can kill. please hear my message. we can not underestimate this storm. >> challenging the facts. the president says that the official death toll from hurricane maria in puerto rico is gone, and blaming the democrats for manipulating the numbers. the former general who ran the hurricane after the response had this to the say. >> fi were the boss or the chief of staff i would kick him on the ankle and say, focus on the future storm and stop looking in the rear-view mirror. >> and chef andres who served more than 3 million meals in that crisis sharing us about the thoughts of the president's denials. and under the cloud of the new crisis, the report that fema director brock long misused government resources. >> doing something unethical is

not part of my dna or my track record for my whole entire career. good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell and of course we have breaking news on hurricane florence. there are urgent warnings for residents of coastal residents who are resisting the calls to evacuate as the 100-mile-an-hour winds are pushing closer to the shore. >> get yourself to a safe place and stay there, if you not already. over the next few hours, many roads will become unsafe and impassable from debris and flood waters. >> we are asking the citizens to please heed a warning. your time is running out. the ocean is going to start rising along the coast and in the back bay and inland areas and the sound areas within a matter of hour, and the time to get out of the storm areas is getting close and i cannot emphasize it enough. >> and our team is assemble and

joining me is al roker from "today show" is joining us about the path, and gabe gutierrez, and marianna atencio in oak island, and also, gadi schwartz in morehead, north carolina, and first to you, g a, di. >> yes, good afternoon, andrea. i don't know if you can see me, but this is behind me, the outer bands and this is not the worst of the hurricane, and you see that the dock is starting to take the brunt of the water levels rising, and with are seeing part s of ts of the dock starting to break off. and again, this is just the beginning of what could be 24 to 48 hours. the wind gusts right now, they are not catastrophic, but they are g are going to be increasing throughout the day and the night, and right now, we are in an island called radio eisland , and that is beaufort, north carolina, and up the way from morehead, city, and this is an

area that has seen some catastrophic hurricanes in the past. in the 1950s they saw one called hurricane hazel with a storm surge that took out many houses in the area. that storm surge was about six feet and almost seven feet. the storm surge from this hurricane is expected to be about 7 1/2 feet, and one thing that everybody is watching right now is the tides. we have high tide going on right now, and you can see that the a water has crested above, above some of the docks. you can see the bands, and sometimes they come and sometimes they go, and this is high tide right now. right now, you will see another high tide at about 11:00 tonight, and midnight tonight, it is going to be very, very dark, and that is when the water is expected to come up with a lot more of the storm surge from the hurricane. it is not a question of the some of the areas are going to flood, but it is a question of how bad they will be and this storm is expected to bring an unprecedented storm surge to this area.

andrea? >> and gadi, stay safe and hang on to the pillar s s or get out there. and al roker, you can set the stage, because you are warning for the storm surge on top of the high tide and take us through it. >> all right. an gree ya, thank you very much. the visible satellite picture sgog the give you the scope, and beaufort where gadi is, the 60-mile-an-hour winds, and 64-mile-an-hour wind gusts, and you can see the gusts on the north earn quadrant are strong. hatteras with 51 and beaufort is 47, and as you get close nor the storm, and you can see it spinning around and the bands are going to be making the way on shore, and the category 2 storm. we are warning you, don't pay attention to the fact that it is category 2 or maybe that the winds have dropped down 105 miles per hour, because that is -- the good news is that hopefully not as much structural

damage, however, with the slowing speed, forward speed at 10 miles per hour moving to the northwest, that is going to be a problem. so we look for the landfall sometime tomorrow morning, and again as a category 2 storm at about 8:00 a.m. then it is going to make its way inland upward north of myrtle beach, and on into columbia and then continues on sunday into monday and tuesday it is going to be make its way into pennsylvania as a low pressure system. i wanted to show you this, because the european model is outlier and making its way to wilmington and then down the coast so that the storm surge can follow it along to the north and the east of the storm. so that is going to be the most devastating situation. we are hoping that is not the case. here is what we are looking for, and for the extreme wind gusts of up to 100 miles per hour, making their way on shore as the system develops. with the strong winds,

structural damage, and looking for the power lines down, and near 100% power losses in and around wilmington, and heading toward myrtle beach, and up to 3 million folks without power possible before this is over, and the folks without power, it could last at least a couple of weeks. so we are going to be watching that closely. as gadi mentioned, high tide, and this is for thursday tonight, and the temperatures, and the high tides are around 11 or 12:00 at night, and then tomorrow morning, and again, around noon to 11:30 looking at the high tides. the biggest area that we are worried about is between cape fear and cape lookout, a and this is the wedge that could see a 9 to 13 storm surge washing everything out. and then, of course, the rain with the system. we are talking about the isolated amounts of up to 40 inches, but as you can see from the south of cape hatteras and to myrtle beach, 10 to 15 to 20

inches of rain, and of course, the ground is saturated here already. another thing to mention as we are looking at the time line for wilmington, wind gusts of 100, and the storm surge of 4 to 7 feet. all along the carolina coast, the continental shelf which follows along the eastern seaboard, you have the continental shelf, but it is a very shallow area here just offshore. so there is nothing really to impede that storm surge coming in. of course, on the land, it is very, very shallow, and look all of the way down to the coast charleston and you can expect the rainfall of 4 to 8 feet, and the storm surge of 2 to 4 feet, and andrea, this is an inland position, and fayetteville will be seeing the tropical storm conditions, and moving further to the west, and charlotte with 15 to 20-mile-an-hour wind gusts, and flooding rain threat as well. and then as we head to the south

to columbia, south carolina, and flooding possible. so again, even if it does not take the worst case scenario, it is a devastating system. when the storm surges come in, the water just does not rush back out, but it sits and then the next storm surge comes in with the next high tide, and so again, that can go in two the three or four miles inland, and it is going to travel, the storm surge traveling as fast as the forward speed of the hurricane, so if it is 10 to 15 miles per hour, that water going to be coming in at that same speed. and if you think that you can get out of the way, you can't. >> wow, al. the barrier islands and you are talking about the continental shelf, the barrier islands all down that coast from the north to south carolina right in the way. >> absolutely. >> thank you, al roker, so great to have you there and your expertise, and our marianna atencio is there in oak city,

north carolina, with some people who are staying. >> andrea, in fact, this is a barrier island. it is the biggest and the longest beach here in north carolina. you can see those waves have started to pick up behind me as al and g a adi were saying it is high tide, and i want you to to see the scene no the left, because the water a has start ted to creep up near these homes in front of the beach. i has not even started raining, and so this is a glimpse of what we are going to be seeing in a couple of hours, and as you were mentioning, there is an urgency for the people to get out as quick as they k. i was talking to the mayor of oak island, and she says at least 100 people have decided to stay. and people like jena. you are standing in front of your beach front property, and what are your plans here? >> at this point i am going to stay as long as i can, and there is a chance that they will close

the bridge of sustained gusts of 40 miles per hour, and so until they close the bridge, i am going to be here. >> what is keeping you here, because these are the critical couple of hours. >> it is an adrenaline rush, and you can't control mother a nature, and as surfer, you would never see these waves this big except for a hurricane and it is surreal to see them here at the home break. >> reporter: you have the property there, and when you are talking about the sustain ed winds of 110 miles per hour, and what are you expecting for home? >> well, you know, in is actually, this house is set back farther than most, and 110 miles per hour, you don't know what going to happen, and someone else's roof could blow off and smash into your, and yours could blow off, so you have to know where the most sacred belongings are, and here, you know that, and you are putting them in air tooigt containers and you always know where they are, and you have a big car to haul them away and don't get at a tached to the actual house.

>> thank you so much and take care, jena. the mayor is urging people like her on the fence, andrea, about leaving or staying to heed the evacuation warnings and leave and don't take the storm lightly. andrea. >> well, exactly right, and don't wait for the bridge to be out before you make a decision, and don't call 911 if you need help. gabe guterres is in south carolina with the mayor of georgetown with preparations. and gabe, the message from down there is don't hang back and see how high the winds are going to get, and get out when to getting is good. >> yeah, that is right, andrea. here in georgetown, south carolina, here in myrtle beach what they expect is a lot of rain. this is an area that typically floods and we are here at the national guard armory where they are staging all of the high water vehicles that they expect to the use shortly after the storm. this is an area hit hard by the 100-year flood back in 2015 and again, they expect a lot of damage from the heavy rains, and

the flooding. i am joined by the mayor of georgetown and what are you most worried about as hurricane florence makes the way here? >> well, gabe, we are worried abo about the positioning when it is getting to our area, the 24-hour period wheret it is go ing the sit with wind and rain. of course, with rein the low country, and in georgetown historically, we flood. >> right. and so the intensity of the winds in this latest forecast seems to have had dissipated a little bit, but you are no less concerned? >> we are concerned. this is a serious storm. we don't want our residents in the city or the county to take this lightly, because it is a dangerous storm. >> and so the first responders here, and the national guard is here, and fema is staging in columbia, south carolina, and the vol unteers from the cajun nay, i have and hundreds of them coming toward south carolina, and when do you expect that the fir first responders will be able to go out to make the water rescues can or up in the air at this

point? >> well, it is not up in the air, because it is part of the emergency operation plans, and we have one of the top emergency centers here in our country, and we have to thank all of the local leaders, particularly at the local government level, and our sam hodge who is our director within the emergency operation center. >> and how much rain and storm surge are you expecting at this point? >> well, based on the information that we have gotten so far, we are looking at maybe about 20 to 22 inches of rain. >> that is a lot of rain. >> and the surge could be particularly, since we are a port city that could be from 6 to 9 feet. so we have to be careful, because we just don't know. >> extremely dangerous conditions, mayor. thank you for joining us. >> yes. >> and so, andrea, back to you and the national guard is getting ready here to preparing for what they hope won't be as dangerous of a storm as predicted, but they will be ready, anandrea. >> thank you, gabe and gadi and

al ro al roker and marianna atencio, thank you, all. and president trump disputing the death toll in puerto rico. chef andre served more than 3 1/2 million meals in the wake of ohurricane maria. he is going to respond next. stay with us. he is going to respond next.ts. fuels that go further so drivers pump less. improving efficiency is what we do best. energy lives here.

residents along the coasts of north and south carolina are bracing for the hurricane

florence to hit land. today, president trump is can disputing the number of people who died in puerto rico when mile an hour maria tore through the island. he tweet ed this morning that 3,000 people did not die. after i left, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. as the time went by, it did not go up by much, and then a long time later they started to report large numbers like 3,000. and this is done by the democrats he writes in order to make me look as bad as possible when i was successfully raising billions of dollars to help rebuild puerto rico, and if any person died for any reason, like old age, just add them to the list. bad politics. i love puerto rico. and joining me is the chef of world think group, and his book is "we fed an island, rebuilding

puerto rico one meal at a time." thank you, chef. thank you for being with us. and i know that you are not a political person, but it is a growing dispute which the president has added to today certa certainly with this denial of not a democratic claim, but a claim by academics, and scientifically validated report that came out of the university just within the last month. >> this is one of the reports. also harvard university had the report, and they fut number almost up to 5,000. and that is another, because we need to be talking that one death is one too many. and president trump is the leader of the free world, and he is. and he represents all americans. that actually, he is telling us that the people die after the hurricane like almost he is saying, don't blame it on me, and actually, offshore, we are blaming it on president trump and on the response of the federal government. we had the hospital ship, and everybody knows that hospital

ship was empty when people were suffering in hospitals with no electricity, and we know that people didn't have clean water to drink, and they were drinking from the dirty streams, and other people got infections because of it. and people who had no food. obvious ly, we failed the american people of puerto rican and many of those the deaths were never to a happen if we put the full weight of the federal government behind. >> i was interviewing brock long yesterday, and he was also disputing my point of more than 2900 people died according to the latest report. he was arguing that you, it is not fair to blame people who died later on whether it is for lack of electricity that doesn't make where they can't get the proper treatment that they need or the kidney dialysis, and i mean, all kinds of reason s ts the lack of infrastructure wiped

out by the storm, and not prepared in good time leads to illness and death. this is what brock long the fema administrator had to say. >> there's a big discrepancy between the direct of how the people died of the building collapse or the long-term, the secondary or the indirect deaths that occurred over six-month period, aunld of it can be tied to a very weak infrastructure. >> and your response to that? >> they keep talking about the weak infrastructure and he just said that probably north carolina, americans are going to be for many days if not weeks without electricity. of course sh, if a hurricane co, there is going to be that, but what we need to be doing is not to give excuses of why federal le response was not there, but what actions are we going to be taking to make sure that what happened in puerto rico will never happen again. people talk about how many resources they sent to puerto

rico, but nobody talks about what they did with the resources, because we found out that more than 1 million boxes of water were sitting at the airport. you know that i was having a hard time getting water, because we were trying to deliver to every part of the island, and somehow, sometimes they were not letting us use water that was just sitting somewhere? that is the lack of the leadership that sometimes we have. resources, maybe, yes, they were there, but if all of the sudden, we are not using the resources, i am sorry, mr. brock, we fail. as fema, we fail. and also, somehow the problem in puerto rico was so big that many of them decided to look to the other side, and that is the real the ti. we need to vin vestigations and learn. if we don't -- we need to have investigations, and if not, something like hurricane maria with 3,000 deaths will happen again. >> and manual miranda and others from puerto rico and rita moreno

and celebrities and musicians and others came in to join you. you led the group of people who were feeding and basically replacing what the american government was not doing for the american citizens. >> so this is the story of the "we fed an island." everybody was saying how difficult everything was in puerto rico, and let me tell you that puerto rico, and the private sector, plen the ti of food, and we found kitchens, and we began to transforming the problems into solutions. we went from one kitchen to 26 and 20 volunteers to 25,000, and from 100 meals a day to 25,000 meal, and i said, please, let us help you federal government, because we could feed the entire island and then you put the private sector ngos into what they do best and we waited too long to waitt for the electrical

system, and waited too long to the wait for all of the water plants for the island and they wait waited too long to fix many of the things that were fixable. sometimes everybody stays at the headquarters and everybody is talking about what are we going to do, and sometimes we need to talk less, and plan less, and start doing. what we did is to start cooking, and that way, we fed a few people. and this was 3.7 million meals that we served in a few short weeks. >> and chef andres, the book is "we fed an island," and i will guarantee you that it is about more than needing paper towels. thank you for joining us today >> and now, course correction, and the fema director denies that he was under investigation. he said if mistakes were made, they will be directed. stay with us. it's the details that make the difference. only botox® cosmetic is fda approved

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just as fema is preparing to tack al potentially devastating hurricane, the head of the agency, brock long, he is under scrutiny for his use of the government vehicles with commutes to his home in north

carolina. and politico saying that his actions would have been called into question from the inspector general if taxpayers have inappropriately paid for his travel travel. a short time ago, he answered question questions. >> i would never intentionally run a program, and if we made mistakes with the way that the program is run, then we will get those corrected. doing something unethical is not part of my dna nor part of my track record. >> and joining me is pulitzer prize winning author "the soul of america" and today, there is a question of the presidential empathy, and the president's tweets on puerto rico and why today and why now to denying the scientific studies that have been accepted by a all of the professionals, and he is tweeting today that half of the

number numbers are incorrect. and half of the 3,000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit puerto rico and he said that they had 6 to 18 deaths, and as time went by it did not go up by much and then a long time later they started to report large numbers like 3,000 and this done by the democrats to make me look as bad as possible when i was successfully raising billions of dollars to help to rebuild puerto rico, and if a person died for any reason like old age, just add them on to the list. bad politics. i love puerto rico. kristen? >> andrea -- >> we have the republican governor of florida running for senate in one of the closest races in the country that could

decide the senate against bill nelson tweeting, i disagree with potus, and independent study said that thousands were loss, and the governor said that i have been there in seven times and i saw the devastation firsthand, and any loss of life is tragic, and it is heart wrenching -- i interrupted you, kristen, and i wanted to the rush that in so you could respond to both. >> absolutely, andrea. the broader context is that president trump at the beginning of the week came under scrutiny for defending the administration's response to hurricane maria for unsung success, and that caused a lot of the fact checkers and independent analysts who pointed to the and is sis that found that nearly 3,000 people died in the aftermath of hurricane maria, and what the president is referring to is that no, 3,000 people did not die in the beginning days. however, that independent study

determined that due to a lack of access their best estimate for how many lives were lost over the five-month period which is a fairly long period was nearly 3,000. again, stressing the fact that a lot of the people did not have access to things like potable water, health care and electricity, andrea, and so president trump on the defense today, and a i think that the important fact-check is going to the statement that this is democrats and effectively making up that number, falsely claiming that, and there is no indication that this is in fact the case. and andrea, those tweets have prompted a backlash from the republicans like rick scott who by the way is usually aligned with the president, and also from house speaker paul ryan who says that he has no reason to question that figure of 3,000, andrea, and the bottom line is a lot of people asking why isn't the president focused on what is happening on the hurricane today solely and not this past hurricane. >> and kristen, and john, tom

bos sert who is in charge of the preparedness who is the top official in the white house told the new york times today that the missing part was em pathy. this gets to a big question, john. >> and so i think that the reason this morning to answer that question is in that weird open synapse google algorithm in his head that the hurricane is coming, and i have done a great job with the hurricane, and so predictably plays the hyperbolic card.

and so, i must say, if you are donald trump, and you are this close to the midterm and you are losing rick scott, that is, you know, that is a hell of a thing. historically, presidents are jud judged in these moments of crisis. in these moments of natural disasters, because the people turn to the government, and even the most virulent conservative will turn to the government in the moments of chaos and disorder, and presidents have gotten in trouble. both bushes got in trouble, and both bushes are incredibly empathetic men, and the father is the most empathetic man that i have ever encountered but yet when hurricane andrew struck, if you will remember, he did not appear to be on top of it as he should have, and we all know the story, but this is of a

different magnitude, because as your question suggests, it is a hymn of a long traverse of his self-absorption. >> thank you, chrkristen and jo i can't it is a better than you, too. and animal house, and one pet store going to great lengths to keep the animals safe from the storm. their story is next. safe frome storm. their story is next. only half the story?

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kinds of people, and animals. >> yes, that is right, andrea. robert wanted to evacuate his f family, but he couldn't, because he owns a pet store, and he says that he needs to save the pets. we are here in his house, and where he has moved all of the pets. robert, why did you move the pets here to your house? >> well, we love all of the pets, and we have to take care of them and keep them safe, and that is the main priority. >> and this is taking you how many days to -- >> we have been working on the hou house, and getting the generators and the extra ac units and boarding up the house about four days. >> okay. we will take a walk and i want to show you the the pets that have been moved here. it is 200 pets and taken about four days to do this and in the course of the move, one of the pets the hedgehog actually gave birth in this room. it is a climate-controlled room, and robert -- if you will pull out one of the pets. and this is some unusual pets in

here. and what are we looking at here? >> well, these guys are sugar gliders and marsupials from tasmania and australia and they are hyperallergenic, and we are one tof the only licensed breeders in south carolina as far as pets go. >> and this hurricane has not hit, and you have incurred a big debt already. >> yeah, we hit probably $3,000 between everything of getting the house prepare and the extra food and the water and the boarding of the house again and the extra generator, and i have one for the house and one just for this room. >> and now, in addition to the 200 animals here, you have three k kids, and your wife and your brother and your mother and you are all going to hunker down and ride out the storm? >> yes, and the four dogs and anybody else who needs help, we are here. >> and andrea, the family has enough supplies to last them for a week. they have boarded up their home, and they are prepared to the ride out the storm. >> oh, tammy, it is just

fascinating. all creatures large and small, and we wish them and you well down there. as you are riding out the storm the. and the retired coast guard admiral who led the recovery operations after hurricanes katrina and rita is the national commander for the deep horizon ill spill in 2010 and living part time in the beach there, and so talk to us about the preparations for the storm? >> well, it is a well practiced process for the coast guard. make sure that the independents are okay. and the people out there trying to save lives do not worry about their families, and so we have to do that >> for the coast guard families? >> yes, and the predeploy the assets. we have hel kopt neicopters in station of elizabeth city moved to savannah, and you place them in shallow waters so that they can operate in the storm, and then as soon as operations are required, we can move in.

>> and the coast guard is unique in the way they rescue, and we saw them in texas and every storm. they operate under a military command, but you also are of course working in the civilian function in a lot of cases. >> the coast guard is a unique service. we are a military multi mission and maritime as we like to say. we are able to talk to the d.o.d. counterparts and work effectively with fema and the other agencies. i like to say that we are bureaucratically multi lingual, because we have to coordinate the day-to-day operations op on the coast to make us more effective in the response. >> in looking at this response, what are you thinking in this region, and the critical areas may be as it hits the north and south carolina? >> well, they have outlined it from the lower banks to possibly charleston which is going to split two coast guard districts, the mid-atlantic, and the southern, and so georgetown would be in the southern

command, but it is seamless integration, and they are doing a great job. >> we were chatting that you grew up and your dad was a chief pett ti officer in the coast guard and you are a coast guard family through and through. >> yes, that is true, and lot of addresses. >> and the fact is that you don't know the current budget situation, but from what we lea learned last night from jeff merkley on rachel maddow is that there was money transferred out of fema into i.c.e. to house detainees on the border, and $20 million taken out of the coast guard, and it seems a bad time to take money away from the coast guard to i.c.e. >> well, reprogramming is not an uncommon tool in government, and i defer to dhs on that. >> thank you, admiral. >> and cuban officials in washington briefing washington

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official delegation of top

cuban doctors are in washington to try to find what was behind that mysterious illness of intelligence officials in havana over the last year and a half. one of the cubans visiting spoke to us about the reporting that russia was the most likely suspect. >> i think it is something very likely, and too farfetched, because i have seen so much speculation and the ideas constructed on a flimsy basis. so first if we don't know, if everybody has the same symptoms, and in other words if we are seeing something that is affecting everybody in the same way. if we don't know if it is really damage to the brain or damage to the ears, then why do we have to start searching for mysterious weapons, and so that -- i'm not a politician, but from the political standpoint, it does

not make any sense. i think that it is a big construction of the speculation that has been growing over the last few months, and i am sure that if we sit down, and the scientist s scientists and the doctors from both sides ark and we try to collaborate, and share data more openly, we could get to down for what has really been happening, because as for the rest, it is speculation. >> joining me is the global affairs contributor wendy sherman who helped to re-establish diplomatic relations in cuba and the author of this book "not for the faint of heart, a lesson of life and persistence." i learned a lot. i thought that i knew you over the years covering you in various diplomatic posts, but so much of what women experience. and first, talk about cuba. >> sure. >> this is a mystery, and one of the complaints for the cuban doctors and scientists have is

that they could not get information from the americans ash thapd were expelled by the trump administration, and fought back for their own health and as some would say a convenient excuse scientists are here today. though i must say watching dr. valdez, he couldn't look you in the eye, as he was saying the things he did, because i think they know a little bit more than they're willing to put on the table. it is gravely concerning what has happened to these 26. some more damaged than others. there's lots going on. you broke the story about this and the possibility that this is microwave technology. and if it is, that is very concerns. not only in cuba, but for all embassies. >> and, as well, in talking to him about this, they're frustrated because he says that the scientists, the doctors, the medical community, don't want to break relations. they want to share a lot of their discoveries. there was recently an fda trial

on an important immunization, you know, vaccine and this is part of that conversation. >> indeed, cuba has -- >> and i'm probably -- a lot of people have tried to use this politically. in cuba, everybody was happy with the closer relationships, the re-establishment of diplomatic relationships. our scientific community was very, very excited because there are many things we can do together. we started reefing out to people, to study alzheimer's disea disease. this is a big problem for the u.s. and for cuba. to study cancer. to see how we can contain cuba. we have all these problems. and then all this situation created where the emphasis has been -- the personnel's been reduced where it's very difficult to get visas. has turned into a barrier. and we haven't been able to

fulfill these -- these possibilities, these dreams we had of closer collaboration. but we'll keep on insisting. american colleagues are very much in favor of this. >> and in fairness, this was a speaker for an interview. i was in new york. that's why he wasn't looking me directly in the eye. we've seen a breaking of this relationship with one of the great issues for the obama administration. you dealt with the iran negotiations, the iran deal. so this has been, in part, as we tried to clear up what this mystery is, part of the dismantling of that legacy. >> absolutely. it's not only a dismantling of that legacy, but dismantling of diplomacy. and diplomacy certainly beats war. at every turn. and this administration has degraded the state department. has said that it's all about threats. and even where they tried

diplomacy in the case of north korea and the president's on the precipice of another photo op summit. there's nothing underneath it. there's no details. it's all about president trump and not much about anything else. >> as you talk about diplomacy in your book, not for the faint of heart, you write, the diplomat knows every negotiation is like a move on the giant chess board that affects all other pieces. the autocrat simply tries to find a way out, the way a child sprawls all over a pizza parlor place mat puzzle with a blunt day crayon. >> the autocrat just looks at what's right in front of him. what's the next tweet. what's the next photo op. what's the next grand statement. i must say, andrea, your program today has been so incredibly important. here we have a president of the united states denying 3,000 american deaths and putting 5-year-olds in detention,

separated from their family, traumatized for the rest of their life. this is not who we are as the united states of america. not only are americans watching but so's the entire world. >> what about the role of a woman -- here you are in the iran negotiations, with some of the toughest negotiators of the world, and at some time you got emotional, you felt tearful. >> indeed. i learned somewhere along the way when i was a child women can't get angry but it's okay to cry. it's not a tactic i'd ever encourage anyone to ever take on. but in the case written about in the book, it actually got me through a difficult moment in the negotiations. one thing madeleine albright, my dear friend, former boss and current business partner taught me is when you sit across the table in a negotiation, you're not wendy sherman you're not a woman, in my case you're not an american jew, you're the united states of america and that's a pretty powerful role. >> wow, could not think of a

more powerful way. the book is not for the faint of heart. thank you, wendy sherman. >> thank you. >> and coming up, time's up. the "60 minutes" boss fired after sending threatening text messages to a reporter. rter don't forget that the past can speak to the future. ♪ ♪ i'm going to be your substitute teacher. don't assume the substitute teacher has nothing to offer... same goes for a neighborhood. don't forget that friendships last longer than any broadway run. mr. president. (laughing)

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when i went on to ancestry, i just put in the name yes, we are twins. of my parents and my grandparents. i was getting all these leaves and i was going back generation after generation. you start to see documents and you see signatures of people that you've never met. i mean, you don't know these people, but you feel like you do. you get connected to them. i wish that i could get into a time machine and go back 100 years, 200 years and just meet these people. being on ancestry just made me feel like i belonged somewhere. discover your story. start searching for free now at ancestry.com.

new details about what was behind the firing of one of the most powerful men in broadcast, the producer of "60 minutes"

jeff fager, fired abruptly this week. the company says for violating its policies by threatening a cbs reporter with retaliation for covering me too allegations against him. in a statement, fager said, my language was harsh and despite the fact that journalists receive harsh demands for fairness all the tile, cbs did not like it. one such note should not result in termination after 36 years, but it did. last night, cbs evening news included the reporter's account of fager's text. >> i reached out to fager for comment on the articles alleging he groped or touched cbs employees at company parties. in addition to deniying the charges, fager said to me, quote if you repeat these false accusations without any of your own reporting to back them up, you will be held responsible for harming me. he went on to say, be careful. there are people who lost their jobs trying to harm me and if you pass on these damaging claims without your own

reporting to back them up, that will become a serious problem. >> a big problem of course now for cbs. that does it for us for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." craig melvin is up next live from wilmington, north carolina. craig, i know you're all going to be up all day, all night, through the storm. >> we are indeed, andrea. the wind has started to pick up here. good afternoon to you. craig melvin here live in wilmington, where the long siege has begun. the wind and the rain started to pick up along the coast. we're here in wilmington. the rain actually just stopped literally about two minutes ago. but it had been raining fairly steadily here. winds so far approaching 20 miles per hour. hurricane florence, that whopper of a storm we've been talking about for a few days now, just hours away from making