so we start with breaking news. hurricane laura on track to hit the border of louisiana and texas. louisiana governor john bel edwards is speaking about preparations for this storm right now. let's listen in. >> and i will pause again to say that our team in louisiana, when it comes to disasters, when it comes to responding, we have the very best anywhere in the country. and i want to thank all of them

at every single agency and we also appreciate all the work that happens on the local level with the sheriff offices and fire departments and oeps and you name it and just people being good neighbors to one another. we'll certainly need more neighborly love as we prepare for, respond to, and recover from this particular storm. i want to remind everybody that we have this historical storm at a time when we're already in a public health emergency. and the covid situation remains very serious in louisiana as well today reporting 846 new cases and 32 additional deaths. you all are expecting an announcement today on my executive order, which expires on friday. i will tell you now we're going to extend the current phase 2 order for two additional weeks and take another look at that

point in time. the challenge is we'll basically be blind for this week because we are having to discontinue much of our community based testing, whether the surge testing sites federally sponsored or our community testing sites. this comes at a particularly bad time for us because it's two to three weeks since we resumed k-12 education, and since we started moving young people back on to college campuses, this is when you would really want to be looking really, really hard to see those first signs of whether we're going to have increased cases, increased positivity. we won't be able to have that this week. secondly, we know tens of thousands of individuals from southwest louisiana in the area with the known highest positivity in the state are now evacuating to all parts of the state and will be there for some period of time. obviously this poses additional

risk. you should know that we already read in terms of new cases that exceed per 100,000 in population over the previous seven weeks and about half of our parishes continue to be red with a positivity of more than 10%. we also know that the next two-week period will include labor day. we certainly don't want a type of spike that we saw on memorial day to happen while we are blind in terms of what the testing would otherwise reveal to us, so the prudent thing is to go two more weeks and then do an analysis of where we are assuming that we're going to have the data necessary to inform the decision then. but we're going to be working really hard to do this. i will tell you that the recommendations from the white house are that we continue at our current level in terms of

staying at phase 2 with all the current restrictions including the closure to bars for on premises consumption, the statewide mask mandate limiting gathering size, and so forth. and that was made very clear to me earlier this week with a phone call from dr. birx who called to discuss specifically the situation here in louisiana. and of course at that time she didn't know, i guess none of us knew exactly how we would be impacted by this storm, and we still don't know, because once the storm is over, i can only imagine that there will be hundreds if not thousands of more individuals who because they're going to be rescued we have to put them in shelters and continue to try to do that in noncongregant settings such as hotels and motels but there will be a transition where we have to

have mass shelter available. we have a lot going on in louisiana. this is the appropriate thing to do for all of those reasons, and i'm asking everyone in the state, please don't get so -- i'm not going to say distracted because we need to be paying attention to the storm but don't solely pay attention to the storm. understand we still have this covid situation. and everything we do we need to be wearing the mask. we need to be practicing social distancing, good hygiene, and so forth. incredibly important. in fact, more important now than ever before not just because of all the evacuations, the sheltering, the activities responding to and recovering from the storm, but in the last couple of weeks, one-quarter of the state's population was re-engaged in the education process. more than a million people are students or faculty and staff k-12 and higher education and for the first time since mouarc

they have been react investigated with respect to education across the state of louisiana. so i am imploring the people of our state to do what you always do and that is to take these things very seriously, be a good neighbor to one another, but understand that being a good neighbor right now means being distant, at least physically distant, socially distant, and wearing a mask. >> you've been listening to the governor of louisiana, who is updating residents on hurricane laura, which continues to gain strength and, frankly, showing the complicating factor that the pandemic presents. thought it was quite important to hear that they're still trying to figure out how are they going to handle evacuees? how do they handle these shelters? they have to have these shelters. they have to figure out how much they can keep it socially distant. a reminder, hurricanes are tough enough. do it in the midst of a

pandemic. and as he noted also, they have a million people in circulation in the education aspect of things and suddenly that's also doing things. so an important understanding of how complicated things are right now. so let's go to the storm. laura is currently a category 3 hurricane, expected to strengthen to a powerful category 4 storm before it makes landfall. the landfall is expected overnight somewhere near the texas/louisiana border. laura could inflict damage long after it reaches land and far from the coast. there's tropical storm warnings for arkansas already for instance. the region could see a storm surge of 15 to 20 feet prompting this dire warning from the national hurricane center. this storm surge could penetrate up to 30 miles inland from the immediate coast line in southwestern louisiana and far southeastern texas. let's now jump to the state of texas actually. we've got the governor there, greg abbott, briefing residents. let's listen in for that.

>> -- added three more counties to the disaster declaration -- camp, ellis, and tarrant counties. the reason why ellis and tarrant are added is because they are serving as sheltering locations. for the counties that may be concerned about the impact the storm could have on them, obviously we remain flexible with regard to expanding the counties that could be added to the disaster declaration that will be dependent upon whether or not those counties are going to be impacted by the storm. for the new counties i am adding to the disaster declaration today i am asking the president to add these counties to our federal declaration. some updates with regard to the assets that we have already deployed. we've already deployed 400 buses, 38 aircraft, 82 boats, 202 high profile vehicles, and

60 ambulances with an additional 75 plus paratransit vehicles that have been ordered that will be available to be provided to assist in the movement of people. we have more than 5,000 people that are already sheltered, and we are prepared to take in many more as we continue to encourage everybody to evacuate from regions that could be the greatest impacted by the hurricane. we're already preparing for the recovery. so the update on the disaster recovery task force is this. the texas division of emergency management recovery personnel are in place for deployment post landfall. damage assessment teams for local jurisdictions have been developed and they are being distributed for timely reporting on local damages after the

landfall. volunteer organizations active in disaster are currently staging resources and personnel are ready to deploy as the affected areas are cleared for re-entry. we have developed and distributed an online platform for disaster survivors to request assistance and provide damage information. that is all for my report right now. chief, would you like to add? >> thank you, governor. i would re-emphasize the danger factor of this storm. >> let's bring in "today show" cohost al roker and sam brock in port arthur, texas. al, let me start with you. this storm continues to grow. yesterday category 3 was predicted. now it looks like a 4 when it hits landfall.

any danger this make a sharp left or right and put new orleans or houston in its path? >> right a this moment, chuck, not really. it doesn't look that way but there is a caveat, anything can happen. but it doesn't look like that. the tweet you put up earlier from the national hurricane center the very first few words say it all. unsurvivable storm surge. i've never seen that phrase in something from the national hurricane center. >> why is that? what would make that area, that coast line so vulnerable, al? >> here is the deal. if we look here, i'll show you right now it is 225 miles south-southeast of lake charles, louisiana with 125-mile-per-hour winds but here is the way -- where the danger always is. the strongest part of any storm, any tropical storm is the front right quadrant the northeast corner if you will so for today you've already seen that we held -- already had those feeder bands coming in.

lake charles is just in that northeast quadrant and so that is where the biggest storm surge is going to be. this will continue to move inland and weaken but still cause major problems later this week all the way into the northeast. that storm surge is where the biggest problem is going to be. this thing could move 30 miles inland almost to i-10 and this is where the most deaths occur is the storm surge because the wall of water comes in over the tides already pushed by those winds. at 3 feet that is already considered life threatening. at 6 feet to 9 feet we're talking about significant damage, back walls getting blown out, doors and windows getting pushed through, and at 9 feet or above, that is where the storm surge really makes its way inland, entire neighborhoods could be wiped out. we are talking right now something on the scale of rita, which was in 2005 and that storm

surge was 15 feet. if you are talking 15 to 20 feet i can't even imagine what the damage is going to be done with something like that, chuck. >> and there's a lot of concern about flash flooding with this. it appears to be a pretty wet storm. we already know what harvey did to houston a few years back. even though houston is not going to get the dirty side of this storm, water wise how vulnerable are they? >> they are vulnerable. i think they will get by with some wind, get by with some heavy rain. but this rainfall if you look right there, they're in about the 1 inch to 2 inch area but that very narrow band moving up -- by the way, the charles river right now looks like this could be record setting river rise, which again, when they had the issue with rita, this looks like it could be anywhere from 3

to 5 feet above that. and rita did massive damage to that area. so, you know, this thing could spread urban flooding plus we're not even talking about the threat of tornadoes of this thing, even as it makes its way into the upper -- mid mississippi river valley, into the midwest. friday, saturday it makes its way, finally exits but this is a dangerous, dangerous situation right now, chuck. folks, if they have not -- the window is closing very quickly for people to evacuate. if they're not out in the next hour, two hours, they're going to be stuck. >> too late. yeah. al roker with that dire forecast. al, thanks very much. let me go to sam brock. sam, as al has been showing us i assume you are starting to see the effects of laura already. >> you know, it is interesting, chuck. right now the wind has definitely picked up a little bit but it was sunny until about five or ten minutes ago. a little overcast right now.

it is truly the calm before the storm. we're discussing storm surge right now on the intracoastal waterway about maybe a half mile maximum from the gulf of mexico over this horizon right here on the other side you have sabine lake as well. this is one of the fortified levees and you see the stones stacked up for miles meant to blunt storm surge. it is not meant to block 15 to 20 feet of storm surge. i was talking with port arthur's mayor a little while ago and he said this will help a little bit but if it goes to 12, 13, 14 feet, not even getting to 20, we're discussing billions of dollars of damage just here. that is the economic side of things. of course loss of life the primary concern and it might be a little bit hard to see from where you are right now but on the other side of me here you got some refineries because this is the oil refining capital of the country. you have homes on the other side of the road here. homes butted up next against this intracoastal waterway within a half mile of the gulf

of mexico. man, that is dangerous. and the marching orders right now, al spoke about this as well in terms of the window, just to get people out by noon. we are less than an hour from that right now. we were out at the civics center in port arthur. stacks and stacks of buses, a couple dozen of them, people getting on to those buses having no idea where they're going. it could be austin, could be san antonio, could be dallas. there are a couple different locations where they've spread them out. and covid we discussed earlier at the top of the newscast, such a sort of wrinkle in all of this. everybody has to get a temperature check. everybody has to have a mask. everyone needs to register. the actual capacity of carrying people on these buses is reduced by 50%. so you need more buses. there are images we saw today of people coming in with their belongings in bags, one woman clutching a bible. to quote the mayor in port arthur, come 5:00 or 6:00 today it is going to be you and god and that's it. they are not planning on sending in first responders once there are 35 to 40-mile-per-hour sustained winds. that is not happening. this is going to escalate and

get dangerous very quickly. hopefully people are heeding the warnings, chuck. >> i'm just curious, sam, when you saw people getting ready to evacuate, i think the concern and i heard it in the words of the governor of louisiana, the concern is that folks are going to be so concerned about this they will let covid precautions lax. what did you observe? >> reporter: for the most part everybody was wearing their mask. what i saw as soon as these evacuees came to the center to get registered and get on a bus they were told if you're not wearing a mask here is your mask. very difficult situation, could be water up to their shoulders. if there is not utter vigilance you could see spreading of covid-19 within the confines of trying to move these people out of a potential disaster zone. this is an incredibly difficult needle to thread.

that is what local officials are doing right now. >> no doubt about it. al roker, before that, thank you, sam brock on the ground in texas, thank you. obviously stay safe yourself. we'll be keeping an eye on this massive hurricane as it approaches the texas/louisiana coast. plus the protests over the wisconsin police shooting have turned deadly. the latest developments from kenosha are next. and the president pushes the political, ethical, and legal limits of the republican national convention signaling once again he will do anything, perhaps anything to win. try wayfair. you got this!

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welcome back. two people are dead and another injured after protests in kenosha, wisconsin were interrupted by gun fire just before midnight last night. it happened during the third night of protests over the shooting of jacob blake a black man shot multiple times in the back by a police officer on sunday. footage from last night obtained by msnbc news shows protesters chasing a man with a large gun who then discharges his weapon multiple times at those chasing him. in this footage at least one man appears to have been shot and falls to the ground. we paused the footage before that shot. we cannot confirm what took place before the video or after it ends or if the man in the video is taken into custody. we know kenosha police have yet to announce the arrest of anyone involved in the shooting. the social media has been trying to play detective on this one.

we know there's a lot of chatter, a lot of rumors running around. what can you report right now about the incident last night? >> you're right, chuck. lots of chatter and rumors right now. we're working to confirm any detail out there. our team has been following up with court records and seeing what we can see about the suspected shooter in this instance. what we can confirm now is what we have from the kenosha police which is two people were killed and one person injured. after that shooting around 11:45 p.m. last night. you played the video there. you see a group of people chasing a man running away with the long gun. the group of people chasing him say this person shot someone else down the street and then there's another shooting there. we also know from other video that we've seen and confirmed that there are multiple shooting instances last night. i'll tell you, chuck, i was here during some of the protests. this is in front of the courthouse right now and this is the flash point for three

straight nights. once police cleared through this area our crew left for our safety but that's when people start going off in different streets and that was where the shooting occurred last night. the point i want to make is you saw people here with long guns. the sight of long guns, hand guns, people walking around in groups alone was not a rare sight. people said they were here to protect themselves from protesters. there were people here saying they were here to protect protesters. so i tell you i also listened to a city council meeting yesterday as they were giving the mayor more emergency power. they were voting on a resolution there and you heard some of the council members warn about rumors of vigilantes coming into town to protect property, people saying that they were going to come with their guns, militia like groups to protect different stores and businesses from being looted. so i think what you're seeing is the result and what you saw last night was the result of a situation where there is a lack of control from the official

side, yes, the national guard was employed, yes, the kenosha police is here, but when you have a lack of control from the situation you are seeing other people come in and trying to take it upon themselves to ensure safety or protect those businesses there. so that is what we know about that investigation at this point, chuck. >> so, shaq, you know, i'm sorry that this is over shadowing what should be the focus, which is trying to figure out do we have any more details from the kenosha police about what happened and why mr. blake was shot so many times in the back unarmed? do we have any more information from the kenosha police on the actual incident, itself? >> reporter: no new information, chuck, except that we know that the state is handling this. this is in the division of criminal investigation under the state's department of justice. we know the federal government is also assisting in that investigation but they are not releasing any details and have not released any details since

that original statement on sunday night. we also heard from the family not only this morning but yesterday and in that press conference very emotional press conference with mr. blake's mother and father and sisters the family's attorney said the police got a statement from the family but they haven't been able to get any information from the police. no new details about the time line of what happened and what led to that shooting. i also want to mention the latest that we know on jacob blake's condition. his family says he is in a lot of pain right now. they think he is doing better but they say he is not out of the woods yet. during that emotional press conference yesterday they said that he was in surgery. he was rushed to surgery. we now know that was a spinal procedure that he had. they detailed the condition that he is under right now. that he has a bullet lodged in his vertebrae, liver damage, kidney damage, issues with his intestines. so the family has asked for prayers. they've asked for calm in the city of kenosha.

they want the focus to be on him and allow him the space and the peace needed to recover. you heard his mother call for calm and ask that people not have the violence. unfortunately, for some, those calls were not heard as we have a third night of violence that ended up with two people dead and one person shot. chuck? >> and i think the real question is whether these folks are even local that are causing some of these disturbances. shaquill e brewster on the ground for us in kenosha. this kenosha county board supervisor was at the protest last night. mr. rodriguez, first describe what you saw last night during the protests and was this, i assume this was before the fatal incident later in the evening. >> that is correct. thanks for having me on today. i got downtown about 11:30 last night at the civics center park in front of the courthouse.

there is a school down there, post office, and administration building as well as the police department. what i witnessed from ten minutes prior to that was from the protesters being inside the park to being pushed out by the police, and i was there for probably about a half hour observing what was going on. i was typically standing around with some other news reporters keeping our distance when tear gas was deployed and numerous, not sure if they were guardsmen or just officers dressed in police riot gear, they moved in and pushed this crowd south on sherr sheridan road in kenosha. >> it was after the crowd dispersed that this is when things, people took things into their own hands. i am curious if you saw similar, a similar thing our reporter saw on the ground which is that a lot of people walking around armed. a lot of civilians walking

around armed. did you observe something simply? >> i did. even amongst the protesters downtown last night. after tear gas was deployed and i was able to get out of there, i was on my way home and on my way home i noticed several businesses off sheridan road in the downtown area including up town where people were on guard so to speak to protect what i assume is their property and their businesses. i passed through where this shooting took place. i want to say probably ten minutes before hand. what i saw at that time was these protesters comingling almost with a lot of these armed citizens in front of businesses. >> the president just tweeted that he got off the phone with the governor and that he will -- that the governor has agreed or asked for federal help and so the national guard is going to be -- some federal assistance is going to be sent in. based on your observations do you think this is something that is necessary now?

>> i think it was necessary sunday night. obviously there are logistics with that. now we've waited here. we've got a bipartisan group of local leaders, the county board, myself, our county executive, the sheriff, the da, the mayors, representing both sides of the political spectrum who have been requesting from the governor we need this additional aid. the 250 national guardsmen we had in kenosha last night was obviously not enough. i know myself and my colleagues were calling for upwards of 2,000 national guardsmen to be deployed. >> so in your mind this is coming a day or two too late. >> correct. we'll take it though. we are ready for this help. our city is being burned down building by building. >> what is your sense of accountability that you think the kenosha police department deserves in all of this?

>> in the rioting, in the protesting? >> no. i'm talking about the actual -- yeah, starting with the incident, itself, the shooting of mr. blake. i feel as if we're almost -- we have -- the protests and the violence that has been associated with it has sort of distracted from the initial thing of what happened. what kind of confidence do you have in the kenosha police department given what happened on sunday? >> well, i'll start with this. shooting anybody in the back no matter if you are a police officer or private citizen or military, shooting somebody in the back is hard to justify. but at the same time there's a lot of unknowns. i don't think the community relations between kenosha police department and the community it serves were as tense as they are around the country where we see in other, bigger cities. what i am confident in is that the wisconsin department of justice and their division of criminal investigations will look at this from every side. they'll talk to everybody who was there when this happened.

they're going to give that recommendation to the da. from there, it is on the da's shoulders. he has to decide whether he charges this officer and if he can prove in a court that this person is -- this officer is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of violating a state crime if that is what the findings are. but the message that needs to get put across to all these people protesting and, more importantly, what i believe are outside agitators not kenosha residents destroying the city, we need to give this time. we heard the mother of mr. blake, ms. jackson, address the community yesterday that this is not what mr. blake wants. it is not what the family wants. it is not what we who call kenosha home are looking for. >> i think you're right about the outside agitators. i think there's a lot of pots stirring here, putting unfair attention on a lot of local communities because they wouldn't do this to themselves. zack rodriguez, county board member for kenosha county, thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective. thank you, sir.

>> thanks for having me. up next, is the trump administration breaking rules meant to prevent pernicious political activity? i am going to talk to the president's former acting chief of staff mick mulvaney. i wanted to tell you about my great-grandmother. she was not able to vote in her lifetime, but i wanted to honor all that she had done to ensure a lasting legacy of education and civic involvement. i'm very proud to carry on her story. i've been involved in. communications in the media for 45 years. i've been taking prevagen on a regular basis for at least eight years. for me, the greatest benefit over the years has been that prevagen seems to help me recall things

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welcome back. it is day three of the republican convention. tonight vice president mike pence will formally accept -- he has formally accepted the party nomination. he will formally speak of the acceptance. last night the trappings of presidential power were used to soften the president's image. the secretary of state delivered remarks while on a diplomatic trip to the middle east and spoke from jerusalem despite a warning he issued to state department employees a month ago warning them not to participate in political activities just like that. the first lady expressed sympathy for those killed by the virus from the white house

perhaps to counteract the fact her husband has repeatedly downplayed the death toll. the president pardoned a black man perhaps to counter the perception that he is somebody that wants to stoke racial tensions. he held a naturalization ceremony perhaps to counter the image that he, and rhetoric that he has uttered toward immigrants. the white house insists there was no violation of the law with any of these things but it is raising ethical and legal questions and if there is anything the president won't do or norm he won't erase to win i am joined from fort mchenry, mrld where vice president mike pence will address the republican national convention tonight. not everybody is convinced fort mchenry would technically clear the hatch act but this is one of those it seems like if you're going to give me a parking ticket give me a thousand. i don't think the trump white house seems to care. >> reporter: no, chuck. as compared to the other locations that the white house has used last night the rose garden of course but then also in all of this prerecorded video

where we've seen the president in the east room, in the diplomatic room. last night during the naturalization ceremony really what they did here was enact a strategy knowing they were going to be confronted with ethical questions because they recorded those videos using their own white house protocols and then they put them online basically so the campaign could grab them and say, hey. this was already publicly available. we'll put it in our republican national convention programming. that is a little bit of the behind the scenes of how that all came together. yes, tonight the vice president will be speaking here from port mchenry an historic national monument and shrine and one of the most interesting things here is that the coronavirus pandemic hangs over all of this. this fort exactly has been closed to the public for more than five months because of the pandemic. the only two events they've had here were when the president came on memorial day and when the vice president will be here later this evening. there will also be an audience we're understanding, about 130 or so people, many of them veterans. but those chairs are not 6 feet

apart. very similar to what we saw in the rose garden last night. and another story line we're following is that it doesn't seem that all of the attendees will necessarily be tested for covid-19. at least that was the case last night in the rose garden so the white house is trying to make these audiences and events and crowds seem safe but you even had last night economic adviser larry kudlow saying the coronavirus was in the past tense. looking at those images last night and what we may see here tonight you may have that same thought as well. we'll also hear from kellyanne conway, the counselor to the president who is set to depart the white house next week and the white house press secretary kayleigh mcenany adding to that perception that is now a reality that the white house is blurring the line between re-election campaign activities and official government business, chuck. >> right. monica, what is the -- do we have a sense of the case that mike pence is going to make for re-election?

we saw melania trump last night focusing a little bit more on the personal, basically i feel like trying to say, look. you know, he's more empathetic than you think. we think about this stuff a lot. what is mike pence's job tonight? >> he, we're told, is going to really be going through what the administration perceives as their accomplishments in the first four years. he'll be making a case for that. his relationship with the president of course. we're also told he'll be speaking to the national moment, so what can we expect? any time you really see the vice president on the road he is one to reliably always talk about the important news of the day. i think we can expect him to touch on both of those major story lines you opened the hour with. hurricane laura as well as everything that's happening in kenosha, wisconsin. the vice president will also be talking in large part to the patriotic back drop with a focus on military, national security, and tonight's theme which is land of heroes chuck.

>> monica alba getting us started from another site of the republican national convention in fort mchenry, maryland. thank you. joining me now is president trump's former acting chief of staff mick mulvaney. republican congressman for south carolina. i want to start with this which is you know this president pretty well. we know he cares about perception of, are you getting eyeballs? are people paying attention? how concerned do you think he is that the ratings for this convention are lower than last week? >> i'm sorry. i just completely lost the audio and the video. >> that is not a good thing. we do have your video. can you hear me now? >> i can. i'm sorry. yes. loud and clear. >> oh, great. so let me go back. i'm curious, since you know the president well, we know he cares about perceptions like are there more people watching my convention than his convention. so how do you think he is

handling the fact that so far more people tuned in last week than this week? >> i thought that when you included the folks online it was 10 million more people watched the first couple nights of the republican than the democrat but it goes to your point of how do you want to count in this day and age between social media, online, cable television, network television. i think they are extraordinarily pleased with the coverage. the real question as you know as well as anybody is not the total number of people watching. it is the people watching who have not made up their minds yet and are interested in getting information about joe biden, getting information about president trump, and seeing the contrast between them. i don't think there is any concern at all. i think the white house put out a statement earlier today saying how excited they were out distancing dems by 10 million people yesterday. >> yeah. i think everybody is -- you are right about that -- everybody just perhaps looks for different math on that. but that is not the numbers i've seen. it does seem like it's gone that way. let me ask the question another way about this convention.

being a south carolina guy i am thinking about the charleston voter. this is a suburban voter that had been reliably republican, not so much lately. it seems to me this convention is designed to try to win back some of those disaffected republicans. how are they doing? >> pretty well. i don't know so much disaffected republicans. keep in mind a lot of folks have already made up their minds. it is unusual in american politics not to see, i don't think joe biden has gotten much of a bounce out of last week. at least that is the data i've seen. i don't think anybody is expecting donald trump to get much of a bounce this week because folks have paid a lot more attention over the last four years. you are not only speaking to those folks in charleston and the suburbs but the forex-in charleston who haven't made up their minds yet. it depends on what they're looking for. if the democrats want to make the race about likability and the republicans want to make the race about results and about actions and outcomes, i'd be

curious to see how that ends up. i think the republicans have done a fine job in the first two days to draw the contrast between them and joe biden. if they're successful and this race turns out to be trump versus biden i think trump wins. >> i want to ask about the hatch act business. >> yes. >> there is clearly -- and look, you are somebody we've found -- you would try to stop the president from doing certain things because you thought it would violate the hatch act. this is back in october the president was trying to bring a bunch of cabinet members along to an orlando rally. you were concerned about hatch act issues. you would point that out to him. but the president doesn't clearly believe this is much, i think the response to you was i'm the hatch act. i'm in charge of the hatch act. he doesn't really believe it has much teeth. it turns out it doesn't, does it? >> yeah, i don't remember that exact example but your point is, yes, we pay attention to the hatch act as much as any other law.

we did. and there is a way to sort of do this to make sure you are doing it properly and that was to run it through the white house counsel's office. so the president comes up with an idea and we want to make sure it is absolutely legal. for example when the rnc comes in to talk about the campaign we don't do that in the west wing. we do it off site or do it in the residence because that is following the law. i'm absolutely sure, i'm not in the west wing anymore, that the white house counsel's office and probably even the department of justice has weighed in on this and they know it is entirely legal. your reporter mentioned some of the mthings they may have gone through to make some available to the campaign sites online, etcetera. that is because that is how you follow the law. you can draw whatever conclusions you want. i know folks who watch the show would draw a different conclusion than i would on some occasions, but the bottom line is it is highly unlikely the president is doing this without full sign-off from every lawyer in the white house and probably the department of justice. >> all right. as many viewers might be asking

themselves, what would congressman mulvaney have said if hillary clinton had spoken from the roof top of the king david hotel as sitting secretary of state at the 2012 convention? >> i was thinking about that because i used to be in that position. mike is in the cabinet. i used to be in the cabinet. i used to do political things. the rule was you can't do it on official time and you're not a federal employee 24 hours a day. i would go to things after hours. my secret service detail would be there so there was still a federal financial component to my presence there. but i am allowed to express my first amendment rights. would i have made some political hay? probably because that is the business we're in. at the end of the day if the analysis is, is it legal or illegal i have to tell you chuck it is probably a hundred percent legal. >> look, we can get into the technicalities or the spirit. this looks like a violation of the spirit. it is certainly not the intention. how should the law be designed if we want to make sure

government entities aren't used in political campaigns? because that is the point of the law, right? >> well, i don't know that yet. in fact, there is really good discussion online today and my successor, mark meadows, raised the point which i think bears some discussion as to what is the purpose of the hatch act? what is the spirit of the hatch act? mark made the point that it was to prevent your federal bosses from squeezing you as a federal worker to say. >> look. i am a republican and i run the office of management and budget and i want everybody who works at the office of management and budget to vote for president trump. if that is the spirit of the hatch act then none of what you've seen over the last couple days comes close to violating the spirit let alone the letter. it is a good question for debate and i hope the lawyers weigh in on it. >> mike pompeo issued a cable to state department employees warning of participating in partisan political activities. it does seem as if he is a bit off message. >> yeah.

again, that we did not have in place at omb. we didn't do it at cfpb. we didn't do it when i ran the west wing. we had a lot of folks work for us in the west wing who were not political appointees and were allowed to go out at night and on their own time and do stuff and goodness knows they did. a lot of big critics for the president worked for the federal government. i am not sure what happened over at the state department. if you look to the spirit of the hatch act and not the memorandum i don't think there are any difficulties here at all. >> well, i think we have agreed we all need to figure out the spirit of the hatch act and what an enforcement mechanism looks like because, clearly, i think there's a lot of people wondering about it today for sure. mick mulvaney, appreciate you coming out. >> let's continue this conversation again. it'll be fun. >> absolutely. mick mulvaney thanks for am coulding on. up next we'll go back and continue tracking hurricane laura and the complicated task of evacuating folks during a pandemic as al roker told us at the top of the hour, for many

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and now, all beds are on sale. save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. only for a limited time. to learn more, go to sleepnumber.com. welcome back. as we mentioned earlier, the national hurricane center is warning of what it is calling unsurvivable storm surge for large swaths of the gulf coast.

hurricane laura is currently a category 3 storm and is expected to strengthen to a cat 4 before landfall. weather conditions are already beginning to deteriorate hours before laura makes landfall. galveston, texas, is one of the areas bracing for the hurricane. laura may avoid the worst of the storm's wrath as it's not on the dirty side, it appears, but let's check in with county judge mark henry because in the middle of a pandemic, this only adds to the stress of governing these days. judge, thanks for coming on. just walk me through the challenge of getting people evacuating, heeding these warnings, in the time of a pandemic. >> certainly. it was a new wrinkle we had not prepared for before. so we always tell people to make a plan and build a kit for evacuation. this year, we asked you to add face masks, sanitizer, gloves potentially to your kit. and in addition to that, we have always offers bus service for

evacuations. but we typically put 50 people on a bus. and this year, we're down to 20 people to maintain the proper distancing. in addition to that, we had to verify that our point-to-point shelters would accept covid-exposed patients and they made arrangements for us by having isolated rooms. while hurricanes are nothing new to us, adding the layer of the pandemic on top of it certainly was a new challenge. >> and where are you on the pandemic right now? your caseload, has it been -- are you pushing the curve down or are you still dealing with, you know, as we know more people are circulating as school is starting, what are you seeing there? >> only looking at our county numbers, that's all i have access to, our numbers have started dropping dramatically in the last couple weeks. at one point, we would have several hundred positives in one day. yesterday's numbers were 40 positive and 105 fully recovered. our numbers are going in the

right direction. >> how concerned are you that you may lose track basically losing track for three or four days, maybe a week, right, of being able to deal with the pandemic where all of a sudden our baselines are gone and we're not sure how bad things are? how do you -- how do you feel like you're going to be able to track the virus in the midst of this? >> that's certainly a new dynamic. we have a very good health district who is tasked with tracking the numbers and the patients and the recoveries. i guess the good news for what good news it is, we expect by this time tomorrow, this storm will be out of here. we'll be resuming normal operations this time noon tomorrow. >> hopefully power does come back quickly. it does look like a storm moving quite quickly. mark henry, galveston county judge. a tough time to be in local government these days with all the challenges you have. throw a hurricane on top of it,

i'm sure you're not getting much sleep, not getting much rest. good luck. stay safe. stay sane, and let's hope you don't get too much from this storm. >> thanks a lot. see you soon. >> you got it. well, it's a busy week. this is the third republican convention in the last four that has had a major hurricane be disruptive to it. going back to 2008. so yet this hurricane, i imagine, we're going to hear a lot about it during the speeches tonight as we have had previously. we'll be back tomorrow. we'll have more coverage of this hurricane, more coverage of the republican convention. i'll see you later for night three of the republican national convention. live streaming starts at 8:00 p.m. on nbc news now, and we learned there will be a press conference from kenosha officials at 2:00 p.m. so in four minutes, so stick around. katy tur picks up our coverage right after this break. t after k >> tech: when you've got auto glass damage...

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it's not going away. covid-19. more than ever, california needs rapid coronavirus testing. robust contact tracing. support for community health clinics. masks and ppe for those saving lives... for teachers and school personnel educating students. these heroes are doing their jobs. now government must do theirs. keep working through a special session to combat this crisis right now and provide the revenues to solve the problems we know are coming. good afternoon. i'm katy tur. it is 11:00 a.m. out west and

2:00 p.m. in the east. and today, forecasters are warning of a potentially catastrophic strike along the texas/louisiana coastline as hurricane laura intensifies in the gulf. the national hurricane center just upgraded laura to a category 4 storm. and it is expected to make landfall some time after midnight. today, the national hurricane center is warning laura's storm surge could be, and this is a direct quote from them, unsurvivable. they are forecasting surges of up to 20 feet above ground level in parts of coastal texas and louisiana. over a half million people have been told to evacuate, and if they want to get out in time, they have got to do it soon. that evacuation is understandably more complicated, though, in the middle of a pandemic. so last hour, louisiana's governor urged his residents to do two things -- seek safety from the storm and the virus. >> don't solely pay attention to the storm.