species. what risk does milton pose to them? >> they are in their pools, their concrete pools. and really we are looking for any sort of overhead debris so everything is either completely removed or ratcheted down to ensure we don't have anything flying into their pools. but other than that, they have been given as much lettuce as they can possibly eat for several days. so, they should be -- have everything they need at least over the next couple of days and, again, we have that team on site to just keep eyes on all animals and make sure everyone is safe. >> we saw that giraffe there, you say they're the challenging ones, especially in moments like this, but they sure are cute. we hope everybody stays safe, all the animals are healthy during all of this, thank you, tiffany burns, for joining us and best of luck in the next several hours and days ahead. >> thank you. we hope everyone stays safe. >> that does it for us today.

keep it here on msnbc. we'll be here throughout the storm for you and i'll see you here tomorrow, same time, same place. for now, i'm ana cabrera reporting from new york. jose diaz-balart picks up our coverage right now. good morning. 11:00 a.m. eastern, 8:00 a.m. pacific. i'm jose diaz-balart. we begin with breaking news. hurricane milton closing in on florida's gulf coast, expected to make landfall early tomorrow as a devastating major hurricane. right now, milton is a category 4 storm, churning 100 miles southwest of tampa, set to bring damaging winds and a dangerous and potentially historic storm surge. schools, airports and many businesses are already closed in florida as people scramble to evacuate in the final hours before the storm hits. and take a look at this, milton's powerful winds shaking

up a team of hurricane hunters flying through the storm. meantime, right now, in south florida, a tornado has broken out near i-75. joining us now from tampa, nbc's marissa parra. and also with us, "today's" al roker. what is going on right now, marissa? >> reporter: as you can see, the rain is already starting to come down. i'm sure al is going to have more on that in just a moment, but we have been covering for the last couple of days here in the tampa bay region all of the preparations and all of the evacuations, and that looks like several different things. of course, you have the sandbagging, you have the rush to get the debris out of here, out of harm's way. that is already done. the efforts for that are done. the debris was not fully removed. we knew that was going to be the case because this is normally something that takes months, they instead had days. and at the end of the day, the people who were doing the debris removal also needed to get themselves evacuated. so we now are also seeing, of course, all of those long lines that were on the interstates on

the highways to get to higher ground, to get to safety, we know the shoulders were open, the tolls were suspended, and there were around the clock efforts to make sure the gas stations when there was a lot of social media posts talking about concerns with fuel, there was around the clock efforts to deliver the fuel where it needed to go. we spoke to some of the people who were doing those around the clock efforts to help people get to higher ground, get what they needed to safety. take a listen. >> when you go from 8,000 gallons to selling 40,000 gallons, the demand, you just can't keep up. >> i'm noticing that people are actually evacuating. i'm actually -- i'm seeing that people are actually getting out of dodge this time. last time, helene, they were out of here, boats and stuff. now, the boats are gone, the highways are jam packed, there is no water in the stores, it is just hectic right now. everybody i know, not one person i know that is staying.

>> reporter: whether it is first responders, whether it is the fuel truck delivery driver, first person you heard from, or whether it is the contractor helping to board up the businesses at the very final moments before evacuating himself, there are heroes of so many kinds, and so many forms around here doing really important work. we heard from first responders going door to door doing mandatory evacuations up until the final moments and i'll say, jose, we're talking about those precarious zones, zone a, zone b, closest to the coast, at most risk when it comes to the threat of something like storm surge. they said they were getting a lot less pushback from people because they were -- they had their eyes open from helene and some of them, they had already evacuated before they had even had their door knocked on. i would say that the time really is running out. officials saying those bridges that connect pinellas county, which encompasses the barrier islands which encompasses st. petersburg will be closing soon. that often happens ahead of a hurricane. we have seen that several times before. and, jose, quickly, i will also

mention, of course, we talked about the threat of winds, of storm surge. something that i thought was interesting, st. petersburg, there is areas that are in higher ground, people who didn't think they were in harm's way when it comes to the storm surge, who didn't evacuate that now st. petersburg is saying we're at risk of cranes, cranes in the middle of the city from the construction zones that are now at risk of toppling over, so people in those areas, you can find this online, are being asked to stay away from the windows and get as close as they can inside the closest inside they can away from the windows in case those cranes topple over. and finally, for those who are still looking for information, there are still shuttles running if you need help, if you need financial assistance, look on the florida department of emergency management website, you can find the information you need, but the time really is running out here. jose? >> marissa parra, if it is a cat 4 or a cat 5, it is right now looking like a very high cat 4, those cranes are going to fall.

those cranes will be toppled in a cat 4 or cat 5. marissa parra, take good care. thank you very much for everything. al, let's go right into the trajectory of this monster. >> well, sir, here's the deal. we are looking at this dangerous storm, and whether it is a -- it looks like it may come on shore as a cat 3, but that doesn't really matter right now. we got so many impacts to this. the midsection of florida currently in hurricane warnings from fort myers, tampa, orlando, fort pierce, along the eastern coast of florida as well. here we go, right now, category 4 storm, winds down to 145 miles per hour. its forward speed has picked up now, moving northeast at 17 miles per hour. and you can see heavy rain already now moving into coastal florida from south of fort myers. and we got tornado watches right now, including tornado warnings, as you just showed. we had a tornado on the ground. and this is really going to

start ramping up as the afternoon progresses later today. makes landfall sometime early tomorrow morning, probably as a category 3, getting some wind shear in here that may start to weaken it a bit. but it is still going to be a very powerful system, still a category 1 as it moves across the center part of the state. the big impacts, we always worry about, is storm surge. 10 to 15 feet from sarasota all the way down to boca grande. the surge could move several miles inland, 8 to 12 feet st. petersburg. this is a difference of ten miles of where it makes landfall. if it moves further to the north, that's going to mean we're going to see more storm surge in tampa, little further to the south, fort myers gets involved. sarasota gets involved. as we mentioned, as it exits, 3 to 5 feet of storm surge on the eastern side. that means 3 feet of storm surge, that initial rush of water, it is considered life threatening. you can't walk through that. you get to homes, once we get to

3 to 6 feet, driving is near impossible, the weight of water breaks through doors and windows. and then we get up to 10 feet, that's going to wipe out first floors there are a lot of one-story homes there, you'll have to get to an upper level or out on to your roof. 10 feet plus, homes get swept away, entire neighborhoods completely destroyed. so, when we saw that in helene, and we may very well see that again with milton. now, destructive winds, big problems. as you're talking about the crane damage, well, windows and high rises are going to get blown out, widespread power outages could be lasting for weeks, and those widespread power outages in a swamp from sarasota all the way to the eastern coast of florida, central coast, vero beach on up to daytona beach as well, and we're talking about catastrophic flooding. there is a high risk, a high risk of life threatening catastrophic street flooding and river flooding as well. some places, 18 inches, some

even could see a little bit more of that, especially from jacksonville all the way down to tampa and orlando as well. and as we mentioned, the tornado risk. this is going to be really possibly catastrophic when we talk about that tornado risk, tornadoes already developing, and they're just going to become more numerous as we get into the afternoon and evening. and in this hatched area, we could see ef2 or stronger tornadoes. so, we're talking about a real mess here that is going to have big time impacts, infrastructure is definitely going to be affected and i just -- i worry that anybody who is left in this area is going to be in big trouble. as you know, our crews are already getting ready to start to evacuate to get to higher ground, and even that is still kind of shaky. >> my dear friend, al roker, thank you so much for being with me this morning, so important. i appreciate it, my friend. >> you got it.

let's go to tampa, joining us now is barbara tripp, tampa fire chief. thank you for being with us this morning. tampa could very well be in the bull's eye of this monster hurricane. what have you been doing to prepare? >> we have been preparing. this is one of the things that makes public safety so important. we train all year for incidents like this. especially here in the tampa bay area. we have definitely reached out to a lot of different state and federal resources, which have been so helpful. so we have different task force teams that's been deployed. we have the national guards that is standing by willing to help us, we reached out for multiple strike teams, suppression teams. and so we are preparing for this cat 5 storm to hit the state of florida. >> and, chief, i know that you've been just doing extraordinary work. the mayor of tampa warned

residents that if you stay in an evacuation area, you very well are going to die. there is still, marissa parra, was saying some time for residents in these evacuation areas to leave. what is your message at this hour for them? >> our message is for everyone to take heed to the guidelines when you talk about evacuation. when she says, you know that you're going to die, i think what she's trying to say is don't put your life and others in danger. first responders will not be able to respond to you when the conditions get worse. we can put our lives in danger and we don't want someone to sit there and suffer. that's why we're stressing, if you're in that cone, don't take the chance with mother nature, because she's going to always win. we always tell people, you know, to hide from the wind and run from the water. and that's the message we're trying to get everyone, hurricane helene presented a lot of different challenges to the city of tampa. and that's what we want everyone

to see, even with the rain that comes through, we're talking about the surge, we're talking about the height of your home, the height of your roof, you know, we want people to understand when that surge comes in, it is going to be very hard to try to pack your car and get your gatherings, your clothing and stuff and then try to leave. so leave now. >> yeah, and, chief, this comes as you were saying, less than two weeks after helene decimated parts of your area, the huge amounts of sand among other things, and i know you all have been working around the clock to clear a lot of that debris before milton arrives. how have your cleanup efforts been going? >> so, fortunate with a lot of the local resources we have had three major areas that was devastated with hurricane helene. so with that being said, two of the areas we got 100% of it cleaned up the best we could and one area, about 10%, but we have been telling everyone, if you can take those debris and take it to the nearest transfer station, you know, it was open

24 hours a day, we had trucks going in and out 24 hour days, so it has been very positive as far as trying to get to debris before milton comes in. >> and, chief, you know, you were just mentioning how once the winds get beyond 40, 45 miles an hour, there is no way that responders can come and help you. and it is just so important because you, the men and women of your department who do extraordinary work, are putting your lives on the line for the next 24 hours, and i'm just wondering, what should people now do in these final hours? >> once again, these last few -- you got a couple of hours. you need to go to higher ground, you need to come inland, because once the wind speeds get 40 miles per hour, we cannot respond. first responders, law

enforcement. granted we have actually requested a lot of different marine assets, but we can't go out there until the storm has bypassed us. if we get out there into the storm, that's going to present a danger to us. we're telling everyone if you're in the evacuation zones, come to shelters. we have opened up municipality shelters within the city for people to come, bring their pets, so they can be safe until the storm has passed through. >> tampa fire chief barbara tripp, thank you so much for being with me this morning. i know how difficult things are for you. i thank you for everything that you're doing. and we cannot stress enough, if you are in an evacuation zone, this is really as marissa parra, the chief was saying, this is the final chance to get out. the florida division of emergency management says there are 155 shelters throughout the state, if you need more information, you can go to

floridadisaster.org, and if you permit me, just for a minute -- [ speaking in a global language ] stay with us as we track hurricane milton, as it barrels toward florida. coming up, we'll get up to the minute developments from the director of the national hurricane center in miami. plus, politics, how the trump campaign is pushing back against stunning revelations from bob woodward's new book about trump's relationship with vladimir putin. and what we're learning about a foiled terror plot set for election day here in the u.s. we're back in 90 seconds. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. s you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports" on msnbc.

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16 past the hour. new details after the justice department announced it has foiled a potential election day terror attack here in the u.s. prosecutors say they have arrested a 27-year-old afghan national and a juvenile co-conspirator, both living in the u.s., for planning to carry out an attack on behalf of the terror group the islamic state. the pair was arrested after they met two confidential sources and

an undercover fbi agent to purchase rifles, magazines and ammunition for the attack. turning now to the 2024 race for the white house, as both candidates focus on the battleground states that could determine who becomes the next president. former president trump is holding two events in pennsylvania, meanwhile vice president harris will head to nevada where she will wrap up her media blitz with a univision town hall tomorrow. during her appearance on the view yesterday, she was asked what she would have done differently than president biden during the past four years. >> there is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of -- and i've been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact. >> joining us now, nbc news correspondent dasha burns and peter baker, chief white house correspondent at "the new york times." also an msnbc political analyst. so, peter, the trump campaign is already seizing on the vice president's comments, pointing out issues about inflation and

the border crisis. is this going to have any impact, do you think? >> it is part of their argument overall, pointing out she has been his number two for three and a half years and therefore she gets credit for anything biden did, she should get blame for anything biden did. i think you see how much she wants to distance herself without trying to look like she's distancing herself. she doesn't want to say she disagrees with the president who appointed her on any particular major policy, but at the same time, she's not using him on the campaign trail very much either. you don't see biden out there campaigning for kamala harris because she wants to establish herself as her own independent identity and she wants to be the change agent, which is a powerful force to be, also a tricky, you know, thing to do when you're the incumbent vice president. >> yeah. the whole change agent and who is a change agent in this race, peter, is they're both in a very

real way established, an establishment. >> yeah, they each can make a claim to being change agent, but at the same time, of course, they both have been there. trump was president for four years. not an outsider anymore in that sense. but he is a disruptive force. if he came back, he would, of course, try to you know reorganize government, put a lot more power into the hands of his presidency, a lot of people have talked about his efforts to -- that he has talked about to, you know, neuter the civil service, the apolitical part of government, that is supposed to be there through presidents of both parties. on the other hand, harris changed in her own way, she's not president biden. she would be the first woman to be president, the first woman of color to be president, but she has been there for four years as part of the governing administration. so, it is kind of a tricky balance for each of them to try to weigh here. >> and, dasha, trump is in pennsylvania today, what is his message? >> yeah, two stops in

pennsylvania today, jose, that the campaign says will be focused on the economy. the campaign telling me that today he's going to, quote, rip kamala harris for being a radical left liberal who ruined san francisco and will be disastrous for pennsylvania's energy policies. they say that he will focus on the issues of oil and gas, which are so critical to voters here in pennsylvania. i will say, though, that right now, energy production, oil and gas production is at record highs under this administration here in the united states. higher than it was under the trump administration. so, as he's trying to make that contrast, that context is important to keep in mind, jose. >> and, dasha, the trump campaign, meanwhile, is pushing back on new reporting in bob woodward's latest book, including trump kept in touch with putin after leaving office and a whole lot more. how are they handling that? >> reporter: both the trump campaign and the kremlin are denying the reports that the

post presidency conversations. take a listen to what former president trump just said. >> that's absolutely wrong. look, i know bob woodward. i'm suing him because he used tapes and sold the tapes. he didn't just sold the book, he sold the tapes. he's not allowed to do it. i think he's a bad guy, so i thought i would have fun with him. he's a very bad guy. he's got a tremendous liability on this. but he has lost it. >> reporter: and, jose, there is also reporting in woodward's book that former president trump at the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic when testing was limited sent testing devices to russian president vladimir putin. now, the trump campaign is denying this, but a kremlin spokesperson told bloomberg that that, in fact, did happen. we are out to the trump campaign on this, they are pointing us to the former president's previous statements, the statement from him that you just heard in saying that they have nothing

more to add here, but we're also out to the kremlin to get confirmation on this, jose. >> yeah, and, i mean, peter, you wrote the piece for "the new york times" when you give a lot of details that woodward has in his book about that whole issue of whether he sent over these covid machine, test machines, et cetera. meanwhile, the vice president heads to nevada later. what is the significance of this state to her campaign? >> nevada is a state that seemed to be drifting away from the democrats when biden was still president and on the ticket. but that has changed drastically under kamala harris and now that she's the nominee. they seem to have much better chance of winning nevada. she's been fighting for that, particularly for the hispanic vote, which is critical in nevada. nevada could be key to winning. everybody talks about pennsylvania, pennsylvania is probably the one most important battleground state. but if she loses pennsylvania, and still gets other two blue wall states of michigan and wisconsin, she can still win if

she gets nevada and north carolina. and that's a path to victory that the democrats see, so it is important for them to make a real play for nevada at this point. >> dasha burns and peter baker, thank you both so very much. up next, we'll get an update on hurricane milton with the director of the national hurricane center in miami. why this hurricane could make history. and breaking overseas, what we know about the critical phone call between president biden and prime minister benjamin netanyahu of israel, happening right now. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. . one a day is formulated with key nutrients to support whole body health. one a day. science that matters. when anyone in this house wears white, it doesn't stay white for long. white? to soccer? i'm not gonna slide tackle. but now with tide oxi white, we can clean our white clothes without using bleach even works on colors. i slide tackled. i see that. it's got to be tide.

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oh... he used to be a competitive gamer but with the higher lag, he can't keep up with his squad. so now we're his “squad”. what are kevin's plans for the fall? he's going to college. out of state, yeah. -yeah in the fall. change of plans, i've decided to stay local. oh excellent! oh that's great! why would i ever leave this? -aw! we will do anything to get him gaming again. you and kevin need to fix this internet situation. heard my name! i swear to god, kevin! -we told you to wait in the car. everyone in my old squad has xfinity. less lag, better gaming! i'm gonna need to charge you for three people. 27 past the hour. back now with our breaking news, hurricane milton careening toward florida's gulf coast, set to make landfall early tomorrow morning. the evacuations should be rushed to completion this morning. joining us now, michael brennan, director of the national hurricane center.

thank you for being with us this morning. so give us the latest on milton right now. >> yeah, fortunately, jose, milton is on track to bring multiple life threatening hazards to florida. that's starting now. we're seeing tornadoes pop up in south florida, heavy rainfall move on shore, we're going to see the winds increase, that life threatening storm surge play out along portions of the florida west coast this evening and into the overnight hours. right now milton still a powerful category 4 hurricane, maximum winds 145 miles per hour, you can see the eye here on radar imagery, currently about 190 miles southwest of tampa, moving northeast at 17 miles per hour. >> so, michael, let's talk about the issue of where it may hit as far as direct hit, because that would affect the storm surge that different communities could be seeing. >> really does. it makes all the difference in the world, just 10 or 20 miles as to whether this biggest storm surge is going to happen in tampa bay or in sarasota or down toward port charlotte. the risk is pretty much equal

across all these areas now. that's why there is a storm surge warning everywhere you see in pink here for the risk of the life threatening inundation. somewhere in this region, in the region between say manatee county down to sarasota, venice, inglewood, 10 to 15 feet expected somewhere in this area near and to the right of where milton's center crosses the coast tonight. >> and, michael, we expect it to hit as a cat 3? >> yeah, still expected to be a major hurricane, we don't want people to get too caught up in the fact that the peak winds are going to come down a little bit because the storm is growing in size, so that increases the storm surge threat, increases the areas at risk of the tropical storm and hurricane-force winds and you see how much of florida, everywhere painted in red is under a hurricane warning, the entire central portion of the state, the i-4 corridor will see power outages tonight into thursday. >> and, michael, when do we expect it to actually hit?

we're saying early tomorrow morning. we're looking at what time, do you think? >> the landfall is going to be in the evening to early overnight hours it looks like at this point in time. but those conditions are going to deteriorate rather quickly as we go through the afternoon and late afternoon and evening hours, with tropical storm conditions reaching the coast here in the next few hours. water levels are going to start to rise along the west coast. the worst conditions will be felt more in the overnight hours and interior portions of the peninsula and early morning hours on thursday off into the east coast as the system exits out to the east tomorrow afternoon. >> michael, thank you so very much. appreciate your time. i want to bring in telemundo anchor julio vaqeida who is in tampa. i know you've been there for some time. how have people prepared for this? >> so, yes, we're starting to feel the rain, expected to increase in the next couple of hours. we can see the bay here. difficult to imagine this -- see

this water raising to the levels that the experts are predicting. we're in the latino area. this is a latino neighborhood. and with helene, although that hurricane didn't really hit this area directly, with helene we saw this area about four feet of water through this houses. now that level should be even higher, probably up to ten feet. so all of these houses will be covered by the water. we were joining some police officers who are still patrolling the area, making sure that people have already left. time is running out. and we actually saw some people still in their houses who are resisting to leave. police officers trying to convince them, because as i said, there is not much time left, jose. >> and, julio, i think it is important we say, that's why we do at times here mention the different places one can find information in spanish because there is a large spanish-speaking community, not only in tampa and st. pete, but

all the way through the west coast of florida, you know, sarasota, bradenton, you want to go down even further. julio, what is it, have you seen that most people have heeded the warnings and are leaving, evacuating these areas? >> reporter: i would say most people are, jose. when we just got to tampa yesterday, the roads were completely full of cars, blocked with people running away from the hurricane. we were going in the opposite direction trying to get here to make sure we can give the information that is needed for people and report from this area. and in general, this is like a ghost city. but as i said, in this last few hours, patrolling with the police officers and we saw a couple of families still around. some of them are just making sure they can get everything ready before they leave. some of them are still resisting to leave, not many, but some are not willing to leave, jose.

>> julio vaquiero, thank you very much, my friend, take care. we have some -- we're showing as we were speaking with julio some images, a lot of images of the sunshine sky way bridge there right outside of tampa. look at that. this is at 11:33 a.m., you know, eastern time. as michael brennan was telling us, the heavy impact of this storm is still hours away, but, look, this is a situation that is going to get progressively more and more dangerous. you can see that there aren't any cars right now, there is one that we see on the left-hand side of the lanes. but marissa parra was telling us many of the bridges will be closed in the next couple of hours. so, this is the time to do what you have to do if you haven't yet. up next, as the world awaits how israel will retaliate

against iran, new details about the phone call under way as we speak between president biden and israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. plus, as we track hurricane milton, talk to hurricane expert john morales about what people need to be doing right now before milton makes landfall. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. employees get the information they need instantly. this is how business goes further with t-mobile for business. i was stuck. unresolved depression symptoms were in my way. i needed more from my antidepressant. vraylar helped give it a lift. adding vraylar to an antidepressant is clinically proven to help relieve overall depression symptoms better than an antidepressant alone. and in vraylar clinical studies, most saw no substantial impact on weight. elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. report unusual changes in behavior or suicidal thoughts. antidepressants can increase

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39 past the hour. remember we were just talking

about the sunshine sky way bridge there, through tampa, st. pete and manatee, it was going to be closing. we're just being told right now that the sunshine sky way bridge has been shut down. it is closed. so, just take that into consideration. also happening now, president biden and israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu were speaking, the prime minister's office sharing this photo. joining us now from tel aviv is nbc's erin mclaughlin. what more can you tell us about this phone call? >> reporter: well, jose, according to israeli official, it was a call that was scheduled to have begun at 10:30 a.m. eastern. you see there the photo released by the israeli prime minister's office inside his office in jerusalem, you see the prime minister there with other israeli officials, they say speaking on the phone to president biden.

also on that call, vice president harris. as you point out, this is the last time these two leaders have spoken since august 21st. it is staggering when you consider how many events that potentially could shape this region had transpired since then, beginning with the brazen hezbollah pager attack, targeting senior hezbollah officials in september. that was followed by the assassination of hezbollah leader hassan nasrallah and then there was the israeli ground operation announced, israeli troops going into southern lebanon, targeting hezbollah and then came last week's response from iran, a massive barrage of missiles, the largest in this country's history, 180 plus missiles fired at israel in retaliation for the assassination of hassan nasrallah. and what this region has been bracing for, the question of the hour, of course, is how will

israel respond in terms of that question. president biden says he did not want to negotiate in public, but certainly seems to be how that has played out. he's openly said he would not support a strike on iran's nuclear facilities. he's also said he would counsel against a potential strike on iranian oil fields. it is a question weighing on this region heavily. we're waiting for the answer. will there be an answer out of this phone call, we don't know. but certainly we're at a moment here in the region that has potential to change the course of history. jose? >> erin mclaughlin in tel aviv, thank you very much. i want you to see this, by the way, the view of milton, from space. take a look at this. we'll be speaking with hurricane expert john morales about how catastrophic this storm could be. but, first, wise words from an evacuee. >> if anybody knows anything about florida, when you don't evacuate, when you're ordered

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with us is john morales, veteran meteorologist, and hurricane specialist at nbc wtvj in miami who covered so many hurricanes and other storms for three decades, and counting. john, great to see you, my friend. tell us what the latest is on this, and the 11:00 update just recently came out. >> yeah, so there is a little bit of good news, in that finally, finally that upper level wind shear is starting to impinge upon this hurricane. and, you know, you can even just looking at satellite picture, you can tell what the eye no longer visible that it has lost some strength. so that's good news. the bad news is that the starting point for this weakening phase was solid category 5 hurricane. which as you know it attained that intensity twice and the second time it was at 165 miles per hour maximum sustained

winds. we're coming down from 165 now to 145, which is still a category 4 hurricane. i should add that in the staffer simpson scale for winds, there is no difference between the consequences of category 4 and a category 5 hurricane. they are both labels as catastrophic. now, there is also a little bit of additional bad news. this process, this weakening process, where there is an upper level dip in the jet stream, starting to cause the wind shear, well, that also helps the size of the wind field grow. so, now the winds, the tropical storm force winds extend out 175 miles from the center where as just six hours ago, it was closer to 150, 125. and the hurricane force wind field has also expanded in this

transition that milton is trying to do. so, that, the result will be that more people will be impacted by wind, even if thankfully it is not 165, hopefully it will be just 100 -- just -- 135, 125, we'll see, for the hurricane-force winds and the tropical storm-force winds, well, that large wind field, jose, is going to push more water toward the coast. that is why there has been such a high level of risk and alert from all the authorities asking people to evacuate the coastline, because the storm surge its landfall point, whethr that's sarasota or maybe still as far north as tampa, hopefully that's not the case, but from that point, from the landfall point and south, the storm surge

is going to be devastating. people need to run from that water. >> so much to ask you about. a few of the issues is, you are thinking it's going to hit as a cat 3 maybe? >> it could. it's dropped a good number of miles per hour just since this morning. i apologize for being distracted and looking away. i want to give you the exact forecast from the national hurricane center, which is for 125 miles per hour at landfall. that would be a cat 3. last night, national hurricane center had increased their landfall forecast to a category 4. now they have it as a category 3. that's still a major hurricane. major hurricanes bring the most devastation. that should be expected from this one, too. >> john morales, it's terrible

that we talk mostly when there are some very difficult things to talk about and learn from you about. but i thank you so much for being with us. let's keep in close touch. we will see how this goes as the evening progresses. john, thank you. >> thanks, jose. up next, the growing political storm over the federal hurricane response. our next guest represented south florida during hurricane irma. we will ask him what it takes to navigate this line between politics and recovery. you are watching "jose diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. of magic eraser and the cleaning power of dawn. watch it make soap scum here... disappear... and sprays can leave grime like that ultra foamy melts it on contact. magic. new ultra foamy magic eraser. our right to reproductive health care is being stolen from us. i can't believe this is the world we live in, where we're losing the freedom to control our own bodies.

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55 past the hour. to the growing political storm over the federal response to hurricane helene which hit the southeast nearly two weeks ago. vice president harris is calling out former president trump for false claims he and his allies are spreading about the government's response to the storm. >> what upsets me so is the idea that any politician would play political games with these folks with people who are in the midst of such suffering, loss of life, loss of their homes, loss of normalcy, and then for the sake of political gain tell these lies in a way that's meant to make people distrust the help that is there for them to receive. >> look, the former president and his allies claim the biden

administration has taken disaster relief funds to pay for housing undocumented immigrants, which isn't true. fema says money comes from separate government funding channels. joining us now, former florida republican congressman carlos guberos. even in storms, when you have 200 plus people who lost their lives in helene, even then you gotta play politics. >> it shows you how far we have fallen. hurricane irma devastated the keys. it came up the peninsula. kevin mccarthy, steny hoyer came together to my district to send a message to make sure that the federal agencies were doing all they could to help people

recover. that's what we should see after storms. you have to think about this. people have lost their homes. some people have lost relatives. they have lost all their belongings. the last thing they want to hear is politicians trying to make some hay out of their suffering and the destruction. >> there are things you can point to about the -- >> disaster response is never perfect. >> it's difficult. it may have been slow in some parts and not as much in others. is there no going back to that civility that you referred t? >> president biden made an effort the other day. he was asked about governor desantis, they don't have the best of relationships. president biden said the governor is doing the best we can. we're doing the best we can.

that's the bottom line. this is a very difficult situation. florida is about to go through it again. i know you will be covering it. what we need is for people to make sure there's very strong coordination between federal, state and local government officials. >> yeah. president biden was very clear yesterday when he spoke. he was very clear, we're working together. any call i get -- >> i think he has sent the right message. i think obviously former president trump is doing all he can to politicize the situation. frankly, i think vice president harris and that whole confusion or situation between her call to governor desantis -- i think president biden hit the right tone. >> back to the florida guys talking.

this state is so in many ways unique in our country is how it deals with these kinds of events preplanning, moments before and moments after. why is it that this state is so different? >> we are battle tested here. ever since hurricane andrew in 1992, florida updated its construction -- >> building codes were changed. >> sadly, we have become really good. the power companies are ready. they have assets prepared to move forward. it's a product of experience. >> carlos, thank you very much. that wraps up the hour for me. i'm jose diaz-balart. thank you for the privilege of your time. andrea mitchell picks up with more news right now. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," florida bracing for a direct hit from hurricane milton. potentially devastating winds from the category 4 storm are expected to hit