they have been around. she doesn't have a lot of people. 57 days. this is fascinating. jim starts right now. >> per hello, i'm jim chuto and it's 1:00 in washington. the east coast on high alert, bracing for a monster hurricane as several major storms fill the atlantic. president trump defiant as pressures mount after his officials question his fitness to be president either through a book or op-ed. the vice president said he would be willing to take a lie dete detector test.

the russian spy is accused of offering sex to republicans. moments from now, she will be in court. will this hurt her case or their case against her? we begin with hurricane florence barrelling towards the east coast. just strengthening to a dangerous category four hurricane. carolina bracing for impact. mandatory evacuations for parts of the north carolina coast. the storm could stall after making landfall, bringing hurricane harvey-like flooding to the coast. this comes at the peak of hurricane season. three massive storms churning in the atlantic. let's go to allison. you look at the pictures there and the pictures from space. just incredible. how big is this relative to that what we have seen before? >> it's not like north carolina has never been hit, but it's been a while.

they haven't had a category four storm hit them since hugo since 1989. that's nearly 30 years. when we start to look at a lot of these images, you see it clearly. that's a sign to us that the storm is continuing to strengthen and intensify. the track of the storm expects to make landfall. some are between virginia, north carolina and south carolina. those are not the only states impacted. tropical storm force winds will be felt from florida all the way up to new jersey. you will have the strong gusty winds that are felt. rain is one of the biggest factors. when it makes landfall, it will sit and hover and dump a tremendous amount of rain. this model pushes the rain oddly enough inland. raleigh and greensboro could get

10 to 15 inches of rain. the american model keeps the amounts over the coastline. cities like the outer banks and hatteras and portions of raleigh could get excessively high amounts of rain. not out of the question to see over 30 inches of rain in those coming days. that's going to be the main concern going forward. other states will be impacted even if it's as simple as rip currents or gusty winds. >> we will be watching. thanks very much. to politics now, the president calls it a smokjoke, but no one the white house is laughing. bob woodward reveals more disturbing claims. among the latest revelations. president trump almost tweeted into a war with north korea. it also paints an alarming

picture of internal resistance fighting west wing chaos. vice president mike pence said he is willing to take a lie detector test to prove between the he who wrote the article. >> should all top officials take a lie detector test and would you agree to take one. >> i would agree to take it in a heartbeat and would submit to any review the administration wanted to do. >> do you think they should do that? >> look, that should be a decision for the president. >> white house correspondent kaitlyn collins, the president facing a double whammy, you can call it. you have the op-ed and details dribbling over the course of a week. how are they responding today? >> they are trying to convince them by telling the president this is likely someone in the national security realm who wrote this op-ed, calling the

leadership ability into question. that's trying to discredit the claims, tweeting about it several times calling bob woodward a democratic operative writing this because it is ahead of the mid-terms. she citing the denials. bob woodward said he believes they are not telling the truth and they are putting out denials because they need political cover to save their jobs. of course this also comes as the president is calling the white house a smooth running machine, discrediting a lot of what is said in the book and the op-ed about what is going on in the walls of the west wing and they are trying to work against the president and not make decisions he feels he should make. they come to the point where mike pence has to volunteer to take a lie detector test to prove he was not the one who

wrote the op-ed. i'm not sure that would be a smooth running machine. you are saying there is that. what can you tell us? that change comes after omarosa revealed she taped the chief of staff when he was firing her in "the situation room" last december. i think she record and published a few weeks ago. instead of putting their phones in lockers and being bussed in, they are told to leave their government-issued devices there. of course that comes after the chief of staff banned personal cell phones in the west wing when requiring them to put them in lockers at the entrances. what the big part of this shows is a heightened sense of

paranoia and there would be more leaks coming and they are willing to stop the damaging information from the west wing. from that book who said he spoke to multiple people who work here or work here now for that thing. once again, they wanted to stop some of the damaging information from coming out. >> it's not like a huge number of people who have privileges, but does this indicate that the white house does not trust many people working in that building to even bring their phone close to the situation room? >> that's the question. these are not their personal cell phones. they have all their messages on and what not. they have been white house issued devices that even when the phone ban went into place, they could have their devices with them. if they see if people have

personal phones, they could have government-issued phones. she taped the chief of staff firing her, they don't want staffers to bring any devices into that room. in order to prevent this from happening again. time will tell if that's something effective here. >> that's remarkable. he broke the watergate scandal, but bob woodward said he never has seen the chaos within the trump administration today. he said it's his deepest look ever into any administration and he has a warning for americans. >> this one was in the belly of the beast. >> what did you conclude about the beast? >> that people better wake up to what's going on. >> people better wake up. let's get insight from the guests. we have a congressional reporter for politico and u.s. world and

news report. we have a post of remarkable things. he is a careful guy. careful reporter. for him to say those words, to issue a warning in effect to americans, what does that mean? >> i was having coffee with a republican on the house side. they said the president is so easily dismissed reporters call them fake news and his base listens. this is bob woodward and people are not going to listen. will democrats take the house and impeach the president? this is not something the president should be looking at right now. this is distractioning awaydist

the mid-terms. >> i used the italian pronunciation here. the president and the white house do have a point. you have a number of officials issuing public denials with things contained in the books. woodwa woodward's explanation is these are folks who are not telling the truth to save their jobs. you have 20 something or 30 something or senior officials s sayi sayi saying they were not responsible. that was quick to deny he was deep throat in the 70s. >> it took a while and will be

revealed who this source was. i actually think the "new york times" op-ed took a window of sales of the account. bob woodward is the most reported of our time. his incidence are airtight. they are specific with names on them. we don't know who it is and if it's from national security, but it's anonymous. that opened up a bigger debate about whether the "new york times" should have published it and gave trump a battering ram. they have the woodward story that is highly credibility and got under cut because of the focus on that. >> both of them tell a similar story, right? it's trickling out in reporting from your publications over the

months and years. what struck me about denials is you don't have trump officials saying by the way, he's the most impressive executive i have worked for and he's on top of the issues and it's a well-oiled machine as trump claims. it doesn't seem to me challenging the substance. >> we have seen that so often. there is such a sense of paranoia in the white house at all times. people hanging on to their jobs and they are the next person that the president rips their head off. beyond the fact that it totally distracts from the economy right now and the things that president trump should be talking about, it underscores this sense of instability and scandal that is such an issue for the voters that matter most. particularly suburban women who don't like what is it going on

in the white house. these things scare people. starting a war over twitter or just the sense of only having a fifth or 6th great understanding. the complex of issues and that scares a lot of voters and not good for the republicans in the mid-terms. they call for the withdrawal of families of u.s. troops in south korea. they might read this as oh, my gosh, the u.s. will start shooting missiles. they will try to prevent world war three and speaks to a limited understanding of foreign

policy in our a lineses. to go back to the trust issues, this goes back and a lot of them are worried that the president no longer listens to people who are walking him back to the edge. because of people roaring things and right now, we are facing a shut down fight. republicans are pet riified that he is going to do this and they will lose the house. if he is paranoid, it's a problem for them. per to like having people to challenge him. on the issue of the economy, the president does and the fact is the numbers are good. economic growth started under obama, but the tax plan is proving corporate profits, etc. he has a good story to tell and he couldn't resist himself.

he got to the realm of not true and he tweeted that it's the highest unemployment rate for 100 years. not true. in the last 72 years, it happened in 62 quarters. that becomes the quarter. you could be talking about this and rising blue collar employment and declining unemployment and the president gets caught in a pickle of his own making. >> he could be saying 4% gdp and 3.9% and 200,000 new jobs and it's a great economy and he is pointing the states where there is senate and governor's races and you are right. he steps on his own foot. the trust issue with advisers who is that circle. ivanka and jared.

you have these forces right now setting up a mid-term election. that should be good for the republicans. the scandal infested white house and they can't get out. you wonder what the mid-term numbers would be like if you didn't have a low approval readying. that clearly drags the public back. with the president's policies, traveling all over the country, you talk to people who say i have seen my paychek go up. details like that that they attribute to the tax bill. there is so much noise, it's impossible for people to focus on that and give the credit to the president.

mick mulvaney said we could be doing fine right now. republicans know that's a problem and could cost them the house. >> that's quite a revelation there. >> one disturbing revelation that is the president nearly got the u.s. to a war with north korea with a tweet he didn't send. we will take you to north korea live. the trump administration closing the palestine liberation organization and a move the group called a dangerous escalation. a short time from now, a woman accused of being a russian spy appears in court after they admit they got one detail wrong that she offered sex for access to republicans. join t-mobile, and get netflix included for the whole family. so you can get lost in space in your own backyard. or get pumped up for your grand entrance. t-mobile lets you watch your favorite movies and shows in more places, without paying more.

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on the brink of war it seemed with north korea. before their friendly summit, president trump fired off pointed tweets including calling kim jong un little rocket man. we are learning from the new book, a tweet the president almost set some worry could have prompted a war. >> he drafts a tweet saying we are going to pull out dependence from south korea, family members of the 28,000 people there. at that moment there was a sense of profound alarm in the pentagon leadership that my god, one tweet and we have reliable information that the north koreans are going to read this as an attack is imminent. >> our will ripley is live pong yapg.

pulling out dependence, knowing how new york watches the south and certainly the u.s. would they have seen that potentially as a precursor to war? >> absolutely, jim. a lot of it would depend on the timing, he didn't, but if he would have sent out the tweet at the time that the u.s. was staging military drills that happened and they did happen every year until they were suspended by president trump at the summit in june. they have a hard time distinguishing in the military exercises whether the bombing runs come cloak to the demilitarized zone if it's an assault or just training. that's one of the reasons they hate the joint drills so much much. say they were happening and they read the tweet and see a plane flying close to the demilitarized zone and say this is the attack and it's happening. they shoot it down.

that could lead to what could be catastrophic for the world and this region. >> remarkable. in more recently the 7th anniversary parade in the last couple of days they did not roll out the icbms and president trump said this is a big and very positive statement from north korea. thank you for chairman kim. we will prove everyone wrong. he goes on to say there is nothing like the dialogue from two people who like each other. what are you hearing from the north korean side about that? there is no evidence of substantive progress or pull back of north korea's missile program. it this is a show that new york pulled back. was there a substandive reason behind that? >> if you think about it, it's remarkable what kim jong un pulled off over the weekend. he staged a military parade and

because he chose not to display the ballistic missiles that he possesses and even more than he did at the last parade i attended in april of last year when they unveiled this. he hasn't gotten rid of any of them, but because he didn't put them in the parade, he gets praised bringing the u.s. stalled diplomatic talks. he solidified that and he is expected to visit pyongyang and china said they greatly valley the efforts towards denuclearization and by managing the optics, kim jong un scored points with two super powers and still has all the nuclear weapons today he had yesterday and likely will have tomorrow and in the weeks to come. >> bought himself more time. live in pong yayongyang.

>> ted cruz his seat because he is not likeable. reports of a rescue mission to save him. she is accused of being the russian spy infiltrating political circles, but they admit they made a crucial mistake about accusations she offered sex for access. if you're waiting patiently for a liver transplant, it could cost you your life. it's time to get out of line with upmc. at upmc, living-donor transplants put you first. so you don't die waiting. upmc does more living-donor liver transplants

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. the u.s. is taking aim at the palestinian leadership, announcing the closing of the mission here in washington. john bolton explained the decision. >> as president reagan recognized in this context, the executive has the right to decide the kind of foreign relations, if any, the united states will maintain. and the trump administration will not keep the office open. when the palestinians refuse to take steps to start direct and meaningful negotiations with israel. the u.s. supports a direct and robust peace process and we will not allow the icc or any other organization to contrain israel's right to self defense. >> josh roggin is with me, cnn analyst and columnist for "the washington post." this is the latest in a series

of moves by this administration, most recent ones targeted the palestinians. they pulled aid in addition taking positions aligned with benjamin netanyahu's administration. >> they are punishing the palestinians for not cooperating under the theory that i will get them to cooperate. what we are facing is a coming roll out of the long-awaited middle east peace plan led by special adviser and son-in-law, jared kushner. they have been preparing this and it's coming soon. they want to hammer them as they came to the table. we have seen the reaction and it's not likely to work. they call this vicious black mail and we would never cooperate while we have this going on. >>. >> the palestinians are not coming to the table. >> they keep saying they are not coming to the table and the point is why should we come to the table why you are taking

money away from refugees and changing the status quo on the ground. thatted well lead to one conclusion. the trump administration is seeking to police its base. conservative jews and evangelical christian who is have been pushing these moves knowing when they released this peace plan it's unlikely to go anywhere anyway and they have a list of things they can bring back to their supporters to say we defended israel, we stood up to the palestinians and it's their fault, not our fault that piece is not happening. >> this is about domestic politics and not about peace, why bother releasing this access plan. >> they want to say they gave it the goods college try. there is a chance if you punish the palestinians enough, they will yield. they can have it either way. if they fold to the pressure, good. if they don't, the trump people

can go back and say we gave it a try and did all of these things. we met all of these that the president promised to do. in some ways it's a cynical plan, but it's what they decided to do and there are real consequences on the ground. $350 million of un assistance that we are now withholding. okay, that will affect millions of people. what we are looking at is a stalemate in diplomacy and potential that in this environment, there could be a return to ri vens lenviolence. >> ron desantis resigns from congress as the florida candidate is under fire. this time for speaking at racially charged events. the details are coming up. the gop reportedly launching a rescue operation to save ted cruz. this after a top trump official

said the senator is at risk of losing his seat in texas. are you a christian author with

a book that you're ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! republicans are said to be launching a full on rescue mission for ted cruz's senate seat in texas. politico reporting that dan patrick traveled to the white house to make an urgent plea to send president trump to texas and he came through announcing a rally for ted cruz.

cruz fighting for his political life against beto o'rourke who is closing a very narrow gap in the polls. a top white house official mick mulvaney told a group of donors that cruz was not likeable enough and losing his seat was at least a possibility. alex is a reporter for politico.com and broke the rescue stories. dan patrick goes to washington issuing i suppose a nervous plea here. what's that based on? they were looking at the numbers. >> everywhere is looking at the numbers and saying this is a conservative state and this this race is closer than it should be. they want to accepted the president out there and the president will go out and the president's son is going out there to camp up conservative enthusiasm in the final weeks of the race. >> folks of democrats have eyed texas with relish in the past.

is this one -- are these concerns now more substantial? >> potentially, you talked to people from both parties and it's going to be very hard for beto o'rourke to win the race. cruz is still the favorite and they are up in single digits, but it's closer than it should be and you have the republican cavalry coming in and supporting cruise and do whatever they can do get him over the finish line. >> trump's support worked in the primaries, no question. i forget what the record was. it was 4-1 that at least his endorsement helped. in the general state like texas, does trump's arrival convinced it will be a net positive? >> this is the big question in a lot of races coming up this fall. what i think the white house people and the people close to trump are betting is that democrats are enthuse and they come out no matter what. the question is how can they

bring out the republican voters and to a great extent, trump is the best motivator to get them out to the polls in november. >> ted cruz, what's the closest race he has had in texas. what's the closest that a republican has been threatened there by democrats? >> it has been a while. it's a conservative state and you talk to people close to cruz and they are confident and republicans think the concern is overblown, but others are saying beto o'rourke is raising a lot of money and driving up liberal enthusiasm and they need to take it seriously. >> thanks for cominging on. vice president mike be pence denies he is behind an op-ed and said he will take a lie detector test to prove it. the white house holding the first briefing in 19 days, just a short time from now.

that's a live picture from inside the briefing room. a dire warning who predicts an imminent attack could lead to the century's worst loss of life. we have a live report from inside. that's next. hey allergy muddlers. are you one sneeze away from being voted out of the carpool? try zyrtec®. it's starts working hard at hour one. and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. stick with zyrtec® and muddle no more®.

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warnings of imminent slaughter in syria as humanitarian groups say syrian and russian war planes have escalated their air strikes ss idlib, the last rebel stronghold in the country. they are specifically targeting rebels affiliated with al qaeda

and fears of a chemical attack on an all out ground assault. a short time ago there was a dire warning from the emergency coordinator. >> there needs to be ways of dealing with this problem that don't the next few months in italy into the worst humanitarian catastrophe with the biggest loss of life. >> just remarkable terms there. the correspond ept is in syria now. of the many concerns there, you have a number of forces still in syria and in and around idlib. what is the level of involvement and proximity here? >> yeah. the u.s. doesn't have much of a force we are seeing. one of the things is you said national security adviser said if there is a chemical attack on the part of the syrian

government forces, there would be a strong response by cruise missiles or aviation. mike pence made a similar warning as well. in that area under the trump administration, the u.s. rolled back the influence that it has on the ground. of course that means that the countries that decide the fate of the 3 million civilians are russia, iran, and turkey. they had the summit on friday, but they didn't come to a conclusion. what we have seen over the weekend really is more and more air strikes happening in that area by the russian air force and the syrian air force as well. the russians and the syrians are targeting groups affiliated with al qaeda. they have been hit as well. we are hearing on the ground from the syrian military is they are saying they have this area surrounded. they could begin this

and they haven't actually started yet, despite that we're seeing these air strikes. all of this happening despite the warnings we're hearing out of washington, from the trump administration. it seems that the assad government at this point in time, very much unphase efazed what it's hearing from president trump and the u.s. administration. >> it sounds like they think they can end the war and take over the country. thanks very much. a republican congressman running for governor in florida once again under fire, this time for reportedly speaking multiple times at racially charged events. the details, ahead. plus, the white house holding its first on-camera briefing in 19 days, just a short time from now. and it looks like they've added some tv screens in the room. we'll see what message they're trying to get out today. billions of mouths.

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the republican candidate for florida's governor under fire once again, just days after congressman ron desantis was accused of using a racist term, "the washington post" reports that desantis spoke at multiple racially charged events, this dating back to 2013. at these conferences, you'd hear hundreds of people, many of the speakers right-wing speakers, but also some of them known racists, bigots, milo yiannopoul yiannopoulos, sebastian gorka, who's had anti-muslim positions.

joe johns me now. so you have many viewpoints, most from the right, certainly not all racists and not all bigoted, but those kind of voices seem to be a regular feature at these events. >> and i think it's important for a variety of reasons. number one, because right now, and you have to underscore this, he's running against an african-american candidate, andrew gillum, who's the tallahassee mayor and he makes a comment, for example, on television saying, we don't want to monkey up the state. and the question, of course, is whether that was a racist comment or not. he said it wasn't intended to be racist, but now you overlay that with this disclosure in "the washington post" that he's appeared four times before this group, organized by a conservative who has brought in these types of viewpoints, repeatedly. then it starts to paint a bit of a more of a picture. and also important, i think, because the african-american

community already galvanized by the possibility of first african-american governor for the state of florida, now has these questions about the republican candidate. >> and the point about desantis, and some of this came up when he used the racially charged term, is that, here's an experienced politician, sitting congressman, i believe he's a military vet. >> right. >> smart guy, right? but he's been -- if he's been going to these events, going back to 2013, none of this should be a surprise to him, right? you wouldn't go to the event and not know the kind of stuff that is being said. >> and the question becomes whether this is all a wink and a nod to bring out those voters who support right-wing notions. he's also considered a very big donald trump supporters. >> he's not running again for his congressional seat. until that election, there's been several weeks here, where

no one's sitting in that seat. >> precisely. and florida is trying to figure out what to do. they are planning a conference call what to do this afternoon whether or not there ought to be a special election to have somebody in that seat. the sixth district through the end of december, into the beginning of january, when the new congress is sworn in, but the question is whether there's enough time, particularly, to get military ballots out, which have to go out 45 days before the election, and what are they going to do? because somebody's got to be in that seat, presumably, if they can, until january. >> but there are already candidates in place, democratic and republican, to fill that seat in the regular general election. >> right, the primary was the 28th of august. there is a republican, there is a democrat, and desantis was presumed to be not running. >> right, joe johns, thanks very much for clearing up for us. that is it for me today, jim sciutto sitting in for "wolf." newsroom with brooke baldwin starts right now.

all right. hi, there. i'm brooke baldwin. thank you so much for being with me. we are minutes away from the first white house briefing in nearly three weeks. it comes as president trump claims the white house is a smooth-running machine, despite the fact that his own vice president has offered to take a lie detector test, it's to prove he did not write that withering "new york times" opinion piece, slamming the president and as administration officials try to figure out which one of their own is not telling the truth, the president is calling bob woodward a liar. the acclaimed journalist, the pulitzer prize-winning journalist of watergate fame debuts his trump tell-all, "fear," the name of his book, tomorrow. and the president is discrediting woodward's account of an administration in an unprecedented crisis. trump tweeted the woodward book is a, quote, scam, and a joke that should not be taken with a grain of salt. and here is what he says about

woodward. trump cites savannah guthrie, the host of the "today" show, who interviewed woodward this morning. quote, it is mostly anonymous sources in here. why should anyone trust you? general mattis, general kelly said it's not true. trump then writes, quote, bob woodward is a liar who is like a dem operative prior to the midterms. he was caught cold, even by nbc. but here is how the actual exchange went down. >> you have john kelly, the white house chief of staff, calling the president an idiot, saying, we're in crazytown. that's a quote. h >> yes. >> john kelly now says, that never happened, i didn't say it. jim mattis, another person quoting as saying, the president's understanding is like a fifth or sixth grader. he comes out subsequently and says, i didn't say it. are they lying? >> uh, they are not telling the truth. >> that's -- >> these are political statements to protect their jobs. totally understandable. but