most inspired by the volunteers. to see the passion and every person should know, even at this difficult time are. >> that was vice president mike pence, of course in flood ravaged texas yesterday assuring the storm victims that the government is there with them and that southeast texas is going to come back. but as those waters slowly start to recede, the incredible scope of that recovery is just beginning to be realized. we're going to go live to texas where the storm has claimed at least 38 lives so far and rescue teams are searching for more survivors. also today, a lot of breaking political news stories.

today is the stars of a pr it describes how president trump is really rebelling against the criticism and restrictions from his chief of staff. we pb prks they're trying to make the case that donald trump did not obstruct justice had he fired james comey. this is going to be very interesting legal maneuvering about this mika has the morning off today. we have washington anchor for b bryan pagliano c word news in,.

prp sfrnl also senior writer at politico and a washington, d.c. senior political analyst for nbc news and msnbc, mark hall principle. katie kay, take us through the thus in argue fshlg now and texas finally able to dry out little by by little bit. a number of communities remain in the very real threat danger. their road pb prrnl has been reduced to an island, the coast guard hacked away at a come

would many frrm surrounded by floodwaters, the 120,000 people who live there have nothing to drink. imagine that, it's august and they have nothing to drink. >> all eyes are on crosby, texas. the gym meanwhile, there are signs that help is on the way from the president and the administration. fema says they're already approved $ who opinion. >> that will be split between

the disaster relief fund and a small business low fund. there was hope passing a budget. yesterday the vice president toured the area, even helping to clear some brush. prum has pledged a million dollars of his own money to help the relief. joining us now from southwest houston is msnbc correspondent garrett hate. we understand some people are gradually starting to there on this. >> >> as it sflrnls were.

>> that means they've got to tear out the sheet rock, the furniture as ruined pup but they're lummy. this nabbed frood $ ffrmt that the reservoirs are dams, they still have water in the streety, houston, it as issing is loo narks i've been trying to wrap my head around all wook. am -- as far as we know, di. they said take the astro dome, the on baseball and foom

familiar f. >> and that stl doing it, if vice president pence down there, gloves on, claring the brush, lk beingin purngs. >> suspiciously presidential. but, yeah, i talked about it brp frrm and you're suffering, it max a huge difference. when you ficht reported in your are why are zplrnlt her rur cane

andrew in 1992. and george k tran a fwrshlg weeks ago, it has can sfrurks tell is on stwrafrmt and again that message is sent loud and clear to the people of texas, isn't it? >> in the face of horrible strategy, you've soon this administration at -- it's not just the symbol imand uplift but also the implicit understands that maprn for a lot n going to

be dealt with in a her more furmt but also the remarks he mapd fuchlt in the beginning as much as they've been on anything in a normal why. andy kpef list. >> and steve kornacki, as it is, these first few days and first few weeks are very important for an administration showing up because it sets the pace for the relief efforts. if they care enough to-to-go down there, then feel sba the other agencies that really have

it pay inn, which becomes sfrrks sflrchl, the symbol being power of the presidency. i tip that is f sfchlt. this do have a statemen statement sfchlt -- isn't is here, you have is sfrrk but think sets prmt about are pshl

maybe the debt ceiling shut down that on but a frchlt frnlts. >> at to sort of a normalization of the legislate of prots fnchs sffrmt certainly for percentages th that, in somehow pushing to the forefront may help when it comes to passing a sane and rational del krelg expense. and all the auj, which seems be

to be the best respected in looking that,al month of the president trump pr sfrfrm. tn frurk you'llly gradually. this to keep the frrnl amid all of this, there's a new report of friction be $ sfuchlting at chief of staff john kelly's moves to rain him in.

kohli's actions rb o let's the who said who for sfrnlt there as one great statement in the article where somebody said the president is being kept like a mushroom, he's being kept in the dark and fed and you fill in the blank. heidi, some members have to staff member through the white

house and obviously a lot of angry people that they're not allowed to just go in tlnd and hand him some affect or gossip about somebody else in the administration. badly about other administrat n administrationsfrig, he can handle a couple of petulant little brats trying to take and himself tem nrm nrnl think about what is happened as soon as kelly came in. we're not just talking about

trump potentially sfrrchl but also in seen sense sif. l lot. sffrmt. >> not on is the president belling in terms of how much he's being and ld inside the witho without, if fwlirchlt he's tried -- the general has tried to tring a the fchls he's got i don't know rid of so many of the

desfrukt sfmt, spnl trpt sfrchlt the again saed, well on, not so far. the pardoning a shear i who is in the new jerseyal process, federal judges are enraged, conservative federal judges are enraged. they see an attack against one as an attack against all and, as heidi said, go down the list. charlottesville. you won when the general on ductor is service and donnie was making a fool out himself in that sfrrks all he's doing is

dropping l approval ratings to 356 ever. fox news said this presidency is tearing across the country. elet down like did. from again, he's only punching himself in the notice f who stel is push nshlgt fushlgt members of congress who are used to -- who had frng and blow plim. in hoose in the going change

himself sole even zwruchlt there's a lot of members of congress on capitol hill who woont furchlt (. stoof call i don't know department is. from zbrfrmt, there as all has to inc.er ons and party and now the of the frchls. >> yeah, of course i do. all it the fuchlt and that he is angry when secretary sfrchlt --

sfrchlt the opposed" reports that the prz continues to call frfrmt. >> also in that cart kprmt zbrrmt gary kone criticized trump's sfrnchs sfrnchs the $ monday ton you need to jersey. and some sfchlt sofrl people

cles to trump aid sffrmt is tiller sun go or cohen kbrn gchblt probably, if a reputation as ceo of the largest experience in f prchl sfrchlt sfrchlt sfrchlt sffrmt and trying to run

the state like he ran xon mobile and a very small circle of people need to reach of the maybe he does and just doesn't want to deal with it. in this washington post stories, a lot of internal leakers inside the white house who seem to be gunning again for john kelly. the question is who and why and why what do they want to get ut of it because a lot of people laugh would want to be chief saf staff ef sur. now it gone bleak money prrch pb

prchl becausepnchs there as if doubt in my mind it's coming from the pchg staug a -- if september is going to be crazy because there's no mott opinion like opinion sfrchl what has

been partnered with secretary men uch. fuchl p. >> so him leave nvg obviously he had to go out be a flrchlt we. in gave you kone co of. f event actual frchlt sfrrchlt that really didn't happen but this year it was donald trump again who had one self-inflicted wound after another. this was a really horrific month

for him when you look at charlottesville, when you look at his open warfare with the most powerful man in washington, d.c. in mitch mccome. of brp. and myself ps fnks. in. >> i feel like this is the month. a lot of people have been saying this all along but i think this puts to rest the notion that this is a motion who in any way will pivot with a normal legislative agenda with normal cooperation with leader on the hill, rack up an achievement here, a compromise here, a bill signing over here. that's a normal path for a presidency that's the normal way we gauge well.

i used to gauging the president is is drft will always piend pie a -- i think there's just two things he's got to rely on if this is going to work long term for him politically temperature does he continue to get economic news and does it kick up a level or two? a roaring economy can do wonders for any president politically. and the other thing, if that's not going to happen, he's got to count on somehow the rules of politics changing from what we've none them to be and what we have been conditioned to think they are. it's a complicated thing but i think when you get into it, ju look at how he won last year. you put that up with a 34% approval rating. 56% of americans think their there are words in the poll --

tearing the country apart. no politician can survive with that. 60% of voters last year said they didn't think he had a sense of decency. does that say certainly about changing the rule of politics? that's the only thing you'd have to count on. >> this time last year, heidi, you had paul ryan and mitch mcconnell saying, all right, the guy may be a little crazy, he may be unconventional but we can work with him because we're going to run the jaentd. that's certainly what they were telling people close to them. now you have a speaker and a majority leader that donald trump's gone to war with. of all the remarkable political stories in august, is that the most that he decided to go into warfare with mitch mcconnell,

the man who holds donald trump's legislate of fate in his hand? >> i don't know if it's the most surprising because we're constantly saying what he does is surprising but i think it is the most consequential. right after charlottesville and the president launching the attacks, what did you see? you started to see leaking from pim around mitch mcconnell questioning whether this presidency can even survive. you are absolutely right that many of these republicans saw donald trump potentially as a vehicle to get their agenda through. even though this hurricane funding is going to temporarily bring people together, it's going to push all of these fights off to the rest of this your and get things down will be

dominated instead. in dacts you know, there's an old stay or get out of the way. for the members on capitol hill, they're getting to a point where they just want him to get out of the way, stop insulting members, some insulting lisa murkowski, stop playing a game of subtraction, sfrrks right now let's bring in nbc meteorologist bail karins. the remnants are harvey are still making trouble in texas and now we're looking carefully at irma. >> the first time i show youthese pictures, joe, learning

harvey has done go be and on a creek that had flooded and brought them to an emergency shelter. here we are six days later we're still dealing with problems heavy rain. the pictures i showed you, the water has receded since then but there was a lot of damage done there. now for irma, it's well out here in the atlantic. this is a storm nobody has to deal with for at least a four or to to sea form is to 140 miles

per hour wind potentially by the get to the u.s. ands that a big with by tuesday of nbs wook i should bible to pinpoint it a little better for people. >> thank you so much, bill karins and we appreciate all the grau purchase with the good people across the out. and they're going to be facing some real challenges as they move ahead. >> and here on morning joe, we're going to talk to houston mayor sylvester turner about how his city is turning now. and also ahead, donald trump's legal team is already trying to

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so how is everyone? find your awesome with xfinity xfi and change the way you wifi. can you speak to what the president has done regarding flood relief? >> i would like to tell you that he would like to join in the effort that a lot of people across the country do. he's pledging a million dollars and he's asked that i check with the folks in this room since you are very good at research and have been doing a lot of reporting into the groups and organizations that are best at

helping and he'd like suggestions, if you have them. >> that's interesting. an olive branch of sorts. that's much better than calling them enemies of the people. so we'll take that. baby steps, as they say in "what about bob". >> catty, interesting back and forth between and of course that's what good lawyers would do. getting ahead of the surf saying we understand you're talking about this we're here to explain to you why it's not. so tell us a little bit about that, what's going on. >> a reminder that despite harvey and everything, bob mueller is still hard at work.

"the wall street journal" reports that in documents and meetings, trump's attorneys have presented mueller's team with arguments that the president did not obstruct justice when firing fbi director james comey become in may. >> people spitted that here and fires as see hes fit calling him prone to exaggeration, unreliable in congressional testimony and the source of leaks to the news media. trump attorney ty cobb said out of respect, we will not be discussing increme atroo there

was no good time o do it and, in fact, when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i toe know, this rush thing with russia is a made up story, it's an excuse of the democrats. >> and preet bharara weighed in tweeting "there may never be in charges but defense lawyers tonl don't usually waste time on preet bharara is trying to get in there early with their side of the case in. >> i don't think it's surprising at all. you'd want a lawyer to get ahead of it and up better to make these arguments privately attorneys behind closed doors

than doing it in an open courtroom after charges have already been brought. men, you look, so many of himself chap chan be smchsnchbl what he said to the u.s. ambassador to the united states when they were in the oval office and that leaked out saying that kiem is get who

fsnlt and without subpoena powers, the reports we had several months ago of the president calling dan croats and other members of the intelligence community, trying to get them to put pressure on the february and at part of what would be the considered the cover-up portion of this. more reports yesterday about more pursuits about paul man for the and about the meetings they had to talkgetting help from the russian government to beatily hillary clinton. and the scrutiny of mant.

>> we're seeing a little bit of what is a very large investigation. >> it was reported this week that rob mueller roo lease in that air for prp in fact, if actually took it upon himself dra prp sflchgs and or news roar rg sfrj sfm, it keeps

protesters. i'm not saying everything sfchl nm. >> forget about russia. he always sort of slipssfrn a trump power in who is kwoucht because more and more evidence just keeps piling out m robert is that all of this this many they pounce on the at the

present time v and then this can dpchlt the working and nm sfchl pnl to bible to ut the. . these arin credibly -- this was going on during the campaign. this was going on at a time when donald trump kept telling us i have nothing to do with russia. there's no deal. well, he had signed a deal actually, he signed a letter of attempt to pild this project.

e, if the most important part for donald trump, before iowa, before new hampshire. that really was the point of the cam pawn with he refused to say what vladimir putin had done to journalists and political allies. he kept defending him. well, now we know why. at least in part. >> stay with us. coming up, the president be about to break with another obama era programs that popular among the big tech communities. we'll explain that when morningio once and real go.

>> you can "morning joe" will be right back. did have

already hundreds of business leaders are speaking out. 300 business leaders urged prum to keep the program in place. of course houston has a major his fan panic population and that's adding another complicated layer to the aftermath of hurricane harvey. joining us from the george brown center, which has been serving as a massive shelter, how is this affecting young,

particularly and potentially undocumented down in houston, harvey. >> it has a hume undocumented immigrants in houston. it's the city with the third largest undocumented population in the country. what we have seen in the shelter as many of the people are headed home, now is when you start to see undocumented immigrants start to trickle in. i spoke to about who have a dozen yesterday who told me they took their time to come here because there is a lot of of fear in the community that if they come to these shelters, they be be turned down or put into a database even though they've been told they won't get into any legal trouble if they showed show up here without any legal concepts.

a spoke to a woman named let's listen. >> what do they people in your community tell you about seeking help in a shelter? >> they don't really want to do that. they are afraid if they ask you for documents and you don't have any, they'll put you in a different group, and then after they can give you the help right if you, but after they're going to turn you into i.c.e. we heard by the mayor of houston not to be afraid because nobody is going to be asking you for documents, but our community is so afraid, they don't trust what people are telling them, because they're going through a lot. >> i spoke to the red cross here at the shelter. they did tell me they encourage people to show some form of i.d. when they come in, but nobody is getting turned down, and there are no raids happening, at least

in this shelter. >> thank you very much. what she is reporting is exactly what we've been hearing. the residents down there, undocumented residents very anxious in these times. harvey is making them also. how do you think what is happening in harvey can impact the debate over daka and potential the white house may feel this is not the time to repeal it when you have too many people hit by harvey. >> the white house has been down this road a couple times before. and it has so far held back from doing this. the other twist is we know donald trump was elected as an immigration hard liner. it was a major part of his campaign. however, when you specify the issue of children, kids brought to this country when they were too young to make the decision, their parents brought them here, the idea of focusing on children, the polling shifts. it shifts particularly among republicans, among trump backers. so at least when you poll the question of taking a hard line

stance toward the children of undocumented immigrants, the polling doesn't show that hard line stance even resonating with trump's base. >> as we said, the deadline could be as early as today. we could get clarification on what the president is thinking soon. >> we'll see. and if it's like the past, chances are good he is going to take a stand that may even be unpopular, except with his most hard core base. you look and see what he did the morning that paul manafort's home got raided. he tweeted about the transgender ban, something that wasn't popular with american people and wasn't even popular with his joint chiefs and people inside the pentagon. today maybe he's understanding he's not going to get funding for the wall this year, so maybe he takes another very harsh anti-immigrant stand, and maybe he thinks it helps him with his base and gets him past the fact that he's going to fail in getting funding for that wall.

we'll see. still ahead on "morning joe," we're going to be talking to houston's mayor about the federal response that he's seen down there so far. plus new trouble for the kushner family and for their business. we're going to be looking into the president's son-in-law's high profile portfolio and a lot of concerns about conflicts of interest inside and outside the white house. "morning joe" back right after this.

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and wle stay with you until rockport and all of southeast texas come back. [ applause ] >> so this morning the flood waters are beginning to recede a little bit in houston, but it's still a state of emergency in places like beaumont where there's no fresh water supply and the rescues continue in

mass. and now the president is pushing a $5.5 billion relief plan which only makes the september on capitol hill that much more complicated with a debt ceiling problem and also tax reform looming on the horizon. i'm looking at the front pages of the papers today. "the new york times," there's an interesting story to explain september pretty well. storm shoves political wins in capital, and there's "the new york times." there's a line here that just to boil it down, he says the storm has transformed the federal fiscal picture. this is going to change the whole dynamic for september, quite frankly, for the republican establishment for the remainder of the 115th congress. katty kay, they may not be quite as tight with the money as they were going to be before, because donald trump is asking for a lot

of relief aid, and, of course, members of congress are going to give him that relief aid to try to seem like they're not as dysfunctional as the republican congress has been over the past nine months. >> yeah. he's offered money of his own, $1 million. they're going to need more. katrina they asked for something and got pledges i think of $60 billion. this is going to run into the billions. normally the kind of things republicans might be worried about, but with the pictures out of harvey, you seem to be getting unity saying they want to get this funded. it is 7:00 on the east coast. with us we have national correspondent for msnbc, steve kornaki, heidi prizbella, jake sherman, and eugene robinsonen,

and joining the conversation senior writer for the weekly standard, michael warren. let's get to the news. president trump is set to return to texas this weekend with the first lady to get a closer look at the damage that's been left behind the daunting recovery that looms ahead. some 100,000 homes are believed to be affected and people in houston are gradually returning home to take stock of what will be value vsalvaged. chemicals have leaked into the flood waters in some spots. at the same time the rescues continue. people being air lifted in places in texas near beaumont and new stories emerged that showed how perilous the circumstances have been. video of police officers an board a pontoon get flipped over. all the while the death toll continues to mount. 38 people are now dead. joining us from southwest

houston is gerrick haik. >> it's been an improving picture. i'm in southwest houston. some people got back to their homes yesterday. the house behind me, you can get an idea of how high the water level was in some of the homes. the doors are split up to the door handles. something like 1300 square miles in harris county got at least a foot and a half of water. a lot has strained out in the neighborhoods were weather the flood waters were mostly rain. because of how big houston was and how sporadic the damage was, people stayed a lot closer to home, i think. we're seeing more and more people start to come back because they didn't have to get as far away and get into the cleanup work. this neighborhood dried up. others will be dealing with water for weeks. as you pivot back into the politics of this, beyond the aid

package, one of the things worth talking about is the dams and reservoirs that overflowed but held. maybe that's part of the infrastructure conversation going forward for america's fourth largest city to have so much water in the streets for so long after a storm like this. >> thank you very much. for the latest, and bill karins is tracking another powerful hurricane that's turning out in the atlantic. we'll get the latest on irm. joe, you mentioned the funding, but it will affect the political agenda on lots of fronts. immigration funding, the debt ceiling. this will impact how the president gets the next couple of months done. >> yes. i thought the point about infrastructure made a lot of sense. you've got reservoirs built in the 1940s, almost 100 years old coming up on a century old, and these storms are coming more

rapidly as we move forward. there was some talk after sandy about big infrastructure changes in new york city and then, of course, the cleanup relief is done. everybody forgets about it. new orleans we heard that some of the pumps in new orleans weren't working the past couple of weeks the way they were supposed to which is, again, after all the infrastructure problems we talked about in 2005, 2006 in new orleans, it is still incredible that yes, they are living in a bowl, but there are ways to make sure that you're not under water every time a tropical storm comes. so maybe we put infrastructure back on the top of the list and worry about a lot of these regions. >> well, there's an idea. i mean, when are we going to start taking this seriously? we have a huge percentage of the u.s. population that lives on or near a coast, social the

atlantic and gulf coast, and those coasts suffer hurricanes. big storms, and it's just inevitable. climate change makes it worst because sea levels have risen. even if you don't believe in climate change, there are going to be hurricanes, and there are going to be storms, and as you said, houston, the water drainage and control system was designed for a much smaller city. not as much of it was paved. there are ways for water to percolate into the prairie and disappear. water doesn't percolate into parking lots or driveways. it sits there, and so now look a at those neighborhoods behind the dams. they are designed in such a way that water is just going to back up into those systems and neighborhoods and flood them the next time a huge storm comes

along. so how are those homes going to be rebuilt? are they going to be rebuilt in place, or in a way that makes them more flood proof? >> well, and that was one of the problems after katrina. you had areas that were built on wetlands, and there's always sort of -- people go out and look at wetlands, there's an ignorance. they say it's not wet. why are you calling it wetlands? it's part of an environmental system. i know it because i grew up in florida. when the water rises from the creeks and rivers and from the bayous and the oceans, it is the wetlands that are naturally there to absorb the water so it doesn't go into your house or go where you live. well, they paved over all the wetlands in new orleans years ago, and the question is after the storm, why did they rebuild in areas that were naturally wetlands? it's the same thing in houston.

now, let's talk about, though, you're from south carolina, i'm from georgia, alabama, mississippi, all points south of the mason dixon line. we've been through this before. talk about the human suffering. we're going to go onto something else tomorrow and the next day and the next day. it just naturally happens. but you've been through this. your family has been through this. your friends have. i've been through it a thousand times. talk about the human suffering that remains when the cameras are turned off and how people need to help. >> i remember going through hurricanes in my youth in south carolina and how long it takes to come back from something like that, and we weren't right on the coast. i covered hurricane katrina and was there a couple of days after the hurricane hit, and went through the streets in a boat. and i came back several times. a month later, a year later, and

a year later you just saw people who were still really, really struggling. they had lost their homes. the homes were filled with mold. they had finally gotten to the point where they could start trying to put their lives together. a lot of people, as you know, could never return. a lot of neighborhoods that existed in new orleans basically are not there. the lower ninth ward is not what it was and never will be what it was. and you're right. the toll is a very, very human toll. because this is utter disruption of people's lives. >> yeah. gene, everybody's had some bit of flooding. in a basement, think about the people in houston. they have it worse. trying to dig out from that wet is going to take months. it's the first day of september,

and it's what could be the most pivotal month of the trump presidency. he ended august with an approval rating of 34%. this as washington is going toward deadlines trying not to default. now, they have to administer disaster recovery. there's a new report of friction inside the white house from the washington post that says the president is chafing at john kelly's moves to reign him in. several anonymous people close to the president told the post that kelly's actions run counter to his, quote, love of spontaneity and brashness. some are bubbing kelly the church lady because they consider him strict and morally superior. the post spoke with advisers who

said trump, quote, appears to pine for the days when the oval office was a bustling hub of visitors and gossip. he boasts about his presidency in superlatives but confidants are concerned about his suddenly dark moods. kelly was brought in to do exactly this, but this president doesn't like it. >> well, the chaos candidate became the chaos president, and that's brought him down from the mid 40s, down to the mid 30s, and it's not getting better, and jake, this has been a particularly tough month for the president. as the old saying goes, august is the cruellest month, especially if you get a hammer and continually hit yourself in the hit. that's what donald trump has done politically. he's hurt himself. it seems every day he does something that separates himself

more from a lot of the business community that supported him, separates himself from the republicans on capitol hill that want to help pass an agenda and separates him from even moderates that are looking for bills like infrastructure spending bill, tax reform bills. they want to vote for. but he's just having none of it. august has been an extraordinarily self-destructive month for this man. >> the ultimate deal maker is alienating a base of 535 members of congress. we have to face the reality at some point. we're going to get into an election year. that's not far away, four or five months, and it's going to be difficult for republican members of congress to stand with the president and to pass his tax reform plan and an infrastructure plan, which he said was going to be out two weeks ago and we haven't seen it. there is no infrastructure plan. it's going to be difficult for them to stand with him and pass

these things. i think it's a critical thing to keep in mind. trump's agenda is basically going nowhere if his approval ratings are in the 30s. there's no constituency from people who get elected and up for reelection every two years. >> i think that's social true depending on how the president now chooses to pursue this fight over the wall. right before the hurricane he seemed to be saying that he was going to be willing to shut down the entire government about it. so is he going to back off of that because once like joe says this is going to die down, we're going to go back to business as usual in a few weeks and push this whole fight over the next few months? the decision is his. if he wants to have this fight over the border wall, which their leadership in his own party as well as the democrats will never give him, he makes that choice at his own peril in terms of getting anything else on his agenda done. it will crowd out tax reform and

the new year will bring an election year. each republican will have to make their own calculation about how to run with a president who is in the 30s in terms of his approval rating. >> i think we have to say every republican in congress had to make that decision in 2016. and paul ryan even advised him before the election, if it means giving up the presidential candidate in your district, give up in your district. he was looking at numbers just as poisonous back then. i think the question during this presidency and this era of american politics is what was it that bound those voters just enough, i'm not pretending he won any landslide. he won by the tiniest margin imaginable, but what bound the voters to trump and the republican party. 90% of republicans voted for trump on election day last year. we know they didn't like him. it wasn't just that. when you dug into the numbers, they really didn't like him. they had no expectations for his presidency, the people that put him over the top, and they voted

for him anyway. is that just because they didn't like hillary clinton that much? very possible. if that's the case, then these numbers look every bit as bad as we're trained to believe they are. if it's something more about how trump affects culture, media culture, pop culture, and he's tribalizing us along cultural lines, that's something new and different. i don't know how to grapple with it. >> and some of the competitive districts, trump is still popular. >> right, in some of the competitive districts. he's very popular with one-third of americans. even though there is a growing trump fatigue that i write about in the washington post this morning. i've been talking to friends who have been with trump since beginning and two weeks ago were saying back off and give him a chance to succeed. he's new to this. it might take him a year. you're being too tough on him.

even that seepmed do to the change after charlottesville. now when i call my friends in the deep south who all voted for south, and in florida for trump from the beginning, i'm starting to hear people say he's his own worst enemy. he's not getting anything done. it's not like they're telling me i wish i would have voted for hillary clinton. they would have voted for him again, but they're not going to the wall for him anymore, and that's not just with cable news hosts. that translates into people not getting angry when republican politicians in their district decide to go their own way. >> yeah. i'm hearing a lot of the same thing from back where i'm from down in georgia and the south. i think the bigger question right now is there's the discussion about trump's lack of constituency here in washington. i think that's the most important thing in september,

october, november. it's less important, really, what the voters necessarily think in these next couple of months because this is a sort of washington period where there's the continuing resolution debate, the debt limits debate as well. and then all this new spending with disaster relief. but then if nothing happens, or if things go poorly as they have for the president's legislative agenda, then 2018 rolls around, and election rolls around. i think that's a moment where voters can turn very quickly. if they look at a president or certainly if they look at a congress that seems to not have its act together, we think about elections like 2010, elections like 2006 as being ib evidentable, but they were not predictable until certainly in the election year and closer to the election where a decision gets made. i'm not predicting a wave in 2018. i'm just saying things happen

quickly, and it's all about results. >> it does happen very quickly. of course, for there to be a wave for democrats to take control of the house, and they should if you look at history, the democrats are going to have to get their act together, and there is no evidence that that is happening right now. gene robinson, as we go into september, michael's exactly right. while voters usually matter a great deal, what matters the most is the inside game in settlement a september and october as they try to cobble together republicans in the house and senate to get important things done. they're on defense. they about it passing health care. they're not going to pass tax reform most likely, but they've got to keep the government open. they need to increase the debt ceiling unless they want the markets to collapse. they've got to do a lot of very

unpopular things, and it seems that donald trump still hasn't figured out what every freshman congressman figures out his or her first year on capitol hill which is we are rowing in a very small boat together. we can whack the person next to us, but they'll whack us next week. >> yeah. look, donald trump has republican majorities in both the senate and the house. so theoretically, he could get a lot of stuff done, but, in fact, he has done nothing to unify the republican party in congress on the contrary, he's done a lot to drive wedges and to continue to allow the sort of splits that are already there to widen. and on top of that, he keeps alienating paul ryan and especially mitch mcconnell who could be his very best friend, who could get a lot of stuff done for him, and look, stuff

will not get done without mitch mcconnell. so it's hard for me to understand exactly how are they going to thread this needle in how are they going to get this debt ceiling through both the freedom caucus and the senate, and -- but it has to get done. how are they going to get a continuing resolution through? maybe houston changes the atmosphere, but the atmosphere has kind of been stale and stagnant for a long time. >> joe, we had a scoop that in the shows where the trump administration thinks they have allies, but jared kushner last night traveled to do a fundraiser for meadows. they say meadows while they bash mitch mcconnell, they say mark

meadows who has been a thorn in the side, they see him as their natural ally, someone they should be traveling for to raise money. that's important to think about. >> that is fascinating, because after steve bannon left the white house, you had people like mark meadows asking who is our natural ally in the white house now? i guess jared kushner is trying to answer that question for him. here i am. but gene robinson, thank you so much for being with us. we greatly appreciate it. we will see what happens as we move into the fall. but, again, donald trump's best ally as gene said, should be mitch mcconnell. he doesn't understand that. he can talk to mark meadows. he can talk to all these other people, but i guess the only way to state it in a way they might understand it in the white house is you're building a 90-story

building and there's only one architect in new york city that's allowed to work on that building, only one. that architect in washington d.c. is mitch mcconnell. there's no getting around mitch mcconnell. that's a public service announcement from the white house. now let's bring in our meteorologist, bill karins. bill, the remnants of harvey still making trouble in places like tennessee. >> new pictures from nashville. this is south of nashville. last night heavy rain caused flash flooding. look at this. more vehicles got flooded out. office of emergency management reports 20 to 25 water rescues needed with water in homes. there are people in an emergency shelter in tennessee in nashville nashville from a heavy rain from harvey. this is day six or seven in a row of dealing with this storm and causing problems like this from texas now through tennessee. what do we have to worry about today? now that we're watching in

kentucky, heavy rainfall across the bowling green area north toward louisville. bowling green under the flash flood warning. roads will be like what you saw, especially in low lying area. turn around, don't drown, don't drive through it. then the next storm, this is going to get a lot of buzz. it's going to be a huge storm, maybe category 4 throughout the holiday weekend. it's still four or five days away from any of the islands. after that, it's all going to depend on the area of high pressure. if it's weaker, the storm will be a fish storm and escape. if it's stronger, it will bush it closer to the east coast. no matter what it looks like, it's going to be a close call for the eastern seaboard and a close call of a powerful hurricane. we should be able to pin point it closer after the labor day weekend. >> bill, thank you. greatly appreciate it. still ahead, the mayor of houston emerged from an aerial

tour of his city yesterday and said, quote, it's mostly dry, but the recovery process is just beginning. we're going to be talking live with the mayor. plus, congressman from both sides of the aisle, democrat joe kroully and scott taylor will be on the set of "morning joe." and we're going to be talking about the big items waiting for them, mitch mcconnell, paul ryan and the president in washington next week. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. crohn's disease. you're more than just a bathroom disease. you're a life of unpredictable symptoms. crohn's, you've tried to own us. but now it's our turn to take control with stelara® stelara® works differently for adults with moderately to severely active crohn's disease. studies showed relief and remission, with dosing every 8 weeks. stelara® may lower the ability of your immune system to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. some serious infections require hospitalization. before treatment, get tested for tuberculosis.

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joe." yesterday we brought you the latest reporting into the troubled finances of the kushner companies and one new york city skyscraper. now this latest report. back in may three days after the sister of jared kushner mentioned his name in a real

estate development pitch to wealthy chinese investors, a lawyer for the president's son-in-law released a statement stating that mr. kushner had already di vested all interests in the venture. the post reports that mr. kushner did hold a financial stake in the project at the time. two months after the divestment claim, there was an amended disclosure that showed he held a contingent interest in the project. a lawyer for kushner says he stands by the initial statement that his client had, in fact, divested from the project selling his stake to his mother's trust and was not aware of the contingent interest until later and claimed that regardless, the interest was worthless, because it was connected to a prior version of the project that fell through. a white house spokesman told the post a contradictory version stating the diverseture of the

contingent right was underway after the comments in may. let's get clarify and bring in a reporter, amy britain who wrote that piece. this is complicated. there's a lot of legal clauses involved. talk us through the timetable and why it's significant. >> you're right. this is very complicated, and jared kushner's finances are complicated and complex. the story concerns the time frame immediately following jared kushner's sister's remarks that were made in china on may 6th. when she made these comments to chinese investors looking to emigrate, she referenced jared kushner's role in the white house and the fact that he used to be with the company. and of course, that raised a lot of allegations that she was trying to use his name to lure investors to the project. and immediately after she made those comments, jared kushner's team immediately moved to put

out a public statement to distance jared from her remarks to say he was fully divested. we have since learned that at the time of the statement he held a contingent right. that gives you the option in the future to take over ownership of part of a company. so what they did is they moved the right to the mother's trust roughly 72 hours after jared's sister made those controversial remarks. >> okay, but it's plausible, isn't it? he has complicated financial dealings. i'm sure there are lots of different things he's involved in, and some things may have gotten left behind like this interest. maybe he's just telling the truth and it was something he overlooked and he thought he had divested himself of everything. >> that is possible. as i said earlier, his finances are tremendously complicated. to me, it does raise some questions about why his own attorneys were seemingly unaware of the specific contingent rights that he held as late as

may. he had already been in the white house for more than 100 days at that point, and they were still kind of grappling with the scope and nature of his finances. i think it raises questions about exactly what type of working knowledge they had and how they were working to craft a plan for him to avoid ethical conflicts if they did not know the full scope of his holdings at the time they made some of these plans. >> michael warren, we're not talking about $150 here. we're talking a lot. i mean, a lot of money involved in this company, and i'm sorry, there's just no way. complicated, yes, it's complicated. if you're dealing with billions of dollars, you figure out what your interest is in a company. this, to me, it's pretty straightforward. this is another example of bad information coming from jared kushner or his people just like we had on the disclosure forms. we now had an embarrassing episode happen. people rush out. they say something about his

interests that end up just not being true. >> right. and there's these sort of p.r. bandages that are put over these revelations that don't actually address the bigger problems. i think this is an underlying looming constant problem for the trump presidency which is the way that sort of moneyed interests around the president, whether it's relatives of his, or questions about his own financial interests in places like his hotels across the country and the world and certainly in washington d.c. i don't think the white house, i don't think the president, i don't think the trump organization was fully prepared to, and is still not able to answer basic questions about. i think you could attribute this to sort of the surprise that the president was even elected to the office. but it is one of these things that i think frustrates a lot of

people. steve bannon types who look at the jared kushners in the white house and think isn't this exactly who the president was elected to sort of get rid of? and i think this sort of gives fuel to that fire. >> yeah. we still have no -- >> go ahead. >> we still have no real road map here for dealing with what's been presented to our nation which is a combination of just unprecedented wealth that's come in to this white house with trump, and not just his family but also his entire cabinet, and it just -- this is just another reminder that we don't know the full extent of what we're dealing with in terms of how the president and his entire family could be benefitting. what we do know, for instance, doesn't look good in terms of mar-a-lago immediately raising it membership fees. we don't have the taxes. there's a lot of this going on that we don't know about. >> but, steve cover kna, you ha

who have come in to this administration and others that have a lot of money. with donald trump and jared kushner, if anybody were to write a history of these two men from november through now, they could call it winging it. i saw it up close, and i'm seeing it in the news. their attitude always is we'll take care of that later, and if a fact comes out like his sister is actually trying to use the white house to sell units in china and hurricane action trying to cash in on the connections, if a story comes out that's inconvenient, they'll just wing it, and say something that's not the truth. we learned that this past week about trump tower and moscow. how many times has donald trump, how many times has michael

cohen, jared kushner, everybody involved in this administration said at the very beginning, no, we had no contacts with russia. we've had no business dealings with russia. they get caught in the lie, and then they come out the next day and act like it's no big deal. it just happens all the time. and it's happened again here. >> well, yeah. i think you're right. obviously there's clearly no planning here. this is not one of those traditional campaigns even for a rich person who sit down with a team of lawyers at the beginning and figures out how to make the business stuff work during the campaign. it really feels like i think michael was getting at this a minute ago, when you think about moscow, there were two tracks running at the same time through the campaign, and there are still two tracks running simultaneously now. there was the hey, yeah, i'm running for president. maybe this will work in iowa or new hampshire, and who knows, but at the same time i have a business to run. i have a business to worry about

after the election. whenever this thing ends, i got a business i want to go back to. and so on the one end he's campaigning in iowa and new hampshire, and on the other hand his guy is getting in touch with russia trying to get a tower built, and it's happening at the same time. >> it's the same thing with jared kushner. you look at the meeting between jared kushner and the russian banker. at that point jared didn't know whether he was going to be in the white house or whether he was going to stay in new york. so maybe he's just human and thinking well, if i don't go into the white house, maybe i can get money from this guy, or if i go into the white house, maybe i can -- again, they were just winging it. that doesn't make it okay. in fact, it causes greater concern. you look at rex tillerson. rex tillerson was ceo of the largest company on the planet. he has a few dollars to his

name. you don't hear stories about that from rex tillerson, because rex tillerson hasn't spent his entire life winging it. pushing the envelope at every single turn. that's what donald trump has done. that's what donald trump is doing, and that's why donald trump is going to face a lot of really uncomfortable questions from robert mueller. anyway, amy, thank you so much for being with us. amy britain. we appreciate your reporting from the washington post. michael warren, thank you as well. we appreciate you sticking around. coming up, we're going to be talking democratic congressman joe crowley. he evoked the president's mother when calling on him to preserve the immigration program that protected so-called dreamers. we have the chair of the democratic caucus coming to the table to join us next on "morning joe."

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with us now, the chair of the democratic house caucus, congressman joe crowley of new york. good to have you with us. >> thanks, joe. >> let's try something different here. instead of talking about donald trump, let's talk about the

democrats. the party still seems to be adrift a bit. what are your plans to get a message out there that will reenergize your base and re-energize people outside of your base to you can be in the majority this time in let's say late 2018. >> i think we have a message, and the american people were sold a raw deal. the president promised job creation and growth. he promised action in congress, and we haven't seen any of that. we're talking about better jobs, better pay, and a better future. and ultimately a better -- >> how do you get there? >> in the first 100 days passing infrastructure bills. showing the american people we're serious about putting people back to work. deal with the rising costs of college education. tackle the issues facing us on health care. they have done nothing in the first 200 days. we're in the third phase now, the next 300 days, they have

done absolutely nothing. the one thing you can see about democrats when we control, you can argue about what we did, you can't say we didn't do anything. we're going to do things when we get back in control of the house of representatives. >> joe, do you fight to reinstate obamacare in january if you take control of the house? >> i think obamacare is still there. it's still a law. we'll bolster it. we will nurture it. we will improve it and make it better. >> it's being -- obviously it's being gutted by the trump administration. we have news reports the trump administration is doing everything they can to undercut. do you try to reverse it and strengthen it? >> we'll do everything now to try to reverse the behavior. the president is only going to spent one tenth of what obama spent to promote it. the american people are onto what he's doing. you can't fool all the people all the time, mr. president.

we're onto you. we're going to hold you and your party accountable in 2018 for diminishing the opportunity to have health care in the united states. >> joe, what have you guys done since last november to reverse the trend that's been going on since 2010 for six, seven years, democrats losing 1,000 state legislative seats. it's our obsession here. we talk about trump loa lot, bu also the democrats. what's different now? what are you guys doing differently now that you weren't doing last november when you just got absolutely shellacked as a party? >> this has been going on prior to that. this goes back to 2010 when the republicans invested in state and local legislative races where they've taken over state capitols around the country. i think we have 15 democratic governors today. we've lost 1,000 -- >> but you're not blaming that

on the koch brothers, are you? >> i'm blaming it on lack of participation and lack of a plan. i know president obama is in charge in terms of focusing the efforts in state legislative house races so we can get back into the game in state legislatures around the country. focussing on winning the governor races, the silver bullet to help us in reapportionment coming up in 2020 and 2022. >> i know ben asked -- you've been asked this question before. what does somebody in the deep south or midwest, what do they say to voters who say we kind of like you and we'd like to vote for you but your first vote is going to be nancy pelosi. she's a san francisco liberal. i don't agree with anything nancy pelosi likes. what does that candidate say to their voters? >> i think what they say is i'm about representing the people in my district.

i'm about taking care of people like the people of texas today who are suffering as a result of this hurricane. and the people in kentucky. the people who have been sold a bill of goods about less government. here's an opportunity to show that sometimes government is a good thing and can help people. and that's what they're about. all politics is local. we have great leadership in the house of representatives. nancy is one of them. there's myself and others who are rising in the ranks as well. i think there's great days ahead for the democratic caucus in the house of representatives. >> all right. joe crowley, thank you so much for being with us. i'm sorry the table was so rough on you, but they will be kinder next time. >> they're killing me. >> unbelievable. i know. well, it's their turn next. we wanted to get the former republican now independent talking to the democrat. now we're going to have the table talking to republican congressman scott taylor of virginia. he'll answer their tough

questions next. he finds himself in a situation familiar to people like jeff flake. he's facing a primary challenge from the trump wing of his party. the panel will be talking to him in a moment. hey allergy muddlers

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the most on demand your entire dvr. top networks. and live sports on the go. included with xfinity tv. xfinity, the future of awesome. >> joining us now a former navy seal congressman scott taylor from virginia. give us the republican view of what will happen in this legislative agenda, how much from your point of view does it get dominated and how willing are you to siep up for funding they need in texas? >> it's great took here. thanks tore having me, i think it's important for americans come toke. you see that with first responders, folks from virginia are going down there and helping out. i think it's time for congress to do the same thing. hopefully folks don't fill it

up. i think we have to come toke in a bipartisan fashion an help folks in texas. >> the discussion about how some texas republicans weren't there for sandy? >> i think it's irrelevant. it has nothing to do with right now. i think politics should fall to the side. we kould should come toke and help our neighbor sfwls. >> in past debates, congress pushed to offset, to cut spending equal to the money appropriate for disasters. you want to cut spending to pay for this bill? >> certainly i'm inclined as a fiscal conservative. we'll she what happens when we get there next week. >> it could be a lot of money, tens of billions of dollars. >> i understand that, we have to look at everything, of course, of course, i'm inclined to cut spending to be able to make it happen. but at the end of the day, we bought the to help our neighbors. >> but hold on a second, katrina was $60 billion. that was 2005, we're going to get more and more of these forms, right? at some point congress is going to have the deal with the fact this is not just a one off.

you will keep get asked for large amounts of money that come on in an increasingly regular basis. this will change the way conservatives deal with disaster financing. >> this isn't the first storm. like i said, we're american, we have to come together to help those in need. i think we have to do it in a bipartisan fashion. >> congressman, president trump has not gotten much of the agendas he promised the american people, within they look at the polls, they don't blame him. can you illuminate us on that? secondly, how concerned are you in this next cycle, we get to the next of the year, with edone get things done, president trump aided by guys like bannon will come for guys like you? >> well, let me first say i have been if congress ten months, i am a part of the problem. stra digsally in congress. i will push back slightly. i have to put up for the president i think he has got an

lot done. historic reform in the virgina.. >> in congress. >> we have historic in the va. it's more than anyone in the nation, a big deal for american, he's pulled back regulations to the tunes of billions on the economy. we're looking at the border, illegal immigration is down like 70%. i've visited the border, i we heard it from the source. so i think he has got an lot of things done actually. yes, there has been some failure, even on our side as well, too, for everyone to come together to get health care reform, of course, hopefully, with eget tax care done, i think it's important for the american people. i think he's actually gotten a lot of stuff done. >> in your state, you were critical of the president's response to what happened in charlottesville, in the wake of your criticism of the president, you've drawn a republican primary challenger next year for your house seat t. political context in virginia right now, you got this guy cory stewart,

who is run fog tr senate there, nearly won the republican nomination for governor in your state last year, who says he is making preservation of a conservative monument, excuse me of a confederate monuments, he's making that his key issue in 2018. your opponent says she wants to make that an issue as well, i'm curious, it's arising from charlottesville about these confederate monuments in virginia and elsewhere, where do you stan on it? is there a case to be made they should come down? are you an absolutist that says they should stand? >> we had a couple things in there, if irs if i say i am attracting opponents from the extreme left and right i am probably doing a great job. i support the president, not blindly. i they important for everything. i support him. if i disagree with something, i say it. if i agree wit, i support him and defend him. in terms of monument, i will paraphrase the african-american player of richmond who said a couple months ago, keep the

statues, keep the context. we have a layered imperfect history. i think it's important for people to understand that. in the end with tribe am, racial identity politics being pushed, quite frankly from the left mostly. i think that is dangerous. i think it's bad tore the marine people. in the end, it does nothing to advance or things that are the legitimate issues that affect people every single day. tear down every statue in america. it does nothing for you, if you have a problem the problem is still there. so i think you teach the context. we have an imperfect history, but thank god we have a country that we can change, we can get to a better more perfect union, as imperfect as we are. >> that is not the case with most countries around the world. >> an imperfect history, congressman scott taylor, thank you very much, joe. still ahead the worse of the bad weather is over in houston, thank goodness. but the long, hard slog is just beginning. the vice president rolled up his sleeves yesterday and helped clear brush, the president is

now pushing for nearly $ billion from washington for relief aid. we will be talking with mayor civil vester turner about what his city need as the water finally starts to reside. and today marks a new month and the beginning of the president's biggest challenges with congress yet. we will be going through the big ticket items on the agenda and we're going to be looking whether they're going to be able to get it all done. i doubt they are. we shall see, "morning joe" will be talking about that when we return. .

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i think karen and i today, we're post-inspired by the volunteers. to see the outpouring of compassion and concern was deeply inspiring to us and every american should know that, that even in this difficult time, in this disastrous storm, at the very best are the people of texas and the very best of the people of many earthquake are shining forth. >> that was vice president mike pence, of course, in flood ravaged texas yesterday, assuring the storm victims that the government is there with tell and in southeast texas, he's going to come back. but as those watts slowly start to recede, the incredible scope of that recovery is just beginning to be realized.

we're going to go live to texas where the storm has claimed at least 38 lives so far and rescue teams are searching for more survivors. also today, we're going to be talking about a lot of breaking political news stories and today is the start of a new month, september the 1st, it could also be pivotal, in a very pivotal month for president trump, with some of the big effort legislative obstacles ahead, it's an incredible story we have in this morning's washington post that describes how president trump is really rebeling against the criticism and the restrictions from his chief of staff. we kind of expected that, didn't we? . als, as the russian probe continues, attorneys for the president have reportedly met with robert mueller. they're trying to make the case that donald trump did not obstruct justice when he fired james comey. this has been a very interesting legal maneuvering around that for quite some time. good morning, it is friday,

september the 1st. can you believe it's september the 1st? mika has the morning off. with us we have washington anchor for bbc world news america, catty kay, also, national political correspondent for ms nbc steve kornacki, u.s. politics reporter at usa today heidi pridbella, co-author of the playbook jake sherman, in washington, d.c., senior political analyst for nbc news and ms nbc mark hal person. cat catty kay, why done you take us through the news, especially for harvey. >> it's been a business summer, texas is finally beginning to dry out little bit by little bit. we are realizing the magnitude of how difficult this recovery is going to be a. number of communities remain in the very real threat of danger. their roads are choked off t.

first responders are in search and rescue mode, still. in some cases the waters aren't going to peak for another two days. in beaumont, which police say is being reduced to an island, the coast guard hacked away at the roof with an axe to rescue a mochts and her four children from flood waters in her home. also in beaumont the power is out for many, the water supply failed, that's critical, surrounded by flood waters, the 120,000 that live there have nothing to drink. imagine that. the national guard spent yesterday evacuating baptist hospital, plus, all eyes are on crosby, texas, where there are concerns about explosions at the chemical plant. the blast came, will you remember, after the mane electric am and back-up systems failed, forcing the evacuation of people living within a mile and a half of the plant there. meanwhile, there are signs that help is on the way from the president and the administration. fema says they have already

approved a hundred thousand requests totaling individual assistance. two republican congressional sources are telling nbc news the trump administration is likely to ask for $5.5 billion at first, split between the relief fund and a small business relief fund. there was hope passion the bill could be included. sources say fema is burning through the cash they have so far, they might not be able to wait until late september to get more help. yesterday the vice president toured rockport and corpus christi, meeting with victims of the storm and helping to clear some brush. president trump will visit texas again tomorrow and, according to white house, he's also pledged a million dollars of his own money to help the relief. okay. let's go to bill karins. >> you can imagine what we said, picture, imagine if harvey didn't happen. we told you, we had a city in

our country with 125,000 people that didn't have running water for two or three days. >> that in itself would be a huge story, let the fact that beaumont is still under water, there are rescue efforts and people are getting out of there. how long can you stay in a place of 120,000 people without running water? how long could you last in your own house? the whole city leaving, getting out of there. yesterday they evacuated the hospitals and she wanters. we'll continue to monitor that story. be i the way the weather is fine down there on the texas coast t. water is slowly going down t. river that goes through beaumont, texas, the highest it had ever been before is 13 feet high. that's like the top of the glass on the top of a basketball hoop. right now it's 20 inches high. it's unimaginable through areas. we will continue to give youiaers from these pictures, how high the water is on some of the houses in that area. well, let's go now to nbc news'

miguel almaguer, he's in port arthur, texas. >> reporter: hey, bill, good morning, this is what so many are waking up to, the flood waters pouring into communities. authorities say if locations like this, it may be several days before they can go door-to-door t. death toll from harvey now stand at nearly 40. but that number could rise in the coming days. it is believed 100,000 homes have been affected by this storm a. storm on the mover that is pounding the heartland today. we also know that 32,000 people are in shelters. we spoke to many of them yesterday, who are now being bussed out further and fur as they try to find more room for people that might be evacuating from communities like this one. in nearby beaumont, we are told it is the city surrounded by water, with unthat has no clean drinking water. so they're asking everyone in that community to also make their way out t. flood waters here, where they are waist deep, we have seen people wade through them, in communities like houston, where the flood waters

are recedeing, they are finding mud snidz several homes, families are returning to that area. it could be several days until tens of thousands or more can return back home t. weather here across houston is getting warmer. it should get dryer, but this storm certainly has already done a lot of damage. bill, back to you. >> nbc news' miguel almaguer, thanks, to you. now the water level in beaumont is peaking today. it will slowly recede through the weekend, very slowly. i also got an update on the barker reservoirs that protect houston, that i have dropped one foot since their peak height on wednesday, it will hopefully reduce flooding on neighborhoods on the north side. >> that gets us to today, unfortunately overnight a lot of heavy rain around nashville and bowling green, now approaching the louisville area. even in nashville last night, these were the pictures of harvey. this was seven days after

landfall in texas. we had water rescues south of nashville, 20 to 25 people were taken there because water got in their houses. it looks like flash flood warnings continue at this hour. then, of course, we still have to worry about our next storm. this is the peak of hurricane season, this is the start of our month of september. this is when we see the most frequency of a strong hurricane. we have one out there. this is irma forming rapidly yesterday, up to 115 miles per hour t. reason this is of concern, we think it will get to a category 4, approaching the islands here the virgin islands, possibly puerto rico, wednesday to thursday next week. if it's going to be close to the u.s., it will be next weekend. saturday and sunday. it depending on the high pressure and the steering flow, if it's strong enough, it could approach the u.s. east coast as a strong hurricane. we will monitor that throughout the labor day weekend. so much going on here, back to

you. >> bill karins, thanks, so much. now let's turn to politics and there is a big agenda coming up for the president. he ended august with an approval rating of 34% overall according to gallup. continuing a summer slide in the polls, while his disapproval rises, this as washington hurdles towards dead lines to keep the government operating and out of default t. legislative calendar is short, to pass cuts from the border wall the president says mexico will pay for and nowed a minster disaster recovery in louisiana. amid all this, there is new friction inside the white house from the washington post. it says the president is chasing chief of staff john kelly's moves to reign him in. sterling anonymous people told the "post" that kelly's actions run counter to his quote love of spontaneity and brashness, prompting some trump loyalists to derisive liz dub kelly the

dur u church lady, they consider him strict and morally superior. they spoke with 15 outside advisers and friends of the president who said trump quote appears to pine for the days when the oval office was a bustling hub of visitors and gossip. he boasts about hits presidency in superlative, privately spresh e fresh about his suddenly dark moods, end quote. there is one article, joe, where i think, someone said the president is treated like a mushroom, ket in the dark and fed fill in the blank. >> oh my goodness, certainly, heidi that certainly sounds like some staff members who now have to report through general kelly like, well, other staff members in every other functioning white house has ever had to do. so, obviously, a lot of angry people that they're not allowed to just go in there and hand him some fake news or gossip about somebody else in the

administration, or also leak badly about other administration members. now it's just john kelly, who they're leaking about. you know what, the man lost a son in the war. he can handle a couple of p petulent brats leaking stories to him to the white house. >> well, there is true. except there was one other person in that story, who according to the reporting is angry. >> that is trump. that can be a problem if as we all predicted, knowing trump's personality and his temperament, that he would rebel from a sense against this effort to kind of circumscribe his circle of the people around him. and actually, joe, that makes a lot of sense. pause when you think about it, think about what's happened since kelly came in? we're not just talking about trump potentially rebeling against how he's being handled inside the white house, but also in terms of his policy. we've seen since kelly came in there, despite his best efforts,

this response on charlottesville. we'll seen the transgender ban codified. and we've seen this decision on sheriff joe arpaio, despite kelly's best efforts, it's possible that not only is the president rebeling in terms of how he's being handles inside the white house, also in terms of this policy. because we know from this reporting, a number of things were things that kelly personally didn't necessarily support. >> yeah, and, heidi is so right, jake, he's tried to, the general had tried to bring order to the oval office. he's tried to bring oval to the west wing. he's gotten rid of so many of the disruptive voices and it seems like the more, yeah, every action to help the president, to bring order to the white house is met with an equal and opposite reaction of chaos from donald trump. a transgender ban tweet that

wasn't passed through anybody else. another transgender ban statement that the pentagon said, hold on, not so fast. the pardoning of a sheriff who's in the middle of a judicial process, again, i got confirmation yesterday, federal judges are enraged, conservative federal judges are enrajd. they've seen the attack against one as an attack against all and as heidi said, can you can go down the list, charlottesville, you saw when the general ducked his head, well, donald trump was really making a fool of himself in that press conference, jake the bottom line for donald trump, though, is, if he's trying to hurt general kelly or trying to send a message, all he's doing is dropping his approval ratings to their lowest point ever. 56% of americans tell fox news that this presidency is tearing apart the country. only 20% of younger voters aged

18-to-29 now support donald trump. that's down like 15, 16, 17 points since his 100 day mark. he's at a 34% approval rating at gallup. his lowest ever. this has been a brutal month for a president. if he's striking out again, he's only punching himself in the face politically. >> i think no matter what, there will be clashes, right? he still is pushing for this border wall. yes, he might get past september. but government funding is likely going to come up again if december. you have a bunch of members of congress who are used to, who have kind of created an enrollment, in which they can call up the white house and proceed up the sloed leadership's plans, i'm not sure that's going to end. to the extent that he's going to -- he's not going to change his cell phone number. people will still call him. he will still be swayed by members of congress on capitol hill who want to cause problems. there are a number who want to

cause problems for paul ryan, mitch mcconnell. >> that itself not going to ends. and trump likes to be a part of that. >> jake, did you still hear steve bannon is calling president trump on his private phone call. >> trump can shake people, he pushes them out. he keeps them in his circle. i hear this all the time, there are all these hanger-ons. it's an open door policy, maybe they aren't walk income and out. they still have a line to this guy. >> he is trying it all the time. >> of course, i do. all the time. >> yeah. >> at a campaign rally when a group of border patrol agents who had endorsed him initially were blocked by the trump administration from attending. two sources said trump raised his voice with his chief of staff, whom he faulted for trying to restrict outside friends from having direct access to him. and as joe mentioned the "post"

reports the president continues to call business friends and outsiders, like, including, of course, steve bannon from his personal phone. that's when kelly is not around according to people with knowledge of the phone calls, also in that article is that the president's frustrations extend elsewhere in his cabinet. sources tell a newspaper that trump is simmering with displeasure over what he considers personal disloyalty from national economic counsel director gary cohn who criticize trump's responses to charlottesville. he was upset even after he listened to cohn vent during a private meeting in bedminster, new jersey. on secretary of state rex tillerson, trurp seen his diplomat. several people close to touch says they would be surprised if tillerson stays in his post past his one-year mark in january. coming up on "morning i

don't," houston mayor sylvester turner joins us live as the city finally begins to dry out. also ahead with the economy growing at 3% for jobs showing signs of life, too, we have the very latest employment numbers when they break in a few minutes. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. so should y. midas has a lifetime guarantee on these parts. that's right. on things like struts, brakes, shocks. all kinds of automobile parts. [king] guaranteed for life. does he turn everything to gold? [kinbrakes. not everything. [kinbrakes. not everything. [kinstruts. luckily, he's not a dog person. [kinshocks. luckily, he's not a dog person. at midas we're always a touch better with limited lifetime guarantees on select parts, complimentary courtesy checks and more. book an appointment at midas.com

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>> can you speak to the president and his family have done to relief personally? smr yes, i can. i had a chance to speak with the president earlier. i am happy he would like to join in the effort that a lot of the people that we've seen across this country do, he's pledging a million dollars of personal money to the fund and he's actually asked that i check with the folks in this room since you are very good at research and have been doing a lot of reporting into the groups and organizations that had the best

and are most effective if providing aid, he'd like suggestions from folks here, hide be happy to take those if any of you have them. >> okay. that's interesting. an olive branch of sorts. i think that's much better than calling them enemies of the people. so we'll take that as a baby steps as they say in what about bob? catty, so interesting back and forth between the president's lawyers and bob mueller's team, talking about how what happened with james comey was not an obstruction of justice and, of course, that's what good lawyers would do, getting ahead of the curve saying, hey, we understand you are talking about this being obstruction of justice, but we're here to explain to you why it's not. so tell us a little about that, what's going on? >> a reminder about harvey, everyone is working away,

president trump's lawyers are reportedly at work trying to dissuade special counsel bob muler from bringing special charges to the russia investigation t. "wall street journal" reports that in documents and meetings, trump's attorneys have presented mueller's teams with arguments that the president did not obstruct justice when firing james comey in may. they said one memo submitted in june laid out the case that trump has to the inherent authority under the constitution to hire and fire as he sees fit, therefore, didn't obstruct justice. another memo outlined why comey is a formerly federal prosecutor would make an unsuitable witness, calming him prone to exaggeration, unreliable in congressional testimony and the source of leaks to the news media. trump attorney ty cobbs said out of respect for the special counsel's process with le not be discussing incremental response,

in an interview with lester holt the president said he took action because of the russia investigation. >> regardless of recommendation, i was going to fir comey, knowing there was no good time to do it. and, in fact, when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story. it's an excuse by the dollars for having lost an election, that they should have won. >> former u.s. attorney was also fired by the trump administration. he weighed in about the trump legal team's reported memos, tweeting, there may never be any charges, but defense lawyers don't usually waste time on preemptive memos responding to frivolous theories of criminal skills. joe, how surprising is the trump team trying to get in there early with their side of the case? >> i don't think it's surprising at all. you'd want a lawyer to get ahead of it and if they had arguments

much better to make these arguments privately to attorneys behind closed door, than doing it in an open courtroom after charges have already been brought. but again, you look and see so many of those, mark, so many of donald trump's challenges come actually from the mouth of donald trump. if you look at what he said there to lester holt, again, still, all these months later, it's still shocking he is saying yes i fired him because of this russia probe, sarah huckaby sanders saying the president fired comey because he wanted to end the russia probe and thought firing comey would be the best way to end the russia probe. what he said to sergei lavrov and what he said to the u.s. ambassador to the united states when they were in the oval office, that was leaked out, saying, yeah, this comey guy was a real nut. but the pressure is off the russia investigation because i fired him. that's strike one, strike two.

and you know, i don't know if it's strike three, but it's on the outside corner there on the possibility of bringing obstruction charges. >> well, don't forget, without subpoena power, which mueller obviously has, don't forget the reports we had several months ago of the president calling dan coates and other members of the intelligence community, trying to get them to reportedly put pressure on the fbi to end the investigation into russia. so there's a bunch of stuff that happens as a part of what would be considered if quotes the covered-up portion of this but that's not all mueller is looking alt. more reporting from nbc yesterday about more pursuit of paul manafort, more questions about the meeting that don jr. and paul mania fort and jared kushner had with russians with talk getting help from the russian government to beat hillary clinton. then, of course, we go back to the scrutiny of manafor the and general quinn and so this is one small piece, maybe a large piece, but one discreet piece i

should say of what we think mueller is looking at. so we are seeing a very little bit of what is a very, very big investigation. coming up on "morning joe." -- >> i'm hoping people at the federal level at the very top will understand this was cat strong and they will be responsive and not put us on, you do the cleanup and send us your bills later on, that would be totally, totally unacceptable. we need a whole lot of fe pa representatives on the ground now. >> the mayor of houston wants federal relief now. the president's already pushing a $5.5 billion relief package. we will be ask d.c. is mayor what his city needs the most coming up next on "morning joe."

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the trump administration is hitting back at russia for cutting u.s. diplomatic stuff in moscow t. state department ordered russia to close its consulate in san francisco and some offices in new york and walk. we are told the decision to close facilities as opposed to cutting actual dil diplomatic

staff was made by the president, himself. this is the latest back and forth in response to the meddling in the u.s. election t. punishment is u.s. sanctions, russia retaliated. now, this new move from the u.s. russia has until tomorrow to close those three facilities. speak income moscow, russian foreign minister sergei lavrov said our sincere wishes for the atmosphere between the two countries to return to normal. adding, quote, it takes two to tango. it seems as to me our u.s. counterparts have been performing solo break dance, mr. lavrov has a sense of humor, who knew? joining us from the director of stanford university former ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul. the russians acted a few months ago, why has this trump administration reacted and what do you make of the way they

reacted? >> i think it's good they reacted. it's a tragic reaction. it's not good in my opinion when we don't have our embassies and consulates at full strength. it's a fess reaction given what vladimir putin asked us to shut down, release 755 employees, we had to respond. i would have liked to see a bigger response, but this response is better than no response at all. >> mr. ambassador, obviously, you have been expressing concerns about donald trump's treatment towards vladimir putin and his stance towards russia. obviously, that's something that most of us around this set have shared. >> yes. >> and so, you are right, when we, when we hear this sort of news, our first reaction is, okay, well, this is good, they're finally reacting to russian aggression, but then, of course, immediately, your concern with the bigger issue, which is that american-russian

relations have really worsened considerably over the past six-to-nine months. i guess the question, even with this president, how do we make constructive steps forward so we can avoid the type of showdowns that could be coming in the next three-to-six months in american and russian relations don't get better? >> well, first, joe, i'd say, i haven't seen a tweet yet from the president applauding this behavior. it's very noticeable that he remains sigh leapt whenever there is anything about vladimir putin or the russians in terms of responding to their bad behavior. i would underscore the point you made, it has been remarkable to me despite what the president has said, including what he said on the campaign trail, there has been no noticeable change in the dynamics in u.s u.s.-russian

relations. i would never make the goal, that's sometimes what the president gets confused. the goals should be concrete objectives, security objectives about the economic well being about the american people that are good for us. then we figure out a way to achieve them. >> so how do we -- i'm sorry, mr. ambassador, how do we get out of this corner, though, with russia? what are the interests? what are the shared interests between russia and the united states of america that enable diplomat, enable a president -- an able president would be able to forge moving forward with the russians. if you have sergei lavrov's ear this morning and you were sitting down what are some of the areas that you would try to work with him to find shared interests between america and russia? >> well, i would say, first of all the overlap today is a lot

smaller than it was say eight or ten years ago or 20 years ago. so remember that. within that, i who you would say, first of all, terrorism, we're speaking today on the anniversary of one of the worst terrorist attacks in russia, a school in beslam. >> that is what russia is remembering told. we will remember our tragedy if ten more day, 11 more days, that's something where we can cooperate around the world and we should. number two, arms control. we signed when i was in the government the new start treaty reducing by 30% the number of nuclear weapon in the world. >> that is going to come up for renewal in the next couple years. we should be working on that. their new ambassador was the negotiator of that treaty. so we can work with him. number three, north korea, of course, we sponsor a common interest in reducing that threat, how do do it is complicated. but in order to do it in a multi-lateral fashion, which i

believe is the only way to do it. we need russia on board. we need to cooperate with russia. there is an agenda, it's smaller than before, but we should try to work on it. >> mr. ambassador, looking at the sweep of everything that's happened since we found out about russia's meddling in our election, do you believe the punishment fits the crime. do you believe what we've done with the expulsion the sanctions bill passing, that this is an effective deterrent and we have everyday that russia isn't going to do the same darn thing in european elections coming up, in our own elections in 2018 and 2020? >> no, i don't think we've done enough. for a couple of things, i would like to see more, number one, at tri attributi attribution. second, we need to improve our defense, our cyber defenses against future attack, be i the way, russia is not the only country in the world that has that capability. as far as i know, and in terms

of what's in the public domane, we've done zero, absolutely nothing since november to increase our defenses and, number three, again, maybe there is some private conversation that happened in munich at that dinner that i don't know the details of, but i don't think we've laid out a coercive plan. if you do this, mr. putin, this is what we're going to do. >> that i think needs to be said as a way to reduce the probabilities of future intervention in our elections and elections of our allies. >> all right, ambassador, michael mcfall, thank you. we always love having you on, greatly appreciate it this morning. >> sure. we have breaking news with the release of the august employment report. let's go to c nbc's dom physical chu at the new york stock exchange. dom, we didn't get quite the number that we wanted. it's about in the samde neighborhood, isn't it? >> we are talking ballpark.

the jobs was a bit of a disappoint. we come in with 156,000 jobs, it's one of the more volatile months. it's hard to put everything into this number. expectations for economists were 180,000 t. higher employment rate ticks higher to 4.4%. i will also point out that average hourly earnings, that's something a lot of economists want to watch in order to see if wages are rising given what's happening with the economy, we're up one-tenth of 1%. we did get downward revisions to both july and june of about a total of 41,000 jobs, labor force participation, a measure of how many people were actually actively seeking jobs and actually working, 62.9%, some people say the real rate of unemployment that u-6 number you hear in headlines is about 8.6%. i will highlight this, guys t.

place we see job growth happening. manufacturing-related jobs, up 36,000, construction-related jobs, up 28,000. professional and technical services up 22,000 and then health care stocks 20,000 as well, also we'll point out, guys, there is not a lot of hurricane impact in these numbers. the survey for unemployment was done after or just before all of this stuff happened with hurricane harvey. guys. back over to you. >> all right. we will see how that impacts next month's numbers, c nbc's domenic chu. thank you so much. we appreciate it. coming up, firefighters begin a block-by-block of search for survivors. mary will join us live right here on "morning joe."

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>> with us now at the table, we have the host of cnbc's politics nation. the action network, reverend al

sharptop, on the phone with egot the mayor of houston, sylvester turner. mr. mayor, thank you so much for being with us. let's start with the mayor. mr. mayor what is it looking like this morning as the sun is rising over your wonderful city? >> caller: this morning for the city of houston, we're in the process of transitioning from rescue to recovery. there are two areas in our city that are still dealing with a lot of flooding. one is in northeast in the kingwood area. and that's in part due to because of water released in that lake, that is improving, but there is still water flooding t. other areas in west houston and they're dealing with flooding because of the release of water from the reservoir and that release will continue for some time and so a number of houses that right now are flood as a result of the rainfall are

being flooded because of the relea release, but the core of engineers is having to bound the capacity of water on the west side of the reservoir with having to release it to the east side. with that exception, based on our area of new yesterday most of the city is now drive. and so we're turning to recovery and we are going to, it's housing, housing, house, especially for individuals who's homes were greatly damaged and i suspect the structural damage in the city of houston could be another 40 to 50,000 units, if not more. we are going door-to-door. we started that yesterday, and many of our communities all over, especially low income areas to make sure we have not missed anyone, so we are doing that. housing, housing, housing, people need to transition to a better place, as soon as possible t. other this inc. that we are highlighting is debris removal because most of the city

is now dry, people are already starting to put things out in front of their homes, so the city started a heavy trash, heavy debris removal two days ago. we will ramp up aggressively and we need, you know, fema's assistance now, agents on the ground, to assist people in that transitioning process. we need advanced funding now in order to assist in debris removal and housing assistance. >> and mr. mayor, that's what i wanted to ask you, you had the president there earlier this week the vice president yesterday the president is coming in tomorrow, if any of them are listing right now, what is your number one priority? what can the federal government do for you and the people of houston to alleviate suffering the most right now? what's your top priority from the government? >> caller: we need advanced funding now, not a reimbursement

system. advanced funding now for transitional housing. people need them rear permanent housing, because, people can't stay in shelters forever, we started to reduce the population now, but we feed that. there are a number of people for example who may not be homeowners, but may be renters, they need assistance as well. they need that now. there are people with family, with children, they need assistance the debris removal for the city of houston alone, that's going to cost about $200 million. and is that is starting to happen right now. not a week from now, not two weeks, people, most of the city of houston is dry and those things are being put out. if you don't get that debris up right now, it will become a major public health issue. so we don't need a reimbursement system so to speak. what we need is financial assistance right now in order to provide housing, housing,

housing, for people regardless of their socioeconomic status so they can rehab or rebuild their homes or their apartments, number two, to get the debris up right now as quickly as possible as we work on some other things. >> all right. mayor sylvester turner, mayor of houston, thank you so much for calling in and dlefring your message loud and clear -- delivering your message loud and clear. i'm sure it's a message received if washington, d.c. al sharpton, let me bring you in. obviously, flooding is indiscriminate. it goes after poor and rich and black and white, hispanic, everybody, the same. especially when the flood waters rise like this, but there is a disproportionate impact felt be i the poor. is there not? >> certainly, there is a disproportionate impact because

they are in areas that are harder to reachoredevelop and dealing with how you are going to finance, refinance, insurance issues, now all of that has a i president and this administration heeds the request of this mayor with an immediate relief not based on some refundable situation in the future. there is immediate need there. we all talked about how insensitive it was for him not to mention the victims in his first trip. tomorrow should not be to remake or redo what he didn't do the first trip. tomorrow he ought to say we're making immediate funding available, we're going to put fema people on the street to handle debris. he needs to come in with a proactive agenda rather than a makeup for the debacle he did the other day. >> there are 100,000 requests

for fema assistance. that number's just going to grow. the sectionba requests for peop want to get get their businesses going goin going, that will come in. the president could send a message if he does those things you were just talking about, reverend sharpton and also the things the mayor of houston requested for his damaged city. by his standards, the president's been relatively quiet lately on twitter, but moments ago he turned the phone back on to defend his chief of staff john kelly, responding, i'm sure, to that "washington post" story with about 15 leakers from the white house. we'll be talking about that when we return on "morning joe."

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where i get the control to choose any car in the aisle i want, not some car they choose for me. which makes me one smooth operator. ah! still a little tender. (vo) go national. go like a pro. well, the president's up, of course, and tweeting this morning, first, "wow, looks like james comey exonerated hillary clinton long before the investigation was over, and so much more. a rigged system!" and then later this, "general john kelly is doing a great job as chief of staff. i could not be happier or more imprszed, and this administration continues to get things done at a record clip. many big decision s to be made over the coming days and weeks. america first!" katty kay, obviously, the president throwing water on "the

washington post" story and the 15 anonymous leakers saying that the president was frustrated with john kelly. >> yeah, you'd almost think he'd been watching television this morning, wouldn't you, listening to us all talking about this. the president's right, there are lots of big decisions to be made over the next few weeks. can he make any of them? get any of them done? >> i think he's got to show us. i think he should immediately deal with houston, have the general or him or somebody immediately deal with what the mayor said this morning. then i think how we deal with the tax reform bill, infrastructure, and how he's going to deal with dhaka. don't forget, this mayor has said he's not turning anyone back in houston. i think this president needs to declare today what is he going to d about daca, what is he going to d in light of the fact that's going to be very important in the recovery efforts in texas of how we deal with these that are dreamers. and i think that rather than talk about america first and how

we're going to d great things, show us, mr. president, america's first, houston happens to be in america, mr. president. >> houston is going to be the thing he has to deal with first. jake, we haven't spoken that much about the dreamers, other news going on too, it's like i we might get something out of white house this evening, don't know what it is, but it will be a friday evening, the president might say something on that. is he going to have republican support for repealing some of it? >> he absolutely will have republican support and of course friday night in the summer, labor day weekend, the president's going the announce a big policy change. the funny thing is there's a deal to be had here if you talk to a lot of democrats, right. if democrats want daca, republicans want a border wall, there's a way to marry those two concepts in the coming months. i'm not say you get a full border wall, but if trump is the deal maker he wants to be, he can get those two things done and get a win. it's not clear to me if the

president knows he's not getting wins but he's not on capitol hill. these tweets are detach from reality. he's not getting the things he needs to get done or wants to get done. >> heidi, covering the white house and covering the president, great time to be doing that. congratulations. >> thank you. this is such a critical homestretch and i think we serve -- >> the homestretch. >> well, of this legislative session, homestretch, yes, these next six months up until december. and as, you know, "usa today" owns so many newspapers in these critical markets from des moines to detroit and cincinnati, these markets where a lot of promises were made to these stroevoters for the first time voted for a republican since reagan have a lot of expectations. i call this the homestretch because next year is an election year and we know how that works. i will be covering it with gusto. >> and right from the white house with the president every day. heidi, congratulations. joe, as we wrap up this week, another extraordinary week, the

president dealing with houston, we of got daca coming up tonight, we've been saying this week everybody is exhausted and the question is can they rally the energy and the effort and the professionalism, that's what we heard from that focus group, the professionalism to get the things done that need to be done in the country. >> right. you know, the president's come into one of his most challenging months since he's been in there. seems like every month has been challenging but he has a lot to get done this month and now at the front of the line has to be relief for houston, for texas, for the areas that have been pounded by this storm. but also of course you've got to worry about the debt ceiling, worry about finishing the business of the year and not falling further off track. so our thoughts and prayers are certainly with the people of houston and texas, the entire community that's been affected by this storm. thank you guys so much for being with us this morning and thank you for watching. and by the way, big news this weekend, big news this weekend.

the alabama crimson tide starts its season off with a huge win over fsu. going to be massive. thank you guys so much and as always as i say here, thank you for your patience. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. stephanie. >> thanks so much, joe. good morning. i'm stephanie ruhle. this morning we have got a lot to cover in this happy september. help. that's what's coming. what the president and vice president and members of congress are promising to the victims of hurricane harvey. >> president trump sent us here to say we are with you. >> and now texan home owners face this -- damaged property, uncertain futures, and can houston rebuild in a way that prevents this kind of destruction in the future? >> i just feel like, you know, we of had this wonderful neighborhood. how are we all going to rebuild? turning to trump, new