right now on msnbc, "andrea mitchell reports s." we'll see you tomorrow. with thousands of shipping containers stuck in the san juan

port, why didn't the white house order a factory military response to save puerto rico? as the navy hospital ship only sets north from virginia today. >> ultimately the government to puerto rico will have to work with us to determine how this massive rebuilding effort will end up being one of the biggest ever to be funded and organized and what we will do with the tremendous amount of existing debt already on the island. >> we have 20,000 federal troops. not federal workers, federal troops. i had 200 ships and 40 helicopters. puerto rico is bigger than katrina. if someone wants to call me from the northern command, call me and i'll give you the numbers. >> four trump commissioners are

now under watch for the flights. clocking as much as a million dollars on the president's dime. >> clearly we weren't sensitive to the taxpayer on these instances which is why i've taken the actions that i've taken today. >> i believe taxpayers absolutely have the right to know official travel costs. it's common sense. using tax dollars wisely and ethically is a great responsibility and is at the good heart of good government. >> that was ryan zinke. they're bringing back half the embassy staff from cuba because of traveling hacks and warning travel efers to stay out of cub.

good day. i'm andrea mitchell in washington tracking a devastating situation in puerto rico. continuing a week after the hurricane hit, many residents are still focusing on the bare essentials, food, water, fuel, money to get through sweltering days on an island devastated by hurricane maria. a top priority today, getting those supplies loaded in containers out of san juan's port. they've been stuck for almost a week and on the road to remote parts of the u.s. so families of rural areas can survive the ongoing crisis. nbc national correspondent peter alexander at the white house and mariana atencio. is there any improvement? do they have the drivers, do they have the fuel? are they beginning to move any of that stuff out? >> reporter: andrea, i did see one fuel plant move into this

ice tram. i want to show you this line. there was a line of about a thousand people at 6:30 in the morning when i got here, and they are waiting in line for bags of ice. they tell us they have not seen federal troops here on the outskirts outside san juan. they have not seen those trucks with diesel. the one that just passed us by is very rare, and of course this ice plant needs it because it doesn't have any fuel right now, it's working off a generator. it's almost one thing on top of the other on top of the other. the lack of cell service here is making the deliveries of those supplies incredibly challenging. and we're seeing the need here in the streets. on top of that, imagine, many of these folks lost everything and now they're having to stand in lines for ice for about six to seven hours. that is the case of this woman here. you lost everything? >> yes. si. >> reporter: where do you live?

>> i live in levy town. >> how far away is that from here, about 20 minutes? and you lost everything? 20 minutes from here this woman lost her entire life. and now she's standing in line for ice, andrea, so she can preserve the little food and medicine she needs. thank you so much. this gentleman over here, can you tell us, you're from here. have you seen federal troops on the ground with assistance that people need right now? >> no, i haven't seen none so far. maybe they are in other areas of the island but not in this area. >> reporter: how bad is the situation outside san juan? >> it should be worse than it is here, but it's pretty bad everywhere. >> reporter: do you think the federal government's response has been adequate, president donald trump's response? >> i really don't know. i don't think it's as adequate as it should be, although the government is saying we have a lot of support.

but i don't see it, really. at least not yet. >> reporter: as a puerto rican, how do you feel? did you feel you should be getting more support? we're at day 10 after the hurricane. >> of course, because the same as u.s. citizens in the other places. we should be getting the same response as they were in texas, for example, and we really need the help. we have a lot of puerto ricans serving in the military for the u.s. and we should have the same response that any other u.s. citizen is having or should have. >> president donald trump is coming on tuesday. tuesday seems like a lifetime away when you're having to stand in this line for seven hours. do you think that's too late? >> maybe. you know, i just hope the situation gets better. if it gets worse, he might not even come. so we don't know. i don't think the response has been adequate, but we hope it might get better.

>> reporter: thank you so much, sir. andrea, just to give you an idea of why and how things are worsening here, we spoke to the owner of this plant, the person dispensing the ice here. he told me yesterday he has fuel but he doesn't have any fuel today. yesterday he has electricity, he's working off of generators today. so the sense i hear on the ground from talking to people are things are improving day by day. it's really hit or miss and sometimes it seems to be getting worse every day we're here on the ground. andrea? >> mariana atencio, thank you very much. the president in the last half hour talked about the rescue operations in puerto rico. they've been on the defensive since criticism that not enough is being done by the federal government. this is what the president had to say. >> we're closely coordinated with the territorial and local governments which are totally and, unfortunately, unable to handle this catastrophic crisis on their own. just totally unable to.

ultimately the government to puerto rico will have to work with us to determine how this massive rebuilding effort will end up being one of the biggest ever will be funded and organized and what we will do with the tremendous amount of existing debt already on the island. >> peter alexander at the white house. peter, the white house claiming for days that they're doing so well, that this is going extraordinarily well, the deputy homeland security saying it is good news, but that is not what we're seeing from the ground. >> i think you're right. there is a chasm only 50 cldegrs separated. the president, the white house really trying to push back

against this firestorm, but there is a lot of frustration between what puerto ricans and americans see as sort of this insensitivity by the president talking about the crushing debt and the talk of reconstruction, and right now so many people in that country are still trying to get the bare essentials like food, water and the others. you spoke about a deputy home land secretary who had some controversial words saying this was a good news story, taking a possible spin on the success of the martial with necessary resources to get down to that region. the mayor of san juan saying that was irresponsible, that that's not a good news story but a people are dying story. i just spoke to an official who said they may not have been the best choice of words by a lame dupe but they're doing all they can getting millions of meals, millions of liters of water, millions of ships to that area

to do everything in their power to try to secure the safety and security of the people of puerto rico. andrea? >> thanks to peter alexander, thanks to mariana atencio. he blasted the trump administration for its response to hurricane maria last night. sorry, we're going to bring you that sound in just a moment. he said that they should have had the military in, they should have had rescue operations. joining me now is is tha distributional len who delivered federal response to hurricanes harvey and maria. the president said we have 200 helicopters, we have less than 100 helicopters in puerto rico. why weren't there air drops?

to those of us watching thousands of containers of shipments still sitting in the port since saturday with food, desperatelily ney needed suppli the region. why, if the roads were not passable, were there not air drops? >> a lot of things have to happen simultaneously to make it occur and occur well. that has to be directed by d.o.d. pursuant to a request through fema from the local government. i think what we're looking at is a process of trying to collapse that, make it quicker and coordinated. everybody is on scene and they're working. the question is how efficiently and effectively can they work together to make this stuff happen? >> they clearly weren't, though. that's one of the things gadi schwar schwartz, one of our correspondents, has said in the beginning. everyone was in that convention

center there in san juan talking between themselves, holding meetings, but because of the lack of coordination nobody was saying in washington or to washington, get the military in here, get the pentagon going. we've even had some reporting that the pentagon was reluctant to intervene, that defense secretary mattis was overseas, that maybe nobody was really saying this is a military operation. we need to get an aircraft carrier there. now the comfort is leaving today from norfolk and it's going to take days to get there. >> we need understand that military operations is in support of the federal government. the federal government can't preclude local leaders. you have a government and local leaders in puerto rico right now trying to pull everything together and we're trying to get together those political nodes that can be executed and that's the problem they're facing right now. >> but they are a u.s. territory. isn't it up to fema, the white house, if the white house weren't as distracted by policy,

among other things, is the criticism, why didn't somebody at the white house, somebody at fema, somebody at dhs say a week ago to the governor, to the mayor, you need to request this so we can get the military moving? >> i think those discussions have occurred. why they may not be happening has to do with people getting in a room and talking together. the governor, the mayor of san juan in the same room talking together. i'm not sure that has been done as effectively as it could be. >> it was the mayor of san juan who says that the comments by the acting homeland security secretary were completely insensitive, saying this is a good news story. this is hardly a good news story. >> any catastrophe is not a good news story. what you want to be the good news story is the people who are putting their best efforts towards it. that needs to be good. you can't undo the disaster. >> how does this compare to the relief efforts after the earthquake in haiti, after rita, katrina? >> those are really good questions. first of all, in katrina, we had resources deployed for almost a

week but they weren't coordinated under a central command and control structure that would allow them to be applied to the highest need. when i got there a week later, working with russ oneray, we performed house to house sweeps to make sure there was no one needing to be rescued. in haiti, the state department has the lead for international support and recovery. that was done by secretary clinton at the time. i was part of that operation. we made an agreement with haiti to take over their air space and then we expedited bringing the equipment in by air because that was the only way we could get it in. two very different issues but very complicated. the issue in both places to get everybody coordinated, agree on the tasking, prioritize it and move at full speed. >> after harvey in texas, irma in florida, it seemed like the aid was moving much more rapidly. is that because the logistics are easier? >> i think that's part of it.

you're dealing with geography. the only way into puerto rico is by air or by sea. there are very isolated villages that will be very difficult to get to even in normal circumstances, and that's part of the challenge. >> i seem to recall in haiti when i was down there that there were air drops. why wouldn't there be air drops into the mountainous interior of puerto rico? >> i don't have the details of how they could have been deployed. i think it's a logical question to put to the military people bhor do who are down there. as you know, they have a military commander there who should be trying to get all that together. >> thank you very much, admiral tha dr thad allen. tom price vowing to repay the governor for his seat on private charters, but just for his seat. is it too little too late? you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. products and services.

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health and human services secretaries t secretary tom price facing a firestorm over his frequent use of private jets but only reimbursing the government for a very small portion of that expense. his own seat, $51,000, instead of a million dollars that he cost the taxpayers between military and private charters. joining me now is eugene robinson and anita dunn. and george will, syndicated columnist and msnbc contributor.

welcome all. you were writing about it today. what is the disconnect between using the private travel and the sort of stated ethos of this administration? >> exactly. this is deepening the swamp rather than draining it. i think the bottom line is that this is really something that president trump would be advised to clean up fast. because i think people, including his own supporters, have a vast tolerance for the cost of his own travel. he's the president. he takes air force i, et cetera, probably a little bit less for his family which is also cost ag lot of money. i doubt people have a whole lot of patience for exorbitant travel costs for cabinet members in positions where secretaries usually take commercial, usually fly commercial. you see them at the national airport. >> in fact, the health and human services secretary, tom price, when he was in congress, was a well-known critic of these kind

of expenditures, anita. >> andrea, this is chapter 2,000 in the book i will write someday called, what they will say about us in the obama administration. i think they would have been living over the house oversight committee if they had even tried this once. the reality is this is the kind of thing that breaks through with voters, this sense that their tax dollars are being used for private means. i think that it's one of the reasons why treasury secretaries' numbers are some of the lowest in the polls is because of the incident with his wife and the incident in fort knox. gene is right. they'll let the president travel. they're not as wild about picking up private jets for cabinet members. >> in fact, some of this travel was very closely connected to visiting a son, doing something personal, which was then combined with an official, quote, unquote, trip. it does seem to reek of

hypocrisy. >> this is one of the problems with having the congress controlled by the party in the white house that you don't have oversight, which is why it might not be a bad thing to have at least one house flip next year. >> i'll quote you on that. >> there's something to be said for divide and conquer. >> there is a little card that has printed on it, before you do anything, before you write any e-mail, be sure you want it on the front page of the "washington post." people just had that prudential understanding. in washington, people are always watching. people spend other people's money differently than they would spend their own. >> it's funny, because gene, as you just pointed out, they seem to understand that this is a very wealthy president and he needs security. he seems a little bit more sensitive to this than when he first took office because he spent every weekend at

mar-a-lago or, you know, more recently he's been in new york a bit because of the u.n. and that's a very expensive security component. and now he's been going to camp david more recently because it was really adding up. the secret service budget was being busted. >> exactly. and look, nobody said donald trump doesn't have political instincts, right? he managed to get in with no experience and practically no campaign to get elected president. so clearly, he does have instincts, and i think his instinct is telling him that this could be really damaging. this is the kind of thing that people really get viscerally. it's the kind of thing that really makes people mad about washington, the idea they're living high on the hog on our tax dollars and not doing the people's business. >> in fact, when nbc asked the president yesterday, monica albo was staking him out and asked him when he left the oval

executive office building, what about tom price, do you have confidence in him? the president just turned on his heel and walked out. i don't think tom price is by any means out of the woods yet. i want to ask everyone about the personal e-mail use by ivanka trump and jared kushner, because that, again, does sort of smell of do as we say, not as we do or whatever. >> you can find me later in front of the white house chanting "lock them up," i'm sure. here's the deal, when you go into the white house, you have a government e-mail. for the presidential records retention, you must use your government e-mail. it's very simple. it's a basic part of the ethics briefing. you do need a personal e-mail and you need a personal device because you don't want to conduct personal or political business on government property. if somebody sends you a personal e-mail that is government, you

have to transfer it over right away. and another example of how they came into this administration, just refusing to even try to learn the rules, much less live by them. >> and the white house counsel, george mcgann, is now investigating, apparently. they've launched an investigation into the private e-mail use as well as the congressional committees wanting to know why jared kushner did not mention this when he was meeting with them. >> well, as you just said, this is about national memory in a sense, not just accountability for the decisions made, but we want to have the national memory record. once you make the clear demarcation, everything is simple. everything wants to know so we can keep of record of where we've been. >> is there something called irony here? >> i think the word you're looking for is stupidity. >> there you go, there you go. thank you. >> or being tone deaf.

speaking of being tone deaf, i wanted to ask you all for a reality check on the big tax proposal which could have legs because you've got both houses and taxes are now -- they've got to deliver something before the end of the year. obviously health care is not going to go through. but to claim that it is middle class tax relief, that it doesn't benefit the rich, it won't benefit the president whose tax returns we've never seen, and that it will decrease the taxes of everybody just seems impossible to compute given the details we've been getting. >> aside from the administration officials who are announcing this framework, you notice that no one else is willing to address -- none of the other people are backing this or willing to address the question of its effect on the wealthy. that's because it obviously is a tax cut for the wealthy. i think this framework is going to undergo some revision before it gets through. i don't see how it gets through in this form with that sort of tax cut for the 1% and with a

nominal increase in the tax rate for the lowest. >> jerry kohn, the chief economic adviser, was briefing on this yesterday and trying to explain what people can do with all the money they'll save on their taxes. let's watch. >> if we allow a family to keep another thousand dollars of their income, what does that mean? they can renovate their kitchen, they can buy a new car, they can take a family vacation. they can increase their lifestyle. that's what our tax plan is to do. >> george, i don't know about you, i've never bought a car for a thousand dollars or renovated my kitchen for a thousand dollars. >> you may have noticed about three weeks ago, talk about tax reform disappeared and it became tax reduction. gene, you can't reduce taxes without giving a tax cut to the rich because they pay almost all the taxes. 1% of american earners pay 39% of the income tax, the top 5% pay 60%, the top 10% pay 70%.

that's where the money is. the problem here is they're going to blow the deficit out unless you assume a rapid rate of economic growth. >> the so-called dynamics. >> there are a dozen permaneverf the old joke. two people walking down the road, one is an economist, one is a normal american. the clouds break and the american says, we're going to get drenched. the economist says, don't worry, we'll assume a ladder, assume an umbrella, assume something. allen has heard that before. the problem is, how do you assume a stimulative effect when the economy is already at falling employment? >> andrea, i worked with the democrat that was instrumental in the last tax reform and it

took a long time, it took a lot of buy-in, but most importantly, it was 1986 before the internet, okay? when we were all using land lines. and the reality is that the worst part of this week is that we desperately need to do something about the tax cut. it needs to be simpler, it needs to reflect the realities of today's economy, it needs to reflect the fact that american companies aren't competing with each other as much as they're competing with international companies who live under very different tax regimes. so it's a critical thing to get done. unfortunately, i don't feel like they made a lot of progress this week. >> look what's already happened. they say they're going to recoup millions of dollars by having the border tax. that puts aside companies like walmart, so that went away. now they say we'll recoup $3.5 trillion by deducting state and local taxes.

>> tell that to california, new york and connecticut. >> and there are some republicans representing that. >> how do you pass it with the opposition in the high tax states? >> i don't see how you do. i think -- so this framework, i think, is going to be stretched and bent and perhaps collapsed. who knows how this actually becomes law? i don't see it. >> thank you all so very much. a great weekend to all. thank you for being with us today. coming up, cuba crisis. what is behind the decision to cut more than half of the u.s. embassy staff in havana, bringing them home? also issuing a travel warning today for american tourists to stay away from the island. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. what is that? it's you! it's me? alright emma, i know it's not your favorite but it's time for your medicine, okay?

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the u.s. is pulling more than half of its staff out of the embassy in cuba bringing home all non-essential embassy personnel and all dependents until cuba can guarantee the safety of u.s. citizens from mysterious acoustic attacks. cuba has strongly denied being responsible. in fact, the u.s. has not accused them of being the perpetrator. but this does ring reminiscent

of two years ago. welcome. thank you very much for being here today. >> thank you. >> who else could it be? let's say the cubans are correct, it's not the cubans. we were on a conference call today with senior officials and asked, could it be the russians? and the response was, we're not ruling anything out. could be the russian? could it be that patrick leahy from the farm relations committee said, we have to try to figure out who is disrupting this cuban-american relationship. >> i don't think we can rule out the cubans are likely involved in this, but let's talk about some of the other options. clearly we know russia has a foothold on cuba. their intelligence services are present inside cuba and they would have the kind of license, perhaps, that went unchecked, perhaps a little too unchecked to do something like this. we've reached a new low here in terms of aggressiveness for

intelligence services. if this is attributable to a government and they are harming our diplomats' physical health, the family of diplomats, their physical health, we're using technology against us that is disappointing and rather scary. >> what kind of device could be involved? we were told this involves loss of balance, loss of hearing, brain damage in some cases, fatigue, inability to sleep. these are, you know, very serious conditions. >> it's interesting, this is not brand new technology to us. in fact, if you go back to 2009 in the g-20 summit in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, the police department in pittsburgh actually had to settle at least one lawsuit from a woman who was a bystander during protests that became injured and lost hearing as a result of something called lrad, long-range acoustic device. it's essentially a sound weapon. you know what's happening if the police are using it on you because it incredibly loud skpin kr

-- and incredibly irritating. it involves the use of something you don't know is there. >> and it happened in the middle of the night to people living in houses that are residences that are government residences. our diplomats can't live anywhere in havana. they are living in official government residences. >> just like physics, we like to see for every action, there is an amount of reaction. my gut tells me something went wrong here. something happened on an intelligence level where either the russians, perhaps the cubans knowing the russians are doing in it, were upset about some actions being taken. it could be the russians trying to disrupt with could you uba, is tied to an intelligence service, rest assured. >> when you say this could be some sort of acoustic device, perhaps, that you don't hear, it's some sort of dog whistle? something that is not audible to the human ear? >> it's ultrasonic or what's called infrasonic sound. it can be done at an audible

level for riot control or crowd control, which is very controversial, or we're seeing something you don't know it's happening until the symptoms appear. >> this has shades of the cold war and, in fact, of recent harassment of the putin regime against our diplomats in moscow, doesn't it? >> i think the issue that the cold war ended is something we have to realize is not entirely accurate. the number of intelligence officers in the united states has not changed since the cold war, the cubans still have a presence inside the united states. this is going on behind the scene and see now we're seeing the manifestations of that. >> keith, thank you very much. it's very nice to have your representations on this. calling to attention. the u.s. forces investigating racial slurs scrawled on the base doors. what's going on in colorado springs? you're watching msnbc. you know, geico can help you save money on your homeowners insurance too? great! geico can help insure our mountain chalet!

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your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. prevagen. the name to remember. disturbing news out of the air force academy in colorado springs. they are investigating racial slurs found scrawled outside the dorm rooms of five black cadets. in response to the incident the head of the prep school gathered all five cadets and delivered a strong rebuke. >> that kind of behavior has no place at the prep school, it has no place in mufasa and no place at the united states air force. you should be outraged as a member of the air force and as a human being.

if you can't treat someone with dignity and respect, then get out. >> a strong response. let's get news about this from our guests. that was a strong response from the leader at the air force academy. this is something that the naval academy has had to deal with in the past. it's something we haven't seen in recent years at the major service academies, hamish. >> i think in the back of this lieutenant general's mind, there is this idea that we're at a crossroads as a country here. we're talking more and more about race than we ever have before and his message is, look, we're on this side of the issue, and this side being we do not at all condone this, we're not going to have this conversation, this is not going to be about our heritage. at the end of the day, this is someone who has written about race for a very long time. there are a lot of times, possibly when our president was talking about race, that people

were not as clear as this gentleman was. >> in fact, he was more in line from what we saw from the joint chiefs, from general mattis, jean, right after charlottesville. they were the first to speak out because there is a really clear line especially against white supremists. they need to crack down on it for reasons of collusion. >> absolutely. cameraderie is everything when they're out there on their own. they can only rely upon one another to get them through very, very dangerous situations, so there can't be any tolerance for it. they can't have racial divides in the military given what they have to do every day. >> hamisha, ooufr writtyou've w exclusively about the black caucus writing to facebook about

the racially divisive ads written on facebook, perhaps about this racial interference in charlottesville and elsewhere. >> yeah, i got something that robert kelly wrote to facebook, i'm sure something facebook did not want to get out, but something that was the idea that this congresswoman and is her colleagues said facebook, one, is not being as transparent as they need to be. there were these ads that facebook admits were taken out by people with the russian government, that were targeting the black rights movement, that were targeting people. facebook lets you target people through ethnicity groups and the federal black caucus said that's a real issue. facebook has said through the federal black caucus they're going to stop letting people do this when it comes to housing, when it comes to education opportunities. but the fact that was something already allowed has a lot of congressional black caucus members very upset. >> jean, i also wanted to raise the whole question about john mccain's comment saying senator

corker is deciding not to seek reelection because he is not happy in the senate, and when politico asked him if there are others that are unhappy, he said, about 99 that i know, all of the senators. >> it is not a happy place. i mean, the house doesn't stay in session for a long period of time in part because they fight with each other if they stay in town too long. it is a strategy adopted by the house leadership to send them home and give them breaks from one another so they won't get into so many fights. on the senate side, it's much worse. and, you know, in addition to them just being unhappy, their bigger problem is to solve some of their issues, they need to win. they just need a win. they've got to celebrate something. and they want to try to get that one on tax reform which is one of the hardest things to do in this town. so it's quite a challenge. >> i wanted to show you a picture from the president's club. phil mickelson taking a selfie

with three of the happiest guys you're going to see who are happy because they're not in washington right now. >> looking tan. >> from listening to willie geist this morning, he was out there introducing them, in fact, yesterday. they really like each other. it's very clear there is a bond. the president's club has michael duffey who wrote about it's the real deal. >> it is the real deal. it was so amazing the clinton/bush friendship that developed even with bush sr. it's just -- it's kind of heartwarming to see it but they sure do look relieved, happy, relaxed -- >> and, in fact, there is a veep club. this poignant tweet from joe biden about that other veep,

julia louis-dreyfus, so touched by cancer in his own family, of course, tragically, and now dedicated to doing something about it, tweeting, we veeps stick together. jill and i and all the bidens are with you, julia. we were also affected by this. i was as a breast cancer survivor and as someone who is such a fan of julia louis-dreyfus and "veep" the show. they're in their last season now. jean, you've also been touched by this. >> i'm also a survivor twice, and i think what we just have to always emphasize is get checked, get those mammograms, stay on top of it all because if they catch it early, you'll be all right. now, we don't know, you know, the extent of her diagnosis, but if it was caught early, then she'll probably be okay. but women must stay vigilant. >> i think of my own -- my own family and one of my best friends, one of the first people i ever became connected with as

a source is a young woman with leukemia. we were both 21. she's now married with two kids, i was in her wedding, but i talked to her how she wanted to just go early because she didn't feel well. she was diagnosed with leukemia right before graduation. and because she caught it early and they were able to do all the treatments, she's fine and has long, blond hair now, but that was a real scare. i remember thinking as a 21-year-old that health is something you have to take seriously. >> if you can afford it. fortunately jean and i were able to afford our treatments as is julia louis-dreyfus, but the fact that she is now making this an issue of health care, health care for all, which is so fundamental. thank you, ladies. thank you so much. thank you for sharing a, and coming up, the navy ship u.s.s. comfort sending relief to puerto rico as the president takes heat

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juan where they are waiting for officials to brief. is there any progress today in the distribution of supplies that have been sitting in that port for a week now? >> reporter: huh hi, andrea, good afternoon. we're outside of san juan, a few miles away. we ran into a makeshift distribution center a couple tents put up and officials are distributing bottled water and mres. some supplies that have been stuck for days at the port of san juan they've been talking so much about. i can tell you there's a lot of frustration among people in line. they've been standing in line for hours, hundreds of them. they feel that there has not been enough of a federal response. we also spoke with a state representative, enrique melendez, who was a trump supporter during the election. he said he's very disappointed with the federal response and not enough has been done. however, i should point out, not everyone feels that way. folks on the ground do think the federal government has done enough and they understand the

logistical challenges in getting this aid here. right you now we're awaiting the news conference from the governor. the president tweeting the governor had said the federal government has delivered, and we have in our multiple interviews with him over the past couple of days, he's been very careful not to criticize the federal government. it's important to understand that while there is many people frustrated with the pace of this response, there are those that think the government is doing all it can given the logistical challenges. this town, you keep hearing that the remote part of puerto rico are devastated, and they are, but this is not that far from san juan. it's just a few miles away. there are hundreds of people right now standing in line, waiting for hours, desperately wanting bottled water. they desperately want food. we spoke with one mother who had a small child there, 2 months old, in the blazing sun. she's standing there for hours waiting for any type of

humanitarian aid they can get. i think that's something that needs to be highlighted. we're trying to feed in some material for you. the communication challenges are quite difficult here. this is an ongoing recovery process that's going to take quite a while, andrea. >> gabe gutierrez, who's been there since the beginning, thank you so much. we'll be right back. thank you so much. thank you! so we're a go? yes! we got a yes! what does that mean for purchasing? purchase. let's do this. got it. book the flights! hai! si! si! ya! ya! ya! what does that mean for us? we can get stuff. what's it mean for shipping?

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and that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." follow us online and on

facebook. katy tur is here. >> good to see you in person. nice to get a handoff one-on-one occasionally. >> appreciate it. >> you're too kind. i'm katy tur filling in for craig melvin live from the nation's capital. puerto rico, devastation. president trump says his administration will not rest until the people of puerto rico are safe and pledge to be there. he pledges to be there every day until that happened. what is it going to get the thousands of containers sitting idle at the port of san juan into the people who need help? trump's tax plan. the president himself reportedly could save more than $1.1 billion from his new tax plan, so is it really the middle class miracle he claims it is? price check. health and human services secretary tom price agrees to repay the government for