presidency. emergency crews have been working around the clock, and thousands of people have been rescued as the texas coast and greater houston area battle catastrophic flooding from what is now tropical storm harvey. some areas are expecting to see an additional one to two feet of rain. right now the president is in austin, texas, but this afternoon he visited corpus christi, one of the coastal cities that initially felt the brunt of harvey as a category 3 hurricane but has not seen nearly the same kind of flood damage that the houston area is suffering through at the moment. the president was briefed on relief efforts by fema, the coast guard, and the national guard. and he delivered the following message. >> i can tell you that my folks were telling me how great the -- your representatives have been in working together. it's a real team. we want to do it better than ever before. we want to be looked at in five

years, ten years from now as this is the way to do it. this was of epic proportion. nobody has ever seen anything like this. i just want to say that we're working with the governor and his entire team and it's been an honor for us. governor, thank you very much. and we won't say congratulations. we don't want to do that. we don't want to congratulate. we'll congratulate each other when it's all finished. but you have been terrific. and you have been my friend too for a long time. >> we'll likely hear from the president again in this hour as he is in the texas capital city touring the state's emergency operations center and meeting with state leaders. let's turn first to our panel. clint watts, msnbc national security analyst and former fbi special agent. msnbc analyst and "time" magazine columnist, elise jordan. eddie gloud.

and white house correspondent anita kumar and from washington chief national correspondent for the "new york times" magazine, mark leibovich. let's start with you, mark. considering you live in our nation's capital and are familiar with the cast of characters including the president of the united states. i think a lot of people will be trying to measure his demeanor or deportment as they used to say, his behavior as president of the united states today in terms of inspiration, leadership for the country in this first national disaster that he has presided over in his presidency. how do you think he is doing? >> well, i mean, i think for starters, the timing of his trip is sort of unprecedented. it's very, very rare to see a president descend so quickly into the middle of a disaster area when, really, the situation remains very unsettled. the worst, you know, may or may

not be behind houston. there is obviously a lot of continued rain and a lot of uncertainty there. in a sense, i mean, that itself is unusual. today i think he conducted himself in a way that was not unpredictable. i think he obviously wanted to be there. he wanted to be seen as in control. he had, you know -- he was photographed with all the right politicians and command people. again, i think this is the kind of thing where short term gain for a president, if in fact he is thinking that way, is secondary to the long game here, which is how will houston recover, how will the -- how will texas recover. this is obviously a very, very long, arduous process that will take months and years, and you know, this is the kind of thing where -- so far it looks as if he's done okay but this is not something that's paramount to anyone's consciousness down there. >> as usual mark leibovich is on

point. i have to say that so he'll stick around for the entire hour. anita, it raises an interesting question in terms of how the government reacts to this. this government was formed in the partial incubator of steve bannon who promised to deconstruct the federal government as we know it. today in texas, i believe according to our reporting linda mcmahon, the head of the sba is there, ben carson, the head of hud is there. scott pruitt, the head of the epa, another vital agency, is not there. what's your sense of the way the government has operated thus far with poor staffing at various cabinet agencies. will it be up to speed to the president's commitments that he makes today? >> it's interesting. you saw the governor say that he had heard from the president cabinet secretaries ten days ago, before the storm hit. so they've clearly been on top

of it trying to do something but they are missing a lot of people in their agencies. they're not fully staffed up still. like mark said, it's a long haul to see whether they can follow through. many of those are not political appointees, they are just people, staff in the government. can they get this done. since it's unprecedented it will be very, very tough to see what they do. >> elise -- >> if i could jump in too. sorry, mike -- >> you're not sorry but go ahead and jump in. >> i just want to point -- no. i just want to point out, ben carson is the head of hud. my first reaction was to suppress a snicker. he is a brain surgeon but he is the head of hud. linda mcmahon, my first association was world wrestling federation. again, it's good for them to be there and be engaged but this plays out much more at the ground level. >> scott pruitt, who mark failed to acknowledge, head of the epa. he is there really to

deconstruct the epa in a sense. over all of it, with the exception of the president, who is over all of it, but we have a new chief of staff in the white house, general kelly. and he has done great work, i think, from everyone's reporting and anecdotal evidence in pulling tightness and cohesion together in the staff. >> when i find general kelly being in his position very reassuring. he was the head of socom, the southern command. and i am sure dealt with several hurricane disaster weather scenarios in that time period. he is experienced in how the whole of government is supposed to operate in these worst-case scenarios. what does scare me is that we're only six months into this presidency. they have been notoriously slow to staff up. when hurricane katrina happened, in 2005? >> 12 years ago yesterday. >> already -- so they had already been through one full administration, and still we really, really struggled to deal

with the entire enormity, with the just vast undertaking that it was to get a grip on this crisis. so right now we are going to see how the trump government is ready to operate in this kind of scenario. >> kristen welker is at the white house. can you bring us up to speed on what you've heard, what your reporting has told you about various cabinet agencies like scott pruitt, epa, like linda mcmahon, sba, ben carson, hud and other secretaries in the cabinet, what have they done to pull cohesion together towards what will be an enormous and long-lasting effort in texas? >> reporter: it's a great point. you see it at work today, many of them on the ground with the president. ben carson, tom price. i heard you talking about linda mcmahon, elaine duke also there on the ground. the president is getting briefed and they're separately getting briefed and also talking to hir

counterparts in state and local officials there on the ground in texas. this is something that the administration has been very clear. they see this as the first steps in what's going to be a very long process. they also point to the fact that this has been a whole of government approach since the storm hit. you have the fema administrator, william brock, who has only been on the job for two months, but he is someone who is no stranger to fema. he was a regional director at one point in time, served under the former george w. bush administration as well. tom bossert, who is the homeland security adviser, someone who has been very engaged in this not only in terms of briefing the president, keeping him up to date including throughout the weekend. he also served during the bush administration. these are people who are broadly respected but also people who do have some experience in dealing with these types of disasters. and again, the strategy, it seems, at this point, mike, is for these various different cabinet secretaries to be in

touch with their counterparts on the ground, and the administration saying that's something that's going to continue. >> i think we'll have both pictures and perhaps sound from the president perhaps soon from austin, texas, and we'll bring that to you as soon as they come. right now the most important element of what's going on in texas is obviously the rescue of people who have been stranded and had their lives and families threatened by natural elements, lost enormous amounts of property, and the rescue effort is ongoing. for more on that, let's go to maya rodriguez on the ground in texas as to what's happening right now. maya, where are you and what's going on around you? >> reporter: mike, we are on the west side of houston. as you can see, there is so much flooding here. these are some of the volunteers who have been helping people who have been coming in on boats basically from the neighborhoods. here are some people coming in on a boat right now. what they are doing, volunteers are getting on boats, heading down the side streets basically

looking for people who need rescuing. we have first responders out here, we have the national guard. a look over here. these are some of the boats being launched. they go back and do basically search and rescue at this point. some of them are being loaded onto the national guard truck and being taken up to the dryer areas near here. from there, they are getting on school buss and some coach buses and being taken to shelters that are nearby. now, as you know, a lot of these shelters are beginning to reach capacity. you have heard the message loud and clear out here from people running the shelters. they will not turn anybody away. another thing we've heard, we have seen basically strangers who have been coming out here and rescuing people and saying, hey, come home with me. i will give you a place to stay. here are some more people right now who have been brought out of the flood waters from this neighborhood back here. you can hear some of the helicopters overhead. we have coast guard helicopters

doing water rescues. we saw a helicopter marked "ny" for new york flying overhead a moment ago. we have people who are literally carrying what few possessions they could grab, putting them into plastic bags and getting off the boats here. these are the volunteers who are kind of trying to make this all happen. excuse me, sir. hi. do you live back in this neighborhood? >> no. my office is here. >> were you trapped back there? >> no. i am the owner of the office building, so i was here to help the tenants. >> reporter: you were back there and they had to come get you with a boat. >> right. >> reporter: what's in your bag? >> just a few clothes. i don't even have any money. >> reporter: what's it like back there right now? what's the situation like in there, the water? >> the water just keeps going up. nothing. i need to help tenants to clean and help move computers to higher ground and those types of

things. >> reporter: thanks so much. go get dry. the water is continuing to rise. we can tell you for a fact it has been since we got here. >> maya rodriguez in houston. thank you, maya. clint, it strikes me -- struck me for several days now watching these pictures, the disparity between what we see, the effort being made on the ground and some of the language from washington, d.c., over the past several months, especially among elements like the freedom caucus, members of the republican party freedom caucus in the house about the need to pare down government. the only answer in houston is an enormous reach of government. >> what's curious about it is it's a state and local effort. ultimately, it seems like americans, when they are in tough positions, if you look at katrina, the boston bombing, now you look at houston, it ends up being in all these situations, whether it's sandy or out in houston. it is locals who come together and get this done. it is state and local officials

who are making these things happen. when you look to the federal, you know, relief that comes, that's day three, day four. that's when the feds come in. that's when you start looking for support. those things, those emergency things, always pop up in the budget. we had a surplus last year. we didn't use it. we haven't had a really serious hurricane since katrina so maybe we don't need this anymore. those things are oftentimes ripe for being slashed when you want to cut costs or save the budget but those are the things that help americans when we are in a crisis like this. i find it interesting that the talk of cutting budgets has come back to haunt them several times in recent months. >> there has been a lot of talk for many months out of washington specifically. eddie, there was a talk the other day overseas by secretary the defense mattis to a group of troopers in iraq in which he spoke about we'll come back. inspiration is missing but that will come back, don't worry

about it, you know. we in the military don't have to endure what some of the civilians back home have endured because we have commitment to certain causes and we fulfill our commitments. as you have watched this unfold over the past several days, has it struck you that what we are watching actually, much more so than what we see out of washington, d.c., what we are watching, is the real america? >> certainly is a component of the real america. i don't want to put the other side, the darker side, as somehow not us, right? we have our more endearing components or parts and we have the ugly parts. general mattis said hold the line, hold the line. and we have to hold the line in relation to the values that ultimately define who we aspire to be. we judge ourselves as either succeeding or failing in light of those values. and they are the measure of our success or failure. my heart goes out.

i am from the gulf coast. i have lived through hurricanes. this is a human event. it's tragic. we can talk about the political optics. we can talk about whether or not president trump exhibits the requisite empathy, is he the consoler in chief. we can talk about politics with regards to the role of government. what we do know is that folks are losing their livelihoods, they're lewdsi they're losing memories. they've lost family members, people who are risking their lives to help others, folks who don't know each other are opening their homes to each other. that's the capacity that we have as a nation. i just wish the better angels would show up more often and didn't require a disaster. >> i mean, maybe it's up to us to show it more often, anita. you couldn't in houston or anyplace else where disasters like this occur, you could not find anyone pulling up in a pontoon, a 20-foot boat or whatever, to someone's house with the first floor submerged

and saying excuse me, do you need help? yes. i need help. are you republican or democrat. catholic or jewish, straight or gay? those questions are never asked when strangers are helping strangers. >> you see the same thing on capitol hill. congress is not back yet. you hear lawmakers say forget about what happened with hurricane sandy and fighting over money. we're going to put the money in right now. the president said at his press conference yesterday, it's a bipartisan effort. we'll get the money to you right away. so i mean, it's like we all like to say these things. and it will be interesting to see next week if they really do that or if they fight about how -- who decided they wanted to fund hurricane sandy and who didn't. >> next week. it's always -- it's always next week or next month or next year. we're going to continue to monitor president trump's visit to the lone star state. we will bring you any new remarks if he makes them. when we come back, while the president is focused on the storm recovery, special counsel robert mueller is apparently

focusing on his involvement in crafting the response to news of the trump tower meeting involving donald trump jr. the latest on the investigation next. plus, the president is reportedly growing frustrated as members of his cabinet are distancing themselves from him. but will he do anything about it? elise will answer her phone, too, when we come back. haven't you ever wanted something more barry? watch your step. a pilot like you should be flying for the c.i.a. holy- shh... you are an airline pilot. that's how you support this family. this is gonna be good for us. based on an incredible true story... we need you to deliver stuff for us. just don't get caught. of c.i.a.'s biggest secret. i helped build an army, defend a country and create the biggest drug cartel this world has ever seen. that sounds made up barry. tom cruise. stop now if you want. it gets crazy from here. woo! american made. rated r.

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as far as my son is concerned, my son is a wonderful young man. he took a meeting with a russian

lawyer, not a government lawyer but a russian lawyer. it was a short meeting. it was a meeting that went very, very quickly, very fast. >> now, they don't teach that course at harvard law school, but that's called the he is a good boy defense. that's now the latest that's under investigation which fbi special counsel robert mueller. three sources familiar with the matter telling nbc news that the team is looking into the role president trump played in crafting the response to the reporting of a meeting between donald trump jr. and russian officials at trump tower. the initial response from trump junior to the meeting, first reported last month by the "new york times" was that it was, quote, a short, introductory meeting where we primarily discussed a program about the adoption of russian children that was active and popular with american families years ago and was since ended by the russian government but it was not a campaign issue at the time and

there was no follow-up. now, i know this is going to be hard for some of you to believe, but that statement proved itself to be false almost immediately. joining us now nbc intelligence and national security reporter ken dilanian. what's the latest on this investigation? what have you heard? where are we going and how fast are we going there? >> mike, to speak to your specific point on this statement and the meeting, my colleagues on the nbc news investigative unit dug out the fact that the mueller team is very interested in the president's role in crafting this statement from his son about this meeting because -- because, as you said, it has not proven to be accurate. it talked about this being -- this meeting being about a program of adoption. that's not what it was about at all according to the participants. the only relationship it had to adoption withes t adoption was the russian side

came to talk about sanctions levied against the russians. but there is no program of adoption. so donald trump himself was involved, according to the "washington post," in dictating that statement that his -- that was put out on his son's behalf, and the special counsel is very interested in why he would want to disguise the actual purpose of that meeting, mike. >> to be clear, this was the statement that was drafted on air force one, was it not? >> that's right. on the way back from germany, the president was returning from a g-20 meeting, and his advisers had said, look, let's get everything -- get's get everything out that we know about the meeting, tell the truth about it, and the president decided to take things into his own hands, according to the "washington post," and dictate this very specific statement which has not been borne out. this meeting at trump tower in june 2016 between a russian lobbyist, a russian lawyer with links to the kremlin and donald trump jr. and jared kushner goes to the heart of what the special

counsel is investigating, which is whether the trump team was colluding in any way with russia's attempts to interfere with the election. after all, this meeting was taken with the promise of help from the russian government to the trump campaign. e-mails came through to don trump jr. from rob goldstone on behalf of russian oligarchs with ties to putin saying we have dirt on hillary clinton that we'd like to transmit to you. that's the reason the meeting happen and that's the reason the mueller team is so interested in it. >> mark leibovich is still with us i hope. are you still there? >> still here. >> you spent time with the president before he was elected president of the united states. you spent considerable time with him. you did a terrific magazine piece on him. his sense of family, his sense of trust in his family, his sense of just having a small circle of people whom he does trust, how strong is that, and what role would it have played,

if any, in the drafting of this statement on behalf of donald trump jr.? >> again and again he has proven the one entity he is pretty much unfailingly loyal to is his family. he does keep a very tight circle. obviously there is no one tighter than his blood relatives or in the case of jared kushner, his son-in-law. what's interesting about that is i am sort of interested in mueller's sort of looking at something that's sort of in a public space. essentially donald trump has been caught in a falsehood, it would seem, between what the statement here says and what the full story of the meeting is. it's one of what's been many falsehoods that he has been caught in in his public statements since -- certainly since his presidency began, since his campaign began. this is a standard operating procedure for him. the curious thing for me is that mueller is now looking at this as it relates to russia. and at what point does spin, if not distortion, fall under the rubric of obstruction of

justice? obviously the statement that the president dictated was not going out to just a small, specific party. this was going out to the public. and i mean, white houses have misled the public in some way or shaded the truth in some way for years. the question is this part of a larger obstruction of justice case that mueller is looking into and how deeply and what questions are they asking? >> clint, you have worked in the building. former fbi agent. what line is there? what bar is there for an obstruction of justice charge? does this sort of meet it? does it meet it? >> it gets close. generally what you are looking for is evidence tampering. telling somebody to destroy or not reveal evidence that's being requested or you're trying to change the situation or essentially suppress people from providing testimony. this is not quite there because it's a public statement and ultimately the e-mails did come out. don junior published those. what is problematic about it is

he deliberately got involved on behalf of his son. this is illustrative of why you don't put family businesses in the white house. in the military we don't put family members in the same units for the same reasons. it clouds your judgment and makes you choose between family and your country. so we don't do those things. i think what it will ultimately lead to, though, is why did he move forward, particularly in this instance, and try and change the narrative around this incident? does he know about the meeting from beforehand. he claims he didn't. maybe he did. how many other times has this happened. if you can start with a pattern it leads to questioning and evidence gathering. i think that's the first step they're trying to take right now. >> in the white house, though, generally you take the principal, take the president, and put him somewhere else and don't tell them everything that's going on because of these exact things. clearly his aides either didn't do that or tried to and he wouldn't listen. that could go to the pattern that donald trump doesn't listen. >> probably the latter.

>> right. >> ken, do we know, have a sense, an idea, of who else was in and out of the presidential cabin on air force one while he was drafting that statement? who he spoke to while he was drafting that statement? >> i don't have that reporting, mike. i wanted to make the point that it's -- i have spoken to legal experts about why mueller is interested in this, and it's not necessarily that it's a crime to have lied to the american public as mark pointed out. it's more a consciousness of guilt issue. when prosecutors look to see whether someone has covered something up, it's an indication that, you know, they thought there was something worth covering up and it's a red flag for what happened at that meeting and the implications of that meeting. if everything was kosher about the meeting, why doesn't the president just say let it all hang out, just say what happened. instead, he put out a misleading statement about it. >> to your question about who was in the cabin, "vanity fair" came out with an interesting long read about jared and ivanka trump. and that has a very interesting couple of graphs in it describing the back and forth on

the president putting together that statement. and one notable absence is that the article makes clear is that sean spicer was not -- he was in the rear of the cabin and was not around, which is somewhat interesting. >> he might be the only guy in the white house who doesn't need a lawyer, then, because everybody else is lawyering up. >> think about what ty cobb said about the -- he said -- was not a bible of events. not the baseball player. was not a bible of events leading up to and after the meeting but it was not untruthful. i mean, that's pretty bad. >> i am sure that, as ken pointed out, consciousness of guilt. that's probably what ty cobb's client, president of the united states, told him. so we will see where this is all going. ken dilanian will be busy. thanks very much. >> good to be with you. still ahead, president trump is reportedly stewing after members of his cabinet and top aides distance themselves from his recent remarks. but for a president prone to lashing out, why has he stayed

so quiet? we're still monitoring his visit to texas. he is currently visiting the emergency operations center and getting briefed on the storm. we'll bring you any new comments from the president. that's coming up. david. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. ♪

i don't believe anyone doubts the american people's values or the commitment of the american government or the government's agencies to advancing those values and defending those values. >> and the president's values? >> the president speaks for himself, chris. >> wow! ever since secretary of state rex tillerson joined top economic adviser gary cohn in criticizing the president's response in charlottesville, sources have told "politico" donald trump has been privately fuming about it. some may have expected a twitter lashing but trump has remained unusually silent after aides have challenged him. the likely reason? because he needs them more than

they need him. she joins us now. what else in your reporting can you tell us about the depth of the president's frustration, perhaps anger, over these aides speaking out, and what position he is in right now about it? >> reporter: i want to make sure to give my colleagues, josh and ben, who also did great reporting on this credit. but the president is in a really interesting place right now where there has been a tremendous amount of turmoil in the white house and a lot of staff departures. so he is really in a difficult position when some of his cabinet members and senior aides over the weekend, gary cohn in an interview with the "financial times" and rex tillerson in the clip you played in an interview on fox news sunday have been critical of the president over his response to the white nationalist rally in charlottesville. in any other administration, a

secretary of state who did that would be fired within half an hour when he undermined a president like that. but this president really is not in a position to shed additional cabinet members and senior staff members. we saw when there was a rumor that gary cohn was going to resign and he did draft a resignation letter, the markets went crazy. the stock market tumbled. it's true in many ways that this president needs some of his senior aides who give his administration an aura of seriousness and credibility more than they need him. he is in a perilous position in that regard right now. >> elise here. that was an exceptional report as your other reporting in days of late about john bolton being upset that he is not being immediately received at the white house. looking at the forecast for rex tillerson, does it seem likely that he makes it until the end of the year as secretary of state? >> reporter: you know, there have been so many rumors about rex tillerson and whether he

will stay or go, and i think there is a misconception out there that every time secretary tillerson says something like this he may be fired and that every time the president contradicts him he is on the verge of going. look, i think the truth is that secretary tillerson never planned to stay in the administration the full four years. what white house sources tell me is that rex tillerson had only planned to stay about two years when he came to washington and that the difficulty of serving in this administration may have shortened that time line but not shortened it to eight or nine months, maybe to about a year. he may depart in january but he may stay two years. that said, he is unlikely to stay the full four years, but i am not hearing he is on the precipice of departing or that the president is on the verge of firing him. i think we'll see him stick around at least until january. >> what about the internal feuding and back-stabbing within the white house? we know that general kelly has brought some sense of order to

the white house staff, and we know that general kelly is adamantly opposed to anyone leaking stories about other staff members and crushing them with the president when they ever get the opportunity to. but is it still going on, this war against the globalists, against a gary cohn, against a rex tillerson, against an h.r. mcmaster? >> reporter: to a certain extent the back-stabbing or back-biting is normal in a white house but with the departure of steve bannon and some of his aides and then with the departure of sebastian gorka, it seems to me that the so-called nationalist camp in the white house, one of those two camps has really disappeared. steven miller, the president's head domestic policy aide and chief speech writer is of course still there and he very much shares those views but miller has been much more adept than were bannon and working with

working with people throughout the administration. he works well with jared kushner and is relatively well liked by other aides throughout the white house, even those who don't share his views. what aides have told me is that they respect his views and consider him a capable spokesman for his views even if they disagree with him. so i think the back-biting that once took place behind the veil of the white house is now really taking place in the open where steve bannon is doing it, taking shots at people like h.r. mcmaster and john kelly and gary cohn from his perch at breitbart as opposed to from behind his office door in the white house. >> so this is eddie glaude. a lot of this is connected to charlottesville. and the president's reaction to charlottesville. we hear secretary tillerson, we see gary cohn, we hear general mattis. and then we see the pardon of

arpaio. is there any sign that they're containing what charlottesville unleashed in the administration? are they angry about the arpaio pardon? do we see anything else following from what happened in charlottesville, in essence? >> reporter: that's a good question. i think trump's aides look at this in two ways. john kelly took over for reince priebus reluctantly, and i think he believed he could make limited changes. what he could do was control the white house staff and bring a modicum of regularity into the white house. so he has normalized the policy process. when he arrived he had 26 assistants to the president who reported directly to president trump. more than any president in recent history. kelly has vastly reduced that number and brought normality in terms of structure and procedure. i don't think he or any other white house aides were under any impression that they could actually control the president.

the amount of television he watches, whom he tweets or whom he chooses to pardon. i think there has been some normalization but i don't think they thought they could make wholesale changes. i don't think the pardon came as a surprise or a major disappointment. >> thank you. we have to take a break now, but it's an important point that you raised in terms of what is donald trump's ideology, does he have an ideology? we all thought it was steve bannon, that donald trump was malleable. maybe not. maybe we'll talk about that when we come back. up next, president trump warning all options are on the table after north korea fires yet another missile. what does that really mean? electric light orchestra ]

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president trump's words this morning after north korea carried out one of its most provocative missile tests yet, this time over japanese territory into the pacific ocean. prompting many to take cover. the white house warning again today, all options are on the table. nbc's hans nichols has been following all this out of the pentagon. what do we know about the missiles that were fired? how were they fired? were they truck-based, permanently based? what do we know? >> we know they were mobile launchers, fired from around pyongyang, giving you an indication that maybe the north koreans want to do something slightly differently. normally they fire them from military bases. military officials think this was a solid-fuel missile, the so-called kn-17 what the north koreans called the hwasong 12.

that's why intelligence doesn't have a great indication before they are launched. they can basically pop them up out of the ground and shoot them off. it was an intermediate ballistic missile. the intermediate range. irbm. when they teased this out it looked like it might have had a bigger payload on it than the one launched in may. this one probably didn't have the range to reach guam. i couch all that with probablies. they're still doing all the telemetry on it and trying to figure out just exactly where it landed. and they have said that there is not a threat to either the homeland or to guam. importantly, though, guys, they shot it to the northeast not the southeast. >> in your reporting and strolls through the e-ring in the pentagon, was this a huge surprise that the north koreans did this? or -- >> yes and no. they expected the north korean to do something in conjunction with the joint south korean/u.s.

training that they're doing. the freedom garden, freedom's guardian. excuse me. they were expecting something to happen. they didn't necessarily anticipate these launches. in the past, with the icbms, they have much more of a runup because those are loaded up with liquid fuel. and you can see them refueling them or fueling them in the first place. these are solid-fuel missiles, basically converted from something that was launched from a submarine, so they have less of a lead time. yes, they are always expecting something. they always say something can happen in any moment but they weren't saying stick around late tonight, something could happen. >> prior to that, when the president does speak and says all options are on the table, what's the reaction among people, your sources in the military, in the pentagon, who know about war? what's their reaction to these off-the-cuff statements? >> well, all options on the

table actually is pretty muted given what president trump has said in the past, namely fire and fury. all options on the table sort of brings us back into sanitized diplo-speak. that means anything from moving assets into the region to a kinetic operation. firing something or launching something that goes boom. i have done a couple rounds today and talked to a bunch of officials recently. no, for example, naval assets are streaming to the region. so the posture of the military has not changed. in some ways the rhetoric from trump even ever a tafter the ph speech. they seem to be a return to obamaesque and bushesque comments where they weren't that bellicose. >> is there a secretary of the navy yet? >> he has been confirmed. >> ambassador to japan? >> you're asking me state department questions?

you're really testing my knowledge here. >> it's a trick. >> i am pretty certain that ambassador -- we just have an acting dcm in tokyo after caroline kennedy left. i could be wrong. i would stand corrected if someone said they hired someone from inside the foreign service. >> all right. i won't ask you any more state department questions, hans. you' you're off the hook. appreciate it. west point grad. what does it mean to you when you hear all options are on the table. we'll see, from the president of the united states. >> it means we don't have an answer and we escalated too quickly with our tweets and now we look like fools in front of a young, reckless leader. you don't go with fire and fury without having your government behind you, without looking through all of your options. this will end up being embarrassing for us because we really don't have any options other than a nuclear standoff or a major kinetic war. >> what's really notable about this is this happened last night, right? we didn't hear anything from the

white house. it took them 12 hours to come up with that statement. and they kept saying, we're coming up with a statement. we are working on it. it was a very long time. the statement came out 12 hours later. they were trying to figure out what to say. he didn't tweet about it. >> the state department has literally been hollowed out in terms of far eastern desks, experts, things like that. >> right. i think it's how do you respond after he, you know, had that language before. how do you pull it back but not look like you're pulling it back. also, this didn't go towards guam, it went the other way. just a question of what to do. >> mike, there is not -- >> we are getting this video in of president trump in austin touring the emergency ops center. let's take a listen. >> eliaine duke is here someplace. fantastic job. brock has been incredible. from your standpoint, nim and the group. steve, who i just met. steve. the job they've done, getting along. number one they like each other.

very important. number two, they respect each other. the job that all of these groups have done getting along in terms of coordination has been really incredible. everyone is talking about it. the sad thing is that this is long term. nobody nobody has ever seen anything this long, and nobody has ever seen this much water in particular. the wind was pretty horrific. but the water has never been seen like this, to the extent. and it's maybe some day going to disappear. we keep waiting. we have three -- four of our great congressmen right here, and we really appreciate you. we're going to be working with congress on helping out the state of texas. it's going to be a costly proposition. because, again, probably ted cruz is here, and senator, thank you very much. senator cornyn. and we'll be working with these characters over here. and i think we'll come through with, you know, the right solution. but probably there's never been anything so expensive in our

country's history. there's never been anything so historic in terms of damage and in terms of ferocity as what we have witnessed with harvey. sounds like such an innocent name, ben, right? but it's not innocent. i also want to thank my people, ben carson, as you know, is here from hud and linda is -- linda mcmann from small business. and i say, this is not small business, linda. this is big business. when you add it all up. you're going to be giving away many, many millions of dollars to help people out. and tom price, as you know, dr. tom price. you have your people in the field, tom. in fact, you may see a couple of words, and then i'll ask linda and ben and then i think we get on to nim and to brock and everybody. tom? >> thank you, mr. president. as you said, this is a historic proportion storm. and flood. the challenge that we have, obviously, is to get the resources to the individuals that are stranded right now. make certain that the evacuees

have a place to go. our responsibilities are medical and veterinary and mortuary. and there will be all of the above. the challenge that we have in the long-term is that most individuals who suffer from these -- suffer from not being able to get the medical care they need after the -- when the sun comes out. so trying to make certain that we have got pharmacies staffed, make certain folks are getting electricity to their homes so the oxygen concentrators and the like are able to be utilized. and then just chronic disease. making certain folks can get to their doctor when they aren't in their hometown and get the treatment they need. we're staffed up, ready to go. we've got four federal medical stations that are -- two are up and running. and two on the way. and we've got another four or five that are stationed beyond after that, depending on where folks need. >> thank you, very much. >> here for you. >> thank you, tom.

linda? >> well, spa has its -- main disaster relief office in the dallas-ft. worth area. 900 people there permanently. 600 people in the surge. they're already coming in. i actually did get a note on the plane from corpus that we have made the first home loan approval from this disaster. so i was glad that we're already up and running. we will be making home loans, business loans. we'll be making loans for those folks who have lost income, and also the opportunity to replace plant, property and equipment and inventories. so we're up, ready to go. >> thank you very much. and ben carson from hud. >> well, thank you, mr. president. thank you for your leadership, and mrs. hersly, also. compassion permeates everything that's been done. it's been great working with everybody. and governor, one of the people i admire the most. thank you for what you've been

doing. >> thank you, sir. >> brock is doing a fantastic job. and elaine. everybody that we have been working with is fantastic. and what we have been trying to do is make sure that we go from the phase of rescue and reaction to the phase of recovery and a smooth transition. we are also going to be assisting the state and local governments in reallocation of federal assets to disaster relief. looking at granting immediate foreclosure relief. insurance, mortgage insurance, as well as rehabilitation through the section 203-k program. section 108 loan guarantees for infrastructure, for economic development and for a host of things. and also disseminating information, which is so

critical. you know, the masses frequently become confused. we're working very hard to get rid of some of the regulatory burdens so we can get things done very quickly. linda and i will be working on that, to make sure that we get what we need to the people. and i want everybody to know that we're in this for the long run. we know that once the water recedes, that's when our work really begins, and we're going to be at it until we finish the job. >> thank you, ben, very much. i appreciate it. so nim, why don't you take over, along with brock, and we can go through some of the different things we're going to be doing. >> thank you, sir. you know, we've been going at this. this will be our third swing now from harvey, coming back at us. about 200,000 hours of time has been generated just in a few of the emergency operations from across the state. >> that's the president of the united states meeting with his advisers, several members of his cabinet, in austin, texas, with regard to the aftermath of the ongoing hurricane in texas.

mark leibovich, it struck me, and i'm going to sound really overly critical. when the president was speaking, he mentioned the water, the wind. he mentioned four of our great congressmen in here, it's going to be a costly proposition. they'll come up with the right solutions. there's never been anything like this in our experience. he thanked ben carson, linda mcmann. several others. i did not hear him speak about the victims of this flood. and i'm wondering, you know him. you've spent time with him. is there something missing here in him? >> i would say this. i mean, i noticed that too. it was pretty conspicuous. i remember talking to him in maybe october of 2015, we were on his plane. and we had a lot of time to kill, and we were just sort of talking, and i said, "mr. president -- or mr. trump, how do you envision being an

empathetic person? some of the biggest moments of presidential leadership are moments of empathy." something like that. and he didn't even look up. he was actually watching tv. he didn't look up and he said oh, i think empathy will be one of the strongest parts of trump. i think those are his exact words. and i think what was striking about that, was he almost conveyed it as a commodity. as something to sort of show off when the time came. and not something to actually feel and not something to actually go through. i mean, look, what we just saw was fairly standard. there was a lot of going around the table, complimenting each other. you know, again, i sort of went back to -- i remember george w. bush got in such trouble for telling mike brown -- brownie, you're doing a heck of a job in katrina and it became kind of a famous last words kind of thing. but, no, you're right. there's been a lot of complimenting, a lot of testimonials to how big and

unprecedented the storm is. and, you know, to me that's been the takeaway from his visit down there. >> i just want to go around the table, briefly, your reaction to that, what you just saw. >> oh, i agree with you. but i think that people are going to take away from president's visit what they want. so you support president trump, you saw him go there pretty quick. you saw him rallying people outside the firehouse, waving a texas flag. you're going to be really thrilled with that. you don't like him, you didn't hear him talk about the victims, people who died, a police officer who died. people that are displaced. typical language for him talking about the big, grandiose storm that it was. i think it's going to be exactly the same for him, where -- when he left and when he came back. exactly the same. you like him or you don't like him. >> yeah. >> well, i must not like him. in the sense that, you know, the human element seemed to be absent outside of the self-crashtory gestures of the press conference. it seems to me, he's just

concerned about optics. and i wish they would be concerned about people. >> president trump decided to make this trip very quickly while there is still an ongoing disaster, and more rain. we don't know how many people have died. we don't know how many people are still trapped. it's a little bit uncomfortable to hear about the long-term, which is certainly important. and i'm not, you know, taking away from that at all. when right now we need to be reassured that search and rescue is going on. that national guard is there. that perhaps we're going to deploy the 82nd airborne like we did with hurricane katrina. this immediate response that people are getting dry and they're getting to safe spaces. >> why are we talking about recovery and money and how much things cost when this is all about response? the most experienced person in that room is the fema director, long, and he's been through this many times. >> he's doing a good job. >> he's doing a good job and we should be listening to him. he doesn't talk at all. we're talking about giving away home loans, and we've got

thousands of people stranded in the streets of houston right now. we should be talking about response. how many people have been rescued, how many need to be rescued. how much resource do we give people and save their lives. everything is not about money. it is for trump, but it isn't for the rest of america. >> clint, elise, eddy, anita, thank you very much for joining us. that does it for this hour. i'm mike barnicle. mpt daily starts right now. chuck, how are you? >> mikie! >> i know you're a big baseball fan. i don't know about you. even i'm ready to root for the astros. >> absolutely. >> everybody should be rooting for them. >> if it's tuesday, the president faces a catastrophe at home and some crises abroad. >> president trump visits the storm zone in texas, as the path of devastation moves towards louisiana. >> you know what, it happened in texas, and texas can handle anything. plus, north korea tests the president's resolve. how will the u.s.