a.m. tomorrow. check the two of us out an social media, connect to @vel i @velshiandreuhl. the president strikes back at bob woodward after the "today" show interview, after the president calling woodward liar and an operative after woodward gives a reality check. >> i have never seen an instant when the president is so detached from the reality of what's going on. show and tell. president trump says north korea did not roll out any nuclear missiles in a nuclear parade. but exclusive video shows that does not mean kim jong-un has stopped producing nukes. >> reports show that they are amassing more nuclear material

a to make more bombs. and center court, serena williams calls foul on an umpire for sexism at the u.s. open. >> i'm here fighting for women's rights and for women's equality and for all kinds of stuff. and for me to say, thief and for him to take a game, it made me feel like it was a sexist remark. >> and good day everyone, i'm andrea mitchell in washington where it is president trump against bob woodward. the president escalating his attacks on the veteran officer for his harrowing betrayal of the trump presidency after watching woodward's first live interview this morning on the "today" show. trump calling woodward a liar, saying his book is, quote, a joke, just another assault against me and a barrage of insults, just proving unnamed

and anonymous sources may have already come in regard. the quotes like the book are fiction. >> so you have john kelly, the white house chief of staff calling the president an idiot, saying we're in crazy town, that's a quote. >> yes. >> john kelly now says that never happened, i didn't say it. jim mattis, another person saying, the president's understanding is that of a fifth or sixth grader. he's saying he didn't say it. are they lying? >> they are not telling the truth. these are political statements to protect their jobs, totally understandable. but this is as carefully done as you can do an excavation of the reality of what goes on. >> joining me now is nbc's kristen welker at the white house. msnbc political analyst peter

baker, msnbc white house correspondent. welcome all. kristen, start us off here, the president for once clearly watching the "today" show instead of fox news and responding in real time. >> reporter: responding in real time, andrea, lashing out at bob woodward again and again on twitter this morning, and again trying to paint his book as being false. but woodward, not only stands by his reporting, but he talked about his methodology, the fact that he talked with hundreds of currenting and fo inand former . what is striking, what is notable, is that during the watergate era, the push back was very similar. the other piece to this is that what is in woodward's book, what is in that anonymous op-ed, echoes some of the reporting that we have been doing here at the white house. the fact that we have heard of

top officials who have disparaged and questioned the president at critical moments. the president has been advised by some of his top officials to move on, to not focus on the books, not focus on the op-ed, to focus on the midterms, his campaign messaging. he's trying to do that as well today to some extent. you notice some of his tweets are about the economy, he talks about the fact that he has a so-called magic wand on the economy. right now he has no public events on his schedule. we're hoping, andrea, that they add a press briefing, they haven't had one in about 19 days now. so we have a lot of questions for a arsarah. >> i bet you do. the president's saying that he doesn't use this language, these epithets and he does. >> you're right, and the problem

is that the president denies things categorically, i have never done this, i don't do this. someone will fight a tweet or a tape where he does exactly that. there eeg there's taped interviews of him using the word retarded. there's tapes from a journalist who used to work for the page 6 gossip column in new york, who remembers calling her and referring to his own in-laws when he was married to marla maples as dumb southerners. >> and bob woodward, defending his reporting, we know the particular way that he reports, but he does use sources without naming them, he's quoting them. this is how he tried today to emphasize what to him is important and should be important. >> here's the problem.

this is not been treated seriously enough, and the things, some of the things trump did and does jeopardized the real national security. this country duoes some things n the intelligence world which are so important to protect the country, they are astonishing. they are secret, they are called special access programs and he jeopardizes them. >> jeff mason, should we will focusing on the chapter and verse in woodward's book, what happened at mattis's meeting, what happened at the tank over at the pentagon. we reported first that rex tillerson called him a moron. but what bob does is go back and get into the details of what precipitated these outbursts from his national security cabinet. >> absolutely, i mean bob wood word is a terrific journalist

and he has a lot of credibility going back decades. so the president saying that, it's going to be a tough sell. bob woodward has said he has tapes of these interviews, but we know based on watergate and deep throat, that this is not a journalist who will throw his sources under the bus. so some of the sources he's quoted in the book, who are coming out and either denying what they said or trying to protect themselves with the president. bob woodward is not going to come out and say this person said this to me, this person said that to me. >> all of you, speaking of anonymous sources, there is the "new york times" column and the second guessing that goes on. bob woodwa . >> do you think you know who

anonymous is? >> i don't know. but i do know they should resign and leave this administration. >> should all top officials take a lie detector test and would you agree to take one? >> i would agree to take it in a heart beat and would submit to any review the administration would want to do. >> how disruptive has this been? >> reporter: it's been very disruptive because it's fueling some of his worst concerns because in fact there are people here who are working against him. we know that he has called for the attorney general jeff sessions to investigate when he was asked about that last week, should the attorney general investigate, and he said i think he should. that wasn't a directive, it was more the president was giving his opinion, but when you try to drill down with top officials on

what specific law this person who wrote that op-ed that may have broken, they can't name a single one, so that's the real challenge. you heard the vice president say hey, the person should come forward, this person should resign. no indication they're getting close to nailing down exactly who wrote that anonymous op-ed. i had an opportunity to ask kellyanne conway that question earlier today and she said they are no closer to pinning that down. so i think that's fueling the president's consternation at a critical time when he's dealing with all these controversies, including the russia probe. >> and chuck was also claiming it was a national security issue, yet nobody can site any classified information in that anonymous column, if anything it may have been too vague and not as specific as the cases in woodward's lengthy book. >> that's exactly right, the anonymous column was very general in terms.

this is the kind of thing we do, but it gave no specific examples, nothing to hang the op-ed on. on the other hand, you can certainly understand why any president would want a person like that to be out of his or her administration. no president, democrat or republican, would tolerate a person who was openly not only trying to thwart them, but overtly telling people at least through anonymous column that they're trying to thwart that. not that this white house isn't dysfunctional in other ways, but that is a big concern and would be for any other president. >> and you're seeing that as well? >> and the fact that there's a discussion at all about taking l lie detector tests and that even the vice president is coming out and saying this isn't me, just

shows how big of a deal it is for them. we have breaking news, speaking of storms, this is a real one, hurricane florence barreling through the southeast, is now strengthened to a category 4 storm, with maximum sustained winds near 140 miles an hour. we'll give the latest weather report coming up. hais not always easy. severe plaque psoriasis it's a long-distance run and you have the determination to keep going. humira has a proven track record of being prescribed for over ten years. it's the #1 prescribed biologic by dermatologists. more than 250,000 patients have chosen humira to fight their psoriasis. and they're not backing down. for most patients clearer skin is the proof. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma have happened, as have blood, liver and nervous system problems. serious allergic reactions and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where

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hurricane florence now a

category 4 storm within the last few minutes, barreling toward the east coast. officials have ordered mandatory evacuations for people in north carolina beginning this hour. these pictures posted by astronaut ricky arnold shows what florence looks like from the space station. joining us now is michelle grossman, those pictures from the space station shows you how extraordinary this storm is. >> it is a strong one as expected, it's going to continue to strengthen and at least keep it's strength as it goes throughout those warm waters. category 3, hurricane florence, that's the one we're talking about, if you have not made plans, make plans, you have three days to prepare yourself. the latest category 4 is 130 miles an hour and we expect them

to get higher as it approaches the coast line here. we have very warm waters, kind of fuels those storms and very low wind shear, and that's going to strengthen the storm. you want wind shear to pull apart those storms, that's not going to happen. so we expect a thursday-friday landfall on on the coast. we're going to see it moving very slowly as it makes landfall and we're going to see it sit and spin and drop a lot of rain. you want to focus on the cone, the landfall could be anywhere from cape hatteras down to charleston, and we are expecting high winds, high surf and rainfall up to 20 inches in some spots. >> thank you, michelle grossman, i know you'll keep us updated on the latest. why barack obama thought it was time to take on donald trump. we'll also have john kerry coming up in a live interview about all of the foreign policy

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more often it's manufactured by the power line and the privileged who want to keep us divided and keep us angry and keep us cynical because that helps them maintain the status quo. and you happen to be coming of age during one of those moments. it did not start with donald trump. he is a symptom, not the cause. >> president obama made a speech, now if that doesn't get you out to vote for the mitt te -- midterms, nothing will. but somebody asked me what did you think, i did watch it, but sadly, i famiell asleep. >> a major democratic counter attack all weekend against president trump. with obama issuing a rare and fiery message taking on his

successor in a campaign blitz trying to energize democrats and trying to get his party back in control of power. msnbc political analyst mike murphy, a former advisor to jeb bush, and mitt romney. so here we have got two thoughtful leaders from both sides of the aisle, welcome both. >> glad to be here. >> good to see you. >> you have both pulled back from your partisan roots, to the extent that, bob, first to you, you've been teaching, what message are you trying to send by hooking up with mike murphy, and you guys have gone up against each other in past campaigns? >> we have gone up against each other and have always remained friends. somehow that standard is being

lost in our politics. there's a hurricane moving through our politics. it's a hurricane of anger, division, personal attacks and disregard for the truth. what we're trying to do here is create a place where we model and hopefully advance the idea that you can respect each other and respect the truth. you're not always going to agree, in fact murphy and i are going to disagree on a whole lot of things, but you can do it in ways that make the democratic process work and restore people's faith that politics can actually make a difference. >> one of the issues that's been so nonpartisan in the past, is the president's club, so to speak is, which has been that outgoing presidents don't immediately contradict or criticize their predecessors, and this is what the vice president had to say on fox to chris wallace about the obama speech. >> i wt was very disappointing see president obama break with tradition of former presidents and become so political and roll

out the same tired argument that he and liberals have made over the last eight years. >> so mike murphy, why is the vice president wrong? >> well, it's an interesting situation because the vice president sort of has history on his side. i think both president bush and president obama have been kind of blowing dog whistles about president trump's behavior. but we're in a new era now, president trump is shattering the norms and is so unfit for office that i will just say in the interest of civility, a nonobama fan like me has to say that i think criticism during the campaign is warranted. obama has changed his tony, he did so in his speech. so i think this will pull people into the dialogue who have been

more reticent before because they see a threat to the office. >> being more partisan, to back up what trump said about a storm, a hurricane. look at what happened in florida, now we have ron desantis, besides the dog whistles, not even dog whistles a day after the election, the republican can dadidate speakin four times at conferences who said that african-americans owe their freedom to white people, that the country's only race war is against whites. with the first african-american nominee on the other site. >> my guess is he'll be on the apology trail very quickly. in some ways you have got the worst of both parties, you've got the almost looney left versus the crazy suck up to donald trump dog whistle right. it so i feel sorry for my friends in florida that had to

make a choice there. >> it and ron desantis has announced that he will resign immediately from congress to focus on this governor's race. >> florence, this is going to be ground zero for this midterm election, because you have this and you have the senate race. i actually don't think andrew gillam, the democratic nominee can be characterized as the alonely left. but i think what desantis did here is exactly the kind of thinga we're trying to push back against. so with conferences, with fellows that are brought here, with political conversations with people as diverse as anthony scaramuccscaramucci, si sanders, we're trying to make it so that people can talk and the personal attack and the fact-free argument should be put behind us. >> i want to know how are you

going to work together in this new initiative? >> part of what we're trying to do is fight the rage in american politics that i'm right and you're evil. and if i'm right, you need to go to jail and anything you say is a lie. we believe in our folks, but at the end of the it, we're not mortal enemies, we're opponents, and in a world where you don't burn down the courtroom after the trial, you accept the verdict. like what bob said, with conferences, bring in the skills with the political science academy, we're looking at the impact of the economy and how it's disrupting political communications for good and 3ba. and as we try to rebuild our politics after the trump hurricane, we're going to try to do that to enrich the lives of young students at usc will consider going into public service as a lot of them do. >> mike murphy and bob shr urum

you're talking like poll tigiti used to talk. it's great to see you both. thanks for being here. and coming up, cruz control. what a top republican official is saying that a republican is in real trouble in his senate race. stay right here, we'll be right back. carla is living with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of her body. she's also taking prescription ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor, which is for postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive her2- metastatic breast cancer as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole was significantly more effective at delaying disease progression versus letrozole.

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and now to the inside scoop, the midterms is a little more than eight weeks until the elections. one of the president's closest cabinet members privately acknowledging the donors that they could lose the house because some voters hate, in his words hate the president. mick mulvaney heard on a pirated tape, saying you may hate the president, and there's a lot of people who do, but they certainly like the way the country is doing. if you figure out a way to subtract from that equation, how they feel about the president, the numbers go up dramatically. the republicdemocrats have to s seats, where republicans only have to save nine. ted cruz is in a margin of error

whe in a state where the president won more than the margin of error. talk about the senate, because we have been overlooking the senate with all the attention on the house and because the democrats are clearly playing defense, but they have got some shots, if you look at missouri, if you look at tennessee where they're dead even polls right now, so they're in play, florida is also very, very tight, so that's a problem for bill nelson. but now look at texas, do you think it's even possible that texas is in play or is this just trying to rally the base on mick mulvaney's part. >> there's no question about it, the question is that betta win. >> he's running the hottest campaign yet. all of this hype that a democratic is going to win in texas it just hasn't happened. >> a democrat hasn't won in texas for over 20 years. let's take what's happening in

the state. for the last couple of decades, you've had these offsetting trends of yes, the nonwhite population, african-americans, latinos, asians have increased. but there's been a migration of whites, rural whites to the republican party. what's happened today is the republicans are maxed out on rural whites. donald trump maxed out on 90% of them in 2016, but that nonwhite population is -- corporate location to low tax texas from blue coastal states. and those voters brought their values with them. so you have suburbs of san antonio and dallas/ft. worth and houston and austin, where suddenly all these professional whites are beginning to migrate to the democrats. >> and that could be the big disturbance there. just quickly on florida. how how far a race isnelson? >> it's a really tough race. we're seeing polls from

congressional districts that suggest that vetto could sweep in a few democrats from the house. and i'm hearing that bill nelson is actually a drag on their protects in districts where democrats should have some chances. >> the electorate in the house, on the senate side but especially on the house side as winning 80/20. >> i don't know that democrats are doing so well this year if it weren't truly historic. 2016 was the year of the angry white male. i think 2018 is going to be the year of the fired up woman graduate. democrats have candidates ranging from a former navy helicopter pilot to a former undercover cia officer to a former national teacher of the year and the democrats runs largely fall into, i would say three buckets.

women, military veterans, many of whom are women, and many out of work obama people who have turned this into that massive job fair. >> their bases are fired up by a lot of what we have seen in national security. thank you so much. nice to have you here. and speaking of the battle of the sexes, the battle of the sexes, serena williams versus the umpire. they have very different grand slam finishes. (burke) that's what we call a huge drag.

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the fact that i have to go through this is just an example for the next personegtions and express themselves and they want to be a strong women. and that's what i tried to do today. maybe it didn't work out for me, but maybe it will work out for the next person. >> serena williams calling out a male umpire for sexism after a trio of calls against her, including a rare full game penalty for, quote, verbal abuse. tennis icon billie jean king writing, ultimately a woman was

penalized for standing up for herself. a woman faced down sexism and the match went on. women have a right to speak out against sexism. and an ddy roddick said i have said worse and i have never gotten a game penalty. it affected both the winner and the loser. sally, first of all, that was page one and your article was so compelling. tell me why you wrote it the way you did and the placement which was so unusual? >> well, i can't claim to be responsible for the placement, that's above my pay grade, but i wrote it because i have never covered a match in which i saw anybody receive a one game penalty much less for something that appeared to me to be fairly minor. what she said to the chair umpire, carlos ramos, there was no profanity, it wasn't threatening or menacing in any

way, it was a player whose engine was running very hot. it's the most common thing in the world in competition. and really it -- the penalty broke every norm that i have ever seen in tennis. >> and the fact is that she was down a set, she was down a break. the bottom line, she was gearing up again when all this happened and we all know that serena williams goes into gear when she's down, she is the come back queen. so it's not that she was necessarily going to lose, but she may have lost because osaka was playing an ordinary match. >> osaka was clearly the superior player for a set and a couple of games in fact. but serena williams has countless number of times come back in grand slam titles from a set down. i think everybody in the stadium was wondering if this was going to go to the second set. and then the umpire injected himself into the situation, and

imposed a pech ed d a penalty t used in egregious situations and it put serena in a situation that she couldn't come back from. and i think the chair umpire was well aware of the consequence of applying that penalty. he had a lot of latitude and a lot of discretion, he could have issued any number of options that he had, short of interfering in the match to that extent and applying a penalty that really was unprecedented. >> let's clarify, coaching is regularly done from the box, it's been acknowledged that it's against the rules, it's permitted in some contexts, even at the u.s. open. but if you looked at the video, it's not at all clear that serena was even aware of what her coach was alluding to. she wasn't looking at the box in real time. she really was in the zone and

looking at her opponent. that's the first issue, the second issue is that the threatening language was to call him a thief, rather than the kind of profanity we have all heard from everyone from andy roddick to back in mcenroe days. >> you're talking to somebody who once covered andre agassi, who called the referee an s.o.b. and then spit on him. and he went on to win the open. the umpire was within his rights to do so. breaking a racquet, certainly you have to penalize a player for that. the conduct arises when you get that, quote, third violation. he had put her on the precipice, and he knew it, where those first two violations. and he applied it anyway. what he did was essentially push

her off the cliff. i don't believe anything she said merited that severe of a penalty. and just by way of comparison, a very good tennis blog called "heavy topspin" gave a very good statistical analysis in tennis, and they found 35 instances that received a whole match violation. so that's how rarely chair umpires punish players to this extent. >> as you made a point in your lead yesterday, yeah, it was yesterday, not saturday. this also, his use of discretion, the umpire, also robbed naomi osaka of her grand stage with such a big win. i wanted to play a little bit of osaka today on the "today" show. >> i just felt like everyone was

sort of unhappy up there. and i know that it wasn't really, like, the ending wasn't how people wanted it to be. i know that in my dreams, i won in a very tough, competitive match. so, i don't know, i just felt very emotional and i felt like i had to apologize. >> she was teary eyed and at several points serena hugged her. i mean there was a lot going on there during the trophy ceremony. >> yes, it was a very complicated moment. you know, osaka didn't want anything given to her. obviously the intensity of the boos raining down, serena felt culpable as well for what had happened and the fact that this great young player wasn't getting the moment that she deserved. and i think it was a very, very loaded moment. there was only one person in the stadium who could have stopped

those boos and it was serena williams who did get a hold of her temper and a hold of her emotions just in the nick of time and made a very gracious gesture at the end of the match and during the trophy ceremony. s of sa-- osaka is a great youn player. it really robbed two players and not just one, these are very ephemeral creatures, they don't have many chances at a grand slam final, and for an umpire to insert himself to that degrees was very disconcerting to just about everybody in that stadium. >> thanks for your wonderful writing, and coming on today, we really appreciate it. and coming up, nuclear threat, kim jong-un is building more nuclear weapons since the singapore summit.

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and despite the president's continued claims of success since his summit with kim jong-un, nbc news reporting exclusively today instead of denuclearizing, kim is making more weapons since that summit at the same rate as in the past and north korea celebrated the 70th anniversary this weekend parading the weapons but not the long-range missiles. was that a sign to the u.s. or rather to china? north korea is only one of the

hot spots on which the trump policy departs radically from president obama's. joining me is dan delus. let's talk about north korea, dan. this is the exclusive reporting that they are building five to eight new weapons, the same pace they have had for years. there's no sign they're slowing down. >> that's right. so, not only has the regime not even declared what the the scale and size of its arsenal, they're not even -- not only that, they're actually continuing to build and pursue this nuclear and missile arsenal and, also, wi what this reporting shows is they're trying to conceal some of their warhead facilities. so it's not just a status quo. it's maybe getting worse in terms of what their nuclear weapon and missile capability is. >> a lot of people including at

the white house are putting attention on the fact that at the parade this weekend there were no long-range missiles but there was a top level chinese official there and north korea is trying desperately to rebuild its economy and get china back in the fold and china is part of our reporting is also cheating on sanctions and so-called maximum pressure no longer exists after that singapore summit. >> that's right. that's the biggest problem now facing the trump administration because the whole idea was they were going to put all this pressure on north korea and they were able to persuade china and other countries to get on board with this and, of course, north korea completely depends on china for its economic lifeline. doesn't really trade with other countries. and for a while, there was pressure building and you saw gasoline prices rising inside north korea. you saw some black market rates for the euro going up so the

pressure was beginning to bite and then the white house announced plans for trump to meet with kim. and once you had that olive branch china became concerned it was going to be somehow, you know, outmaneuvered by the u.s. and then you saw the trade beginning to open up again, the door opening up to both legal and illegal trade. gasoline prices have been going down since. and, yes, there was a chinese official at the parade. chinese tourists flying back to north korea or taking trains to north korea so the pressure has lessened and this has got the white house concerned. >> now, at the same time the president keeps praising north korea, praising the leader there. how do we explain the disconnect between what's happening according to all u.s. intelligence and our exclusive reporting in terms of the nuclear weapons being built and the president praising him? >> i think it's left a lot of u.s. allies confused, frankly.

it is a disconnect. but you've seen this in other areas of policy where the president has kind of one line and one tone. and then the rest of the administration and the bureaucracy moves along a more coherent way and maybe a more aggressive way with russia, with north korea. but i think you have heard some administration officials try to explain this by saying, well, the president see himself as a deal maker. and so, when he sends these sort of friendly messages out there to kim, it's his way of keeping the negotiation going give him leverage when he sits down with the north korean dictator perhaps again. but on the other hand, there are critics saying this is confused, incoherent. you are sending this regime, different kinds of messages and, of course, you don't have unity now. you don't have a clear message. south korea's talking about economic engagement. of maybe trying to build up some kind of economic contacts with

north korea. you have china saying, no, let's loosen the sanctions a bit. let's not be so tough and then you have the white house saying, we're going to, you know, pursue this maximum economic pressure and then you have the president tweeting these friendly things. so it's a very confused message. >> well, and as part of that confused message, of course, the signals around the world. thanks, dan, on that exclusive reporting of nbc today. now john kerry, former secretary of state and author of "every day is extra" joining us to talk about this and other issues. this is part one of a two-part interview we will be con cluzing tomorrow. let's talk about north korea first. the president praising kim jong-un. we are reporting today they're building more weapons. they're increasing the pace of their nuclear construction. just as the president is saying we have denuclearized. where's the impact of that? >> well, i mean, obviously, there's a huge confusion in what

was or wasn't agreed to. i understand people in the administration don't even know what was agreed to specifically. specifically. in general terms, perhaps, yes. in singapore. but to announce denuclearization and say it's not a problem anymore which is what they have done when the intelligence community is saying they're building more, we don't know where they are, we don't know how many there are, there's no specific agreement as to how that's going to be defined. it's just living in more of this completely unrealistic and frankly fake news atmosphere. >> now, you've mentioned that we don't know even people in the administration do not know what happened in singapore. we certainly don't know what happened -- >> and helsinki. >> during a meeting in helsinki. it is not clear that the president's intelligence advisers know what happened in helsinki. >> we know one thing is the president of the united states

didn't defend the united states. he actually defended president putin's denial which everybody in our intelligence community disagrees with. so, we're living in a very difficult and complicated moment, andrea, obviously. and it's dangerous. in many ways. >> now, every day is extra, a career of yours, secretary of state, foreign relations committee. what have we lost do you think because of the way that president trump is conducting foreign policy? nato, today closing the palestinian office here. cutting off refugee aid to palestinians. cutting off aid to a hospital in east jerusalem. >> the president has hugely damaged american credibility on a global basis. he has upset alliances which are critical to america's long-term security. he's left leaders around the

world worried and wondering what the next shoe to fall may be. it is no way to conduct the critical affairs of our nation. and i think it puts our interests at risk. it will cost us both money and, frankly, some of the decisions he's made will cost us lives. >> when we look at the way others, other leaders are looking at us, what's the message to vladimir putin and our adversaries? >> well, the message, obviously, to president putin is do what you're doing because i don't agree with my intelligence community and i'm the president. therefore, listen to me. and i think president putin is continuing to do what he is because the intelligence community tells us they're continuing to try to interfere with our election even this year. >> well, we will have much more with john kerry coming up on our interview online and tomorrow. craig melvin is up next here on

msnbc. craig? >> good to see you. good afternoon to you. craig mel sin here at msnbc in new york city. fear in the white house. president trump in charge of the country and big plans for the midterms and top of the long to-do list seems to be figuring out who's leaking. former white house aide omarosa newman is standing by to talk about the chaos in the white house and how the president's team tried to cover it up in the past. also, hail to the chiefs. two former chiefs of staff on president trump and former president obama on the campaign trail. it's hope versus make america great again. also, some breaking news at this hour. a major hurricane, hurricane florence, now a category 4 storm as it barrels toward the east coast. al roker is standing by to track where that hurricane is headed. and we start there with that breaking news. hurricane florence now upgraded to a category 4 storm. the national hurricane center