tampa, the second major hurricane for florida's coast. in just two weeks. and now florida officials are bracing for impact while still clearing debris from hurricane helene, distributing sandbags in encouraging people to evacuate. tampa. mayor issuing this blunt warning helene was a wake-up call this is literally catastrophic and i can say without any drama to station whatsoever, if you choose to stay and what are those evacuation areas you are going to dei very stark. let's get to meteorologist derek van dam with the latest derek, what are we seeing from the storm at this hour wall kasie, those are some sobering words but taken right from the national hurricane center, west central florida is facing

it has dropped 50 millibars in ten hours. >> um i apologize, this is just horrific all right. >> joining us now with the latest on the ground in tampa. cnn news news source correspondent ivan rodriguez. ivan, good morning to you. what are you seeing down there trying to get out of the tampa bay area and we've been hearing it all morning long. >> and also yesterday, officials pleading with millions of people that now is the time to evacuate and do so before conditions begin to deteriorate. we want to show you these live images here of traffic bumper to bumper, getting out of this tampa bay area. we know that across the state of florida tolls have been suspended on these major highways as well to assist with the evacuations and also the state is allowing for hurricane

evacuees to drive on the shoulder in order to keep that traffic moving all day yesterday. casey, we saw traffic also backed up on several highways here in the tampa bay area, and it really seems like people are taking this seriously especially on the heels of hurricane helene, which caused so much devastation across the florida big bend region, specifically here as well. but another concern from officials is also all the debris that is left behind in so many neighborhoods here in the tampa bay area. when hurricane milton does make its landfall, all that debris could end up in the air and as a projectile. so it's something to keep a close eye on here. as well. >> all right ivan rodriguez for us this morning. ivan, thank you very much for that. coming up next here on cnn this morning, new 2024 polling showing a very close race. but some movement for kamala harris. plus politics complicating storm preparations as florida braces for a direct hit from a second hurricane.

the governor and vice president publicly feuding it is selfish, and it is about political gamesmanship. i'm not worried about playing her political games cnn >> next i brought in ensure max protein with 30g of protein. >> those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks. >> here i'll take that. >> ensure max protein 30g protein, one gram of sugar and a protein blend to feed muscles up to seven hours. >> the future is not just going to happen. you have to make it. and if you want a successful business, all it takes is an idea. and now becomes a future where you grew a dream into a reality. >> the all new godaddy arrow put your business online in minutes with the power of ai into crypto for the first time, but you're a little worried about the fine print and

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what's expected to be the most powerful storm of 2024 is approaching the gulf coast of florida at this hour. here's the view of hurricane milton from the international space station. wow, look at that. it's expected to make landfall late wednesday night into thursday morning mandatory evacuations ordered in parts of nine counties. thousands jamming highways looking to get to safety. forecasters expecting milton to hit cities like tampa with up to 15ft of storm surge that is double what hurricane helene delivered less than two weeks ago. let's bring in former fema administrator brock long. brock, good morning to you. thank you very much for being with us this morning. obviously the tampa bay area is still reeling from hurricane helene. fema is stretched pretty thin. what are the challenges here and how do you think the preparations are going for this? what do you what are you preparing for? >> so this is the most dangerous storm scenario. this is a this is a catastrophic planning scenario within fema.

this this track, if it holds and it will um, is extremely dangerous. i can't say that enough for for the for tampa bay and, you know, communities to the north and south of tampa bay. um, people really need to heed the warnings. um and i don't think that people realize that most of the evacuation planning is centered around storm surge. it's not necessarily the wind as much as it is the water and the storm surge associated with this has the highest potential to kill the most amount of people and cause the most amount of destruction. and that's why we're asking people, their local leaders are asking people to get out, and you know, find find a safe place regarding fema. it's it's not an ideal situation. i faced a similar situation in 2017 when harvey, irma, maria and the california wildfires all hit within a two week period. >> um, you know, the good thing about this is, is that because of the previous event with helene you know, fema has a pretty sizable force down in florida already working initial recovery from helene. and a lot

of those jobs will flip over to the response side to make sure that things are in place. and that they're highly coordinated with florida's division of emergency management and the governor's office as milton makes landfall. >> so, um when this storm hits, there's going to be all sorts of debris still left over from helene. what does the presence of that debris mean for the response? recovery and how this might go so it's definitely, um, what i, what i worry about more more than the debris is what damage was done to the homes by helene because any damage to a home may um, reduce its ability to handle the next event. all right. when helene comes in. so um, you know, the temporary repairs that were made to homes and buildings, um, you know, hopefully they're very strong. but in this case, when you're talking about a major hurricane, um, the damage is going to be off the charts.

you know, as the as the forecast track holds. um, the debris is is vegetative, but it's also commercial and demolition and, uh unfortunately, if it's not picked up, it's going to be scattered by milton all right. >> former fema administrator brock long. sir, thank you very much for your time today. i'm sure we'll be talking to you again in this week, which is is set to be a really, really tough one for all of your former colleagues at fema and all of the residents down in florida. thank you very much. i appreciate it. >> thank you. >> all right. with hurricane milton bearing down on florida, the response to hurricane helene in that state has become a full blown political campaign issue. on monday, cnn learned florida's republican governor, ron desantis refused to return calls from vice president harris in the wake of helene's landfall on florida's coast the vice president has this to say about the governor dodging her calls these are the height of emergency situations is just utterly irresponsible. >> and it is selfish and it is

about political gamesmanship. instead of doing the job that you took an oath to do, which is to put the people first. >> reporter but desantis says the vice president is the one playing games, arguing she has no role in the hurricane response process. during an interview on fox news. >> i've had storms under both president trump and president biden, and i've worked well with both of them. she's the first one who's trying to politicize the storm and she's doing that just because of her campaign. she's trying to get some type of an edge. she knows she's she's doing poorly. and so she's playing these political games i don't have time for political games. >> all right. our panel is back. mike dubke, the one question i do have, i mean, if ron desantis has got nothing to do with this and yet they're trying to hang any failures around the neck of the biden administration, those two things do seem to be in conflict except i can't remember the last time a vice president of either party called and inserted themselves in an emergency situation so on

the on the one hand, i totally understand why she would want to be part of the story, but really to to alex's point about hurricanes and elections, we i would wish that these were separated as well, because this is more about the president of the united states, who is joe biden right now getting aid down to florida for governor desantis and if, if, if she has made calls throughout the three and a half years that she's been the vice president, and there have been hurricanes, i will stand corrected but i bet you she hasn't. both sides are. i mean, both sides are doing political gamesmanship here. you know, ron desantis doesn't have time for political games. it's time for a fox news interview to talk about political games. kamala harris has time for a phone call. and i can tell you she almost never goes over to the reporters before walking on the plane. but she did have time to go to the reporters and then call out ron desantis for political gamesmanship. both are trying to get an edge here, in part because they like who is seen as being more, you know responsible in terms of you

know, the reaction to the hurricanes, responsive responsive. >> yeah. and i think the saddest thing about it, as people either are suffering or will be, is that both of them win in a way from that exchange, she gets the oh my gosh, i attempted to call the governor. he didn't even call me back. and the governor gets his big talking point. it's the sadness to alex's point earlier in the show about our elections always happening during hurricane season. you have these major events where people's lives are at stake but either of them are trying to score points and succeeding at it. >> yeah. and yeah so i do think that there have been moments, particularly in times of crisis, where presidential candidates have inserted themselves into the conversation. and so i think that's actually what we're seeing with not just kamala harris. we're also seeing it with donald trump. right. so if we look back at, say the economic crisis of 2008, barack obama absolutely suspended his campaign and said, hey, i'm going to insert myself, even though i have no standing to do anything because i am not president of the united states. we also saw john mccain do the same thing, and i think part of

what we are seeing right now is, yes, an attempt to to to really position themselves politically. but also there's the recognition that this is a moment that is that is devastating, right? essentially, one of the things that we're hearing over and over again from fema is that the amount of misinformation, the amount of politicization that has entered the conversation right now is actually negatively affecting what they are able to do and how people are able to respond to the storm right now. so i actually think the focus right now from everybody should simply be on safety. it should be on what are we going to do here? how are we going to stop this? how are we going to deal with the fallout and the continued fallout because hurricane season isn't over. >> it is not. all right. after the break on cnn this morning, one month to go election day, just around the corner. what, if anything, is going to change undecided voters minds at this point? we're going to talk to longtime political strategist, friend of the show, mark mckinnon. plus, kamala harris opening up about her gun ownership after this candid moment with oprah last month.

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your >> closed captioning brought to you by book.com if you or a loved one have mesothelioma, we'll send you a free book to answer questions you may have. >> call now and we'll come to you. >> 800 821 4000. >> here we are again in october so a major port strike could make for an october surprise. >> could the infamous october surprise in this year's election actually be coming from overseas? >> hurricane helene affecting at least two battleground states. this to surprise. >> is a spike at the pump. the october surprise that no one wants. >> why are october surprises always so

election day could anything change voters minds and shake up a race that is basically deadlocked? >> a new focus group moderated by pollster frank luntz in the new york times recently asked a group of young, undecided voters exactly that what have they changed their minds about in recent weeks? 27 year old lillian told them this quote, i think the thing raising my opinion of trump is my opinion of kamala. the biden-harris administration couldn't establish deterrence in the middle east for the last year. and so now they are bombing the heck out of israel walls surprised me as well. i thought he was eloquent and civil, responded 20 year old laura. and for 24 year old joseph, it was foreign policy. he felt like, quote, at points in the last month, we haven't even been a power giving everything going on in the middle east. joining me now, former adviser to george w bush and john mccain, mark mckinnon, also the creator of paramount's the circus. mark, always wonderful to have you. thank you so much for being here. a lot of talk this week about october surprises or lack thereof. i feel like we may be at the

point where there's just so much that's stacking up that there's no single thing that may surprise us, but also when you make these kind of predictions, i think we've all learned that lesson enough to know not to do it anymore. in our politics. what do you see as being the major, potential major impacts on this race that has been so, so, so close all the way along here since the top of the ticket changed good morning casey well, the one thing i would say is that at this point in this race, there really aren't very many undecided voters. frank luntz had to do a lot of work to find those undecided voters. i guarantee you. >> so the question when you have limited resources, you spend trying to find those very limited undecided voters, do you try and persuade those people or do you try and motivate people who have already made up their minds? that's where you should spend the resources you're trying to. you're trying to animate and make enthusiastic voters who are for you and get your base out, because there just aren't that many undecided voters. so that's kind of a waste of resources, because there just aren't that many people now, that said, with the with the

election pretty much set and with voters deciding what could change it. well, the one thing that could change it is a storm and a massive storm and an historic storm. ask me about katrina you're doing a heck of a job, brownie remember that one? >> well, you know, major storms are the one time when people really do look to government to say, this is your job. this is when this is the one time we count on you to respond. so, i mean not only will there, you know, they'll be looking to see how the harris biden administration responds, but think about this too. if it's anywhere near as big as it is, it's likely to be this is going to dominate news coverage for the next couple of weeks maybe through the election. it may be the only story that people are talking about. so of course it's going to be politicized because it may be the only story mark can we dig into this a little bit? >> i mean, what do you think the risks are for harris? and we've already seen her. we were just talking about the back and forth she's having with ron desantis, the governor of florida. desantis declining to

take her call. it is pretty normal for vice presidents to i mean, alyssa farah griffin was on our air last night saying mike pence always used to do it in, always used to make calls to local officials in disaster areas. but because she's in office, the risk to her may seems to me that it might be higher for her here heading into the final stretch of the election. what's your take on it? >> well, yeah, the risk is that she's an incumbent and she's going to be incumbent during one of the worst storms in our history possibly. so yeah, the risk is very high because all the responsibility for the response is going to be on her. and biden. >> so it's a huge it's a huge it's a huge potential problem for harris it's also an opportunity if they respond well but man, something as massive as this. it's just you know, people are going to be unhappy. so you know it is a it's a factor that you know, in an election that's this close could be a big factor. >> yeah for sure. >> mark, speaking of the

election being close, there's new new york times, siena polling out this morning that shows. and again it's a national poll. but it does show some movement toward harris in september they had it 4747. now they've got it 4946. what do you read into this, if anything, in terms of where this race stands or. i always try to in in these closing weeks, i feel like the thing that makes the big difference is where is the ball rolling. right. who's got the momentum? because that tends to really in my experience, make a difference. heading into election day. do you think this says something about that or not? >> 100%, casey. and you know listen, it's been my job over the years to look at all the data and, you know, all the polling. but as you said in the last couple of weeks, you just get kind of a spidey sense for where things are going. and momentum is really key you could feel that shift in the last week of the campaign in 2016. so that's going to be huge. and i think that there's two things that you mentioned in your polling earlier about harris that i think are are

compelling and relevant. one is that she's become the change candidate. but, you know, more than trump has, which is astonishing when you think about the fact that she's in she's technically the incumbent. so that that's a kind of a magic trick that she's pulling off, that she's become the change agent as an incumbent. the other thing is your fun factor. i mean, you know, at a very base level, this is kind of the occam's razor point of view on this thing, which is who do you want to see on your television for the next four years? donald trump, more of that fury and payback and all of that. and that anger. >> or do you want to see somebody who's more joyful and just you want to see on tv so you can't discount that mark how do you see the the week of the election playing out, considering trump's rhetoric has been pretty dark and we're kind of already see him seeing him lay the groundwork for questioning the fairness of in various places. >> what are you concerned about? what are you looking for where do you think we should be

focusing our attention? >> pennsylvania. >> that's where i'll be. >> it's just astonishing to me that they still don't count their early votes until election day. >> you know, that's that's just a crime. because that means that the elect we know that the election. how important pennsylvania is going to be. and we know that pennsylvania will very likely not be counted the day of the election. so that means that it's highly likely we won't know the results of the election. on election day. and that just feeds the conspiracy theories. so i'm very worried about it because pennsylvania is so key and pennsylvania still has a screwed up system. >> all right. mark mcinnes for mackinnon for us this morning mark always love having you come back soon. >> thank you. >> thank you kick it. >> all right 52 minutes past the hour. here's your morning roundup. hurricane milton. still a dangerous category four storm right now. the latest update just a short time ago says it will be a major hurricane when it makes landfall on florida's gulf coast. we expect that tomorrow night. highways out of tampa are slammed with traffic as residents follow mandatory

evacuation orders. florida governor ron desantis will hold a news conference on how the state is preparing for the storm in the next hour georgia's six week abortion ban reinstated while the state's supreme court considers an appeal to the ruling. last week, a fulton county judge found the ban on abortions beyond six weeks was unconstitutional the ban will now remain in place indefinitely as the appeals battle plays out, and we're actually in a good shape for for what we need to ensure that people are able to vote in north carolina what i worry about more is actually motivation asheville leaders echoing senator j.d. >> vance's confidence, confirming that north carolinians will be able to vote despite the devastation inflicted by hurricane helene. early voting is scheduled to begin across the state in nine days. all right, let's turn now to this line that kamala harris has been using on the campaign trail i am a gun owner, and tim walz, my running mate, is also a gun owner.

>> tim walz and i are both gun owners. we're not taking anybody's guns away. i'm a gun owner. tim walz is a gun i know that and i thought that works in my house. they're getting shot sir. >> yes yes. >> the firearm that she owns well, turns out it's a glock so what kind of gun do you own? >> and when and why did you get it i have a glock and i've had it for quite some time and i mean look, bill, my background is in law enforcement and, um so there you go. >> have you ever fired it? >> yes of course i have. >> at a shooting range. yes, of course i have. >> all right. panel is back. mike, we were talking off camera. i know you've been curious what kind of i've been curious. >> for two weeks now. no one has asked this question. thank goodness for for bill whitaker because he finally got to the bottom of this. i have no idea why this has been such a mystery for so long. >> why what the heck? just the

type of gun now. she didn't ask the why and how. how and why you got it. she avoided that question. so now we have more questions as a follow up. why? but why specifically is whether it's a glock or a smith and wesson, what what is the importance of that? mainly because i want to know if this is something that her political team said, you need to go out and say and whether or not she was aware of, you know, if a gun owner knows the type of gun they have, they know they should know about gun safety. they should know about how to handle a gun and none of those questions were ever followed up until 60 minutes had to do it. and this is why we need her on hard hitting news programs, because she didn't get that question on again, the view, the late night with stephen colbert, or call her daddy. >> next one is, i guarantee you, next one soldier of fortune magazine or guns and ammo. >> she has talked about owning a gun in the past before this campaign, but you're 100% right that she has never talked about

it as much as she has. the last several weeks. it is clearly an effort, part of an ongoing effort to show people in the middle of the country she, their team feels comfortable. they have the democratic base rallied. they're trying to present her to the middle of the country as someone that's pragmatic, someone who isn't, as the trump campaign has been trying to label her as dangerously liberal. and i think there's a value in being seen as off her own folks it's it's angering to people on the left and right. queen latifah moment and that the sister souljah moment and that excites some folks. but it's also i mean, if we look at the stats, if we look at the demographics, black women are actually the fastest growing group of people who are gun owners in this country. and so for us to kind of sit around and be like, huh, this is kind of curious. i don't really understand. she actually lines squarely up with these kind of changing trends, not only that, there's i think there's an enormous amount of appeal twofold here. one, she gets to talk to gun owners. right. this is an area that largely democrats have been cut off from. but she also

simultaneously gets to talk to two thirds of americans who believe in sensible or stricter gun reform. right. she gets to do both. and then the last point here is that while we focus on this while we talk about, okay, what kind of gun is she going to do? what? you know, how long has she been this? she actually doesn't have to answer other questions right. so we're so focused on these kind of conversations around gun ownership and things like that. we're not actually talking about the other interviews whether she answered them, did she answer them appropriately, that kind of thing. so it ends up being a really great talking point for her that allows her to do multiple things across multiple audiences with very little effort. >> mike dubke fell into the trap >> mike listening to your explanation of this, she's finally learning from donald trump. you say a few things that get the news media focused on, and then you go, you don't have to talk about ukraine and the un charter and whatever that word salad answer was last night on 60 minutes. you don't have to talk about it. >> so here was trump back in

2018 talking about firearms. because again, this is continually an issue that we deal with in our in our political space. let's watch and then go to court because that's another system. because a lot of times by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court to get the due process procedures. i like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man's case that just took place in florida. he had a lot of firearms. they saw everything to go to court would have taken a long time. so you could do exactly what you're saying. but take the guns first. go through due process second. >> so mike, this was obviously in the wake of the parkland shooting in florida. horrific. but what he said there didn't sit well with the the nra and others. i mean there are questions really about both of these candidates and their guns too. >> yeah, i look it's again going back to this point on the gun ownership she obviously wanted to inject a way for her

to seem relatable to folks in the midwest. now with with trump, you know, he is known to react to news stories of the day. and sometimes he just he just speaks, as in that case. and he's he's walked comments back before. i think most of our politicians have done this. >> when trump is speaking to the nra this week kamala harris, as far as we know, is not speaking to the nra. so i think in terms of the people that probably vote on the second amendment, you know trump still has an edge there. >> yeah, yeah yeah, i almost forgot. there's questions about trump's gun ownership because he's a convicted felon he's a convicted felon. >> but the conviction is not final yet until he goes through all appeals. so as of right now, he's still lawfully able to possess a firearm. >> this is why we have you at the table. >> thank you very much for that. >> thank thanks to our joining us. i'm kasie hunt. don't go anywhere. cnn news central starts right now