this would be impossible without the incredible people working behind the scenes. every single one involved with the show are the best, and they work so hard to bring you the best journalism with passion and compassion. that does it for me this hour. thank you for the privilege of your time. these are the people i'm privileged to work with for you. lindsey riser picks up with more news right now. good tuesday morning. i am lindsey riser at msnbc headquarters in new york. one hurricane hunter is describing hurricane ian as it takes toward florida. making landfall in western cuba. it's expected to get even stronger as it marches north.

and communities on the florida gulf coast are boarding up, stocking up and getting ready for impact and the possibility of a storm surge that could reach up to ten feet. >> people are taking it very seriously. >> we're trying to be ready. who knows, may be real bad or not bad at all, but if it is, we want to make sure we are ready. now, nasa is sharing this stunning view of the storm from the international space station. we have the latest. >> details emerging ahead of the january 6th hearing, and nbc is hearing from two services the secret service confiscated the phones of agents. and then footage that put roger stone's role in days leading up to the riots in focus.

and then all facing seditious conspiracy charges. the impact this one trial could have on others surrounding january 6th. let's start with hurricane ian battering cuba before lowly making its way towards florida. joining me, bill karins, and ellison barber. ellison, let's go to you. the national hurricane center projects the tampa bay area could see up to ten feet of flooding. what is it like on the ground? >> reporter: yeah, i mean, we just heard this, hillsborough county are extending their mandatory evacuation orders not just for zone a but for zone b, and in this county alone, 300,000 people are under

mandatory evacuation orders, and we are seeing businesses closing and more and more gas stations running out of gas and putting these bags on the valves, and people are making the decision to evacuate areas that have been under orders, and they are assessing to see if they should stay or go. for a lot of people in florida, this is a normal part of their lives and many people here in tampa say in the past they have not evacuated but this time they are. listen. >> i have never left during a hurricane, but this time i have four dogs and my girls, and i will do the right thing and just get away and come back and hopefully nothing is damaged. >> tampa international airport are suspending all flights

starting at 5:00 today, and all in florida right now seven counties have mandatory evacuation orders, and in this county they just expanded it to include zone a and zone b now, and if you are a florida resident and you want to double-check what your zone is, go to floridadisaster.org/knowyourzone . and also follow local guidelines, and if they are in an evacuation zone to leave when they are told to. they say you don't have to leave the state necessarily, just move somewhere that is higher, move inland and just wait out the storm. >> that's where the storm is headed. let's go to where the storm is. hurricane ian reached cuba this morning, and it looks like on radar it's on top of you.

what is it like where you are? >> lindsey, we were in havana overnight, and of course it was the western part of the country that was hit by the category 3, 129-mile-per-hour winds. this is the provence and capital took the hardest hit, and this is where a lot of the famous cuban cigars come from, and there's damage to the structure and to the tobacco. we're moving in that direction, and communication is quite difficult in cuba, and in order to get from one place to another we have to disconnect, and we are getting reports of damages in the city and getting reports of some of the towns outside of the capital also having structural damage. as the sun rose this morning, authorities have gone out to

assess the damage. we know 60,000 cubans were evacuated from the most vulnerable areas, and this is near the coast. communication here travels slowly, so it has been a lot of social media photos shared by some people, and that has been difficult for many because there were power outages during the storm, and as the power is being restored, now we are able to enter the area and see some of the images for ourselves. again, this is the western part of cuba, lindsey. >> we appreciate you and your crew giving us that update while you are on the move, no less. bill, when will florida feel the worst of it? >> we have a lot of stuff that we have been talking about has changed with the new forecast. let's start there. still a category 3, and the eye is off the coastline of western

cuba. it's 305 miles south-southwest of sarasota florida. it's never good when it's pinpointing your location as to how far it is away from the center, and it may stay that way for sarasota. it's not a huge shift, but we are talking about the florida peninsula, the slightest shift of five or ten miles is the difference between being off the coast or heading to tampa or areas of venus or ft. meyers, for that matter. category 4, it's just off the coast, and then they have landfall wednesday evening, and that's 36 hours from now that we will have landfall of a major hurricane, and as we get closer to it, it would go through the eye and it would not be in

tampa, and tampa would be on the north side as the storm is weakening, and this would be a blowout tide, the winds heading out to sea and the storm surge would not inbound tampa bay, and so the storm surge, it's looking more and more similar to the storm like in 2004, and two major hurricanes in 20 years, and tampa has not been hit in 100 years. that's what changed a little. and then thursday morning, still wind gusts possible in the tampa area in 80 to 100 miles per hour, and then the storm surge, it's a lot higher south of this. that's the big things that have changed. we like to take our computer lines, and there are still a couple more towards st. petersburg or off the coast, but

most are south of sarasota, and you don't want to be on the dirty side of the storm, and that's the right side, and that's the ft. meyers area and cape coral, and you may get the eastern eye of the storm but the worst storm surge, too. pay attention if your evacuation orders changed, because that's where the highest water will be. and that's where the highest storm surge is likely with the new forecast from the hurricane center. the wind fields -- this is going to change and go further to the south, and this graphic i will update for the next hour. we have areas that already have gotten 10 to 12 inches of rain in south florida with three more days to go. and then the hurricane shifted to the south and the forecast is slightly better for the tampa bay area, and worst for ft. meyers and sarasota. >> thank you.

joining me now is the mayor of clearwater, florida. thank you for being with us. >> my pleasure, lindsey. we certainly don't wish it on sarasota, but it's better news for the tampa bay area. >> yeah, i was going to ask for your reaction to that forecast. and we know there are areas in your county under mandatory evacuation, and clearwater was restricted to people with legitimate business reasons there. how are things going? are your citizens sticking to the orders for now? >> we have good compliance. i was very worried about complacency with this particular storm. we have had a lot of near misses. there was talk of charlie, which was originally coming right at clearwater back in 2004, and so a lot of our older residents who have been here a long time, they

can be complacent because of the near misses we have had, but this storm has put a lot of fear into folks and i think they have been compliant and been preparing. those in the low-lying areas, have, in fact, evacuated. >> how much destruction are you expecting and how are you guys preparing for it? >> well, we try and get construction sites tied down. obviously our beach and low-lying areas are critically important. we are not letting anybody other than residents out there to collect their most important belongings and then to evacuate. but we get our solid waste department ready. we coordinate with our local utilities because we want to try and restore power as quickly as possible. we want to make certain that people are not interacting, obviously, with fallen trees and fallen power lines. many of the deaths in these

types of storms occur after the storm has left, people believe it's safe to go outside when, in fact, it is not. >> a good reminder for everybody. mayor, tell me about what aid you have gotten so far in communication between the federal government and governor ron desantis. we have all the necessary help that we have, and now we just have to sit back and wait to see how we react to whatever the storm brings us. this is obviously going to be an enormous rain event, and that generally leads to a lot of downed trees, which makes roads impassable and a lot of power lines down. also, when we hit 45-mile-per-hour winds, our

first responders no longer respond to emergencies. >> okay. mayor frank hibbert, we hope you and everybody there stays safe. >> thank you. what does it cost of control of congress? the eye-popping tab both parties are at. and hall-of-famer, brett favre, under growing scrutiny, the new text messages just released in a new court filing. first, we are 24 hours away from the january 6th first committee hearing since the summer and we just got our hands on new video they plan to show of trump ally, roger stone, and how it unfolds in their investigation, next.

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about what the january 6th committee will present in the hearing. the clips are from a documentary that followed roger stone leading up to the attack on the capital. this is an exert. >> what they are assuming, the

election will be normal, and the election will not be normal. armed guards will throw them out, i'm the president. you are not stealing florida. i am challenging all of it and the judges we are going to are judges i appointed. >> joining us now, nbc news capitol hill correspondent, al ali vitali. >> that video says a lot, and we are told by our sources it's likely that is some of the new documentary footage that is shown during tomorrow's hearing. the first this panel is doing since taking a break for the month of august, but during that period of time they were still talking to witnesses, key people within the trump administration, and within the white house trying to get a sense of what

was happening after january 6th as well as in those critical hours when the capitol itself was under attack. what we have heard from members of the committee, while they have been tight on the details, each member of the committee will have a section they are focused on tomorrow and this is going to be pretty sweeping in nature, which is the word adam schiff used, and this is a committee in the timeline brought us up to what happened here on the day of the 6th, and now i am going to be looking to see what they have said all along, which is to continue to show this was not just a threat that started and stopped on january 6th, but one that is very much still alive and well in large part because donald trump is still pushing the idea that the election was stolen from him when it wasn't. >> and the filmmakers appeared on "morning joe" earlier, and

let's hear part of the interview. >> you could sense he was communicating a lot with aides around the trump campaign, and we were with him when he launched stop the deal on january 5th where he was communicating with michael flynn and more characters, and he was communicating with people directly on the campaign. >> they spent a lot of time with stone following him around, and given that proximity, what cooperation could that mean for the strength of the committee's case? >> well, they have shown all the access they had to roger stone. they were in his hotel suite and they were the night before the protests as he was greeted by other militia folks. they had extraordinary access to roger stone. i have not seen all the clips the committee has shown, to be clear, but what roger stone was planning in the days and months

leading up to the election was to make money on the stop the steal matter, which is what the committee is interested in, and laying the ground work to begin challenging election results and potentially having a consecration of sorts around the election. >> we learned from two sources that senior leadership at the secret service confiscated the cell phones of 24 agents in response to january 6th, and there were questions over the summer about the missing messages. >> there are still questions about those text messages. while the secret service has given over hundreds of thousands of communications from the days around january 6th to the january 6th committee, those key text messages from the 5th and 6th from specific individuals that they wanted to hear from and the inspector general, they

say in the words of liz cheney, the texts themselves are likely gone and not replicaable. they were thinking they could bring them back to life, so to speak, and that doesn't look like something they can do, and so while they do have the messages like what people were saying on microsoft teams, and now from the reporting, there were 24 cell phones confiscated. >> a staffer was on "all in" last night. let's listen. >> when you think about somebody and you see what he said and who he has been with and he he tired and who he has called and

contacted, roger stone is one of the most important factors of what happened on january 6th. >> he was on "60 minutes" talking about the reported call between the white house switchboard and a rioter. how much do you think roger stone could fit into the committee's final report? >> i think he certainly has some role in pushing the stop the steal narrative go into the election, and it's hard to imagine he will be key to this. a lot of what the committee seems to be hungry like a wolf for, it's to show the chatter that was going on with mike pence and others, and there's a lot of evidence they are looking for. what we know of roger stone is that, you know, he's a long-time associate of former president trump, and he has had some access to him over the years, but he was not a key promulgator of president trump's inner circle, and there's evidence he

was in communication with various folks, but roger stone, it's hard for me to understand that he is going to be key to the report. i think you have a whole smorgasbord of other advisors who play a bigger role. i am not trying to diminish what roger stone is in this, he's still a figure here, but i don't see him being the spine of the report. >> we will have to leave it there. thank you. next, the first january 6th defendants to be tried for seditious conspiracy charges. plus, mark meadows is expected to testify before a grand jury about efforts to overturn the election results.

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rhodes, all face seditious conspiracy charges. joining us, senior reporter, ben collins, and ryan riley. what is happening in court behind you, ryan? >> it's going to be a slow process. they have 150 jurors they have to get through and vet them, and they filled out a questionnaire that lays out a lot of their viewpoints and associations of the oath keepers, and a lot of them have not heard from the oath keepers before, and the oath keepers have been trying to get their name out there for a long time and think of themselves as a big militia group. basically they will go through the jury selection process and it could take a few days, and then the trial overall is expected to last five or six weeks. it could be a lengthy process we could expect here, lindsey. >> ben, you are on set with me.

how significant is it these people are facing seditious conspiracy charges? >> first of all, there are many people out there that doesn't believe the january 6th riot was put on by donald trump or militias, and when republicans gain control of the congress, it would be very important for them to get out there, because that line of defense will no longer work. >> i was watching their line of tweeting, and there was not that many people? >> it was projected to be a dud. not a lot of talk in the really bad spaces online, and the my

pillow guy got cut off because he was rambling, and there's still a lot of appetite on this on the far right spaces of the internet. >> you and ben have joint reports you were working on together, and what can you tell us? >> it shows the link between the oath copers and the white house, and andrew giuliani was texting with a member of lawyers for trump and involved in a lot of efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and some of what she saw was in detroit and it was later debunked, because she thought what she thought was a box of ballots and it was a tv

crew's equipment, and a lot of nonsense that was being thrown around in 2020, and kelly surel, she told the oath keepers to delete their text messages, and she was charged herself in relation to the january 6th riot, and she invoked the fifth amendment so her testimony will not happen now. >> you and ryan also report that kelly sorelle also tried a white house number on december 20th, and journalists, hunter walker, that text message went to a white house switchboard line so couldn't be delivered. what is it that we keep hearing about the contacts?

>> you probably meant to text somebody else, and we don't know who that was intended for, and it could have been andrew giuliani or somebody else. we don't know the nexus here. who was connected to who from the oath keepers and the white house, and they were using an app to talk over the apps, and if they were, it's hard to find that out and everything has been deleted, and finding that nexus is what the committee is looking into, but you might find out details about that in the trial this week. >> thank you very much. today in georgia, former trump white house chief of staff, mark meadows, is expected to appear before a grand jury as part of a fulton county investigation in efforts to overturn the state's 2020 election results. the probe was about 65% complete. and do we have any idea if

meadows appeared and what the committee is hoping to learn? >> reporter: well, let me tackle your first question first, and that is that we don't know, and outside of any public court filings or just short of seeing anybody walk through the front door of the courthouse, we do not know, of course, what was said during any testimony. all of it happens behind closed doors and we don't know the movements of any potential witnesses. as for mark meadows, his order was to appear today at 9:00 a.m., and we don't know if he showed up today because it's happening behind closed doors, and a lot of what they want to hear is about the infamous phone call where trump was asking to find votes.

and the d.a. wants to find out about the phone call, and he wants to ask about the trip he made to georgia to access a number of ballots. what is notable about this, lindsey, when he does speak before the grand jury, he will be the most known trump ally, and when you look at the timing of this, and we are eyeing we got just over a week or so before the activity will shutdown for a period of time, and october 7th is the first day of voters here in georgia could submit absentee ballots, and it's the day willis says she will shutdown the investigation throughout the course of the investigation because she doesn't want to give the appearance of influencing the elections. >> thank you so much. we are not taking no for an

answer. that's one of the alleged text messages from brett favre released in a new court filing. the growing pressure he's facing in over millions in welfare funds. this election is on track to be the most expensive ever. the jaw-dropping figure that already has been spent on ads, next. re's skyrizi. with skyrizi, 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months... and skyrizi is just 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections, or a lower ability to fight them, may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine or plan to. ♪nothing is everything♪ talk to your dermatologist about skyrizi. learn how abbvie could help you save. i know there's conflicting information talk to your dermatologist about skyrizi. about dupuytren's contracture. i thought i couldn't get treatment yet?

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filings are revealing text messages between the former governor of mississippi and nfl legend, brett favre. the quarterback is caught up in a scandal involving millions in federal welfare funds. nbc intelligence and justice correspondent is joining me. what are we learning from the new texts and court filings? >> the texts shows how brett

favre lobbied to get funding. >> sirius radio putting his show on pause, and he aggressively lobbied for millions of dollars of welfare funds to build a practice facility, and he was in contact with the then-governor bryant. i need your influence somehow to get donations and or sponsorships, favre texted in 2017. court records show he secured $5 million but needed more, and even when questions were raised favre kept lobbying. he wanted to name the volleyball complex after the governor, and

he said we need your help big time and the reply was we are going to get there but we have to follow the law. i am too old for prison. bryant's former welfare director pleaded guilty to state and growing crimes in the growing scandal and agreed to cooperate with the fbi which has been investigating welfare misspending for two years. lindsey, while the former governor says he's too old for prison, his former director has agreed to testify in the case, so he needs to have good lawyers. >> thank you. we are six weeks out from the midterms and this year's cycle is on track to be the most expensive election ever, and the price tag so far, more than 6.$4

billion. that total exceeds both the 2018 and 2020 acycles, and it really underscores the urgency for both parties in winning control of congress. as it stands right now, one report shows 212 house races favoring republicans, and 192 favoring democrats and 31 are still tossups. and let's bring in former obama white house chief of staff, jim mussina. republicans need at least five seats to take control of the house. what do you meek of the record fundraising numbers? do you see it making a difference? >> inflation is hitting congressional campaigns as well. this is app dump season, and this is when they release their research against their opponents, and we are seeing in

ohio's ninth district, the republican came under fire in an ap story that they found that he had misrepresented, exaggerating in the service and claimed he saw combat in afghanistan when he was never there, and the house is competitive because of five to eight races where flawed republican nominees are giving democrats a better chance to hold on. we think republicans are the favorites because of redistricting and retirements, but the house could be a favorable margin. >> and they are focussing on abortion rights, and republicans, they have decided to focus on inflation. a "new york times" piece this morning reported google searches for abortions have gone down in

the last few days and searches for the economy has gone up. how should the parties look at that point? >> in the two times in the past 40 years, lindsey, where the president's party picked up seats is because we had a nationalized election, and that's what the dobbs decision a abortion is starting to do. google searches is one thing, and what we really care about is the enthusiasm numbers, and it's the most predictive factor, and democrats and independent women are furious about the dobbs decision and are registering in some of the battleground seats where we are tracking very closely, you see real momentum in the democrats where you expect the president's party to be showing real weakness. >> you outlined six key races which will decide which party will take control of the house. take us through some of them.

>> there are different types of houses that will decide control. there are five battleground districts that have hispanic majorities in the central valley of california and the rio grande valley of texas. we are also looking at a number of more blue collar seats in maine, and dan kilde in michigan. angie craig, in minnesota. these are -- this is a pretty narrow battleground and we are seeing republicans narrow their spending and hyperfocus their resources on a band of about 20 districts that would get them the bare majority, than in 50 districts to get the large

majority. >> a biden and trump rematch has already begun, how so and how do people feel about it? >> i think both candidates are looking at each other and saying i can beat the other one, and president biden is the best one to beat trump and trump owns his party, and we are looking at some of the numbers in the races, and if you are a republican you just want donald trump to go away for the next 43 days, and he shows no ability to do that. in fact, right now, he's got to shore up his own base. he has desantis starting to worry and excite his base, and trump is out there every day commenting on these races, and for a democrat like me, it's a godsend and you want to remind people how crazy these people are and how the big maga candidates won the races, and

trump plays into the hands of the democrats just six weeks out. >> all right, dave and jim, thank you both for your time. next, fleeing russia. stunning satellite images show miles of cars leaving for neighboring georgia, and we are on the ground in the region. we have impact. a giant leap forward for nasa and our chances of avoiding global anileation. al anileation.

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from space rocks actually headed for our planet. looking forward to the images. as vladimir putin calls up hundreds of thousands of russian men to head to the front lines in ukraine, many are fleeing to their country's borders. look at these images. miles of russian vehicles are caught in traffic jams fleeing to nearby georgia and mongolia. reportedly at one point, waiting as long as 48 hours. residents in four ukrainian regions held by russian forces are in the final day of the so-called referendum vote to join russia, which could embolden putin. there's heavy fighting as this vote winds down. what are you seeing and hearing on the ground? >> reporter: that's right. there's heavy fighting in the southern portion of ukraine. but there's still fighting in

the area where i am now, in the northeast. just because ukrainian military launched that counteroffensive, pushing the russians away from kharkiv, doesn't moon mean the russians completely backing down. there were reports of shelling here today. in the occupied territories of ukraine, which accounts for 15% of this country, ukrainians say they are absolutely terrified. today, as you mentioned, was the last day of this referendum, which the west has labeled a sham, asking allegedly ukrainians if they want to join russia. those votes now being tallied. russia is saying that the turnout has been overwhelming. ukrainians are telling me on the ground, that i've been talking to, a different story of a population scared.

people that are trying to get out of those areas because they are concerned what might happen at the end of this is, if russia does annex those territories illegally in the eyes of the west, at the end of the week, which the british ministry of defense was warning today that they expect president putin to essentially make this announcement when he addressed both houses of russian parliament on friday, if and when that happens, ukrainians would live there are concerned they could be mobilized to fight their own home country. it's a huge source of concern. just to illustrate some of the horrors that they have lived through, we are just today -- we took a tour of a village not far from here recently occupied by russia. we were in an area, the village high school, we saw a torture chamber -- an alleged torture chamber according to residents where they were kidnapping men and women, women paukwalking on street, people who had a strange

tattoo in the eyes of soldiers, torturing them and taking them across the border into russia. we're only just beginning now to understand the horrors that allegedly unfolded in some of these occupied areas that are now liberated here in kharkiv. of course, there's an open question mark of what is happening in other places, places where this referendum finalized today and the results of which we are expecting to be announced later this week, but that annexation is expected. >> disturbing new details out that was village you visited. that does it for me. "andrea mitchell reports" starts next.

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right now on "andrea mitchell reports," hurricane ian, a category 3 storm slamming cuba this morning with winds approaching 130 miles an hour. on a collision course with florida. veering away from tampa now and heading towards sarasota. the governor of florida warning residents, get ready. >> if you are ordered to evacuate, that's a decision based off of what we are seeing with this storm. we can't un-ring the bell if you stay and end up getting washed away. a first look at a new documentary on roger stone, the january 6th committee will likely pla