i know that everything built in the last 15 years was much stronger than we had during andrew, when you're talking about a big glass building with a crane right next to it, there's certainly a question as to what impact that could have. >> is the federal government, senator, doing everything possible in advance to gear up for what could be a real disaster? >> i think the federal government from everything we have seen is doing everything it can to premotiposition itself t provide assistance. the problem is that the sheer

size of this storm and the projected path it will take to go up the spine of florida, all of those assets that we need to bring in to help people are positioned outside of there f and alabama and georgia, that stuff cannot begin to come down to help people until that storm is cleared and it's safe to do that. that's why it's so important that people be prepared to sustain themselves and their families with three or four days of water and food and medicine. it will take a while, if it clears out and continumonth mov one thing, but if it affects other areas. >> presumably going to be tens of billions of dollars if not more for florida as well. but link it to raising the nation's debt ceiling. >> i'm in washington right now, i'm focused here on what's

happening in florida so that's an ongoing issue, is i'm not posted here, obviously the fema money, and the harvey money, i am in support of money, i would say the same thing about florida any funding should be directly tied to the event that happened am should n and should not be used for other funding. you can't really hold that up, although i be prefer for that -- it does have to be specifically targeted at the events that have happened and i think that's the direction they seem to be moving. >> fema is set to run out of money by friday if this legislation isn't mapassed and it's expected to pass overwhelmingly in the senate and they're probably going to add

th the raising of the nation's debt ceiling. >> i would support funding fema. i would hate that to be the reason for this not moving forward because there will be those that object to it on ground, i do believe that the fema funding has to happen. i don't just happen to represent the state, i happen to represent the community that's in the eye of the storm, so getting to d.c. and back may be a challenge in the next few days. i'm working on that now. >> there's very few flights if any that have any seats between miami and ft. lauderdale or palm beach. i know you got to run, senator, thanks so much for joining us. good luck to you and good luck to all the folks down in florida. coming up, congress ramps up it's russia probe with the

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we're standing by for a new forecast on irma. it's going over cuba now. meantime, there's other news we're following here in washington, with congress back from recess. the russia investigation is heatedi i heading heating up once again tomorrow. he will field questions from staffers from the senate judiciary committee with that now infamous meeting with a

russian lawyer, jessica snyder's following all of this for us. first of all, walk us through the very latest. >> this russia investigation is moving full steam ahead on all fronts and for now it seems house intelligence chairman devin nunes is trying to sphere it in a different direction, this's now threatening to hold thold -- in contempt if they don't turn over -- that contained some salacious details, some unproven about donald trump's dealings with the russians, nunes is demanding they turn over the details on the dossier and/or he'll haul christopher ray in front of his committee.

meanwhile robert mueller is running into some resistance from the three congressional committees already investigating and that's resulting in very little cooperation. mueller's team wanted a transcript with what the senate intelligence committee did with campaign chair paul manafort. but that was blocked because mueller wouldn't give them special access. now they're in the midst of still trying to hammer it out. it really highlights the difficulties as we move into the fall of all these simultaneous inquiries from these different committees and the special counsel. but one person who is cooperating with -- since the president cannot pardon state crimes, any threat of prosecution from the new york attorney general, well, it could

prompt manafort to cooperate with other russia probes. we now though that president trump's legal team is making the case to mueller in meetings and memos that the president did not on instruct justice when he fired fbi director james comey in may, the president has a congressional right to fire for any reason and they argue that comey's questionable correct actually prompted the firing. but of course it was the president himself who admitted in an interview with nbc back in may that he did fire comey in part because of the russia investigation and we know that mueller now has a letter the president drafted but never sent to comey layi inin ining out hi reasons for firing the fbi director. but tomorrow donald trump goes before the senate judiciary committee, albeit behind closed doors. >> this investigation clearly intensifying. so where does the russia investigation now stand?

joining us now to help us answer that question is representative jackie spears, she's a california democrat who sits on the house intelligence committee, congresswoman, thanks so much for joining us, let me quickly get your reaction to what the house intelligence committee chairman devin nunes is doing to hold attorney general jeff sessions and the fbi director christopher ray in contempt of court because if do related to that trump dossier are not turned over, would you support that move? >> first of all, wolf, it's important to pleeshlappreciate that's tan geniteral gentle tha the russians intervened in our election, and what we need to do is find out highway thow they dd

why they did it and how to protect against it going plarin regard, but truly this dossier is -- i regret that the chairman isablie in acting in a manner tt consistent with the committee's historical reputation of working in tandem and he has been self recused from the russian investigation so this looks like he's trying to distract our attention from what our job is to do here. >> because it is a little confusing, he removed himself from the overall russia investigation, he's the chairman of your committee, but he delegated those responsibilities to another republican, and now all of a sudden, he's clearly getting involved in the russia investigation. what does that say to you? >> what it says to me is that we as members of the committee need to act in a bipartisan fashion and be clear about what our job

is, our job is to find out with great certainty the extent to which russia intervened and take steps necessary to protect ourselves, russia wants nothing more, putin wants nothing more than to see western liberalism, democracies discredited. he wants to show that being in a dictator ship is a much more viable form of government. we have got to push back on that, and i would say to our president, it's important for him to be joining with us in making sure that the russia connection, the russian involvement is stopped cold. >> i want to move on and get to some other critically important issues, what's your understanding about what nunes is all about right now, what is he trying to do? >> he wants to be relevant, and i don't blame him for wanting to be relevant, but let's do it together. he's focussing on the dossier and mean while we have requested

information in the white house that is relevant to our skrefgs and have either received inadequate or no information in some respects. so on the one hand, if you're pushing forward to try and get the information you need, that's where we need to be looking. >> let me get your quick thoughts on another issue, the president now seems to be siding with you, with your fellow democrats on the debt limit increation rigi increase, saying there should be a clean debt limit increase tied to some of the emergency funding for the hurricane funding in texas, the, presumably a lot more in florida. a lot of republicans are not happy with the president now siding with democrats. >> well, we have to keep the government open. and when we did have those 16 days when the government shut down, it was a nightmare, it was a black eye for every one of us in congress, we have got to find ways to work together. i'm delighted the president

recognizes the importance of doing this, that we cannot have the full faith and credit of the united states questioned and i look forward to supporting his request, supporting it tied to the funding for hurricane harvey, question need to start working together. >> congresswoman jackie spear of california, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, wolf. we have some more breaking news just coming in to cnn, we're getting the audio of president trump speaking to reporters aboard air force one speaking of dacdaca, the dreame. listen to this. is everybody dry? off camera, we had a very good conversation with president xi of china, it lasted about 45 minutes, he's very much in favor of the denuke of north korea. and we were talking about different things, we have some

things, we're going to be talking again soon, we'll see how that works out. we had a very good meeting with nancy pelosi and jeff schuchl schumer, we agreed to a three-month extension on debt ceiling, they think it's very important, we'll always agree on debt ceiling automatically because of the importance of it. also on the crs and also on harvey, which now we're going to be adding something because of what's going on in florida. we had a very good meeting, we essentially came to a deal and i think the deal will be very good, very, very cordial and professional meeting, so we have an extension, which will go out to december 15, that will include debt ceiling, that will include the cr rrkrs and it wi include harvey and everybody is in favor of taking care of that

situation. so we all very much agree. >>. >> reporter: what do you say to people who say there are mixed signals coming from daca. >> people really believe, i have seen it firsthand, if they don't, but i really believe congress wants to take care of it. we discussed that also today, and chuck and nancy would like to see something happen and so do i. and if we can get something to happen, we're going to sign it and we're going to make a lot of happy people. [ inaudible ] >> that will be discussed later, but we want to talk about legal right now. >> you said you wanted to revisit the issue in six months? >> i want to see what happens in congress. i have a feeling that's not going to be necessary. i think they're going to make a deal. i think congress really wants to do this. >> what would you like toi woul

have border security, and we have a great da krrkca transact where they don't have to worry about it anymore. because like before, we had a deal that wasn't legal, and we knew that it would ngn't hold u. even president obama w4ehen he signed it, he called it short-term. and i think we're going to have great support from both sides of the congress and i really believe that congress is going to work very hard on the daca agreement and come up with somethi something. okay, sit down and dofn't get hurt, anybody. >> strong wrobords from the president of the united states.

trishia hershfeld davis. looks like the president is siding now with the democrats when it comes to a three-month continuing funding for the u.s. government, a continuing resolution, as it's called, as well as extending the nation's debt ceiling, also tying that to raising the money to pay for hurricane harvey, and presumably the damage that's going to be caused by hurricane irma. he's siding with the democrats and sounds like he's going to anger republicans. >> he's talking to nancy pelosi and chuck schumer. i don't know how much push back you're going to get from the republicans given the dire needs from harvey and irma. but the big thing that's driving the president here, he knows he has a huge legislative plate of things to get done, he just wants to get these things done.

and if tying them up into one of these package that is histo historically republicans have really hated, he would wrather do that than lose like he's lost on some of these other issues. >> to keep the government operating, to keep the government funded no government shutdown, that's going to be important and also raising the nation's debt ceiling, tying it to that emergency aid, democrats are going to like it, but agent of republicans won't. >> paul ryan this morning said in his wreakly prehis weekly pr said that republicans were playing politics with the three-month delay in the debt ceiling, well, that's what we have. i think julie is right and makes an important point, though, wolf. i think before harvey and what we expect in terms of damage from irma, there was a chance that the government might shut down. that trump, whether it was on

the border wall or contest republicans or liberal democrats, that something might come together and the government might shut down. since harvey happened, no politician is dumb enough to shut the government down when urgent aid there's going to be

another cliff in december which could be a bigger fight and there's going to be even more money that's going to be spent to help with texas, potentially on an emergency relief package that comes out after the damage that we may see from hurricane irma so there's a lot of consternation about all the spending that's going to happen because remember, it was republicans who, for years, had railed against raising the debt ceili ceiling without any cuts at all, wanting some reforms but right now, they're going along with not just passing a debt ceiling increase without any spending cuts but also agree to a short-term increase on the democrats' terms so people may not be happy about it but at the end of the day, it almost certainly will pass but for the white house, perhaps they look at this in a positive light and this will be another vehicle in which they can move legislation in december because it's going to be another must-pass piece of

legislation in december and perhaps they can attach other items to it that wouldn't ordinarily stand a chance of passing so in some ways, it could help their legislative strategy that has been stall bud not everyone likes doing business this way because it reads to a lot of uncertainty in the economy. >> and julie, let me get you and chris to weigh in as well. it seems to me that the president fully appreciates that if there were a government shutdown, the republicans would be blamed. they're the majority in the white house, they have the white house, the house and the senate, and if there was a default on the nation's debt, that would be a disaster for the u.s. economy, it could cause the markets to collapse, all sorts of related issues. the president clearly understands that, and he says, you know what? three months is better than nothing. >> well, i think he's definitely coming around to that. there was a period of time when it wasn't clear that he did understand that. he was flirting very openly with a government shutdown and at this point he's now tweeted about it twice. they've talked a about the fact that he's willing to shut down the government over a border wall so if there were to be a shutdown, there's almost no scenario, and he knows this,

where he wouldn't be blamed personally and where republicans wouldn't be on the hook for that, and particularly at a moment where there are storms battering the south and florida and, you know, there's all of these needs that they know they're going have to address. this is not the time they want to have that -- >> clearly his economic advisers, steve mnuchin, the treasury secretary, his economic adviser, they told him, don't even start thinking about not raising the debt ceiling or letting the government shut down. >> now, his advisers have told him to do things that he has not done. just because his advisers told him to do x, doesn't mean that's why he did x. one, remember that he backed off the we're going to shut down the government over the wall soon after that rally in phoenix. that was sort of a campaign donald trump boast that president trump didn't make good on. two, when manu was talking about it, it reminded me how much politics is influenced by unforeseen events.

without hurricane harvey, without irma, what we expect the damage from irma, we're having a totally different conversation, i think, about the debt ceiling and keeping the government open. it becomes untenable because of the images that were on our televisions all last week and the images, unfortunately, we expect to be on our televisions all next week from natural disasters. it becomes something that any politician -- that conversation is relevant. >> a lot of republicans are going to have to hold their nose and vote for it because they want the billions of dollars to help the folks in texas and florida as well. manu, you're getting more information. what are you learning? >> reporter: in this meeting that just happened with the president and congressional leaders, we're told by congressional source was briefed on the meeting that towards the end of the meeting, the president's daughter, ivanka trump, and adviser, she appeared in the meeting and the meeting, according to this source, careened off topic and then, you know, republican leaders, according to a source, telling

our colleague were visibly annoyed by the fact that this appeared to careen off topic after this meeting that was supposed to discuss the range of major issues that were -- that our congress has to deal with here. so, republicans probably not very happy about this three-month deal that the president has cut with democratic leaders and not happy, apparently, about the fact that ivanka trump did appear towards the end of the this meeting and perhaps the meeting, for whatever reason, did not go as intended once she did appear, according to this source. >> wevery interesting. >> well, it's never been very clear what exactly ivanka trump's role is in the white house. republicans are concerned about the influence she may have on the president's agenda. it's not clear whether she has weighed in on the daca issue or she may be having influence on his thinking on the spending matters, and, you know, cutting a deal with democrats because we know that she's positioned herself as much more in the center and wanting to court that kind of bipartisan deal.

so, i could see how if you're paul ryan or mitch mcconnell, wanting to get down to brass tacks on how are we going to do these spending bills, also talk about tax reform that having her appear there might not be the most welcome thing. >> julie's exactly right. but just to add, this is always the danger. we haven't seen it all this much. this is a danger of having a family member also be a member of your official white house staff. where ivanka trump's job begins and where it ends has never been well defined. he clearly, we know from all his past comments, values her input, seeks her input on these things but if you're a republican leader in congress, you're really, from donald trump, trying to get some level of predictability. okay, here are the seven things that we need to talk about today. if you only get through one, who knows what he does with the other six. >> dramatic development involving the president, democratic leaders, republican leaders, we're certainly going to stay on top of all of this.

guys, thank you very much. we're also staying on top of hurricane irma, now on a collision course with florida. millions and millions of people are in its path right now, mandatory evacuations, at least in parts of florida, already under way. we'll have a live report as soon we'll have a live report as soon as we come back. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

hi there, i'm brian brianna keillor and we begin with hurricane irma. the current forecast puts it on a collision course with florida. >> there's a new and seems to be record-breaking hurricane heading right toward florida and puerto rico and other places. we'll see what happens. we'll know in a very short period of time, but it looks like it could be something that will be not good. >> you were looking at images from space of one of the strongest atlantic