it's all good. sunday morning, you're allowed. hope you're making good memories today. >> really nice. >> it's true. >> "inside politics" with john king starts right now. hurricane florence slashes the carolinas. >> it is what it is. we can't control it. just pick up and deal. >> a new challenge yet the president is consumed with an old grievance. >> i think puerto rico was an incredible, unsung success. plus, paul manafort. >> he has basically fessed up to everything. >> big shifts in the midterm math. the senate in play. >> fight in an alley, just a

brawl. >> "inside politics," the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters now. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. to our viewers in the united states and around the world, thank you for sharing your sunday. team trump says no worries, but the president's former campaign chairman, whose ties to russia date back years is now cooperating with the special counsel. plus, rewriting history, the president giving himself an "a" for hurricane maria even as hurricane florence batters the carolinas. lot of politics to discuss this sunday. up first, the latest on the disaster in the carolinas. what was once hurricane florence weakened to a tropical depression but florence still causing rain, flash flooding and major river flooding over significant portions of both north and south carolina. those floods, officials say, will continue for days. in some areas the storm has

dropped 40 plus inches of rain since making land fall friday morning. it could be three to five days before those water levels peak. meantime roughly three-quarter of a million customers without power. what's the latest? >> reporter: john, the death toll now from this storm across the carolinas has risen to 13. three people killed in flash flooding on roads in north carolina yesterday. that will continue to be the story of today. it's the inland flooding. it's the rivers. we're keeping an eye on the cape fear river, lumber river, and of particular interest to us, 100 miles inland, the pd river. that water has to go somewhere. right now it's running 27 feet, expected to top 40 feet some time in the next day. as you mentioned over the next two, three, four days, though rivers are going to peak.

the inland flooding will be the issue. the governor of north carolina, actually, has said to out-of-state drivers, don't come in. just go around. stay out of the way. it's the inland issue that's going to be the thing today. those rivers are going to crest some time in the next few days. here in north myrtle beach the problem was going to be the storm surge. mercifully, that never happened. i would say it probably had to rise another two feet and this town would have been inundated. that did not happen. north myrtle beach has dodged a bullet on the coast and the focus shifts inland and those rivers of the john? >> appreciate that, nick. stay safe as well. we'll bring you any major developments. shifting to politics and what could be a game-changing development in the special counsel development. paul manafort is now a cooperating witness, when he says the crimes that manafort admitted to predated the trump

2016 campaign but he could not be more wrong when he labels the mueller investigation as a witch hunt. the fourth aide to plead guilty. he had russian ties when he joined the campaign. if anyone on team trump was aware of the russian election interference, manafort would likely know. the platform language on russia was softened and at the infamous trump tower meeting arranged by donald trump jr. after promised by russians to deliver dirt on hillary clinton. >> the jig is up. this nonsense that there's nothing to see here or this is a witch hunt, now the trump team is 0 for mueller. >> manafort talking to the special counsel. this is significant. his plea deal requires cooperation with other justice department investigations, including one in new york that already has the cooperation of the president's long-time fixer, michael cohen, and the trump's

financial officer. yet trump team says no worries. >> the plea is to crimes that have to do with manafort's past, no involvement with president trump, no involvement with the campaign, no involvement with russia. and, by the way, there's also no evidence of obstruction. there have been four guilty pleas now and they're completely irrelevant. there's never been a single fact produced that president trump, in any way, colluded with anybody, much less conspired with anybody. the man is totally innocent. >> lisa lair, and the washington post's kim. there's nothing on the record against the president but to have paul manafort turning from hostile witness to cooperating witness says what? >> it's so remarkable. i was with the president on that tarmac in west virginia the day

that manafort was convicted on his previous charges in the courtroom in alexandria where the president says he's a good man. a few days later he says he's not going to break. to see this development in the past few weeks has been, you know, fascinating to watch. and i think that, look, we don't know what mueller will ask or what direction he will go. as we pointed out, paul manafort was there at the most critical points of the campaign. he was with him about five months, three months as the campaign chairman but he was at that infamous trump tower meeting that we constantly talk about, that june 2016 meeting with kushner and don junior and the foreign policy platform controversy. >> paul manafort, as the president himself likes to say, presidential experience going back to ronald reagan, bob dole,

et cetera, someone who should know better, you don't talk to russians in the middle of a campaign and you certainly don't bring them into trump tower when your nominee is named trump. >> that counts for something and to see a shift like this certainly suggests that mr. manafort is concerned about minimizing his exposure to any more potential time and willing to share what he knows. again, we don't know what that means. it's not good for the president. we don't know what it means for the president. >> manafort could have gone to jail for a lot more. number two, the special counsel can come back and ask for less than that if the fruits of his cooperation are worthwhile. fo r mueller to cut that deal, that tells you he thinks there's fruit. >> why would he cut that deal if he doesn't think there's nothing there? it seems pretty clear, this mueller investigation has

remained a black box for some time and that's why the trump team has the trouble figuring out the politics, political angle of this. they're not used to dealing with someone whose most powerful tool is silence. that's not how they do things. we know he will not take this action unless he thinks he can get something from it. there must be something there. >> the question to me is what is manafort cooperating with mueller on? the trump team's strategy seems to be pretty clear, which is to say no collusion, no collusion, no collusion. and anything that mueller gets cooperation on from manafort that is beyond the scope of collusion with russia, they're going to say it's out of his purvi purview, faulty exercise of power and so on. securing the cooperation of manafort wasn't the only thing that happened. we also had bob woodward over whose book the trump white

house, saying he didn't think there was collusion from two years of reporting that he had done. it does seem to me that they're getting manafort's cooperation but it's probably not about collusion with russia. it's about some other crime surrounding trump. so that should be interesting and it will be interesting to see the truch white house's reaction as mueller's probe proceeds. >> as the white house says, it has nothing to do with the president. again, there's nothing in the official record that implies it has to do with the president. we should be careful about that. the president says he hires the best people. we have his former campaign chairman, deputy chairman, national security adviser all pleading guilty to crimes. the president says this is the reason his poll numbers are down, tweeting this out last night. while my or our poll numbers are good, they're not, but with the economy being the best ever if it weren't for the rigged

russian witch hunt they would be 25 points higher. bob mueller and the 17 apg angr democrats are using this phony issue to hurt us in the midterms. no collusion. he doesn't talk publicly. the president's attacks are having a big effect on bob mueller, you see it there. manafort conviction, plea deal. not that mueller cares about this. but it does matter in the court of public opinion, his numbers are on the rise. >> i don't think it's proving to be that successful, this strategy. we don't know and won't know until the midterms and probably the re-election. their idea was to attack, attack, attack, attack. and mueller said nothing. and i was always saying on the show, let see what happens when we start seeing things out of mueller. what we saw happen was those numbers start to change. there was an interesting poll in the past couple of weeks from

ki kaiser health news. they found months and months that the top issue that voters talk about was health care. corruption had sailed to the top a couple of weeks ago. and that feels significant for the midterms. the assessment from strategists on both sides was this investigation was something that was baked into the electorate. whether they liked it or not, they had already decided and it wasn't going to sway voters one way or another. the fact that corruption has rice e risen to the top -- >> why those pleas are so important and mayor rudy giuliani, whether you have people pleading guilty, it chips away at that message that there's nothing to see here. >> and the biggest dive of the president's numbers in the congressional ballot numbers is independence. they see something they just don't like. to rudy giuliani's point, this

is not a strategy. listen how he make this is case, it's not designed to get democrats or independents to line up this is all about the trump base. >> here is the collusion strangely, sean. the collusion is that whole group of people, strok, paige, orr, orr's wife, brennan, clapper. they decided to first keep him out of the white house so we get the dossier paid for by hillary clinton. when they failed in that mission, they just transition right into trying to drive him out of the white house. so this is not an investigation based on any facts. >> everybody, every other breathing human being is out to get donald trump. that's that. >> i think we've seen that trump really excels politically when he is backed up against the wall and has an adversary. during the republican primary it was lying ted, little marco. and then hillary clinton.

and now it's the same with the mueller probe. >> he always had adversaries that fought back. now he has an adversary that says nothing. >> he fights back with his work. >> right. >> if you read the court filings, they're pretty damning. we'll see where it goes from here. a president who demands constant praise and rewrites his own bad reviews even as a hurricane hits.

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president's obsession. >> i think puerto rico was incredibly successful. texas, we have been given a-pluses for. florida, we've been given a-pluses for. i think in a certain way, the best job we did was puerto rico. >> that was monday, with florence still a few days away. and it didn't stop. thursday, as florence began to hit, the tweet disputing the hurricane maria death toll and any suggestion that the federal response was not perfect. as florence raged, evening tweets in the 6:00 hour, 8:00 hour and 10:00 hour about maria. when it comes to this president, ego trumps empathy. >> the president's tweets on the deaths in puerto rico was heartless, cold, demeaning, tribualizing. i think he believes that puerto rican s are not americans. >> the question is why? we know the president is

sensitive. we know the president has a healthy ego. we could have, when there's snow on the ground and it's not hurricanes approaching, an academic conversation about how to calculate hurricane deaths. why in the world did he want to pick a fight about maria when there's another hurricane off the coast? >> i think he knows he has been criticized for the handling of that hurricane because of the difficulties of handling a hurricane that ravaged an island that wasn't prepared to handle one. and he's acutely aware of the stain that hurricane katrina left on president bush's legacy and doesn't want a similar stain on his legacy. looking at this through the prism of his own legacy rather than the impact that these hurricanes have on those affected by them. he is looking backward rather than forward. does not want a katrina. >> this is beyond the morality and empathy issue of erasing

people's deaths, right? this 3,000 death toll number was gotten because the government commissioned a study. it's hard to measure deaths after a hurricane. someone misses tha their dialysis treatment because they can't get there. is that a storm related death? they get that number to have an accurate count. beyond the factual and sort of empathy issues of erasing those numbers it's also not great politics. it may be good politics for the president, for his party, particularly people running in florida, where there's an influx of puerto rican voters. it's not great. >> every level of government failed and previous administrations failed. it was a disaster waiting to turn into a bigger disaster because of the neglect of its own politicians and everybody failed. the president can't process that he's simply part of that. rick scott, trump ally, running for senate, i disagree with

potus. the lives lost by hurricane maria is heart wrenching. rob desantis, republican nominee for governor, congressman, committed to standing with the puerto rican community. doesn't believe any loss of life has been inflated. >> two really important people to take a step away from trump because they usually do not. they usually embrace him. 100,000 additional voters to the rolls, we don't know how many of them are puerto rican but a lot of them are. we don't know if it's enough to make a pivotal difference in these elections but if you're one of those gentlemen running for office, do you want to take the chance? >> i get that the president thinks that they're dumping all the blame on him when the blame is shared. i don't think you need to be puerto rican or latino to think why is he doing this now, a, as

a hurricane approaches and, b, to revisit maria. honest and trustworthy only 32% of americans think that. proud to have him as president, 32%, cares about people like you, 36%, respects rule of law, fewer than four in ten. personal attributes largely driven by his attacks and ego, are hurting him. >> going back to when he visited san juan in the aftermath of hurricane maria last year, we all remember that tossing the paper towel moment to the crowd and that seemed like an example that he wasn't showing that empathy of a commander in chief had such a tragic time on the island. at the same time he was saying i'm going to give myself an a-plus for texas, florida and probably here, too. you never want to grade yourself like that. grading yourself at that moment in such a delicate time is just -- >> the praise thing is a constant, though.

you see examples of it in the past 24 hours. donald trump jr. said how dare barack obama try to take any credit for the economy. donald trump jr. to obama mierks dad fixed the economy. you could not. simple math. 95 consecutive months of job growth, donald trump president for 19 months. the recovery started under barack obama. it has gained steam with tax cuts and deregulation. simple math there. thank you, barack. it is my honor -- president retreat being, we have never had this support that we've had from had president. >> this is clearly not a president who ran on empathy, like bill clinton having a moment, reaching his hand out to a woman in a crowd and tearing up. these are not that the attributes ran and won on. he ran on strength and his ability to beat his opponent into the ground. and i think we're seeing some of

that now. i kept seeing tweets from the president pop up over and over again. he saw president bush during katrina not what he seemed his attention to the problem. not empathy but athat he's involved in trying to find a solution. that's what we'll see from trump, not empathy to the victims. >> i'm not sure for the president it will hurt him that much. voters elected him because he's a fighter. his base sees this and says he's punching back. that's what they like. the question is how it trickles down and what the impacts are are on the rest of the republican party. >> his base is fewer than four in ten americans. >> right. >> you can't govern with the support of less than -- fewer than four in ten americans. >> barack and i agreed to stay

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welcome back. seven weeks to the midterm election, it is an

understatement to say that the climate is trending toward the democrats. numbers quite overwhelming. midterm election, single biggest factor, the president's approval rating, latest poll at 36%. 36% approval with registered voters. he has hovered around 40% throughout the year. most smart republicans tell you that the president must be above 40, would prefer him at 45 to have any chance for the republicans to keep the house. 37 weeks to go. bad news. 36, this translates when voters are asked which party do you want to support for congress? it's right around the president's nim. democrats with a 12-point lead. again if this holds up through election day, the democrats will take back the house. no way with a 12-point gap on election day that the republicans can contain the house. let's look at history to make that point. president trump at 36%. you see where president obama was in his two midterms, president bush in his second midterm, '06. double digits for the president.

double digits for bush in '06, for obama in '10. and let's see what happened. this is so connected. president's approval rating is down. you get blown out. president's approval rating down, you get blown out. president's approval rating, republican in this case, is down. you get blown out. the question is, what will happen this fall? again, republicans take a look at this number, 12 points out. they know they can't run on trump in most of the country. they've had a hard time breaking through on the economy because it's so closely linked to trump. if you live in a district that's competitive, you're seeing sharply personal attack ads like these. >> poor children on medicaid, many turned away from health care providers. it happened at dr. kim shrier's practice. >> what's rich? scott wallace, he inherited $100 million but he repeatedly failed to pay his own taxes.

terror high, a terrorist breeding ground. lobbying firm made millions. >> attack ads are not new but when you see the scorched earth ads being run by congressional pac, a republican pac against democrats, i thought republicans were going to run on, hey, we've got a great economy. >> tax cuts. >> keep us in power. but they can't because of the president. >> it's also pretty early for those kinds of ads, right? everyone always -- not everyone but you see scorched earth ads but you tend to see them later, right, more into october. first you do something ghazi to introduce your candidate, all the accomplishments you've had. then you go for the attack ad, traditionally. the fact that that playbook is being upended underscores how nervous republicans are about these upcoming midterms and you see that in how they're talking about the senate. for a long time they felt that

it was fairly locked down. they still feel okay about it, but there's shakiness and more concern that the senate could flip or get close to democratic control. >> the super negative stuff is coming early enough so that there's time to test that message and see if it works. if not there's time to return to tempting to drive the economic message and see if it works. look where we are right now, still talking about a shutdown and whether that's really what the president wants to do. like going into his own majority's midterm election. things are really complicated and weird and that set the table for this advertising. >> the president's brand is bad in most of the country. house republican brand is not so great in much of the country. you mentioned the senate. i want to put up this map. there are ten senate races we're essentially watching right now. it's still possible that they gain a couple of seats and it's also possible with a 12-point gap. with the president's numbers so low that the democrats take the senate. this one will be late night. you see the states where you have the numbers. that's recent polling in seven

of those racesment they're all margin of error. statistical dead heats. west virginia, the democrats feel increasingly confident about, but it's close. and republicans are worried about ted cruz in texas, which we now lean most likely republican. mitch mcconnell calls it the knife fight. a couple of months ago the question was, will republicans gain a seat or two because the map is so heavily tilted toward them? this is a fair question. is it possible with the president if he stays at 36%, if the democratic advantage on the generic ballot is double digits? >> we've seen that very notable shift, that note of optimism that we will retain the senate and pick up a couple of seats to, wait, we might be in trouble. the fact that texas is marked on that map that you just showed is quite remarkable, because it is texas and also in a midterm year. we had reporting that showed

concern within the republican party about ted cruz's prospects, about the resources that the party will have to divert towards this direction to make sure that he wins. we know the president will rally for him in october, in the biggest stadium that you can find in texas. cruz has made it clear to colleagues in private lunches, i may need some help here. that's frustrating for the rest of the party. >> it's not the most expensive but not a cheap state. couple of house districts, state races. they think they have a chance there. does the presses understand? when mitch mcconnell went public and said it's a knife fight, number one, he's trying to get donors and number two, he's trying to get the president to listen to me, please stop talking and tweeting. disappear for a month. that's what they would tell you they want the president to do,

be quiet for a month. the president is talking about the economy is so great. what's going on? any republican who supports him would lose, the president said, quote, how can we lose? does he not geet get this t thi him? a prominent republican pollster. this congressional race, governor's race. people think the economy is doing well. that's not what they're voting on. they're voting on the chaos of the guy in the white house. the quote is not so surprising. again, to your point about timing, you have a republican pollster willing to go on the record. this is not a republican pollster anonymously in races. to say the president is toxic and he's dragging our party down. >> the president feels that the error in all of these judgments is blinking, that that is the problem. when you show weakness, that is the problem. when you start doing that thing like time to dial back, maybe i'll skip this rally, that is what causes the moment when things change. if you just keep heading

straight for your targets, your enemies, driving your message, that's the way you survive, to drive through the storm and driefb through the fire. that's what he believes and that's why you see these disagreements. >> all of those vicious personal attack ads you see in the beginning, taking cues from the president rather than leaders, adopting his style of personal politics rather than from republican leadership who want them talking about the economy. and the frustration of republican leaders and, to your question of whether the president is listening to mitch mcconnell, it seems, no. his tweet last night was that republican leaders are clueless and that they need to fight for border wall funding and he's willing to shut down the government for it. >> he never believes congressional leaders when they

say that midterms are different from your presidential campaign. >> the mistake that democrats made in 2010 was not embracing the president. i just won this huge presidential. how can you not embrace me? barack obama was differential to the senate leaders in that race and for better or worse, kept a low profile and president trump is taking a different approach. >> when the numbers took an end of summer tank for the republicans, the question is, is that a break you can reverse or mitigate or will that cement? that's the big question. next for us here, brett kavanaugh supreme court nominee vote is on for this week even as he denies that he assault aid woman in high school.

supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh forcefully denying that he assault aid woman while in high school. susan collins of maine and lisa murkowski of alaska are being watch watch watched closely. she sent a letter to her congresswoman and senator dianne feinstein, top democrat on the judiciary committee. she did not raise the issue during the confirmation hearing. she says the woman does not want to come forward but feinstein did forward the letter to the fbi. in a statement friday judge kavanaugh said i categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. i did not do this back in high school or at any time. this is a sensitive issue to all parties. it's obviously controversial. a, because of the substance. b, because of the timing.

is there any evidence on the table that it will stop the process from moving forward thursday? >> again, it depends on any republican senator showing any sort of hesitation. absent that, this will move forward. and i think the two that we're watching the most closely right now are the two republican women, lisa murkowski and susan collins, who have been especially quiet after news of these allegations started to leak earlier this week. but republican leaders -- first of all, mitch mcconnell hasn't said anything about it, which is notable, and the judiciary committee, while chuck grassley himself hasn't said anything about it, the committee has emphasized that we're going forward with a vote on thursday. senator orrin hatch, who has read this letter, said -- made a very vehement defense of brett kavanaugh in a statement friday. all signs, for right now, are that republicans will proceed. there's so much we don't know. the letter is not public. we don't know for sure what's in it. there's nothing that the fbi can really do at this point because

we also know that the woman's name was redacted in this letter. the fbi is not investigating. all they've done is to add this to his background check file. absent perhaps the woman deciding to be more public about this, there's just not a lot that we know about the situation and it's just a difficult situation for everyone involved. >> i do know someone who spoke to leader mcconnell about this very late in the week after this broke and he was told that mcconnell said it was still on track. when it happened the white house was quick to release a statement. senate republicans released a statement from 65, i believe it was, women who knew kavanaugh. 36 years ago in the high school area here. some of those women later went on fox news and understand completely that the target universe at the moment of those republican senators, and these character witnesses coming out saying based on their growing up with kavanaugh at this time they didn't find this believable. >> he always treated us with -- girls with respect, always. and it was simple to find 65

women to sign that letter from five different high schools. everybody jumped on board and was happy to sign it on his behalf. >> he is unfailingly kind and respectful. and a man of the highest character, unasailable in integrity. and these allegations are flatly inconsistent with the man i have known well for over a decade. >> completely respect the woman who raised this allegation wants to remain private. everybody has to respect that. and so if that remains the case and you do have others coming out who knew him at that time or worked with him later, saying they've seen nothing in his adult life that support this is, does it change the dynamic at all? >> the big of the wild card is whether this woman comes forward and speaks. if she does, i think there's a chance that the vote is delayed. if she doesn't, i think it's nearing 100% certainty not only that the vote takes place on thursday but that he's confirmed. >> you hear privately from democrats and see publicly in

the san francisco chronicle criticism of feinstein and how she handles this. if the woman wants privacy it's hard for the senator, but also up for re-election, running as a democrat. the san francisco chronicle said it was unfair to kavanaugh, the accuser and feinstein's colleagues. feinstein did a disservice to her colleagues who might have wanted to determine if corroborating accounts were available or at least question kavanaugh about the accusation in closed session. is that fair? >> in the absence of any other women coming out and saying oh, i forgot about something that happened to me 30 years ago, i just don't see that. you're right, dianne feinstein has faced more criticism than brett kavanaugh has this week. >> i just think that -- i talked to a lot of people on that committee just over the last several days and they were really blind sided about this. especially when existence of

this letter started leaking out in the last week or so. and i think that at least publicly the democrats are saying we support what she's doing, like she did what she can. she's not out to do a smear job, the accusation of the white house, but privately there's some consternation about how this was all handled. >> again if the woman doesn't want to come forward i don't know what you do in this situation. that vote scheduled for thursday. up next, the blue wave could extend well beyond washington, d.c. i'm worried i can't find a safe used car. you could start your search at the all-new carfax.com that might help. show me the carfax? now the car you want and the history you need are easy to find. show me used minivans with no reported accidents. boom. love it. [struggles] show me the carfax. start your used car search and get free carfax reports at the all-new carfax.com.

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one last time around the inside politics table, ask our great reporters to share something from our notebooks to help get you around politics. >> i started this on politics. one thing we did this past week was take a look at the state legislatures. half a dozen senates that one or two or three seats away from flipping. this is a trend that could have really big implications, you know, state legislatures control things from health. they'll have a big role in

redistricting and how those districts are drawn the next ten years. this is a trend definitely worth watching and we should be paying attention to those races. >> horrible for democrats in the obama years. >> i'm looking around the corner from what seems like it will be supreme court brett kavanaugh's nomination later this week to don mcgahn's resignation. that job will then be open, a big job that the white house has to fill. the person who fills that job will be responsible for handling not only a spate of congressional investigations but also impeachment proceedings. the person that the president select also have an enormous impact on the way that the trump white house handles a bunch in

washington. >> good luck. >> keep your eye on what's going on between the u.s. and china on that developing trade war this week. the president last week, meeting with his treasury secretary and some of the other top trade officials, to try to clear the decks for perhaps another $200 billion of goods will be subject to tariffs from china. but it hasn't happened yet and there's a reason why. it's because of the ongoing and in some cases concerns from retailers. why do you care about this? because we're talking about everything from apple, popular brands like apple, could affect the price of watches to what it costs to go to walmart or target. and then, of course, the other question. farmers. will there be some retaliation? it's taking place not just ahead of the midterms more ahead of that trip to the u.n. general assembly by the president in about a week gl another big week on the trade front. >> on the congressional front, there won't be a fight over

border wall funding before the midterms. if that fight is punted to the lame duck session, does president trump get the entire $5 billion that he wants? i had interesting conversations with republicans, jeff flake in particular. we know he's retiring and a trump critic. even if we do well and contain both of those chambers trump is still not going to get his wall because there is so much opposition, even among republicans, about getting the full wall funding that he wants. it would be interesting to see how it plays out in the lame duck. the president hasn't seemed to rule out a shutdown, tweeting to republicans in kind of an angry tone, finish that wall. >> essentially calling them spineless, kind of an angry tone. the final test is seven weeks from tuesday. now that the primaries are over, 2018 is a record-setting year for women in politics. senate for women in politic at rutgers university keeps a great count of women who run and how

they fare. new highs for women nominated for the house. in the senate in governor's races and state legislative seats. we'll give you the final numbers seven weeks from now. thank you for sharing your sunday morning. state of the union with jake tapper. the new york congressional candidate alexandria ocasio-cortez among his guests. have a great sunday. (vo) this is not a video game. this is not a screensaver. this is the destruction of a cancer cell by the body's own immune system, thanks to medicine that didn't exist until now. and today can save your life. ♪

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flooding fears. florence crawls across the carolinas, dumping record rain. and the worst may be yet to come. >> the water is rising fast, everywhere. >> as president trump again raises doubts that 3,000 americans actually died in puerto rico. >> i think that puerto rico was an incredible unsung success. >> plus big flip, paul manafort takes a plea deal with the special counsel promising to cooperate on, quote, any and all matters. >> this has nothing to do with russian collusion. >> should president trump be worried? we'll speak with doug jones and the man who investigated president clinton, ken starr, next.