tonight, on "the reidout" -- >> my chimney came down. i was afraid it was going to come through the roof and crush me. >> there's just debris everywhere. my yard looks like a war zone. you know, it looks disastrous. >> i came here in the mid-'70s.

i was on the police department for almost 25 years. saw a lot of storms here. this is by far the worst storm i have ever witnessed. >> i promise you i'm never going to stay for another storm ever again here. however, i am one of the lucky ones. >> recovery efforts begin after utter devastation in parts of florida. while millions more people are now at risk as ian moves north. also tonight, he isn't tossing paper towels but governor ron desantis is handling this hurricane in a weirdly trumpy way. >> what we're learning about ginni thomas' meeting with the january 6th committee when she wasn't texting the white house in the days leading up to the insurrection, she was encouraging states to reverse trump's embarrassing defeat. >> ian is one of the most powerful storms to ever hit the u.s. now, the state begins the colossal task of picking up the pieces. we get a first glimpse at the destruction. from what we have seen so far,

it is staggering. this is ft. myers, homes completely destroyed. while streets are virtually nonexistent. one resident told the tampa bay times, the island is like somebody took an atom bomb and dropped it. a section of the only bridge to get onto sanibel island was completely severed from the storm surge, making rescues only possible by boat. and in lee county, you can see neighborhoods almost completely crushed. homes leveled and debris scattered. even central florida, far inland, is feeling the effects. in orlando, home to disney world, major flooding prompted emergency rescues at a nursing home. three hospitals in lee county were also forced to evacuate patients due to a lack of running water. there's nearly 2 million in the state that are without power. right now, at least ten people have died in the wake of the storm. but that number is likely to go up. president biden today gave a sobering warning about what to expect. >> this could be the deadliest hurricane in florida's history. the numbers are still unclear,

but we're hearing early reports of what may be substantial loss of life. >> those who survived the storm, emotions are still running high. one woman told kerry sanders about the horrors she witnessed trying to protect her husband who is hospital bedridden and paralyzed. >> i doak some blankets and i put holes in them with the scissors and zip tied them to the hospital bed and then i took a tarpaulin that had grommets and zip tied it over and put pillows and plastic bags and duct taped them to the top of the sideboard and put pillows between the sideboard and the window because i didn't want him to get cut up to death if the window blew in, and then i put a life jacket on him so if the water came, he wouldn't drown. he would float. >> quite an ordeal for you to go through that. >> i didn't want him to die. >> of course, and he's okay. >> he's alive. he's traumatized but he's alive.

>> and ian isn't done yet. now category 1 hurricane, the torm is making its way up the east coast, expected to hit south carolina tomorrow. orlando is just one of the cities thet have been hit with high winds and major flooding from hurricane ian. nbc's jesse kirsch is in orlando. jesse, what are you seeing? >> yesterday when you and i spoke, we were looking at massive downpours behind me. all that water has to go somewhere. and this is one of the places it ended up. this is a neighborhood in orlando. these are homes, and you can see that many of them are currently at least partially submerged. we're going to push in on a basketball hoop out there because that's an easy reference point for highlight. we know the rim of a basketball hoop is ten feet tall. we don't know if that's regulation, but you can figure that's around ten feet up and you can see the basketball hoop, the beam is at least partially submerged in these waters. officials say in this community alone, they made around 30

rescues. this is one of the communities that includes mobile homes, and that is one of the types of homes officials were most concerned about yesterday. that's one group of people that officials had really been stressing, they should be making their way to hardened shelters to ride out the storm, so obviously, those concerns proving to come to fruition here. for people who aren't familiar with the orlando area, obviously, in general, the storm waters, you do not want to be wading through it. you do not know what you can step on. you do not know what waits for grow under the surface. what almost certainly waits under the surface in some waters here in orlando are alligators. that's just one more reason for people not to be trying to go in there to see what damage is done. we have a little wind picking up here now, but it's mostly been dry here this afternoon to evening, and the wind gusts have largely subsided which is good news because if the wind picks up over certain levels, officials say infrastructure crews, teams that are trying to repair what was damaged, will have to put a pause on their

efforts. even though it's largely been dry here this afternoon and evening, the water level in this community really has not receded. so we're looking at water that is somewhat stagnant here right now, joy, with so many peel right now in the dark. joy. >> jesse kirsch, thanks for reminding folks. just because you're in a residential area does not mean there aren't alligators. let's bring in bill karins. where is this going? >> unfortunately it's heading to the carolinas. this storm has been an overachiever since it went through western cuba and the horrendous images of what a strong category 4 hurricane does. we have seen that in the whole beginning of your show. everyone in the carolinas are like what's it go to bring to us? do we need to evacuate? as far as evacuations going, listen to your emergency managers, go and then come back after it's gone saturday night or sunday. so it's a hurricane again. it's over warm water, but it's

nate going to quickly blow up into a major hurricane. the hurricane center thinks it will get a litter stronger overnight, but most likely, solid category 1, at worst maybe bordering on category 2. here's the forecast from the hurricane center. this was at 5:00 p.m. the new update comes at 11:00 p.m. this evening. they shifted the center cone a little bit. this has a large wind field. we'll have strong winds from jacksonville to the outer banks. those are all the areas that have a chance for power outages. the worst storm surge will be to the right of that, the on shore winds that were over charleston, they shifted closer between charleston and georgetown. that's important for storm surge. nothing else. that's the only thing that matters for them, and 80-mile-per-hour winds, and this would be around 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon. what's going to be interesting about this storm is the highest winds and all the rain are before landfall. you're going to wake up to just gusty winds, pouring rain, maybe power outages.

by the time the storm clears the coast, that's when the weather will be improving and then it rains itself out heading to charlotte, north carolina. all of our computer pinpoint, this is noon, very close to areas from charleston and just east. hurricane warnings, you would expect, and as far as storm surge goes, we saw what storm surge damage can do. it looks like 4 to 7 feet is the worst case scenario for the central coastline of charleston. and 2017 hurricane matthew did pretty significant damage with a 7-foot storm surge. we're hoping we don't get to the peak of these numbers. we'll find out tomorrow afternoon. bl we will indeed, meteorologist bill karins of nbc, thank you very much. >> joining me on the phone now is amy patterson, manager of collier county, florida, which does include the city of naples. give us a sense, please, if you would, how extensive the damage is in collier county and naples. we heard the name naples a lot yesterday when we were talking about places inundated by the storm. >> sure. thank you so much for having me.

well, we have just begun our damage assessment today after we're wrapping up any search and recovery that was ongoing. we did take a substantial amount of storm surge along the coast and the power of water is quite devastating. so as the days go on, we're going to have a better idea what that damage looks like. there is significant damage along the coast, both to some of our infrastructure as well as some bottom floors of structures. >> we have heard that we're going to, as time goes on, get a sense of how deadly this hurricane turned out to be. do you have an assessment of injuries or the unfortunate deaths that took place there or is it still too early to know? >> it's really too early to know. we have had some reports of deaths, but the facts are unclear and they're still being validated by our medical examiner. it appears we have been fortunate at least here in collier county compared to some

things we're hearing from our neighbors to the north. >> collier county manager amy patterson, we wish you and your community very well. thank you very much for being here. let's bring in marcus coleman from fema. he's the director of the dhs center for faith based and neighborhood partnerships. thank you for being here, director coleman. what is the federal government to do? the storm is not over. it's traveling up as you can see from the forecasts bill karins showing that map, it's still moving and there's still a lot of standing water and still a lot of emerging damage. at this stage, what is the role of the federal government? >> good evening, and thank you for having me. so the role of the federal government is to continue to listen to our local leaders, our local officials, and the community to insure that we are prepositioning commodities and people to meet the immediate needs of the life-saving and life-sustaining mission and that's exactly what we're doing alongside our colleagues in florida, we're also working

closely with communities in georgia, north carolina, south carolina, and all other states that are bracing for impacts from the remnants of hurricane ian. >> and we know that there are about 2.6 million floridians without power right now. we had about 5,000 national guard troops that have been deployed to florida to try to help out. in addition to the rescues that have to be done, unfortunately, water being incredibly deadly and trying to figure out the locations of people who might have fled places like mobile homes, is there anything that the world outside of florida can really do at this point? what is needed? >> so, the number one thing that people can do in florida that are impacted in those affected counties, dialing 1-800-621-3362. signing up for disaster assistance, for those who are able with internet access, they can go to disasterassistance.gov. i was on the phone with pastors and bishops and that church is

supporting their community members with pertinent information because we know not everybody has access to power. people are still trying to get the latest updates and information, so we want to insure that fema as well as our full federal family is providing the best source of trusted information on how people can get the help they need and where they can go to get additional resources from our non-government partners. >> what do people know? we know three to four hospitals were impacted, especially in lee county, which had to evacuate patients. where do those patients go? how is it sort of insured they will be properly cared for, and what can people do if they have a medical emergency in this kind of situation? >> well, through our fema office of disability integration and coordination and our colleagues at health and human services, we're working closely with hospitals, independent living centers, and insuring people with disabilities and those with access and functional needs are getting the care we need. we were co-located prior to landfall with the state of florida and continue to use the

information we have to insure that the medically fragile and socially vulnerable are getting the care they need. this is a time for us to continue listening to community needs so we can adjust our resources and commodities as appropriate, but making sure we keep people first in everything we do as they continue to go on what's going to continue to be a long road to recovery. >> marcus coleman from fema, thank you for shouting out the churches. good churches really do kick in in these times of need. some of them were impacted too. we're wishing everyone well and hope fame people will be able to recover soon. thank you. >> coming up next on "the reidout," ginni thomas was proudly smiling today as she headed in for her interview with the january 6th committee. being accused of trying to help overturn an election is nothing to smile about, and she, by the way, still believes the election was stolen, so there's that. we'll be right back.

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hurricane ian delayed this week's public hearing otthe january 6th committee, but it's important work continuing. today, ginni thomas, wife of supreme court justice clarence thomas, was interviewed in person by the committee for 3 1/2 hours. about daggone time since she has a lot to explain. committee chair bennie thompson said she answered some questions and expressed that she still believes the 2020 election was stolen from donald trump. which is exactly what she argued in numerous texts to then chief

of staff mark meadows in the days and weeks following the election. which is around the same time mrs. thomas was also pressuring state lawmakers in arizona and wisconsin to choose their own fake electors. and of particular interest to the committee, mrs. thomas' emails with trump lawyer john eastman who came up with the plot to keep trump in power in his infamous coup memo, urging vice president mike pence to simply overturn the election all by himself. it's also worth noting john eastman once clerked for clarence thomas. regarding her interview today, ginni thomas' attorney released a statement saying, she answered a lot of the committee's questions as she told the committee, her minimal and mainstream activity focused on insuring that reports of fraud were investigated. beyond that, she played no part. >> joining me is former assistant watergate prosecutor. thank you, nick.

this is so unusual. i can't even name the wife or spouse of any other supreme court justice ever in history. this woman has been a longtime right wing activist, and she seemed to have been actively involved including emailing her husband's former clerk, john eastman. what do you make of all of it, and what do you think the probative value of talking to her might have been? >> it's hard to say what the probative value is going to be. my big question is, who asked her to call these legislators in wisconsin and arizona to get them to basically vote in these fake trump electors? you know, that's my big question. that's the part that is really concerning. she could not have done that on her own. it's hard to believe that she was acting as a free agent there. and the other big concern, obviously, is that she's a wife of a supreme court justice. and clarence thomas, while she was doing all this, he was the

one dissenting vote when the january 6th committee was trying to get all of trump's records from the white house that were at the archives. and he was the only one that dissented. then, when pennsylvania tried -- the republicans tried to appeal the supreme court of pennsylvania, which gave an extra three days to count votes, not a big deal, considering the circumstances, he went on and wrote this dissent that basically bans absentee ballots and basically wame up with this idea that there's more chances for fraud with absentee ballots than regular voting. all of which is absolutely crazy, but it's the same thing that she's been espousing. you have a real conflict of interest here. it's just very unusual. i can't remember any situation in the court where a spouse has taken a political view that's basically right on the money

with her husband, and they both claim they never talk about this stuff. which i find completely absurd. >> chairman thompson said she was a witness, not accusing her of anything. if there's something of merit, they'll include it in the next hearing. you just named the less kookoo things she was doing. here are some of the things she was texting to the chief of staff of the president, mark metoes. two days after the election. biden crime value and coconspirators are being arrested and detained for ballot fraud right now and over coming days and will be living in barges off gitmo to face military tribuals for sedition. this person is a conspiracy theorist. she doesn't seem to be wrapped too tight when it comes to her versions of reality. is it possible that somebody like john eastman would

collaborate with a supreme court justice's wife to what end? do you think this could have been because they thought that eventually the election might end up in the supreme court? end up in front of the supreme court? >> i think they were certainly trying to do that. they were trying to get it into the courts even though every court knocked them down. look, she probably had a fairly close relationship with eastman beforehand. i mean, the judges always have yearly events with their clerks. clerks that clerked for somebody in the past, they always keep in touch with their judge. and i'm sure she met him in the course of that. birds of a feather flock together. they're both crazy in that sense. so it doesn't surprise me that they would be feeding off each other. and it doesn't surprise me that they would be talking. and the real question is, how much influence does she have on what clarence thomas is writing on the supreme court, and what was she doing talking to

legislators in this criminal conspiracy to try to get fake electors for trump elected in wisconsin and arizona. that is the key question. >> the other issue with clarence thomas -- the issue is, you can assume somebody's spouse has their own life and does their own thing. fine, but like you said, the symmetry between what he's voting on and what she's doing, and also there is this. back in 2011, this is a story that has resurfaced. between 2003 and 2007, ginni thomas earned nearly $700,000 from the heritage foundation, according to a review of their foundation records. clarence thomas failed to note the income in his supreme court disclosures. he's kind of hiding her income, not being honest about it. but there's nothing anyone can do because there are no ethic rules in the supreme court. >> no, it just shows you what's going on. they're all trying to get close to clarence thomas and influence

clarence thomas through ginny. that's what's going on. that's why they're paying her. that's why mark meadows was taking her calls. if you look at those 29 emails that go back and forth, it's pretty obvious if her name was ginni jones, she would not have gotten past the operator at the white house. they're all trying to influence clarence thomas through her. and that is what's really going on, and that's why this is so evil. >> we don't have much time, but do you have any comment on this special master, aileen cannon, this judge who has essentially delayed, allowed a delay in trump having to file an affidavit saying he believed whether or not anything was planted in his house. she's given him another bly. >> i think the government agreed to pardon that because they had a hard time, the vendor that was going to put all these documents online, and the reason these

vendors would want to engage with business with donald trump, they didn't want to sign a contract with him. i'm sure it's because they knew they wouldn't be paid even though under her order he could be held in contempt, which means he could go to jail. so it's crazy. none of this is very good for donald trump, none of it. it's going to keep the whole matter in the spotlight and just remind people right up through the midterms what a crook this guy is. >> very succinctly said. nick ackerman, thank you. >> coming up, the aftermath of hurricane ian is a huge test for florida governor ron desantis who opposed federal aid after hurricane sandy hit new york and new jersey. stay with us.

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this is a professional grade damage. >> what was your first reaction when you came out and saw this? >> thank you, jesus. that it didn't go -- because it could have fallen on my house, the apartment i have here. >> as florida battles one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the united states, governor ron desantis is running for president, not officially, not yet, but nothing like a disaster and national cameras to boost one's white house ambitions. they did learn that from trump, but desantis seems to have added some of his own spin to the act.

you would be forgiven if you're a florida taxpayer for wondering why florida's first lady, casey desantis, who nobody elected, was standing beside the governor at a press conference to boost a private disaster fund just weeks after her husband splurged taxpayer money, the interest from covid relief funds, by the way, to ship brown folks from texas to martha's vineyard. actually, speaking of press conferences, i guess we have to go to one because ron desantis is giving one. >> because of the massive wind speed and the storm surge and deposited in a body of water. there were cars floating in the middle of the water. some of the homes were total losses. i would say the most significant damage that i saw was on ft. myers beach. some of the homes were wiped out, and some of it was just concrete slabs. of course, there was damage to some of our infrastructure, particularly the sanibel causeway. there were breaks in that in

multiple different areas. interesting, the pylons on the water where you had that part of the bridge, that actually was good. it was the point where it was on a sandbar that got totally wipes away or from the mainland, there were breaks there. so that's going to require major, major overhaul and potentially a complete rebuild. they're going to look at it and see. that's the only way on sanibel and captiva island. so the operations to help people there have been mostly by air. and all told, search and rescue operations, it started in the wee hours of the morning, as soon as the winds died down enough to where it was safe, you had coast guard assets. you had urban search and rescue teams. we had the national guard out assisting people. there have been more than 700 confirmed rescues, and there's likely many more than that that will be confirmed as more data comes in. people have been rescued from places like ft. myers, ft. myers

beach, sanibel, marco island as well as the barrier islands in charlotte county. obviously, there was a lot of calls coming in as the storm was really raging yesterday. people who did not evacuate were hunkered down. there was storm surge, there was a lot of apprehension, understandably. when initially the first responders came this morning, people would wave them down, whether they were by helicopter, boat, or high water vehicle. now what they're finding is on places like sanibel, most of the residents are just waving thank you for coming, but they say they're fine. and that they're staying put. now, i think there's going to be issues with being on some of those islands because they're not going to have services like we expect for quite some time given the limitations nevertheless, that's a sign that some of the folks who did ride re stabilized in their home. they are, first responders are doing targeted searches, going

home by home, checking to see if people are okay and then responding to specific reports if they're missing loved ones. there will, of course, be many more rescues that are added to the total. we absolutely expect to have mortality from this hurricane. i would caution people, there's a process by that is confirmed and i know that people have said certain things. in terms of confirmed, that will be made apparent over the coming days. but i think the things that have been said out there, that's not something that has been confirmed at this juncture. of course, we have thousands and thousands of people on the ground working to restore power. opening the roads, bringing in food and water and restoring communications. talking with the local folks in lee county, probably the biggest immediate hurdle that they're facing is their county water utility had a big water main break. that is necessary to be fixed in

order to provide basic water services for the residents of the county, so they have been working to troubleshoot it. they requested the state to enlist federal support to help diagnose and potentially fix the problem so we worked with fema and the army corps of engineers came in. they came in pretty early. i think kevin called them maybe like 3:00 in the morning. they were in southwest florida from jacksonville by early this afternoon. and so they're helping to diagnose and hopefully be able to remedy that, but that's going to be something that's very, very important for the county to get fixed. in the meantime, we are assisting health care facilities to provide working water, because they need that to be able to take care of their patients. we're shuttling water from lakeland into health care facilities. right now, there are about 20 trucks en route with 60,000 gallons of water for a total of 1.2 million gallons of water and i think they have been able to fix some of the water -- one of the three hospitals has been

able to fix the water problem there. that's good news. port tampa, port everglades, the fuel is flowing in to some of our major ports. you're seeing a lot of fuel flowing throughout the state. more than 330,000 gallons of fuel have already been moved in to southwest florida. i actually saw a couple of the gas stations open in the ft. myers area when we were there today. with this fuel, the state of florida set up six fuel depots to fully support all first response efforts and we think the remaining ports in the state of florida will open between some time tomorrow and some time on saturday. there's been a massive amount of supplies staged. we're also bringing more into the region, more ambulances, more food, water, and ice, more generators, more into service mechanical shops to help repair and maintain emergency vehicles which they're in rugged conditions when you're going

through water and others bringing in mere tarps, bringing in kits for parents of infants and toddlers to give them ten days worth of support. and bringing in more high water ladders. now, as of 6:00 p.m., there are 2.6 million approximately reported power outages throughout the state of florida. that was anticipated. so far, compared to this morning, 200,000 accounts have been restored in southwest florida. 28,000 in lee, 62,000 in sarasota, 14,000 in collier, 33,000 in manatee, 12,000 in charlotte, and 44,000 in hillsborough had been restored. of course, the prestaging for this was over 42,000. >> and i can tell you, when we

were in charlotte, reports were generally positive that a lot of that infrastructure had been able to weather the storm. you still have to work obviously to reconnect the power, but in some areas you may need to rebuild from the ground up. in other areas where the infrastructure maintained integrity, you would be more just trying to rehook everything. so that's a 24/7 process. so if anybody sees some of the utility trucks pulled over somewhere and maybe someone getting rest, understand they're working constant shifts and everyone is on the clock the whole time and they don't actually have a time where people are not working. we really appreciate that because we understand how important it is for folks to have basic services resume. there have, of course, been damages to cell phone towers. particularly in places like lee county. the telecom companies have brought in, they marked 100 cell phone towers being set up and

many of those are being set up in southwest florida. i have been able to speak with ceos of at&t and t-mobile. whale there have been damages, a lot of the infrastructure has weathered the storm fairly well. so while there may need to be repairs, they feel good about getting up service. i know some people do have service in those areas, and we were able to see that. fdot had more than 1200 personnel on the ground, and i'm happy to report the road situation is by and large really good. i think if i was talking with kevin before we came out here, if we were here yesterday at like noon, thinking about what the road situation would look like, i think we thought there would have been way, way more roads that were blocked by debris. of course, there are issues, but there's also a lot of roads where traffic is flowing on i-75 without a problem. and most of the other roads are doing really well. sunshine skyway bridge has reopened so we were happy to see that. most school districts throughout

the state will be reopening either friday or monday. obviously, lee and some of those areas may be a little different calculation for them. we're thankful that fema has activated individual assistance for floridians that have been affected by the storm. if you're in need of help recovering, visit disasterassistance.gov or call 1-800-621-3362. fema has approved our request to add some of the central florida counties into the individual assistance. kevin will have more details on that but we appreciate that because you look at the images like you can see a house that's been totaled on ft. myers beach, and it's a very sad thing to see. you can see boats that have been flipped over, cars that have been flipped over, and those are very striking images. but as the storm has moved through the state, it's caused a lot of problems with really historic flooding in parts of central florida and into northeast florida. so it's important that those folks also have the ability to

get assistance if they need it. over 8700 people have already registered with fema. if you're going to make a claim, take a picture, if you had flooding, take a picture of the water line on your house. make sure you're documenting the damage. jimmy, our chief financial officer, is going to be doing insurance villages at these disaster recovery sites. you don't need to go in to get fema assistance. you can do it online. but if you have questions and go in, you can have people from the different insurance carriers. jimmy is also going to help people who have flood policies to be able to file those claims and get those claims paid as soon as possible. and we expect that that will be done without much delay from the insurance carriers. we're happy that a lot of businesses have committed to provide our first responders and volunteers with sustenance. culver's, firehouse subs, burger king, four rivers smokehouse, and maria's oyster bar, and many

more will want to come and also offer asyance. for those who are coming in as either first responders or linemen, bucky's is giving away meals and soft drinks. if you stop in their daytona location, you'll be able to avail yourself of really good stuff there. we're continuing, as kevin has said, these first 72 hours are really life safety and then working to restore the main services, power, fuel, and communications. and there's massive numbers of people on the ground working 24/7 to do that. of course, it's too early to know exactly what the needs -- >> joining me now is david jolly, msnbc political analyst and former republican congressman who is no longer with the party. david, you're a politician. you ran for office in the state of florida. i don't know if you served in congress when desantis was a tea party freshman congressman. >> i did. >> what you understand, i think better than anyone else, i worked in politics for a while, but i think you understand it

better than i do, is there are two kinds of ways to run for office. there is media where you purchase an ad, you purchase ad time on tv. you send out post cards, everything like that is paid media. and then there's earned media. earned media is way more valuable. it's far more valuable. it's when you can get unpaid media. it's when you can get the media to pay attention to you and to watch you doing something that's only positive, where there's no negative spin attached to it, where you don't have to pay for it, it's not an ad. that's huge earned media. i think disants understands the earned media he gets from doing the press conferences is very valuable to him politically. let's just be clear. right? am i right about that? >> you're exactly right. look, a governor, a president at a time of crisis and tragedy, it has the opportunity to project leadership and strong

leadership. and in the early days, that leadership really goes unquestioned. but as the days go by, that leadership does get evaluated. so look, i think there's a lot of heat coming towards ron desantis for a couple reasons. he is now a republican governor who needs one person to help him. it's joe biden. and he needs the help of joe biden and he also needs the help of nancy pelosi and chuck schumer because there will be an aid request that the congress has to approve, likely when they approve a final appropriations bill in early december. ron desantis knows that the florida economy cannot absorb the tragedy that just hit. the federal government and washington will need national democrats to agree to help ron desantis. so while the projection of strength now is important for protecting human life and recovery of those who might be missing or stranded, what will

happen in the coming days is floridians and the nation will realize that florida is not in a place economically to absorb the tragedy that just happened. hurricane ian, if florida had to absorb it, it would wreck florida's economy, it would destroy what is left of a home insurance market that is already teetering on the brink of default, and it would expose the misbalance, if you will, the lack of balance between how we spend money on certain priorities. joy, you raised the analogy or the focus on the fact this is a governor who just spent money to evakt migrants from the state of texas to martha's vineyard. governor desantis asked for $18 million. $18 million to evict migrants. today, his wife in announcing what will soon become the casey fund, this humanitarian fund his wife will go around the state insuring florida displaced residents receive some aid, was

proud to announce $1.5 million to $2 million. think about that. this is where the heat is coming. this is a governor who is the administrator of an economy on the brink of collapse. who has spent money on priorities that don't support floridians. and while today we focus on his executive leadership, there will be hard questions coming. >> and by the way, it's not even executive leadership. he's simply, all he has to do now is open up his arms and receive federal money. that's the executive leadership. we heard russel honore say yesterday, you read the script. he's got his person in charge of disaster recovery. this is going to become a federal issue. those of you who have not lived in florida don't understand, a lot of people buy their homes and get hurricane insurance. it's not flood insurance. this was not a windy storm. this was a rainy storm. this was a floody storm. you have a lot of stagnant water that is destroying property right now. people are going to have to go to fema. people are going to have to go to the feds for that money. when ron desantis was in congress and you guys were in

congress, when he was a tea party freshman, when new york and new jersey faced the exact same tragedy, i mean, literally the subways in new york were flooded, people could have drowned in the subway, when ron desantis had the opportunity to make that decision and say, well, should the people of new york and new jersey who were hit by a catastrophic hurricane, they weren't even used to, he said no. that shouldn't happen. he, marco rubio, and other tea party members of senate and house, said they shouldn't have that money. it's too expensive. now, as you said, he's now got to go hat in hand to joe biden for aid. it's something he didn't even believe it as a tea partier. >> he's about to have to justify something that is antithetical to his entire story as a conservative republican, anti-washington, that people should absorb their own riv and people should take care of their own lives. in a time of tragedy, people need help.

and where ron desantis is a no government conservative, he's about to become a big government republican. at the same time that ron desantis and marco rubio were voting no, i was introducing a national catastrophic fund that said somehow we have to aggregate floods and fires and tornadoes and ice storms and all these other trageies that befall the american people and figure out how to absorb the cost to reset people's lives. ron desantis and others said no, we don't have to do that. that's not our role. ron desantis led a no-government wing of the republican party that says let people be on their own. now he's in a position as the governor of having to do something for them, and the only way he can do that, joy, the only way, is by asking for washington, d.c. to bail him out. and the interesting thing is what hangs in the balance is his entire political career. he'll be judged by the way he performs and succeeds in this moment but he's not going to be able to do it on his own. i think he has the audacity he

will go hat in hand at the same time insulting joe biden and democratic leaders. >> i want to make this point for the audience to really be clear about this. ron desantis, that $12 million that they used to and take those other migrants that was money that was interest money from covid relief funds. he didn't want to use it for covid relief he, wanted to use it for these demonstrations of cruelty because they were actually in the republican party there is no political reward for compassion. the reward that you get in the party is for cruelty, it isn't for compassion. wokeness and compassion is consider weakness, so you don't get a reward for that. and people who have tried to do the compassion thing and the bipartisan have suffered for. chris christie, let us not forget, because after hurricane

sandy he understood they needed the money. he embraced president obama and lost any chance that he would ever be president of the united states. charlie crist was a deeply compassionate man, he's gotta like joe biden man, is a huggie man, he was booted out of the party for being compassionate to voters were standing and long lines in 2008 for taking the obama stimulus money when again the akana meat was collapsing. there isn't a republican you can think of who has been rewarded for demonstrating compassion. you get rewarded for doing stunts like desantis was doing before. your thoughts. >> joy, joe biden will come to florida and there's only one way that run desantis should handle the. with grace, with hospitality and with gratitude for the federal government. i don't know how long he will do that and how long it will last but that will be a test of his fitness as it was for chris christie and charlie crist. i will say this very important,

ron desantis said to joe biden, you alone by the stroke of a pan can ensure fema programs ensure 100% of the cost. guess what ron desantis? you won't buy the stroke of the pen can decide whether you spin the legislatures or use that $18 million on floridians who are displaced. including >> including in orlando, the place you just stripped of two billion dollars because he wanted to punish disney. those of the people you have to help rhonda scent is can you do that and still be a republican nominee in 2024? let's bring in gina mccarthy, she's a former epa administrator and climate adviser in the obama administration. thank you for being here. the other thing we have to deal with is this question of places like this. sandra bell and these places of florida that are man-made barrier reefs et cetera. they are really tenacious,

they're in a place that is very vulnerable to super storms like this, and even to less onerous storms. what is the federal government's role in saying here is some money, do you just build back what you had and continue to have development in places that are so vulnerable? >> thanks joy for having me and my heart goes out to the folks in florida who are hurting right now and to all the great first responders who are working hard. joy, you bring up a really tremendous point. first of all, this storm jumped from a category three on tuesday night to by the end of the day on wednesday it was nearing a category five. this is the kind of disaster that we have been predicting for a long time that relates to the issue of climate change. and this means we have to look at where these challenges are

that we are facing. what are the vulnerable communities that are always hit the hardest. who are the? had it would be helpful to them? but also, where are we building? what are we thinking about? how do we build in a resilient and adaptive ways so we recognize the challenge of climate change and the threat it poses to not just people but all of these assets that we have in the billions of dollars that we are gonna spend to rebuild? so the trick is every time we build now we have to recognize the threat of climate change. we have to look at areas like the gulf of mexico where the water is warm and where the shallow water in tampa bay actually makes it much more vulnerable to storm surge. this is not a surprise. this should be prepared for. in fact, tampa bay has been known to be one of the most vulnerable cities in the world

as it relates to storm surge threats. so we have to be more prepared and that's why when i worked with president biden on the bipartisan infrastructure law when we were spilling billions of dollars to reinvest in our infrastructure, he put actual criteria in the said, you know you have to build to be resilient to climate. we need to expect to see those challenges. how to be built to make sure that infrastructure lasts? same thing happened with the inflation reduction act. we have to be smarter joy. these are not the kinds of disasters that we can think of as being unexpected, and we can no longer be unprepared. >> yeah, and i have to say this for those who understand florida, developers can't be in control of these decisions and they're a one hunted percent in control of these decisions in florida, because of all the

money they're putting in politics. a lot has to be rethought folks. this is why politics is important. this is why he elect is important, because this is what government actually does. i know people don't get government, they think government is boring, but this is what is important. when the rubber hits the road and the water is six feet high in your house and everything is destroyed, it's government you have to turn to. it's not about stunts, and if your government is doing stunts to own the land to hurt people you don't, like that isn't government. this is government. david jolly either mccarthy thank you to be right back. to be right back

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