help new york closing within two games to one. game this afternoon. dodgers cubs tonight. let's get a check on cnn "money" stream. global stocks mixed after wall street record highs. dow less than 50 points less of his next milestone. bank stocks recovered from last week's losses but the real focus this week on earnings, profits were fantastic in the first two quarters but s & p 500 companies should report lower profit growth in the third. today expect reports from united health, goldman sachs and ibm. netflix plans to spend billions next year. others are using their cash to find original shows and movies. the but netflix has paid off. company added more than 5

million subscribers last qua quarter. shares up about 64% this year. scary story. wi-fi network flaw could let hackers spy on every device on earth. researchers discovered a huge vulnerable. when connecting to wi-fi and attacker can trick the device to connecting to their wi-fi access point, once linked, they can potentially steal personal data. google android, microsoft windows. another silver lining, there are no reports of this flaw just yet. some companies have already issued patches. thanks for joining us. ed president trying to satisfy all sides. now senatorer john mccain says those promoting half baked national views are unpatriotic. see you tomorrow.

>> my relationship with this gentlemen is outstanding. we've cut your oxygen off, mitch. it's a season of war against a gop establishment. >> i can understand fully how steve bannon feels. >> donald trump is playing mitch mcconnell and steve bannon against each other perfectly. >> to abandon our duty to the stake of some half baked spurious nationalism is unpatriotic. >> if you look at other presidents, most of them didn't make calls. >> why does he make stuff up all the time? >> most people said we've done an outstanding job but puerto rico is tough. >> our president doesn't have the commitment to the puerto rican people. >> this is "new day" with chris kpoem mow and alison camerota. >> this is new day, tuesday, october 17. former republican nominee, senator john mccain taking a clear shot at president trump

without ever saying his name. mccain warns the u.s. against turning towards quote half baked spurious nationalism, and calls america's repeat on the world stage unpatriotic. this comes as president trump is under fire for falsely claiming that his predecessor predecessors didn't call gold star families. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell is closer than ever before. all this as a new cnn poll shows president trump's approval rating holding steady. more americans say he is leading the country in the wrong direction. the president's approval rating on recent hurricanes dropped 20

points after hurricane maria destroyed puerto rico. the humanitarian crisis there is deepening a month after the storm. we have it all covered. let begin with cnn's joe johns live at the white house. joe, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, chris. the president spent monday straddli straddling, time-outing his relationship with senate majority leader mitch mcconnell while at the same time trying to keep the peace with the steve bannon wing. >> we're probably now, i think, at least as far as i'm concerned, closer than ever before. we're fighting for the same thing. >> reporter: president trump attempting to put up a united front with senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, despite lobbying this criticism moments before at the senate that mcconnell leads. i'm not going to blame myself.

they are not getting the job done. >> reporter: the anti-establishment wing of the party spearheaded by his former chief strategist steve bannon. >> this is not my war. this is our war. mitch, the donors are not happy. they've all left you. we've cut your objectixygen off mitch. >> reporter: mr. trump backing bannon's anti-establishment attacks during a cabinet meeting monday morning. >> steve is very committed. he is a friend of mine. we had a few people who disappointed us, really, really disappointed us. i understand fully how steve bannon feels. steve is doing what steve thinks is the right thing. some of the people he may be looking at, i'm going to see if we talk him out of that. because, frankly, they're great people. >> reporter: senator john mccain making a compassionate plea while accepting the liberty medal. >> to abandon the ideals we have

advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain the last best hope of earth for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that americans consigned to. i've written them personal letters. they've been sent or they're going out tonight. >> reporter: the president immediately growing defensive, making this false claim about his predecessors. >> if you look at president obama and other presidents, most of them didn't make calls. >> reporter: former white house photographer pete souza responding with this image,

showing president obama comforting a gold star family as multiple aides to the former president recall specific times obama consoled the families of fallen soldiers. obama's former deputy chief of staff lashing out at mr. trump on twitter. mr. trump also boasting about his administration's response to hurricane-ravaged puerto rico again, placing blame on local officials. >> it was in really bad shape before. we have done -- i will say this. we have done -- >> people don't have drinking water. >> we've delivered tremendous amounts of water. then what you have to do, you have to have distribution of water by people on the island. >> reporter: new cnn poll shows the president's approval rating in response to recent hurricanes has dropped 20 points since september as the majority of the island remains in the dark, one month after the storm. for the second day in a row, the president is expected to take questions from reporters today. this time during a news conference with the greek prime minister. and this evening, the president

is expected to address a highly influential conservative group here in washington, the heritage foundation. very likely tax reform as well as health care will be on the agenda. alisyn, back to you. >> joe, thank you for that reporting. the new cnn poll finds president trump's approval rating is holding steady but more americans say he's leading the nation in the wrong direction. joining us from washington to help us break down all the numbers, david. >> donald trump's approval rating is at 37%, 57% disapprove. he has been hanging out in the 37 to 40% range the past four months or so. how does it stack up in history? take a look at where predecessors were. he was way down at the bottom. bill clinton next closest and that's ten points higher.

so, not stacking up well against his predecessors. we also asked how things are going in the country today. we see a drop here. in august, 53% of americans said things are going well in the country. now it's down to 46%, alisyn. that's where we were in february after the first chaotic weeks of the trump administration. battles with mcconnell, trump's relationship with congressional republicans. 32% of americans approve the way he handles his relations with congressional republicans. 54% disapprove. 68% of republicans approve of his relationship with congressional republicans only 22% approve. 30% of americans overall say they trust president trump to handle major issues. 47% trust these guys, mitch

mcconnell and paul ryan more. among republicans, president trump has the advantage on this issue of trust to handle most issues. if you go to the next screen, you'll see that republicans overwhelmingly, 63%, trust trump over the 29% who trust the republicans in congress. it's this advantage that he is pressing against mitch mcconnell and paul ryan. by the way, that steve bannon is pressing as well. alisyn, chris? >> david, thank you very much. stay with us. that panel is the only one that the president agrees with in this poll. yesterday, he had a tour de force of selling the american people and the media on what he has done and why he is doing very well at this point. in fact, ahead of schedule, he says. let's bring in cnn political analyst david gregory to join david chalian. what did you make of what we all saw yesterday? >> i'm fixated on david's numbers there, especially how the broader gop views the

president in terms of confidence in his leadership or on the majority of the issues. that is the point that he is the republican party and yet look what he's doing with mitch mcconnell yesterday. he's basically putting him outside himself, putting himself outside of the party saying, yeah, i'm disappointed in what the republicans have done in washington but i'm not going to blame myself. what a shocking thing for donald trump to say. i'm not going to blame myself. he said they haven't gotten it done. he's playing this outsider game even though he's the president, even though he's the leader of the party to say, look, i'm still a grassroots political leader. >> that's what works for him, david. doesn't it? >> that's the bottom line. that's still what works for him. that's what keeps his base together. even when he's getting hammered for his response in puerto rico, he still plays this outsider game, knowing that he is responsible as the head of the federal government for that kind of response. >> i totally -- i'm sorry, alisyn. >> i was just going to pull up

those numbers for the hurricane response one more time. only 44% approve of how he's handling the hurricane response, 47% disapprove. >> but he puts that on us and on puerto rico's government. we're giving fake reports that don't give enough respect to the success and the puerto ricans can't get their own business in order. >> our reporters are on the ground, showing us what the real situation is. >> our reporting standards in the way we cover hurricanes didn't change between harvey, irma and maria. 64% approving of how he handled harvey and irma. it was helping sort of boost him a little bit. we've never seen that kind of support for him on any given specific issue. now it's down to 44% because of what people have seen in puerto rico. >> there's no question about it. anybody who goes there will tell you, if they're in this business and have any experience, that it is the worst american natural disaster that they've ever seen.

i've never seen that kind of need among americans in the time i've been in this business. his desire to say he's a success over recognizing that reality has to be what's driving that imbalance between how he was in the first couple of storms and this one. let's talk about last night. senator john mccain came out, david gregory. look, he's battling cancer and he is speaking his mind. >> right. >> let's just remind people about the message that john mccain is trying to send. listen to this. >> the fear of the world we have organized and led three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain the last best hope of earth for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems --

>> what do you hear there, david gregory? >> the voice of institutional memory in the senate, a voice of history in our country, a voice that is now completely unafraid of standing outside of the populism of donald trump and essentially saying shame on you. and he's joining other republicans who are doing the same. but that doesn't necessarily change the calculation of steve bannon, of this grassroots work. the president has signed on to say the gop establishment is still letting you down, is still not getting anything accomplished, is not doing its job. even mccain's good friend, lindsey graham, said over the weekend, yeah, i understand where trump and bannon are coming from, because we're not doing our jobs on issues like tax cuts or particularly health care. we're not making good on these promises. so, mccain's comments will be championed by many critics of the president, including a lot of democrats who otherwise wouldn't be with him on a lot of

these issues because he's starting to align himself more strongly against the president. >> david chalian, he used a great word. spurious. right? it suggests that it's half-baked. it's not what it appears to be. it comes from being a way of describing of illegitimate birth. does it matter to the republicans that this form of populism isn't legitimate, according to senator mccain? is it being artificial? is that something that might work in terms of galvanizing the party and calling out the bannon factor? >> it matters to some republicans of the john mccain is one, obviously. but it doesn't -- i don't think that it's going to be a rallying cry to all of a sudden overturn the dynamic that has been ten years in the making inside the modern republican party. i do think, though, that what you see with john mccain, add this speech to the speech he

gave last night to the speech he gave on the senate floor when he returned from his diagnosis, where he voted against the plan to repeal and replace obamacare. he is trying with all of his might to sort of turn the tide here, both institutionally in the senate, how things get done in washington and with trump's sort of global philosophy and vision for america's role in the world. he's trying with his words with anything he can galvanize to try to steer back something he seems to think is off course. >> quickly, david -- go ahead. >> i think it's also striking to watch. president trump aligns himself with the bannon and anti-establishment folks. if he were to get a big bipartisan deal on health care, he would love it. if he were able to accomplish things and be able to put his name on the top of a victory, i think he would very quickly align himself with the

establishment if it started working and if he could say, like on tax reform, we got this done because of my leadership. i think you would see that start to change. >> we need to get to what president trump claimed in this press conference yesterday, speaking of spurious. he claimed that other presidents didn't call the families of fallen soldiers and then he tried to walk it back when people were saying, yes, they d here is what he originally said and then some of the cleanup effort. listen to this. >> i will, at some point during the period of time call the parents and the families, because i have done that traditionally. the traditional way, if you look at president obama and other presidents, most of them didn't make calls. a lot of them didn't make calls. >> earlier, you said that president obama never called the families of fallen soldiers. how can you make that claim? >> no, no, i was told he didn't often.

a lot of president's don't. president obama, i think, probably did sometimes and maybe sometimes he didn't. i don't know. that's what i was told. all i can do is ask my generals. >> look, this is example number -- fill in the blank of what number you want of just a fake claim. he shot it out there. it's demonstrably false and then put it out there with unnamed sources, which he hates. >> former obama administration officials, including eric holder. he put out on twitter stop the damn lying. you're the president. i went to dover air force base with 44, meaning obama, and saw him comfort both the fallen of both the fallen military and dea. and then that's an f'ing lie to

say president obama or past presidents didn't call the family members of soldiers. he's a deranged animal. >> i don't know why he doesn't tell the truth all the time but he doesn't. he makes claims usually based on him feeling attacked somehow, feeling defensive and lashes out without the facts. if you were listening to him it almost sounded as if what he meant to say was that the way you offer condolences takes different forms and that the protocol over the years versus calling as opposed to writing a letter, maybe certain circumstances called for certain responses. that's what i thought he might be driving at. but, of course, what he then says is a kind of blast, a gut blast to say, well, you know, nobody in the past really called to offer condolences, which is simply not true. yet again, he creates a controversy because he's offensive in what he's saying.

offensive to the office and his predecessors that gets in the way of what he's trying -- >> right. >> you have to be careful, david, both davids and us, not to let it work. it's a fog of distraction and bs that gets us away from the main premise. why didn't he say anything about this for two weeks? why did these service members lose their lives? what was this about? where is the curiosity from the administration? where is the story of these four men and what happened to them? that's the question, david chalian. >> exactly, chris. >> he can cover it in a lie and cast blame on other people, will get people who hate obama involved in it and will focus on that. we still don't know the answers to the main questions. >> the lie is important to call out. we've done it. it was a lie. it was totally wrong. my question when i watched that is why is this a moment for him to start trying to compare himself to his predecessors? there are four dead american service members. he is the commander in chief.

there must be something else he wants to say here other than try to compare himself to how others in this job handled this kind of moment. it just seemed entirely the wrong moment, to me, for him to try to stack himself up to his predecessor. >> unless he either doesn't know what happened in niger, which shows a fundamental lack of curiosity, or he doesn't want to go there. in either case, throwing some stink on obama and other people will work. that will become the headline, unless you stay on the main line questions. we need to know what happened to these men and we don't. >> it's just like puerto rico. why would you as a leader of a country say we deserve an a plus on what we're doing, when people are suffering? your job is to help and protect the people you govern. when people are hurting in such an obvious way your job is to say we're doing everything we can, but we're not done until

these major problems are solved. so that's what we're thinking about every day. whatever they need we're going to get on it. if there are long-term problems we'll deal with those over the long term. right now we're taking care of people. you can't understand why he would have any other response except making it about him. and, of course, that is his whole career and certainly his career as president so far. >> david gregory, david chalian, stick around. we have more questions for you, free wheeling impromptu rose garden press conference, including his comments about robert mueller and the special investigation. did the president consider firing the special prosecutor? (honking) (beeping) we're on to you, diabetes. time's up, insufficient prenatal care. and administrative paperwork, your days of drowning people are numbered. same goes for you, budget overruns.

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president trump addressing the ongoing russia investigation and how he feels about special counsel robert mueller. >> special counsel robert mueller get to the end of the russian investigation? >> i would like to see it end. >> well how do you -- >> excuse me. the whole russian thing was an excuse for the democrats losing the election. there's been absolutely no collusion. it's been stated they have no collusion. they ought to get to the end of it because i think the american people are sick of it. >> david gregory and david

chalian, he didn't use the word hoax. >> same thing. >> but reiterated that the whole thing has been silly or for naught. >> nobody in his own administration will say the same thing for what it's worth. >> of course. obviously, everybody we talk to says that russia did meddle. where do you think the president's head is with this? >> what's clear is that his legal team is trying to make the case to the special prosecutor that trump should be cleared, which raises questions to everything he has done as president, firing jim comey, and obstruction of justice, which is totally separate from interference and meddling on the part of the russians. what's so striking still, as president of the united states, he will not view this as a

larger threat to the country, our electoral system. he only sees it in terms of whether he is being criticized. he only sees it as an excuse by the democrats. nobody else sees it that way. even delayed reaction of twitter and facebook recognizes this was a serious threat but not the president of the united states, who may not be calling it a hoax openly but what he's really doing is sending out signals, daring mueller to bring anything. if he doesn't have something significant, that he's going to run on this and say, you see, the entire government was against me. it was all ridiculous and an excuse by the democrats. he is going to go to his base of voter and say see, this is what they spent their time doing. >> the bottom line is it's effective with his base. it defies fact. nobody around him believes it in terms of anyone who knows anything about the situation but he says it because it's effective with the base. what's happening with opioids, anybody you talk to in this

country who fights drugs says they've never seen anything like what they're dealing with now. the president had a comment on it. >> what about a written declaration of emergency on this crisis? >> we'll be doing that next week. by the way, you know that's a big step? by the way, people have no understanding of what you just said. that is a very, very big statement. it's a very important step. to get to that step a lot of work has to be done and it's time-consuming work. we're going to be doing it next week. okay? >> look, this is what the voters we've spoken to, david chalian, trump supporters and voters were hoping for it on week one, he would immediately address this national crisis. we lost so many people to opioids. he may not have went into what it takes to declare it a national emergency but certainly his supporters wanted it before ten months. >> one way to tell how resideon

this issue is, senators on capitol hill were out there talking about this because they know their voters want to hear about this. he announced the news he's going to announce next week. he also was asked if his drug czar nominee is going to remain his drug czar nominee after this controversial report where he very well may have exacerbated or been part of exacerbating the opioid crisis. >> it will be called a controversial report but the more you read into it, it is not. "the washington post" did it in conjunction with "60 minutes." the headline is this, david gregory. this is what big pharma does. it started with the proliferation and over prescribing of pain meds. we haven't seen that before. crack, meth, coke. all those different drugs, they came up through the streets. this did not.

this came top down. this law was just vintage big pharma. they worked. they lobbied $100 million. they got lawmakers, the dea, the doj. they got everybody on the same page, including the white house, president obama who signed this law, that changed the standard from imminent threat to immediate danger. and that sounds like lawyer talk, and it is. but it changed the ability of the u.s. government to stop bulk deliveries of drugs. the guy who is going to be the drug czar, if the president has his way, was the champion of this law. how do you pick someone to fight something that, in large part, is because of this kind of practice to head the effort to stop the practice? >> you heard president trump say he may not in the end. >> how would he not know? i saw the report. we're going to have to look at it. how would you not know what this guy's history is? >> it's the right question. it undercuts a major area of

public policy that president trump could own. he could advance this area and make a difference on that is good politics but could be important policy for the country. he was transparent for that, not accounting for how he wouldn't know, but saying if this is true, depending on how their vetting breaks down, they may look another way. the president has an opportunity to marshall resources around and own politically and from a policy perspective if he digs in. >> full disclosure, we have a documentary on it this friday night. i'm not new to this discussion. we were with the firefighters that trump put his arm around during the campaign and said i will be there for you. they are dealing with something i've never seen before. the concentration of drugs they're fighting. they haven't gotten any help yet. they're still waiting. friday night you'll see the full

story. >> meanwhile, one of president trump's favorite boogie man or boogie women came up, hillary clinton. he once again spoke about her and talked about his dream for her political future. >> i hope hillary runs. is she going to run? i hope. hillary, please run again. go ahead. >> whether or not this is disrespecting the flag. is she right or wrong? >> i think she's wrong. there's plenty of times to do knees and lots of other things. when you take the knee -- that's why she lost the election. >> time to do knees. >> i don't even know what that means. david chalian, hillary clinton just gave an interview to the bbc. she's not running again. news flash. >> i thought that was a moment of real candor to president trump. he seemed to fully acknowledge that part of his victory was the weaknesses of the person he was running against. that's why he was so honestly begging for her to run again.

he may have had a different outcome against another opponent. normally he time-oouts it all fs success and the great campaign he had with the american people out there. it seemed to be a moment that he understood that part of the reason he was standing there is because of hillary clinton's weaknesses. >> he knows it. d. gregory, final word. >> still whirling around and don't know what direction to go. we'll see in 2020 probably, w t what, 16, 17 democrats running against a singular donald trump as president of the united states. that may give him a real big advantage and i think that's one of the reasons he's stoking all of this. democrats have not figured out -- and it is early for them to figure out how they go about denying him a second term. >> you saw with the gop last time. when you have a lot of people you often have no one. gentlemen, thank you very much. so tomorrow night we'll have a big debate between senators bernie sanders and ted cruz on

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some headlines for you now. the state department urging both sides to avoid further violence. the u.s. is in a precarious position, having supplied the iraqi government with weapons to fight isis while also arming the kurds. senator john mccain warns the iraqi government of, quote, severe consequences if it uses u.s. supplied weapons against the kurdish fighters. north korea warning a u.n. committee that a nuclear war, quote, may break out any moment.

pyongyang rejecting diplomacy with the u.s. until it finishes developing the intercontinental ballistic missile which would be capable, they say, of reaching the west coast of the u.s. joint drills are expected to last another nine days. firefighter battling flames in northern california was killed when the water truck he was driving overturned on the highway. still they are making progress with the fires in that area. residents finally being allowed to turn to their homes. health officials warn that the debris from the fires could be toxic. more than 5700 structures have burned since last week. president trump under fire for falsely claiming that president obama failed to reach out to families for fallen u.s. soldiers. it's just a false claim. but how is this playing out at the pentagon and in the military? remember, this isn't about

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president trump facing backlash this morning, and rightly so. he falsely claimed that his predecessors never called grieving military familyies, tht

they didn't reach out. he made the remark while responding to a question about why he has remained silent for 12 days after an ambush in niger of four u.s. soldiers. here is some of the sound. >> i will, at some point, during the period of time call the parents and the families. because i have done that traditionally. the traditional way, if you look at president obama and other presidents, most of them didn't make calls. a lot of them didn't make calls. >> earlier you said that president obama never called the families of fallen soldiers. how can you make that claim? >> i don't know if he did. no, no. i was told he didn't often and a lot of presidents don't. president obama, i think, probably did some sometimes and maybe sometimes he didn't. i don't know. that's what i was told. all i can do is ask my generals. >> you will see this story dominated by the discussion you just heard there. obama versus trump and who's better. not today. not here. because we don't know anything

about what happened in niger yet and there are four u.s. service members who are gone and that's what members -- what matters. we'll deal with both of them. general mark hertling and barbara starr. for those in the audience not 100% familiar with you, as a commander you take the loss of men and women under your command very seriously. you literally keep close to yourself a box of their tags and remembrances of who they are, because they lived with you every day because of that command. we understand that respect. what bothered you about what the president said yesterday? >> a couple of things, chris. you pointed it out on several occasions already this morning. first of all, the president lied and then he attempted to blame the generals for telling him what he lied about. and then the most important thing is he was making excuses for not having made contact after 12 days. all three of those things are not a good look for a commander in chief.

you asked me to be your military analyst. this is the simplest thing i've analyzed yet. it was not a good thing for a commander, which the president is, to do the kinds of things he did yesterday. i would put it in a shameful category, to be honest with you. my colleagues and peers, both retired and active, felt the same way. >> i'm right about this. it will work. everybody will talk today about what he said about obama and who was more sensitive. it is a distraction. barbara, what is the pentagon saying about what happened to these men in niger? >> 12, 13 days later, they don't know. that is a big problem. there is an investigation under way to find out how this firefight erupted. was there bad intelligence? was this a failed mission? but it comes right back, chris, to what you were saying about the families of the fallen. i want you to take a look at the picture on your far right there. sergeant la david johnson, 25 years old.

his body was left out for 48 hours before anybody could go back and get it. how does a man get left behind? this is the big question that the military has to answer now. the president talked about it being tough on him. well, you know, it is tough on the families. sergeant la david johnson, 25 years old. leaves behind a young widow, two children acres third on the way. this young man, we now know he worked at walmart at the produce counter, before he found the u.s. army and found his career and his way ahead in the u.s. army. he rode his bicycle to work every day at the produce counter at walmart. what is tough, tough on the president, it is now very tough on this young widow, trying to raise three children and all the families of the fallen. >> i take your point, barbara. there's a misplaced personalizing of it on behalf of the president. the focus of it should be on the fallen. you're right to tell their stories. from a military perspective,

what do we need to know about the situation and what does the silence mean to you, general? >> chris, i don't want to compare. when i wrote letters to family members what i would just say is console them on their loss, tell them how their soldier contributed to the defense of the nation. you don't have to get into the details. what barbara said is really emotional. because that's the kind of stories each one of these kids have, these young men and women who are less than 1% of their country. they dedicate their life in the cloth of the country. it is important to be consoler in chief as well as commander in chief. every commander up the chain of command writes these letters and it's important for the president to be one of them. 12 days later that's too long. it's just unfortunate. >> to get to what you were both talking about, let's play what the president said and how he put the pain in this situation. >> it's the toughest calls i have to make are the calls where this happens, soldiers are

killed. it's a very difficult thing. now it gets to a point where, you know, you make four or five of them in one day, it's a very, very tough day. for me, that's, by far, the toughest. >> barbara, your response? >> it's supposed to be tough. you send troops into combat as the commander in chief, it is supposed to be tough. we talked about it not being about the president. it's about the families. it is for the u.s. military now something very significant. they have to investigate this incident. they need to find out were 12 men sent into combat with poor intelligence? how did the 12 walk into an ambush by 50 isis fighters, be in a firefight for some 30 minutes only with their rifles while the isis fighters had rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. how did one man get left behind? these are the questions, the answers that the military needs to find out and the families need to know.

>> that's the best way to respect the loss. tell the stories of their service and find out and account for how their lives were lost. as we learn more information, general, we'll have you back and get your take on what we understand, what needs to change. thank you to both of you very much. alisyn? >> chris, to puerto rico now. the president praised the federal response in puerto rico. so we have a reality check on how the people on the island are doing nearly one month after hurricane maria. we are there, next. ssion to show drip coffee drinkers, it's time to wake up to keurig. wakey! wakey! rise and shine! oh my gosh! how are you? well watch this. i pop that in there. press brew. that's it. look how much coffee's in here? fresh coffee. so rich. i love it. that's why you should be a keurig man! full-bodied. are you sure you're describing the coffee and not me? do you wear this every day? everyday. i'd never take it off. are you ready to say goodbye to it? go! go! ta da! a terrarium. that's it. we brewed the love, right guys? (all) yes.

my ci can worry about it,ine. or do something about it. garlique® helps maintain healthy cholesterol naturally. and it's odor free. and pharmacist recommended. garlique.® after harvey, after maria, you saw the president's approval ratings spike. after hurricane maria in puerto rico, they've dropped. desperation is growing on the island. we're going to go back to the area that the president visited where he unforgettably was shooting jump shots with paper towels at storm victims.

cnn's bill weir is live in san juan. thanks for going back, my friend. >> reporter: my pleasure. we have to keep tabs on the folks down here. need hasn't changed much since we were both down here. we went up to look for a veteran, miguel, who was running out of insulin, when our first report hit air about a month ago. couldn't get there because torrential rains had made a bad situation already worse. here is a little sample of the day in the life of puerto rico. aside from one cluster of power line contractors working in the rain it's hard to see any signs of improvement in the highlands just outside of san juan. the roads, still littered with maria's debris, are all the more treacherous in the steady tropical downpour as weeks worth of clean-up work can be undone in minutes. this literally just happened. within the last hour, a wall of fallen trees and pipes and cars

came rushing down the hillside. and that mudslide made life all the more difficult for the people here because it took out this bridge. this bridge had been certified as safe recently. they had cleared this road. now the families on that side are completely cut off. they either have to hike over the mountain in this kind of weather, or forge this raging river. everything i've been struggling for all my life all of a sudden is gone, this man tells me. he restores corvettes for a living. now his parts trailer is tossed. a few of his cars totaled by that wall of muddy water. he and his wife have been surviving in a house without power, burning their savings on generator fuel to keep her insulin from spoiling. life was stressful enough but then their trickle of a creek brought the highest water they had ever seen.

my son was picking up the most important things as the water was coming up, just in case we needed to leave, he says. really? that must have been terrifying. this is the blue collar section of upscale municipality where president trump tossed those paper towels. as mayor angel perez stood by. how would you describe the response of fema? >> it's been slowly but it's there. you know, they have given us water, food, tarps. now they have changed a little. they're going to assign a couple of persons directly to each municipality. i think that's the right direction. so the help is coming. >> reporter: with over 1,000 homes in his town damaged he said the biggest needs are tarps for shelter and drinking water.

those plumes of fuel pouring into the creek a reminder of the health hazards of drinking off the land. and he expresses hopes the army corps of engineers can somehow replace his bridges. now you are brand new in this job. >> 40 days. >> 40 days. what a baptism by fire. i know you were appointed by the governor after a scandal with the previous mayor. tell me about the politics. do you wish you could scream and beg for more help from the federal government or do you have to be careful about how and -- how you ask? >> no. we want more help. and i know my experience is that fema has given us a lot of help. we want more. we need more help. i have meetings with other mayors, i see the desperation. >> reporter: off camera, she tells the mayor i voted for your party and you forgot about us. we need water. have you seen fema?

have you seen any aid from the federal government? they haven't brought food or water here? no. no. >> reporter: he wants to blame the locals for not distributing their own aid. >> bill, as you know, there are serious infrastructure problems there, physical and human capital as well. but the crisis is real. the need is great. as you just told us, it's not getting better fast enough. thank you for the reporting to bill weir and his team. we'll take a break. when we come back, john mccain gets a big award and uses it as an opportunity to take aim at trump's world view. what did he call half-baked and spurious? we have more on that and the president lying about past presidents and their respect for our troops. what he said and why would he

ever say anything like that? next. ulting... hi, guys. i'm back. time to slay! no,i have a long time girlfriend. you know what's easy? building your website with godaddy. get your domain today and get a free trial of gocentral. build a better website in under an hour.

i have great relationships with most republican senators but we're not getting the job done. >> that's really not real. all the warmth of an arranged marriage. >> whether they like it or not they need each other to get things done. >> we live in a land made of ideals, not blood and soil. we will not live in a world where our ideals are absent. >> greater threat to the united states than barack obama's. >> other presidents did not call. and some presidents didn't do anything. >> when he gets backed into a corner h