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tv   Deadline White House  MSNBC  September 30, 2022 1:00pm-3:00pm PDT

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♪♪ hi, everyone. it is 4:00 in new york. for the second time in three days a large swath of our country is facing the wrath of hurricane ian. two hours ago the storm made landfall on the south carolina coast as a cat 1 hurricane, which is far weaker than what it was when it made landfall in florida. its impact will be felt far and wide. tropical storm force winds can
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be felt nearly 300 miles from the center, which means that millions of people across the south from georgia to virginia will be affected. this is the scene in the towns of myrtle beach and south port, south carolina. they are facing life threatening storm surge from hurricane ian. we are also getting a fuller picture of the devastation on the ground now in towns across florida. "the new york times" describing it this way. quote, the scale of the wreckage was staggering. even to florida residents who had survived and rebuilt after other powerful hurricanes, this storm pulverized roads. it toppled trees, gutted downtown store fronts and set cars afloat, leaving a soggy scar of ruined homes and businesses from the coastal cities of naples and fort myers to inland communities across the state including orlando. at least 14 deaths have been linked to the storm. more than 1.8 million people are now without power. more than 700 rescues have taken place including these from
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sanibel island, which has been completely cut off from the mainland. here is how the city manager of sanibel describes conditions in his community. >> the damage is catastrophic and it is biblical, so i agree with both of those terms. i have never seen anything like this. i have worked a number of hurricanes and residents who have lived on sanibel for many, many years just can't even understand the damage that we've experienced. obviously our main access to the island has been cut off. there's been five breaches to the causeway, and that's significant work that has to be undertaken. >> in total, around 250,000 people have been displaced including this man from fort myers who spoke to nbc news about his experience. >> i stayed here as long as i could, until i got scared for my life and went across the street in a brick home, which the three little pigs, they built them out of block, it is supposed to stay. mine was built out of sticks. it didn't last too long when the
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big, bad wolf came along and puffed it away. i literally watched my house disappear with everything in it. right before my eyes. >> complicating recovery efforts, the ongoing and widespread flooding in florida, which according to the national hurricane center the floods are set to last through next week. officials are making it clear the recovery in florida will take a very long time. take a listen to president joe biden earlier today at the white house. >> we're just beginning to see the scale of that destruction. it is likely to rank among the worst of the nation's -- in the worst in the nation's history. you have all seen on television homes and property wiped out. it is going to take months, years to rebuild, and our hearts go out to all of those folks who lives have been absolutely devastated by this storm. america's heart is literally breaking just watching people,
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watching on television. i just want the people of florida to know we see what you are going through and we are with you. >> joining our coverage live from charleston, south carolina, nbc news correspondent kathy park. cathy, this is the latest front. tell us what you are seeing there? >> reporter: hey there, nicolle. conditions have dramatically improved in charleston. early this morning we were bracing for potential landfall here in this area. here we are now. the storm is starting to pull out. the winds are still elevated, but the rain has dropped off. we are hearing reports of localized flooding in parts of charleston, but this is the ashley river behind me. at one point all of the sawgrass was under water, but the water is slowly starting to recede. it looks like folks are now out and about and driving on the roadways. we were told early on today that this was going to be a bit of a challenge as far as the cleanup goes because, as you can see,
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where we are standing right now there's still a lot of debris that has been strewn across the ground. we have branchs and palm fronds. this was as a result of all of the wind gusts and the heavy rain that we saw pretty much throughout the day today. but it seems like we are kind of seeing major improvements in the area, and that is certainly good news. however, we are also hearing reports of water rescues in pauley's island, which is just south of myrtle beach but just north of georgetown where ian did make landfall. but for the most part, folks are saying, look, they hunksered down, they rode out the storm, they boarded up. this is a low country. they're used to hurricanes and floods and bad weather, so they were prepared for weather like this. it seems like for the most part they were able to survive the brunt of this storm, and most of that impact was felt near myrtle
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beach. nicolle. >> kathy, what sorts of preparations were put in place? were there any evacuation orders or requests made? >> reporter: yes. so the governor of south carolina did declare a state of emergency but stopped short of mandatory evacuations, but did encourage people to have an emergency plan in place. of course, to get to higher ground if necessary. we know that here in the town of charleston they did have shelters that were opened, and at last check we know that dozens of people did utilize those shelters. but for the most part, just anecdotally when we were out and about yesterday talking to folks that live in this community, they say they were prepared and they kind of did what they did but they were planning to ride out the storm. they just kind of stayed away and they hunkered down. they didn't drive on the roadways. officials are saying for the most part they didn't have to do too many rescues, which is certainly some good news. >> kathy park, please stay safe. let folks know that we're thinking about them and keeping an eye on this storm for them.
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let's bring into our coverage nbc news meteorologist bill karins with the latest. i'm not going to ask you for your hourly totals of sleep this week, i know it is not much, but the storm keeps barrelling at us. >> yes, we're going to slowly eliminate the life threats from it. we went into today thinking we had a life threatening storm surge possible and we had that. we had reports of a five to six-foot storm surge up the coast towards the myrtle beach region. we have tidal gauges on the end of a pier, and we had surges higher than hugo. we haven't seen pictures of devastation but we know we have water in homes in some areas. i'm sure tomorrow we will have better idea after the sunrise how bad that surge was. we don't have evidence of how bad it was but we know it was historic. now we get to the part of the
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storm where we worry about the rainfall and tornados. tornado watch for eastern portions of north carolina and for the virginia beach, norfolk area towards williamsburg. isolated are possible. we have 56 still in myrtle beach. a lot in the 40 range. maybe minor power outages, minder tree damage with winds like this. the highest we had was 92 miles per hour in charleston and that's significant. then, of course, flash flooding. once the winds come down, this will be the story tonight into tomorrow. who gets the heavy rain today? charlotte, raleigh? your area possible? there will be significant area tonight. even in virginia. it has been so dry, we don't expect a lot of flooding but you will wake up to soaking rain tomorrow, even in areas like new york city. >> bill, have you had a second to reflect back? florida, they're still digging out. we are still seeing what this storm did to people's lives, to
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their livelihoods, to their homes and businesses. we are still getting news of rescues. is there anything in terms of your knowledge on what you saw on the models and what happened in the state that surprises you? >> as far as surprises, unfortunately, not. we've been through so many of these in the last five, six years that, you know, when i saw it was a category 4 wednesday morning, i think i took a three-and-a-half hour nap and it looked like it was a strong category three and it looked like it was intensifying. we were like, please don't do this. i took my little nap and i woke up and saw it was a category four. i remember i was on the "today" show and i was talking and telling people, you only have a couple of hours. if you haven't gotten out of the way, get out now because if you thought you could ride it out you can't. you may lose your life. people were like you're being an alarmist. they're like, how can you say this? i'm like, because i know what it is going to do. we've had storms like it, mexico beach in florida, but this is a
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million people lived right in the heart of where this made landfall. that hasn't happened. i mean, so, yeah, it is -- no matter how many times you see it though, you are still shocked when you see the pictures of the power of water. >> yeah. >> you know, it is much worse than wind. like the power of water is incredible. everybody keeps showing pictures of boats that have been, you know, half a mile inland. you are like, how is that possible? just the power of water and storm surge, you know, you hear stories of people that survived and, you know, calling their relatives because they thought they were going to die because the water was coming up. hopefully people remember this lesson when the next one happens, and i'm sure it will. hopefully not this year, maybe next year, you just have to get out of the way. it is just sad because we all have our personal stories and i was talking to people. they're like, what are they going to do for school for these kids? >> i keep thinking the same thing. as kids just went back to school a little earlier there than here, but it was the beginning
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of the school year. >> a whole generation of kids in this fort myers of area, they went through covid and now this. >> who will be displaced. even if they end up back in a schoolhouse, it won't be in the same schoolhouse. >> yeah. >> thank you for your herculean work helping us with this show. >> hopefully next time will be a blizzard. >> bill karins, thank you so much. let's turn now to the cleanup, the situation on the ground in florida. my colleague ali velshi joins us from fort myers, one of the hardest hit towns. i know you were trying to get to where you are right now yesterday. tell me what you are seeing now, but take me back and tell me about traveling into fort myers. >> reporter: it was remarkable because as we -- you know, with each mile you pass you realize, wow, it is very different here than it was in naples. what bill was saying about the power of the water is multiplied here. we are seeing -- you know, you and i watched 10,000-pound vehicles that were floated away
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by the water in naples. now i'm looking at 30,000, 40,000-pound boats moved out. in fact, this marina behind me, there was nothing but boats before the storm hit. there are no boats here. the properties adjacent to the marina are destroyed. this is fort myers beach. what you have is a combination of the heavier winds. the winds were heavier in naples where we got up to 112-mile-per-hour gusts, but here you had winds and water. it is surprising the things that stayed and the things that were washed away. the boats, they're gone. there are boats, some are on the other side of the road here. some of them are not here at all. there are entire structures destroyed. there are 30,000 people in this state without homes, who are in shelters. >> wow. >> reporter: we are starting to see, one of the things i saw to drive here from naples is the electrical trucks. they're everywhere. in fact, parts of naples have
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got their power back. some places have got their water back because sometimes it is just a pumping issue, right. you need the power to pump the water. here in fort myers we have water mains broken, we have boil water orders in effect and still missing power. you have people without power, they don't have access to fresh water, people who have gone to shelters. the good news, two days of good weather. the water has drained away. it is only a 45-minute drive to naples, but part of the reason it takes so long is all of a sudden authorities are there trying to move debris out of a street. they close it off and try to remove the debris and you are rerouted again. it is hard to get around the state. they're saying, we don't need more people here, we just need help and we need some money. bottom line is rescue work is underway. just spoke to an owner of a place that got destroyed, part of this same operation that this is, it is on the other side. he said, look, i put in calls to my insurance. i'm trying to find my safe. he was on his roof and i said,
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what are you looking for? he said, my safe. it has all of my paperwork. i don't know whether it is here, i don't know whether it is across the road, i don't know whether looters took it, you know, we've had looters in the area. that's the confusion people are living with. i asked how he felt and he said, i didn't lose my life. i lost my business and it is insured. he said, people have to take these water threats seriously. thanks for being here and showing people what it is about. that's the important part. even if it is not you being hit, you realize that the water can be deadly. it can take your home away, your business away, and in florida unfortunately we have seen it has taken some lives away. >> ali, when you have some perspective, obviously having traveled from naples to fort myers, what is your sense of the sort of amount of time, the different categories of recovery? you are talking about putting power back on, getting water back up, that's for structures that aren't damaged.
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how much of the recovery is turning things back on, how much is repair and how much is demolishing and rebuilding? >> reporter: that's a really good question. we have spoken to the various power companies in florida and they've been clear on that. in places like naples where the infrastructure is otherwise strong. it could be a matter of replacing a few substations and stringing lines, right. that's why they can get the power. if they can connect the poles together, they can get that going. there are parts of florida where either the electrical stations were submerged, under water or badly damaged. that's a massive infrastructure project. that's stuff that can take weeks. the good news is most of the water has receded so you have that. but salt water into an electrical station is a lot of work. if you are just moving trees and getting poles put up, just this road we are on almost all of the poles are at a 40-degree angle. that's real work but they can put the poles up, they string the lines and this place will have power once again. it is different in different places. the greater your infrastructure was before the storm, the
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stronger it was, the faster you will get power back. the worse or weaker your infrastructure was, like in a rural area or a more sparsely populated area as bill was talking about when michael hit mexico beach, that kind of stuff takes longer because they just don't have the infrastructure for it. they have to actually rebuild. some people will get their power back. some people got it back last night. some people will be weeks before they get it back. >> ali velshi, you are always where the story is and we're so grateful to have you and that you had time to talk to us. thank you so much, my friend. >> reporter: my pleasure. joining our coverage, city manager for marco island, florida, mike mcnees. tell us what you are seeing and how things are going? >> thank you, nicolle. i think it is fair to say if there's a light at the end of the tunnel for this event we're probably it. we have clear, blue skies today. our water system and sewer system are completely intact,
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running on generator power, and we certainly had a significant amount of structure flooding in the low -- at least on the first floor people had two, three feet of water on the first floor, but not significant structural damage. our roads are open. our issue right now is we still haven't had restoration of power. we are hopeful that will begin to happen over the rest of the afternoon, but that's really the worst we have. we have very little communication still with cell or internet service anywhere on the island, so we're actually down to distributing flyers on the street to help people understand what is hang and what they can expect. generally speaking relative to what other people are seeing up the coast, we have been very fortunate here on marco island and are within sight at least of getting closer to what we call a full recovery. >> we are looking at pictures of massive amounts of debris that have moved massive distances,
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boats in the middle of streets and in people's front yards. is that what everyone has been talking about, the power and the amount of the water? >> yes. the water, we had a very, very significant surge and we certainly have boats sitting in places where you don't usually see boats. one of the current exercises is matching the boat with its location. in fact, we have a couple of boat lifts on the island that had someone else's boat in them when the storm was opened, boats that didn't belong to the homeowner. so wove 'had a lot of that. so we've had a lot of that, but not of the scale, the magnitude they had further up the coast. in that we've been very fortunate and we are sorting it all out, but our recovery will be certainly not as dramatic as what other people are facing. >> mike, president biden today said the federal government will
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cover00% of debris cleanup cost. the federal government will cover costs 100% to clear the massive debris left in the wake in these counties. are you meeting any resistance from the state or national level for the things you need to recovery? >> no, nicolle. in an event like this, there really are no boundaries. we are in this together and we do everything we can to support each other, and we find it going up the chain in every direction. so, no, we don't see resistance. the only issue will be now that there will be so much demand for resources that i know it will be tough as we go forward. i'm sure as soon as we are a little bit further into our recovery we will be turning people loose, some of our first responders to provide assistance further north because their need is a lot greater than ours. we are all in this together. >> i guess it is a silver line. mike mcnees, thank you. know we are all thinking about
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you and everybody there and wishing you the best as you recover from this. >> we appreciate that. thanks for having me. >> thanks for spending time with us. when we come back, a new report on just how much legal exposure donald trump's own legal team feels he has over those documents, the classified documents taken from the white house and stored at mar-a-lago. also new reporting on how he continues to defy almost all of his lawyers' advice, leading to a split among his legal team. "washington post" out with new reporting saying it is likely setting up the ex president for a collision course with the justice department. plus, while we won't likely know the full financial cost for hurricane ian for quite sometime, both president biden and governor desantis have pledged the rebuild no matter the price tag. it is what this country does when we need it the most. for the florida governor, it is a remarkable change in his tone and tune from his first days on the political stage ten years
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ago. later in the program, russia's president vladimir putin makes his biggest move in trying to reshape the map. his dramatic escalation in his war with ukraine and the west. much more on "deadline: white house" after a quick break. stake with us. just one sheet e pet hair from your clothes! looking good starts in the dryer with bounce pet. bipolar depression. it made me feel trapped in a fog. this is art inspired by real stories of bipolar depression. i just couldn't find my way out of it. the lows of bipolar depression can take you to a dark place. latuda could make a real difference in your symptoms. latuda was proven to significantly reduce bipolar depression symptoms. and in clinical studies, had no substantial impact on weight. this is where i want to be. call your doctor about sudden behavior changes or suicidal thoughts. antidepressants can increase these in children and young adults. elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. report fever, confusion, stiff or uncontrollable muscle movements,
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how bad is it representing donald trump? well, there's new reporting this afternoon that the ex president's newest lawyer has advised his client to turn down the temperature with the justice department and the mar-a-lago criminal investigation. according to "the washington post," the rest of his legal team is divided on whether the
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ex-president should heed the advice, which is evidenced in his very public attacks. the ex-pet has not decided to do on his own. from "the post" this afternoon kise told others he wanted to de-escalation the trump team's pugilistic approach to federal prosecutors, according to three people familiar with his comments. he said it was likely to cause federal authorities to be more aggressive. he has suggested to other trump advisers that the best solution would be to try to find an off ramp with the justice department before a possible indictment or trial. he has said he thinks trump can avoid criminal charges. joining us now one of the reporters on the incredible new reporting, "washington post" national investigative reporting carol leonnig, neal katyal, former prosecutor, now georgetown law professor. both msnbc contributing reporters. this blew my mind when i saw it when we were getting ready to
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come on the air. now you have the most accomplished, the best adjective i can pull off the shelf on live tv, flashing a yellow warning light about trump's own conduct because he thinks there's criminal exposure. tell me what you have reported and what you have learned. >> you know, what is really interesting about this is my own gut instinct, and i know neil's as well, has been this situation in mar-a-lago is bad because it is just the straight-up case of did you keep documents that you weren't supposed to have, did you keep classified documents you knew were classified, and did you lie about it or tell someone else to lie about it. that is a really kind of simple, open-and-shut case, and it always was our instinct this was really a vulnerable soft spot for donald trump post-presidency in terms of criminal liability. now we know that actually the lawyer who asked for his fee up
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front and has possibly one of the stronger reputations on the team for handling department of justice investigations, has countenanced the possibility of an indictment and believes that the best way to sort of fend it off is to play nice, to say, "so sorry, we made some mistakes, we said that all of the classified information was turned over, but actually we made some mistake and it wasn't really intentional and we -- mea culpa, mea culpa" and it was not criminal intent. so as soon as that lawyer started to give that information, he was not out on his kiester but sidelined to a degree that essentially meant, no, donald trump wants to be
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more combative. he wants to attack the fbi. he want to attack the department of justice, accuse them of planting material, things that really -- for which there is no evidence but has worked like a charm for donald trump in the past. he wants to stick with his own brand but also what has successfully worked. >> carol, what is amazing is that the view from inside trump's own legal criminal defense team is the same as the view from outside. one, what you just articulated that he is in deep do-do, and two that he shouldn't be so combative in these filings. you report the filing we have covered this week is the first one that kise hasn't signed. this is what it says. for the second time since his dismissal of practical experience, the government comes to the court to readjust deadlines. the overall position of the government continues to be overly optimistic and aggressive in terms of the timing and productions and plaintiff's review. it would be better to base deadlines on actual data and not
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wistful claims by the government. incredibly antagonistic. sounds like the guy who wrote all of the speeches. who is pushing him to sound like that guy? >> well, there's a nice little group of lawyers, and i can't pin for you, nicolle, or anyone because i would have published if i could, i can't say it is one individual all on their lonesome. but we know from past experience that the more combative lawyers on this case, the ones who have given advice to the president, former president that, you know, you don't have to deal with this, the fbi doesn't have ownership of this property, you can argue that you declassified everything or there's a declassification possibility here. boris epstein was one of the people pushing that line of thinking. evan corcoran is the lawyer who is sort of hanging on here after he has been compromised by the
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fact that he led a review of records for donald trump in which he falsely said that his review was so diligent and so exhaustive that there were no more classified records at mar-a-lago. well, that just turned out to be not true, and that put him in a bad position, compromised essentially as a lawyer for the president because he's a potential witness. we have talked about this a lot. but my understanding is he's more on the combative side, you know, channelling the president's wishes along with boris, and chris kise, as my colleagues have definitely figured out, is the one trying to give former president donald trump sort of the teachable moments about how to deal with the department of justice when you no longer run it. >> teachable. i think jim comey thought he
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could give donald trump teachable moments about the justice department even when he did run it and we all know how that ended, neal katyal. this is from carol's reporting. she writes in private those familiar with the conversations say kise has questioned the wisdom and experience of some of his colleagues, arguing they do not have extensive experience with this type of litigation and they could face legal troubles himself. he also argued privately that their counsel had deepened trump's problems and that they would have had fewer problems had he started representing trump earlier in the summer. the client went on "hannity" and said he would declassify things by thinking them so. he is the same as he has always been, but as carol points out he no longer runs bill barr who no longer runs the justice department. >> yeah, nicolle. i had not heard of this lawyer, chris kise before this set of events, but he does appear to live on planet earth, which
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makes him unusual for a trump lawyer. i think when carol says the soft under belly is being exposed with mar-a-lago, i go a step farther. this is an obvious, incredibly serious criminal investigation. if you or i had done it, we would be in jail, there's no question about it. so, you know, what you need in this circumstance is not the most extreme fire-breathing lawyer. you need someone who can actually start cooperating with the justice department and, you know, telling the truth. honesty in dealing with the department is so important when you are in the criminal crosshairs. the first thing you want to do is start showing the prosecutors, look, i realize i made a mistake, we are here to cooperate, we are here to help, and what they're doing is the exact opposite. in my view after dealing with hundreds of really complex cases is that that kind of aggressive position is the very worst place to be. like take for example this whole
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request over a special master that trump filed. you know, well, it might feel good to him he got these decisions from judge cannon, but those decisions have spectacular backfired on him. the court of appeals with two trump appointees not just rebuked the trial judge's decision, they went out of their way to say that the justice department is acting in good faith, that these allegations are wrong, that this whole claim about whether trump has declassified documents is totally besides the point. so by filing that, they undermined their position. they didn't strengthen it. there's an example of where like talking tough and actually being smart in litigation are two different things, and trump is, you know, unfortunately for him not the latter, which is why in my view this case is heading toward a certain indictment. that, you know, so far he has done absolutely nothing to help and a lot of things to hurt his case. >> it is amazing.
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carol, i will give you the last word. it sounds like from the reporting that the most -- i won't say shocking because the crimes were committed in full view. trump doesn't deny committing them. he just denies what the definition of crimes is. it seems from your reporting that kise is all but certain trump will be indicted and stand trial, is that a fair read? >> i think the fairest read is he thinks there's a risk of that, and he's trying to sort of scare the former president straight. look, there's a way this can be bad. there's a way this can go good. listen to me and i promise we can avoid criminal jeopardy. but indictment is a word apparently he has tossed around as a possibility, and i don't think it is a scare tactic, nicolle. i think it is a you can't keep pressing all of these buttons with doj and not expect that they're going to charge. neal and i think agree just from his great experience being a
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lawyer, mine covering lawyers, we agree that the key here in the department of justice charging donald trump, a former president, unprecedented to charge a former president with a crime, but the key pillars are that, one, the material he kept were extraordinarily sensitive. check. we've determined that is truth. the second pillar is how much was evolved in the deception of keeping these records, of holding on to them, and asserting to the department of justice, oh, we don't have any more here. lo and behold, they do have more there. so that key piece is still to be determined. that's why i don't feel like it is a slam dunk he will be indicted. i feel like that second piece is important, and it is hard to imagine that he didn't have a roll of some sort in the deception that the government is now investigating. >> and that is the obstruction case we all keep sort of analyzing from the outside the sea leaves. it is an incredible piece of
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reporting. we are grateful to you for coming on to talk about it with us, carol. we will have more about what the judge put in place about the rule of law on this friday when we come back. we come back i have flinn and a new puppy. as i was writing, i found that i just wasn't as sharp and i new i needed to do something so i started taking prevagen. i realized that i was much more clear and i was remembering the details that i was supposed to. prevagen keeps my brain working right. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. the lows of bipolar depression can leave you down and in the dark. but what if you could begin to see the signs of hope all around you? what if you could let in the lyte? discover caplyta. caplyta is a once-daily pill, proven to deliver significant relief
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just how bad things are for their client, the ex-president did receive a favorable ruling from the federal judge overseeing the mar-a-lago document case. neal foreshadowed this a little bit. it is judge aileen cannon, a trump appointee. she spared trump's team having to bake up in court the rants that the fbi framed him, that they planted things, something he can't tweet that he posts on his own thing. cannon overruled dearie. she appointed dearie at trump's request. he was trump's request and his legal team was supposed to submit a sworn statement next week about whether they agree with the inventory list of the fbi of the documents they found in his home. if they agree nothing could be planted. cannon intervenes and spares them from the put-up-or-shut-up moment, giving the president a lifeline, proving how frail the rule of law is in this country.
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let's bring in former rnc chairman and msnbc contributor michael steele. neal is still here. michael steele, she is sort of the gift that keeps giving. now you have great reporting from "the washington post" that even on trump's legal team there's great discomfort with how he is conducting himself as a client facing a very grave risk of indictment and trial based on that reporting, and yet he gets this affirmation in the rulings from his appointee, judge cannon. >> yeah. we shouldn't be surprised by that. i think what surprised folks was the fact that she would be willing to kind of come back and dip back into that pool after, you know, the special master was selected and it wasn't starting to go their way. you kind of figure, all right, i'm not going to show too much of a political hand, but that's the nature of a number of these judges. we have to keep in mind, who are these individuals. i mean we reported on this, on
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this air and you covered as well in depth the kinds of judges that were being selected by the trump team, many of whom had no bench experience, many of whom, you know, were very clearly more politically aligned than judicially aligned in this narrative. so it is a concerning issue. the 11th circuit has made it very clear they thought the judge was off base, but clearly that wasn't enough, nicolle, because she's, you know, gone back to the special master and said, how dare you tell donald trump to justify his position, to put up or shut up, as the saying goes and has now rebuked him by saying, no, you don't are to do that, donald trump, you don't have to do what the special master that you picked, by the way, has asked you to do. that tells you how crazy all of this is and how perilous it is for our judicial system and how
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every moment like this, nicolle, is one step further, as the american people watch this, it augments their distrust of the system where they see two justice systems, which a lot of us have already known to be there. many times if you are people of color, but now a lot of white folks are starting to see it as well when their interests in the law is somehow subverted by an overriding political interest. >> it is such an important and really a big point. i don't want to gloss over it. i do want to read some reporting about why this inventory list matters, why this is trump's kryptonite but i don't want to lose michael's thought here with you, neal. the idea that it was trump's move to have a special master, judge dearie was trump's pick to be the special master if his moved worked, so his moved worked, his pick was selected, it was acquiesced to by the
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justice department and she is still sticking her feet in and nudging it to his side of the scale. what do you think is going on? >> well, i mean to me, nicolle, it is a wonder there hasn't been a kind of matter/anti-matter explosion between judge cannon and special master dearie at this point. i mean he is everything that her rulings aren't. he's been careful and wise and prudential, and her rulings have been erratic and unpersuasive, and they certainly appear unprincipled. now, i think the most important thing to understand about yesterday is i don't think her ruling matters very much at the end. you know, the court of appeals has already said the most sensitive, the most important documents, the 100 or so highly classified or sensitive documents the justice department can look at those and build a criminal prosecution on that. so to use the technical legal term, she was smacked down by the court of appeals when she tried to prevent the justice
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department from looking at that. so the bottom line is trump has already lost this legal battle. she can come in and try to tip the scales on his favor on the rest of the documents, but the rest of the documents is not the ball game. so it is kind of like her -- her ruling is kind of like a senator voting "no" after the 50th "yes." it is irrelevant at this point. i suppose it is virtue signaling to donald trump. i don't think it is fundamentally going to matter. it may delay things a little bit and perhaps that's trump's hope, but i don't think yesterday's ruling, given what the court of appeals said -- i understand michael's concern about certain trump appointees, but, remember, that court of appeals decision was written by -- two of the three people on there were trump appointees and they just obliterated donald trump's arguments. they obliterated judge cannon's arguments. so, you know, this investigation is going to go forward. it is going forward right now despite everything that judge
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cannon might try to do to stop it because the court of appeals has said so. i think one reason the court of appeals said so is michael's really deep point, we can't have two systems of justice. anyone else who would be accused of the kind of stuff that trump did at mar-a-lago would be in jail in a heartbeat, and the idea that he's getting all sorts of special rights and privileges and a special master, this and that, is ridiculous and absurd, but fine, so be it as long as justice is done at the end of the day. >> i want to quickly read why the list of evidence and attesting to its accuracy matters in terms of trump's legal exposure. if trump acknowledge s the fbi took documents marked classified from his personal office and storage room at mar-a-lago as the inventory says, that would become evidence that could be used against him if he were later charged with defying a subpoena. it seems to me, neal, you are saying if dearie up holds this
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essential element of agreeing on what the evidence is and what the facts are he will ultimately have to face the consequences of what he did. >> you know, exactly. it may be that, you know, after dearie makes his initial rulings, there will be a period of delay and so on and then as she reviews them. you know, one thing that is bizarre about the episode that she asked special master dearie, hey, find out what this inventory of information is and if it is accurate. dearie followed her orders and said, hey, trump lawyers, tell me if this is accurate or if things were planted. she comes back and says, no, don't do it. why? because trump's lawyers asked her to do it. there is a route to appeal. i would be surprised if the justice department takes it because the investigation can continue, as i said, on the most significant documents.
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but it really does look very bad for the judiciary to have this federal judge making these kinds of rulings, particularly after she has already been smacked down one. >> neal katia, thank you for sticking around. michael steele sticks around. ron desantis and joe biden have promised to work together nicely to help the millions of florida residents and businesses recover from this devastating storm, but the governor is not first politician to have adopted a different position from ones they've had while in congress when it comes to federal disaster relief and helping others. we'll explain next.
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your strategic advantage. (music) visit goldhub.com. as you say we live in a very politicized time, but, you know, when people are fighting for their lives, their whole livelihood is at stake, when they've lost everything if you can't put politics aside for that, then you're just not going to be able to. so i'll work with anybody who wants to help the people of southwest florida and throughout our state. >> that's florida governor desantis this week on the topic of putting politics aside during a crisis. lives matter. for the people in the northeast, though, it's hard to forget something "the new york times" today reports, quote. as a freshman congress min in 2013 ron desantess was unambiguous, a federal bailout for the new york region after hurricane sandy was an
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irresponsible boondoggle. quote, i sympathize with the victims, but his answer was no. so here we are in 2022. as you heard ron desantis has changed his tune. let's bring in the reverend al sharpton, host of msnbc's politics nation. i'm glad he changed his tune but the hypocrisy shouldn't go unnoted. >> definitely hypocrisy should not go unnoticed, and clearly you have to suspect did he change his mind or did he change his circumstance? because what he was talking about in new york he had no real stake in that. now we're talking about florida where he's the governor, where he has to be held responsible for how the -- the people are saved or not saved, how they deal with it or not. so there is a lot of
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self-interest in his mind change. so, you know, it's one thing to have a conversion. it's another thing to have self-interest. >> michael steele? >> oh, i think the rev, he's got me smiling here because he's so spot on. that self-interest thing is a b-i-you know what, right? it's amazing -- it's amazing how the worm just turns all up in it. and that's where desantis finds himself. it's a far cry from nine years ago as a congressman talking about the good people in the northeast particularly the new york region who were devastated by hurricane sandy. yeah, they don't have a lot of hurricanes like florida does, but when they do, that stuff matters. it's impactful in ways that it may not necessarily be in florida even with a small hurricane. and the fact that you have that attitude then, and now as governor, you know, this is clearly important and we want to
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work with anyone and we appreciate all the help -- and what would he be saying if members of the new york delegation are like, no, i'm not supporting any money going to florida? if the members of the maryland delegation, those of us on the chesapeake bay who suffered through what happens when torrential rains and hurricanes come through took that attitude? so i appreciate the, you know, sort of let's all work together but he cannot forget probably where the real attitude is, because i would suspect should, you know, god forbid some natural disaster befall us here in the northeast region, what would the governor of florida say about a federal support or fema support for our recovery? and that, i think, is something, again, "the new york times" points out is what's relevant here. these things do matter, and your words whether in 2013 or today,
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they still matter. >> rev, i just can't stop thinking about the story we covered a week ago. and obviously the age is important because people in florida are hurting. their lives are on the line. the lives of the migrants you put on airplanes and flew to martha's vineyard are human lives as well. the picking and choosing is part of the fabric this gop is right now, too. >> which is why you have to question whether this is really self-interest or whether this is a real conversion. and clearly you can't, on one hand, send people with no basis of knowing what's going to happen to them and clearly not caring away from your state to make a political on one week and then act like you're this great unifier around saving people the next week. and not expect people like me to say and let's wait and see, but i have serious doubts.
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you can't have a movable moral central. >> people show you who they are we believe them the first time around. the reverend al sharpton, michael steele, thank you so much for spending time with us on this today. to be continued. still to come for us, russia upping the threats against ukraine and illegally annexing part of ukraine. president joe biden today saying the west will not be intimidated. the very latest on that when we come back after a quick break. don't go anywhere. k after a qui. don't go anywhere. wrinkle guard penetrates deep into fibers, leaving clothes so soft, wrinkles don't want to stick around. make mornings smoother with downy wrinkle guard fabric softener.
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i want to also speak to mr. putin's remarks this morning. you know, america and its allies are not going to be intimidated. we're not going to be intimidated by putin and his reckless words and threats. the sham routine he put on this morning showing unity and people holding hands together, well, the united states is never going to recognize this. and quite frankly the world is not going to recognize it either. he can't seize his neighbor's territory and get away with it. it's as simple as that. america is fully prepared with our nato allies to defend every single inch of nato territory. every single inch, so mr. putin, don't misunderstand what i'm saying. every inch. hi, again, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. the verbal battle lines were
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redrawn today between president joe biden and president zelenskyy on one side and putin on the other. as ukraine continues to make gains on the battlefield and russia turns in the creasingly desperate and unpalatable measures there's a major rhetorical escalation from putin who accused the united states today of satanism and announced the annexation of four major territories, one still partially inclosed by the rush russian forces. where those occupied regions voted overwhelmingly in favor of joining the russian federation, that is only according to russian state media, though. putin's escalation in the seven month old war invited not only the rebuke we just showed you from president joe biden but also this move from president
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zelenskyy formally announcing ukraine will apply for nato membership under a process like that of sweden and finland. today's flurry of activity marks a dramatic new phase-in the conflict with the specter of nuclear war seems to loom larger than ever before. vladimir putin's extraordinary is where we begin tonight. michael mcfaul is here and also joining us retired lieutenant colonel alexander vindman. ambassador, mcfaul, i start with you. i want to know what putin is doing, that's pretty clear. but it is likely to shore him up domestically? i know it comes as domestic weakness since he's launched a war in ukraine. >> first, i want to emphasize something you've already said.
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this is very, very tragic day for ukraine, for europe, for the liberal international order, for those that built a new system after the horrific world war ii, the united nations 1945. in part we establish the united nations to stop annexation and to promote decolonization and independence. this is, i think, the biggest step backwards from that since 1945. >> wow. >> to your point about whether this will be popular or not, i don't know. you know, you saw the faces. i listened to the speech. there was, you know, i would say polite applause, somewhere fanatical. most were polite among his elites, but what we've also seen is more people have -- i think more russian men have been mobilized to leave rushy so far than have been mobilized to fight this war. and the longer it goes and the more of middle class russia, right, not the opposition and liberaleral elites in moscow
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that are affected by the war, i think the harder it will be for putin to sustain popular support. >> ambassador, i don't know how to put this politely, so i won't. putin sounded like a lunatic. he described america as satanestic. what is he talking about? who is he talking to? >> well, it underscores a debate we've been having in national security circles for a long time about putin. there's some that says he's just this rational actor, he's just doing cost benefit analysis, this is just a war he had to fight to stop nato expansion. i hope this horrific, crazy speech will put all that to rest. this was a very ideological speech. this was about a religious war he wants to fight against the west. framing it in those crazy terms, and i think we need to understand that's the kind of person we're dealing with today. and tragically i think the only way you deal with him is to stop him on the battlefield.
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i don't think he's a guy that's going to sit down and noeg. president zelenskyy said today he's not ready to negotiate with him anyway. and therefore the only way to stop putin is to stop him on the battlefield. >> colonel vindman, i want to read some of what president zelenskyy said, but i don't want to race ahead. i want your thoughts on the big events of the day. >> hey, nicole. first, let me wish a happy birthday to my 96-year-old grandmother, big fan of yours in oklahoma. >> happy birthday. >> yes, thank you. it is a big day -- for me i kind of took the opposing view from ambassador mcfaul in that i did perceive him to be a rational actor. i think he was driven by a long record of successes and being emboldened and made some very, very fundamentally flawed decisions based on those. but he's increasingly over the course of this war from his
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erratic behavior when he announced this war to this kind of unhinged speech today, he's out of touch with reality. whether he had a good basis on which to judge he could get away with this, there's not a good basis tojudge he could escalate his way out of this war, and that's what he did with this partial mobilization this week, this annexation that really is meaningless to the battlefield outcomes that ambassador mcfaul pointed out where this situation, where this issue will be settled or to the western support. what he's trying to potentially play for is some domestic legitimacy for the partial call up, for potentially additional escalation. he could now claim that he's enlarged russia, that great gatherer of lands even though it's completely hollow. but it's really kind of window dressing on a terrible situation for him. >> colonel vindman, let me read you something that alexei
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navalny writes really kind of speaking to western odd anyone els in an op-ed in "the washington post" today. he says war is a relentless stream of crucial urgent decisions influenced by constantly shifting factors. therefore while i commend european leaders for their ongoing success and support in ukraine, i urge them not to lose sight of the fundamental causes of war. the threat to peace and stability in europe is aggressive imperial authoritarianism endlessly inflicted by russia upon itself. this is inevitable as long as the current form of the country's development is maintained. only a parliamentary republic can prevent this. it is the first step of transforming russia into a good neighbor that helps to solve problems rather than create them. is that -- is that possible? >> well, i think, you know, that was beautifully written but it could be summed up in one word, impunity.
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i think vladimir putin has acted with impunity, not been held for account for too long or the western community that had been constrained by activities to hold him off early. there is accountability now. there's accountability in that ukrainians are holding him to account and really throughout the conduct of this war, and they'll continue to hold them to account. the question is whether that's also going to drive a form of accountability internally to russia based on the enormous cost the russian population is likely to bear, whether that's sanctions, lives lost, complete upheaval to middle class self-identity that is now kind of destroyed this notion of great russian power. and that accountability is coming sooner or later, so i think it will be there. it's just going to take some time to undo decades of lack of
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accountability and impunity. >> you know, it's so interesting. so much of what we've covered about putin has been his meddling in the 2016 election, his interviews where he's talked about ashley babbitt and really sought to not just stoke divisions but inflame, to burn down really -- and i guess we're burning our own politics down, but to pour gasoline on those divisions. to hear a sharp critic with this kind of rebuke of what he's done to his own country, ambassador mcfaul, was just so powerful. when this lands at a moment of domestic weakness for putin, what happens in russia? >> well, first, i couldn't agree more. remember alexei navalny is writing that from jail. he's fighting just to live, and when he puts out things like that, i think that inkreegss the probabilities that something bad will happen to him, so incredibly brave statement. second, i think it reminds us to
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not think in static terms. i think there's lots of my ukrainian friends rightfully who hate russia today and hate russians, and they think it's always going to be this way. and i think alexei is trying to remind people, no, we can change internally and we can be a better neighbor. and i would say third, we, political scientists, were really bad at predicting the future. by the way, so is the cia. we're not good at predicting regime change and collapse. but we do know from studying history that losing wars causes regime change. losing wars is when empires end. losing wars is when you have revolutions in 1905 in russia, germany after world war i. empires collapsed after world war i. and putin is losing this war, and he should be nervous about if he can hold onto power if indeed it is a complete disaster. >> i want to turn to the zelenskyy side of this. some of putin's rage was
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directed at the united states. as i said he described us as satanestic, but what really burns him is zelenskyy's comments about joining nato in an expedited manner. it is in ukraine that the fate of democracy and in the confrontation with tyranny is being decided. it is here with the firmness of our state borders that we can secure the firmness of the borders of all european states. we can guarantee that no one else will dare to bring war back to our continent. we have already proven interoperability with the alliance standards. they are real for ukraine, real on the battledfield. we trust each other, we help each other and protect each other. this is what the ais. colonel vindman, it sounds very much like he's already a nato member. but obviously he has always since the earliest days of of this war put this in a larger context of something we've been talking about on this show for
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years now, the battle between the world's democracies and the world's tyrants. >> you know, what's interesting about this statement really brings to home the simple notion that eventually i could see you crane joining nato. it can't happen in the middle of a war. nato just can't tolerate that kind of risk of a confrontation with russia, but in a lot of ways putin has manifest a de facto nato alliance with ukraine and with regards to supporting ukraine during this war effort, making sure ukraine exits this war as a cyber independent state. and really nato eventually is going to have to come around to the decision that the only way to avoid another scenario at some point in the future with russia attempting to attack ukraine is through security guarantees, something that we failed to do early onto avoid this scenario. i think that's going to have to be an inevitable outcome of putin's, you know, absurd war to
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try to keep ukraine in russia's sphere of influence. so i think zelenskyy is right. whether western nato leaders admit it or not i think that's probably going to be the end state at some point or another where ukraine gets security guarantees either nato membership or something similar. >> ambassador mcfaul at this point you usually remind me this fight between bureaucracies and autocracies isn't just within nation states but within nations themselves. this playing out in europe, in italy. it's playing out all over the world. how do you see this speech by president zelenskyy today in that frame? >> president zelenskyy is right. i agree with his framing 100%, and i think president putin is wrong in his framing, and i think that's going to make it harder for his ideological allies to stay with him whether
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in italy, hungary or the united states. he's now framing it in these satanistic kind of terms. that is going to be uncomfortable for some of those just several months ago were saying putin's not a bad guy, he's really smart. he's right about what he talks about on social issues. he has now upped the ante. he's expanded the way he is talking about these things ideologically, and i hope that will alieniate some of those who used to just support him several months ago. >> yeah, when you start to lose xi and erdogan, writing on the wall. thank you for starting us off on this story today. we're really grateful to both of you. when we come back, hurricane ian making landfall for a second time in south carolina even as rescues are still very much under way in florida. we'll have live reports from both areas. we'll speak to the coast guard about the hundreds of people who have already been brought to
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safety and how many more may still need rescuing. also ahead big questions for the united states supreme court now that the wife of a sitting supreme court justice says she believes the 2020 election was stolen. already the court has seen its image among the public plunge, and justices are arguing in public among themselves about the dangers of its politicization. we'll talk about where things go from here. later in the hour, feeding the florida residents who lost everything in hurricane ian. we'll take you inside a one of a kind volunteer effort to help the hardest hit areas in southwest florida. deadline white house continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. and in the dark. but what if you could begin to see the signs of hope all around you? what if you could let in the lyte? discover caplyta. caplyta is a once-daily pill, proven to deliver significant relief from bipolar depression. unlike some medicines that only treat bipolar i,
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i heard this morning an apartment complex right here where a resident had to basically swim out of their living room. and i said i've never heard of that. i've never heard of that. i'm 58 years old. i've never heard of something of this magnitude other than what happened with catena in new orleans. >> we were irma ready. >> but not ian? >> no. >> i mean there was just stuff going everywhere. i've never seen damage like this and i've lived here my whole life. >> floridians still very much assessing and processing the staggering destruction that hurricane ian left in its wake. homes leveled, businesses destroyed, cars submerged, lives completely upended. at this moment there have been 14 confirmed deaths due to the storm.
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although officials predict that number may rise. rescues are very much under way at this hour. here's footage of the coast guard airlifting people. so far 700 rescues have been made in the sunshine state. areas hit hardest by ian have been renered unrecognizable. one of our nbc correspondents on the ground in fort myers this morning described the area as, quote, like a bomb was detonated. as florida still reels the carolinas are facing the still moving hurricane. ian regained strength after crossing over florida yesterday and just a few hours ago made landfall in georgetown south carolina myrtle beach. even though ian is not bringing with it the same intensity it is still a hurricane. shaq, i've been watching your live shots all day.
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tell me mutt you're seeing this hour, and tell me what you've seen as the day has progressed? >> hey there, nicolle. right now it's just a slight misty rain, a slight breeze in charlatan. the mayor telling us today they dodged a bullet and by not getting the impacts you saw in other places. but that's not to say they were spared completely. this is a road locals tell me it does flood from time to time but nothing like what you're seeing here. even though it's somewhat receded in the past hour or so we've been here, so that's what you're hearing from officials that the water is receding in areas where there's flooding. there is still that impact that residents are going to have to deal with. there's a road that's going to be closed for the foreseeable future in the words of the police department here, but you get the sense from people in charleston at least they didn't get the impacts they did fear when they saw this storm barrelling their way.
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but if you look up the carolina coast not everyone was so lucky. i'm thinking about poly island, for example, where they lost an entire pier. they saw what the police department there described as catastrophic flooding in that area. the department now saying some of that flooding has receded, but that is the result of what we were seeing with hurricane ian and the widespread of it that really brought if it wasn't hurricane conditions tropical storm conditions to a large area. we saw the tropical storm force winds, the tropical storm force rain here in the charleston area really throughout the morning and into the afternoon. that resulted in some 90,000 people without power. but, again, you get the sense of how the area is slowly recovering. that number is down to about 62,000 people without power in the charleston area. so things are improving. you have officials saying they're breathing a sigh of relief, but there's still much more work that needs to be done,
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nicolle. >> shaq brewster, thank you for all the work you're doing for all of your shows. we're lucky to have you out there and please stay safe. >> will do. >> let's bring ainto our coverage nbc news correspondent blayne alexander. she's in fort myers, florida. if you could just tell me what you're seeing and hearing. >> reporter: well, nicolle, i think what you're seeing here behind me is proof of ian's wrath. you see over here one of the stark pictures, that's a huge boat. that boat originally was about 50 feet in front of where i am in the water. but really as we were driving the road to get down here we saw streets with images with boat after boat end up there and some even further back. we also see a lot of what we see here. this was once a bustling marina, a very busy area where people would come to rent
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kayaks and different things. you see a bathroom still fully intact, unbelievably a toilet, a shower, some of the cleaning supplies. but the entire front of the building was ripped off. the top story is completely gone, and that's really what we're seeing dotting this entire marina and a lot of what we're seeing here in fort myers beach. i spoke with some people who come back and are taking a look at this devastation for the very first time. i've got to say there's nothing that can compare to that. you see the images on tv. you see them from afar. but when you see somebody who walks up and looks at their business for the first time, that's a different kind of experience, and that's what we've seen throughout the day. i spoke with him and i asked him were you expecting something like this essentially, and he said, no. he tried to anchor down his kayaks, but they underestimated the power of this storm. they thought it would be okay if they tacked them down the best they could, but instead what he did was spend the better part of
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this morning trying to dig out his kayaks that ended up way over there somewhere. even though the storm itself is long gone there is still a sense of urgency. in lee county there are a number of hospitals that are still actively being evacuated. there's no running water here. there's no electricity for many of the people here, so it's just untenable for hospitals to care for patients in that sort of an environment. that's why we're seeing evacuations there. the other piece of this is santa bell island. that's an island not too far from where i'm standing. the one road in and out has been completely cut off, so the only way in is by helicopter, and there's still crews going over there, performing search and rescue efforts and knocking on doors. >> blayne, can you for our viewers sort of be our eyes on the scope of the damage? how much of fort myers looks like what you're standing in
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front of? >> that's a fantastic question. this really is the hardest hit area. i've got to say we were driving in, and i've spent a lot of this week in parts of florida. started in jacksonville, drove to orlando, drove to fort myers. as we were making the three hour or so drive down the florida coast today, we could easily tell once we were getting into storm territory that's where trees were littering the roadway, where pieces of the highway on-ramps and off-ramps were under water. as for this total devastation we're seeing here, we're seeing it here, we're seeing it for a few blocks to come, but the biggest issue here in fort myers is there's no water, no electricity. and i don't have to remiebld our viewers this, florida has one of the largest populations of elderly people in the country. right now it's about 82 degrees out here. it's going to get hotter in the days to come so getting water, electricity, certainly getting bottled water is a priority because it can't be purchased at any of the stores around here.
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those are things very crucial in the days and hours to come. >> once the sun comes back out there's still a lot of risk especially for vulnerable people. blayne alexander, thank you so much for being our eyes and ears on the ground there. great reporting. please stay safe. joining our coverage u.s. coast guard captain nicollete bond. captain bond is leading the incident command in preparation for hurricane ian. tell us what you've dealt with today. >> well, first off, thank you for the opportunity to tell the coast guard response. today i had an opportunity to do an overflight with some elected officials to have a first opportunity to see the damages on the ground and the destruction caused by had hurricane, and we did see some areas fared better than others and major destruction across
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areas of fort myers, port charlotte and naples. >> are you still involved in rescuing people or rescuing families? are there people on roofs, or have you shifted to a damage assessment phase? >> yes, ma'am. so we are still doing search and rescue operations. so far we've rescued over 200 lives between our air crafts and our flood rescue boats. so we are still in that phase. we'll continue to be in that phase until there's no longer a need. and mimulltaneously we are preparing and saving our assets and resources for the impacts along the south carolina coast. >> i was about to ask i mean a storm of this size there's ongoing need and ongoing crises. how do you sort of stack and stay ahead of what those needs are going to be? >> yeah, so, we are a great
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service that we are humanitarian and we help each other out, so we have brought people from all across the nation, from sacramento, from new orleans, from houston. we've brought assets and personnel, and we're staging those assets where we can, where it's safe to do so in order to be prepositioned to respond when needed. >> u.s. coast guard captain nicollete vaughn, thank you so much for your service and spending some time on what has to be a very busy day to talk to us about it. we're really grateful. >> thank you. great to be here. when we come back, switching gears on our front. there's new polling that shows americans are losing more faith in the supreme court. that was before the wife of the sitting supreme court justice told the january 6th select committee that she believes today that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from donald
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she didn't assert privilege at least not while i was present so she did answer the questions we had. she said i generally don't talk about my day to day activities. that leaves a lot of wriggle room. generally means there may be exceptions, and day to day means maybe not day to day but maybe in other terms these issues may
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have been discussed. >> very intriguing comment there from january 6th committee member congressman adam schiff on his analysis of their 3 1/2 hour meeting with ginni thomas, wife of justice clarence thomas, yesterday. she told the panel that she didn't speak to her husband about her post-election activity at least the day to day ones. she also called those activities minimal despite a lot of reporting that suggests they were not including her text messages to the architect of the coup plot. and thomas herself told the committee yesterday she still believes that the 2020 presidential election in the united states of america was stolen from ex-president donald trump. all of it entirely unprecedented as is the politics and perception problem for the united states supreme court itself, something she doesn't help. new polling just this week shows that trust in the court is at a historic low. the justices themselves now
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publicly feud over their own legitimacy. from politico this week, we cannot recall the last time justices sparred with each other in the press in this manner. let's bring in harry lipman, now the host of "talking feds podcast." i want to dive into the specifics, but i just want to step back for a minute. i mean, i know some people are shocked, but i'm shocked. i still think it is a bombshell that the wife of a sitting supreme court justice doesn't accept the results of a 2020 election in the united states of america. her husband is one of nine people who sit on the highest court in the land with unchecked power. the most opaque branch of the united states government. there really aren't any ethics laws that govern any of them, so i suppose it's a good thing that she went before the 1/6
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committee. but what she said there is a bombshell. she doesn't believe that power should have been transferred. she believes donald trump should still be the president. >> it is stunning. i also was shocked. not surprised but shocked. i think what it reflects is just how deeply trumpism has penetrated the kohler of the republican party. we're not stalking about some cook in her basement as the former president may have put it just watching fox news or worse. what we're talking about is the wife of a sitting supreme court justice who believes this. it makes you wonder what kind of conversations have gone on in the home. you certainly can't help but think of the dobbs decision simply because you want to know where is she getting her information from? who is he trusting? and what world is she living in? it's certainly not the one many of us are living in the united states of america. it's very scary.
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it also tells us a little bit about our institutions. i think as americans we have this kind of reverence for the founders and for the constitution. in many ways it's wonderful and that's part of a great tradition but in other ways can really blienld us to the reality that institutions only work so long as the people who fill those institutions and represent them continue to remain committed to the american project of democracy. and we just see how clearly that can come apart, and it's very scary. i think it's very scary. anybody who's sitting there saying that institutions will save us has got to look at this and really do some soul-searching. >> and i just want to be clear what the cancer of the lie is. the cancer of what she believes, she told the committee yesterday, on september 29, 2022, president joe biden has been our legitimately inaugurated president of his country for two years.
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she thinks he stole the election. so the cancer that is that lie means that she doesn't accept 60 courts that heard the bogus election fraud cases, bunch of them, a slew of them are trump appointed justices. she believe that conspiracy rotted the state courts that heard those 60 cases. she doesn't believe what bill barr believes that trump's lies about fraud was b.s. bill barr went and told them that. she doesn't believe that the hard core -- the people that worked for trump at the end they were the trump dead enders, harry. they weren't part of a deep state and they stood in way of a coup plot. >> she doesn't believe the facts in front of her face, so it's stunning in that regard. although you had to imagine this is what she was going to say. the committee had to say it, too. imagine if she'd come forward and just recanted it.
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and i think they couldn't have expected to get that kind of affirmation of the truth from her. it's a little puzzling they called her -- well, they didn't call her. it was a voluntary conversation, and i think maybe for two reasons. one, it gives the committee a little bit more legitimacy to be hearing from a prominent conservative like her. and then also 3 1/2 hours she was involved with eastman, with many state legislators she was trying to get to change the result, with mark meadows maybe predominantly. maybe there are little facts or details that help paint a tiny part of the mosaic for them, but really, yeah, it's stunning and i think mara put it perfectly, stunning but not surprising. what did we really think she was going to say? >> i don't know maybe that american democracy still holds. >> i know see the light. she would have volunteered to
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come forward, right? >> she also is potentially a witness to things we know under investigation by doj, and that's the fake electors scheme. do you imagine any point, harry, when doj might want to speak to any witnesses, to what eastman and sydney powell were pushing? she speaks to both of them on a first-name basis, she's texting them. do you think she may be of interest to doj? >> 100%. they are now going pretty deep after six or seven different schemes. and this state electors scheme, which is really among the stronger ones, nicole, because it involves very black and white false attestations on paper, that's a kind of a relatively clean case that, ques, of course they're going to want to talk to people who spoke with eastman, the state legislators. the state legislators, by the way, being more fertile potential sources of cooperation than people in trump's inner
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circle. so, yeah, you could really see it. and then it won't be voluntary interview. it will be please respond to this subpoena, ms. thomas. >> i want to parse a little bit of schiff's statement, mara. he says that they didn't speak about their day to day activities. well, believing the election was stolen from donald trump this isn't a day to day activity. it's a world view. i mean, schiff didn't say she didn't talk to her husband about her world view. what did you think about schiff's answer there? >> yeah, that was interesting. i think as a reporter you read between the lines on that, and i would have paid money to be in that room, but what we're hearing from members of the committee is quite disturbing in that i have spoken to members of the committee who have said that actually thomas didn't really provide any evidence, so, you know, the questions about do you
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believe the election is stolen, for example, you know, point to a court case, point to a specific case in court that you disagree with, a court ruling of the 60-plus courts across the united states that rejected the trump lawsuits claiming that the election was stolen and that she was unable or unwilling to do so. so the question then becomes, you know, is this really a fact-based argument, or is this something else? it's very cultish. it's very confusing and concerning. it's alarming. and, you know, it really does lead you to wonder what kind of conversations, again, full circle here are happening in that household given the fact these are not just any two americans. these are two americans with extraordinary power and access. so at this point ms. thomas is a witness, or that's how she's being described. but i think we're going to learn
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more in the months to come. >> harry, you know, not for nothing we're a country with a domestic violence extremism problem, and we know from the departments of homeland security and the fbi that at the heart -- the beating heart of that threat is a few different conspiracy theories. chief among them are racial animus. right up there are the lies about the election, the stolen election conspiracy. and then a little farther down are complaints about covid policies from the heat of the pandemic. the big thing that animates domestic extremism what does it do to the movement writ large when the wife of one of nine supreme court justices says she's all in with that conspiracy? >> yeah, i think it blows wind and it sails. look, there's always sort of ragtag gutter kind of theories like this out there, but we have a remarkable situation in the
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last couple years in numbers. you have a majority of the republican party believing this not withstanding all evidence to the contrary. and say what you will about her, she's a person of some statuer, some education, some prominence, some cultural place, and for her to be coming out and doubling down or at this point qua drupeling more down i think absolutely gives, you know, a kind of -- animates the ability of others at a much lower level to say, yes, it's true and by the way the media is lying to you and the government are thugs, et cetera, et cetera, everything that goes with the big lie. >> what a stain on the supreme court. thank you so much for being part of our coverage. when we come back we'll head back to southwest florida and
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the hardest hit areas from hurricane ian to tell you about an extraordinary effort to help people and families who need it most right now. help people and families who need it most right now ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
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who just lost our homes or our loved ones we'd hope people would show up to help us as well. >> that was president joe biden earlier today on the relief and recovery efforts taking place as floridians have had their lives completely up ended by hurricane ian. good samaritans have been flocking to the area trying to provide some relief and help to the families who have lost everything. one organization doing just that is "operation bbq relief" on the ground in port charlotte working to provide meals to those affected by ian's devastation. stan hayes is the co-founder of "operation bbq relief. it sounds exactly like what i would want to eat if i were being fed. tell us how you do what you do which is so important. >> yeah, you know, we're helping the families that have been affected here in the community and trying to get meals out into the community, in fact, my team has gotten about 500 meals out
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today in the midst of setting up and getting all this equipment here into this parking lot that we're set up in, so, you know, it's really about taking healing power of barbecue and getting it out to people that are just right now reeling from this loss they've suffered. >> what you're doing is a massive logistical undertaking. how did you prepare for this storm? >> i prepared by a couple of things. knowing i was driving down here, i made sure i had diesel exhaust fluid for our trucks, made sure my team was bringing that in with them so we didn't get stuck somewhere but we're also getting them to bring water in and just basic necessities as we're pulling trucks and trailers across the country down here. >> it is the most sort of tangible and comforting thing to give someone, not just a plate of food but a plate of barbecue,
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how can everybody be part of what you're giving people in florida? how can people help you? >> the biggest thing is if you can go to obr.org, to our website, there's two big buttons, one says volunteer, one says donate. you know, we need both. we need the ability for people to come in and volunteer and get their hands into the food and be able to see the impact it makes, you know, when you hand that to somebody. but we also need the dollars to make sure we can continue to feed those people in need. so, you know, those are the two big things that we are going to need right now. i mean, to put off the number of meals that it looks like we're going to need to, we're going to need a couple of hundred volunteers a day to put out 60, 70,000 meals in a day and that's going to be pushing the top end of our limit out of this parking lot. but we have some contingencies to work with other groups and local restaurants and we have really strong ties with to help put more meals out than that if needed. >> stan hayes, thank you for
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what you're doing and thank you for spending some time to talk to us about it. >> thank you so much for having me on. i appreciate it. >> a quick break for us. we will be right back.
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better hearing made virtually invisible. that's that eargo difference. hmmm. -morning, jen. no sleep again? i don't think coffee is your answer today. you think? my data shows you're not off to a good start. what? all right, so might have been a formality but it was historic and we thought it was important enough to show you at the end of this week. this morning, the supreme court held what is called an investiture ceremony for its newest justice, justice ketanji
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brown jackson including nancy pelosi, justice jackson who was sworn in back in july is already participating in the supreme court's activities ahead of a new nine-month term that starts monday but before that begins, one more chance to appreciate such an historic moment and day. we will be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ well, the stock is bubbling in the pot ♪ ♪ just till they taste what we've got ♪ [ tires squeal, crash ] when owning a small business gets real, progressive gets you right back to living the dream. now, where were we? [ cheering ]
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thank you so much for letting us into your homes for another week of shows during these extraordinary times, especially when the news can be hard to watch like this week. we're so grateful. "the beat with katie phang" starts right now. >> i appreciate it. the same to you. and welcome, everyone, to "the beat." i'm katie phang in for ari melber. a fourth landfill for hurricane ian. we'll go live to the storm zone, plus, what gin

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