surfers were still in the water catching waves before milton came ashore and people say this is just something that surfers, they wanted to catch in on those waves before the hurricane hits. stephanie? >> dana. i hear some loud banging behind you, so i'm going to urge ewe to go inside. thank you for giving us the update. for us here in new york city, that does it. i wish you all a very safe night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up late. let's all think of florida tonight. i'll see you at the end of tomorrow. we are going to go straight to bill karen's msnbc meteorologist for the latest on this situation there. bill, what can we expect now in florida?

>> this is where all the damages happening, lawrence. we can show you where the worst storm surges because it would be safer our crew or correspondence but we know it's moving in. we had reports of a 10 foot storm surge in sarasota. as we go down the coast, all the way to naples, 5 to 6 foot storm surge. we have had new, significant damage being done tonight as the storm is moving inland. the winds are still pushing the water against the coast and it's still rushing in. the other thing you will notice, the black line is the center. just north of the center, for five hours over tampa, torrential rain. we're talking 2 to 3 inches per hour. that is starting to slide along i-4 to the disney universal complexes later today. very rare that i get this purple on the map. that is two to three inches of rain. tampa, your rainfall rate will diminish but you have three or four hours to go. that's why you could end up with maybe a foot or foot and a

half of rain. that's why you are under a flash flood emergency in the tampa area. st. petersburg is also included in that. we have a couple of gauges giving us readings. there's the five feet in naples. ft. meyers, you are about 4 to 5 feet in most locations. further up, closer to the center, right in here, this is inglewood, venice, up towards sarasota. that's where the peak of the surge has been happening now. we are also headed toward high tides with water rushing in. we have damaging waves on top of it. there were huge concerns for tampa bay going into the storm. right now these are negative numbers because the wind is still blowing out. notice that the wind is now starting to shift and stephanie was saying that a couple of minutes ago. now some of that water will return. is likely to be like a huge storm surge. it's just going to be returning back to normal. as far as the winds go, we are at 1.2 million people without power. some of the highest gusts we've seen. 96 in st. petersburg. when you get these 90 mile-per- hour wind gusts you are getting

roof damage. you are obviously getting the gas station science, things like that blowing around. we were also getting significant tree damage falling on houses, powerlines, cars. that will be through the sarasota area, st. petersburg, heading up to tampa and along i- 4. here's the flash flood warning. you run from the water but you can't evacuate when you're inland. that's what the concern is during the overnight hours. a lot of people in the storm surge zone hopefully left south of sarasota. tonight water will be a problem if you're near any small rivers or creeks. they are not going to drain. in this little pink area, here, this is the flash flood emergency until 2:30 in the morning. because it's so windy and dangerous first responders will not be going out. for lawrence the storm is east of sarasota. it will take another 10 hours to cross the peninsula here. we think it's going just south of orlando, right around about 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. the storm was gone by 10:00 a.m. we will have a very good idea of how bad the storm is. by midmorning it will be safe enough for helicopters to fly

to show us just how much destruction is taking place right now. >> bill karen's, thank you. we will come back for updates at this hour. we are going to jesse kirsch, who is in sarasota, florida. jesse, what is the situation there now? >> reporter: about 90 minutes ago it was clear and birds were chirping. look at it now. we are blocks from the sarasota bay and almost entirely, it seems, on an island right now. i say almost entirely because i cannot confirm for sure for our own safety sake. as you can see, we are surrounded by water on his ramp. you could see all the leaves, all the palm trees floating around out here with rain whipping around as well. i had my photographer, david, come with me. it's not just about storm surge and wind. it's about the debris left over from helene that's why we are inside of a garage so that we have as much protection and shelter on as many sites as possible from that flying debris. i will show you, on this other

quarter, the main road in downtown sarasota gives you an idea of how much water has rushed inland. i had my photographer, david, step in here. you can see the side of a stop sign that is partially covered. those things are whipping around along with the trees. off in the distance, that is the main road in downtown sarasota. we could see water rippling. that means that there is water very much in downtown sarasota. we will head back over to our main position because that is our little fortified corner here. all of that debris, lawrence, is left over. only about 50% of what they have been trying to get from the barrier islands was actually collected. even with a 24/7 operation. that's how much damage helene had done. and here in sarasota we were looking at potentially twice as much storm surge compared to helene with milton on its way. and this is the scene. we have this corner set up so that we have protection from the flying debris. just in the last 15 minutes or so the top of this parking

deck, which is tennis courts, there's a piece of metal siding. we can hear it scraping across and flying off of the deck. it had us taking cover for a moment briefly as well. the threat from debris, whether it was old debris or new, is very much real. you could see all of this water. it is almost over the lip of what is supposed to be the first floor parking deck down there. we have seen flashes of green lights, suggesting that transformers are bursting. it appears the power has gone out and backup generators are going on. all of that, as we are in the backside of the wall. 90 minutes ago it was serene. we could hear birds chirping, people cheering, cars screeching their tires. and now it is not a place to be outside, lawrence. >> jesse, when we are aiming your camera down at that water what would you estimate the depth of that water to be? >> reporter: it's hard to know for sure, lawrence. i can tell you is that this is a ramp. so this is not flat

ground. so if it looks shallow on one end, you know, it's not so on the other. certainly, it has to be a couple of feet, lawrence. it's hard to give a clear estimation because of how dark it is and how much water has been flowing here. even in the sections with light, and we will go over to the side, they're still working over there. another piece of siding is flying on the deck. we will keep an eye on that. even with the lights that are showing a cannot see the bottom. the water, obviously it's not clear water either, but it's deep enough that i cannot tell where the tile is down there. and certainly, lawrence, if you look at to the trunk of a typical car, i don't know, a couple of feet off of the ground. look at the white siding on the edge. at the parking garage. that's the first floor of the parking garage and the water has almost come up to the edge of that first level and gone over the top.

it's enough water that i see a trashcan, a large trashcan, the kind that you put at the end of the street. one of those is floating in there. it's tough to give you a firm number. those are the kinds of things that are made possible with this amount of water. the amount that there is, it's pouring over and filling this much of the streets and overwhelming, clearly overwhelming the storm drain system over here, lawrence. >> jesse, i saw your coverage earlier tonight when the eye of the hurricane was passing over you, which is actually the calmest point in the storm. it has that illusion for people that it's over. but this is what happens after the eye. >> reporter: exactly. if you go into the middle of the eye you don't know when it's going to end. we have a powerful pop of wind. i'm sure you can hear it and see it. look at all of the water flying off of the parking deck. you can see leaves and debris flying around. you don't know exactly what it's going to end. we started hearing the breeze pick back up and before you

know it we were talking with alex a short time ago at the top of the 9:00 p.m. hour. we have gone from serene, quiet to the winds picking up about 90 minutes later. if you venture out in the middle of that you don't know when you need to get back inside. and we know that the backside was going to be the worst portion of this storm from where we are. and we are to the right of where milton has made landfall. that is where you typically see the biggest threat from the wind and the storm surge. so this is not to be out and playing with. if there's a silver lining or a thing of hope, i have posted 10,000 people showing up at shelters in sarasota county alone. they tell us that is the highest volume of people they have seen showing up at their shelters in the history of them having evacuations in the county. and that echoes what we heard from the mayor here. and the sense that people are taking the storm seriously in a different kind of way because it is less than two weeks since

helene made landfall and already ravaged the community. i saw about waist high water in one gentleman told . that was from the storm that, again, was supposed to be half of the storm surge of this one. i think that was a wake-up call for people who may have been on the edge about evacuation in the past. hopefully more people have left. at this time, lawrence, if they are still no zones and have somehow managed to survive the storm surge as it comes in, no first responder will be coming from -- for them for a while because the city tells us that their officers have been off the streets now for at least a couple of hours because of those wind gusts. and with this water, lawrence, i can't tell how much water is out on the causeway or beyond on the barrier island. presumably, you couldn't even drive through any of this right now. >> jesse kirsch, thank you for the report. we will come back to you as the situation develops there. joining us now is marissa. she is joining us from tampa. marissa, what is the situation there now? >> reporter: hey, lawrence. i want to point out what we can

see from our vantage point. we are also taking safety precautions that we will illustrate for you in just a moment you can see the wind gusts. if you look at the trees behind me, the best indicator for just how strong that wind is right now. we are not going out there again because we are trying to keep our crew and ourselves safe. it is not safe. there's a reason first responders have, in several counties, suspended the rescue operations. they are hunkering down. this is something that we knew that was going to be a likely possibility because of all of that debris. as barrier islands. governor ron desantis said, only 50% of that debris was cleared. they were working around the clock. this is something, it typically takes months to clear the kind of debris after a hurricane like helene. they had days, lawrence. eventually those workers had to evacuate themselves. so these kinds of conditions, this is why governor ron desantis is saying, it's too dangerous to evacuate. it's time to hunker down because those wind gusts out there, you don't want to be

driving in that kind of condition. when it comes to the shelters, we have seen so many of these mandatory evacuation zones. the same ones that we know first responders had a difficult time evacuating people from. whether it's where we are, in hillsboro county, in tampa, we know that there was some pushback from first responders as they were trying to do mandatory evacuations. lawrence, they told me they did not see it this time. it's a ghost town in zone a, zone b. we are talking about the highest risk for flooding and storm surge your total ghost town here. storm shelters. these shelters here, they are swelling up. we heard from the florida division of emergency management say 100,000 people are believed to be in the shelters around the state. in fact, where we are right now, hillsboro county, six of the two dozen shelters are at full capacity. obviously there is still space

with plenty of the shelters. i will tell you right now, when we talk about the importance of taking precautions, practicing what we preach, i want to show you what our situation looks like. as you can tell, we can very easily take cover. we are flanked by walls on both sides. this is a hotel, on the side of us. over here is where we can take shelter if we have to. if conditions get too bad. i want to point out, these lights are here, it wasn't even within, maybe the last 30 minutes, lawrence, they were starting to flicker. 1.2 million people without power in the state of florida with all these branches that are flying around. we have seen plenty of instances of power outages. we know this is something a lot of people are seeing. we might soon be among those. lawrence? >> marissa, thank you very much for that report. nearly 6 million people are under a mandatory evacuation order along florida's gulf coast tonight. florida emergency management officials say it is the largest evacuation florida has seen since hurricane irma in 2017. florida resident donald trump's lies about the federal

government response to hurricanes helene and hurricane milton are making the situation worse. today president biden said this. >> over the last few weeks there has been reckless and irresponsible and relentless promotion of disinformation and outright lies of the situation. an incredible rescue and recovery work has been undertaken. literally, there are thousands of fellow americans were putting their lives at stake and putting it on the line to do the dangerous work that needs to be done now. it's harmful to those who mostly need the help. quite frankly, these lies are un-american. there is simply no place for them. not now, not ever. former president trump has led this onslaught of lies. property has been confiscated. it's simply not true. they are saying people impacted by the storms received $750 in

cash and no more. that is simply not true either. they are saying that money needed for these crises are being diverted to migrants. what are they talking about? stop it. it's outrageous. it's just not true. now the claims are getting even more bizarre. marjorie taylor, the congressman from georgia, is now saying the federal government is literally controlling the weather. they are controlling the weather. it's beyond ridiculous. it's so stupid. it's got to stop. >> vice president harrison joined president biden virtually for preparations on hurricane milton before she then traveled to nevada. this afternoon vice president harris called into cnn and the weather channel hours before hurricane milton made landfall. >> i have spoken with local officials who have been stressed by hurricane helene.

they are doing an extraordinary job in trying to combat the misinformation. i'm talking about sheriffs, mayors. i'm talking about local officials. i don't even know their party affiliation, by the way. but leaders on the ground to it is not in the best interest of the people living in those areas . to not know their rights, not know what they are entitled to, and to be afraid of seeking help. it is dangerous. it is unconscionable, frankly, anyone who consider themselves a leader would mislead desperate people to the point that those desperate people have not received the aid to which they are entitled. sadly, there are some folks, who during the moments of the crisis, will be very predatory and start jacking up prices. like gasoline or hotels or airlines. to take advantage of the desperation people are expensing. so to anybody who is thinking

about jacking up those prices, those companies that are thinking about doing it, know that we are monitoring. we are watching. and if there is that kind of price gouging there will be a consequence for that. >> our next guest, maxwell frost, represents orlando. which is expected to get as much as 15 inches of rain. yesterday congressman frost joined the national oceanic and atmospheric administration hurricane hunters and flew directly into hurricane milton. >> it was a life-changing experience. flying through a hurricane, seeing things up close. but also, it should be firsthand how important the work noah does. spending hours with the scientists. i learned so much about the work that they do in the airplane. the work that they do in gathering the data is what

helps us save lives. helps with evacuation orders. ensuring that we know what this hurricane is going to be, but it looks like, the type of devastation it's going to cause. >> joining us that was democratic congressman maxwell frost of florida. he is a member of the house oversight committee and a member of the paris 2024 national advisory board. congressman, what did you learn yesterday that has changed the way you are witnessing this hurricane tonight? >> thank you so much for having me on here, lawrence. we are in orlando, a few hours away from getting the really serious part of the storm. we've had rain and wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour. so far, being on that plane a few days ago, was a very enlightening and educational experience. and a very intense experience. my entire life growing up in the state of florida i've gotten used to hurricanes. i've gotten used to waking up looking at the news, seeing the prediction of where to go, seeing all of these models. but not fully understanding where this information comes from. even though we have great

technology now there are still data points that have to be collected within the hurricane. for people who don't know, the national oceanic and atmospheric administration has an amazing heroic team that they call the hurricane hunters. these folks are pilots, technicians, engineers, scientists and meteorologists. they fly into the storms. flights going anywhere from eight and 12 hours. they dropped the beacons within the storms, drop different things within it to collect data about the pressure, the size of the waves, and a bunch of different things. they send this data to the national hurricane center and that is how we get all the information that we get about the storms. so this data literally saves lives. and i have to mention that there are people in congress who have voted against funds for this important administration. not just that, but project 2025 wants to get rid of the administration.

it would cause us to not be able to save more lives. either way, it was an incredibly intense experience. we free fell thousands of feet because the way that they fly the plane with hurricane. it was an honor to be there. i learned so much about how important the work noaa does is and how important the hurricane hunters are. >> i want to go back over that point about project 2025 wanting to abolish noaa. along with abolish the department of education. abolish is a word that appears frequently in that document. they want to abolish the scientific collection of data by the federal government that has been able to warn people in florida how to save their lives and how much time they have to save their lives. they just want to eliminate that information system. >>'s. this whole thing with project 2025 and wanting to get rid of noaa, while at the same time,

wanting to get rid of the mention of climate change and the climate crisis as well, shows that not only do they want to deny the issue, but they want to deny us the means and solutions to deal with the issue. yet we see this happen all the time. i'm on the house oversight committee. i have my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who constantly want to badger and talk about a lot of our agencies and departments not doing their job. they are horrible, they are bureaucrats. this and that. at the same time, they vote against a budget increases to ensure these agencies have the resources they need. it's complete hypocrisy as far as what's going on in florida. this data saves lives. there are people who have already died because of this hurricane today and we are going to have more discussions over the coming days and weeks about how these two hurricanes, the seemingly came out of nowhere, or because of the climate crisis and because it's here. but i will tell you, lawrence, when i was driving back from the hurricane hunters mission i was on i-4 leaving the tampa

area. coming back to orlando. i broke down being in the car. i'm in stop and go traffic. i'm looking to the left and right. all you see are these cars full of families. seniors. people. you look at their face. they have packed up their entire livelihood and they are scared. this is becoming more and more of a normal occurrence for floridians. when we talk about the impacts of climate change, of course it's human lives that the death toll. it's also people and being displaced. people having to leave their homes time and time again. it's really sad. we've been focusing on making sure people are prepared here in central florida. we were at the emergency operations center today. i worked with lunch workers, serving lunch with kids at school to feed the people in the shelters three meals a day while we get through the storm. if i know one thing is for sure, it's that here in central florida and across the state we are going to help each other get through this. we are going to clean up and continue to have these conversations on how we need to

make sure we prevent these kind of events happening again. we are having too many once in 100 year storms over just the last five years. >> and all of your conversations, the people living in the path of this hurricane, have you found people who believe republican marjorie taylor green statement that i guess president biden controls the weather? >> i haven't just yet. but what i have had his people come up to me and ask questions about some of the misinformation they've seen out there. we've heard former president donald trump talking about the $750 number while there are buckets people can apply to to

get direct assistance from fema. one of the buckets is an immediate cash send out to help people with things they might have lost. whether they need food, baby formula, stuff like that. $750 can go a long way with that. is another bucket of funds people can get to help recover their home. so there's a lot of misinformation out there. the problem here, and president biden brought this up, is that when that misinformation goes into the public and people believe it it means they don't believe or have any kind of faith in their government. and when they don't have faith in fema it means they won't come to these organizations to get the help they need. which means that there are people out there who will need help who won't seek help because they have been lied to. what everyone should know is president biden and vice president harris signed and authorized a pre-landfall emergency declaration for fema, for this hurricane. fema and the federal government has resources up and down the state working closely with the state and municipal governments. and we are working together to handle this thing. the last thing we need are politicians trying to make political points and score political points out of this horrible tragedy. right now doesn't matter if your democrat or republican. we have to come together to

save lives and keep people safe. especially people in our most vulnerable communities. >> unfortunately, a lot of victims in the path of this hurricane right now cannot hear you say that. they don't have access to television right now, for obvious reasons. their phone batteries might be dying and they might not be able to have internet access over the course of this. in situations like this, word- of-mouth actually becomes more important than it normally is and donald trump has been poisoning, and marginally taylor green, have been poisoning the word-of-mouth. or trying to anyway. how much is that getting in the way of helping people? >> it really does get in the way because what it does is it a rhodes faith. when i come and say something, when our county mayor says something, when someone from fema says something, we need folks were watching and get this information to help us disseminate it. something we

always say here in florida, communities have to take care of each other. neighbors have to take care of neighbors. i am here at my parents house right now. the storm is going to hit here in orlando in a couple of hours. we haven't gotten the worst of it yet. but when i got here to the house my dad was out talking with neighbors, talking to each other, taking care of each other. the problem is, when people start believing this misinformation, they could be spreading lies. flies get spread people might not reach out to get the help that they need and the help that they deserve. again, it is dangerous. it can cost us human lives when politicians, especially people with large platforms, spread misinformation just to get ahead, just to try to get political points. it's a shame and it's going to cost lives. we need people to focus on the truth. we cannot play politics with these hurricanes or the storms. we need to focus on saving people, helping people, and making sure we get on the other

end of this. >> florida congressman maxwell frost, thank you very much for joining us today. >> thanks for having me on. >> thank you. we have much more ahead as our live coverage of hurricane milton continues.

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we are continuing our live, breaking news coverage of hurricane milton as the storm moves across florida. joining us now, from orlando,

where the storm is headed, is colonel brandon bowman. a district commander of the u.s. army corps of engineers. colonel, what is the situation there now? >> the wind is picking up and we have a lot of rain outside right now. a lot of folks here in the hotel are just riding out the storm. a lot of folks from the corps of engineers as well as folks that have evacuated from the tampa area. >> what is the army corps of engineers mission in this? >> our mission is to support fema for recovery efforts for florida. right now our main efforts are going to be supporting temporary power and temporary roofs, often called blue roofs. for folks here in florida. we will jump into action as soon as fema comes to us to support the people of florida. >> as you see the storm coming, did you have the amount of time

you would normally need to prepare for this? >> we have ample time to prepare. we are watching it. out there in the gulf we are responding to hurricane helene. we had merely started leaning forward heavily with bringing additional assets from across the entire enterprise, the army corps of engineers, into the fight. we mobilized additional assets from our navy partners to bring in additional pumps. with what happened with hurricane ian a couple of years ago, playbooks, following the same path. we have ample time to prepare and have an amazing teammates and folks who respond as soon as the storm passes. >> colonel bowman, one of the scenarios you expect to face tomorrow? >> tomorrow we are letting first responders do health wide safety and response for emergencies. we start gathering

and assessment of what is happening currently, right now, with the damage assessment and see where we can utilize our assets to help the people to recover. >> colonel brandon bowman of the army corps of engineers, thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> thank you. coming up, we will be going back to bill karen's. back to bill karen's.

let's go right to nbc news meteorologist bill karins to give us the update on hurricane milton in florida. bill? >> lawrence, milton is causing chaos through 40. it's not just isolated were made landfall. all along the i-4 corridor to daytona beach we have 102 mile- per-hour wind gusts in sarasota. the backside of the storm has a stinging wind with it. and now, this whole entire region, including st. petersburg, tampa, all under a flash flood emergency. flash flood emergencies are issued when we know for a fact that we have water threatening lives. water in homes, water through towns. this is from the storm surge. this from an epic amount of rain that has been falling. insane petersburg we have a report of 16 inches of rain so far with the storm. between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m., five inches of rain fell. that rate of rain equals a one in 1000 year event. that's how rare that is.

so the storm is tracking just south of i -- i-4. it will be a orlando around 4:00 in the morning. as we tracked over the last two hours, no south of tampa, southeast of tampa, this pink is where the epic rainfall is. that's where the flash flood emergencies are. that was overseen petersburg and now is lighting up. we will track this along i-4 into orlando. again, it won't be the 16 inches but we could still get a foot of rain. that's why we have a high risk in the area. as far as the winds go, it's about 450 miles from top to tail with tropical storm gusts. the wind has really expanded with the storm. some of our current gusts out there are very impressive. 101 saint petersburg, 83 in tampa. how about daytona beach? we will see significant storm surges, three to five feet. especially as you get toward high tide tomorrow morning. we have water issues. saint augustine, daytona beach. we are now over 1 1/2 million people without power.

there is that gust in sarasota, 97 in venice. as far as the storm surge goes, lawrence, from naples, port charlotte, inglewood, venice to sarasota. all of those areas have water in their downtown right now because the storm surge is currently at its max. >> bill, sarasota seems to be the place where it is maybe hit the hardest. >> reporter: we have seen pictures of stop signs underwater. i saw a report of a 10 foot storm surge. when you get 10 feet of storm surge and then you have wave action on top of it you're going to get not just water on the first floor, but potentially on the second floor. and these are all reports, lawrence, from the inland areas, or right on the side of the bay. we are not talking about all of these remote little barrier islands out here that people evacuated from. we are feel full of what that will look like at daybreak. >> bill karen -- bill karins,

thank you for that report. with the hurricane bearing down on florida today the stock market closed, once again, at an all-time record high. something that donald trump said would be impossible during a biden administration. he was wrong about that four years ago, of course. early voting begins in the electoral college state of arizona today. both vice presidential candidates were in arizona holding rallies across the state. governor walz joint -- for the united states senate and jim mccain. son of the late senator john mccain, for a campaign rally in chandler, arizona. allies don't believe they can trust the former president. i don't believe that we will stand for it. we have seen it from ukraine and other places. what we found out yesterday, and i think all of you are seeing this, the former president has kept up a

relationship with vladimir putin over the time. this is one where the folks in this room understand. this is not anything that has happened before. and i have to tell you, some of the things we are hearing from that, it makes my blood boil as a governor. some of the most challenging times that our nation has seen was during the covid pandemic and there are some of you in here who have lost loved ones. we saw what it did. we know the disruption it did. and we were, as governors, doing all we could to get testing and equipment we needed to protect the people we were responsible for. and we were getting no help. now we find out that vladimir putin was get the things that we needed in minnesota to keep our people alive. the idea that we sat in the midst, and i will say this, all of us in here no. i know it's very difficult. sometime this afternoon hurricane milton is going to come ashore. and those are americans. those are our neighbors, family members and friends. the commitment to stop the politics and unify to be there

is absolutely critical. all of the governors are working together. i served as cochair of the council of governors, five republicans and five democrats reported -- appointed by presidents, to share resources in times of need. whether it's a flood in minnesota, hurricane, fire fighting in nevada, whatever it may be. those are the things that we do together. when we have people coming out and saying that decisions were made in determining aid, former president trump asked to see how those people vote. never in our life when we ask that. never in our lifetime would we ask that. today the kremlin confirmed what was first reported in bob woodward's new book titled, war. donald trump sent vladimir putin covid testing machines at the height of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020. bloomberg reports, quote,

kremlin spokesperson dmitri said on wednesday that the tests had been sent but denied the claim that the two leaders had spoken by phone several times since trump left office. we also sent equipment at the beginning of the pandemic, he said in a written response, when asked about the book. but about the phone calls, it's not true. we will ask bob woodward about that when he appears on this program monday night with his new book. today the harris campaign released this new 32nd television ad. >> trump will always choose put in over the american people. and now we have evidence. a new report that he secretly sent covid tests while withholding them from sick and dying americans. >> i said to my people, slow the testing down please.

>> reporter: who will trump look out for in his second term? >> i have a very good relationship with president putin. about disavowing they called be a genius. >> and of course, donald trump called vladimir putin a genius on the day that vladimir putin invaded ukraine. donald trump thought that invasion was, in fact, genius. that's the word he used for. in pennsylvania tonight liz cheney and three former white house staff members, cassie hutchinson, griffin, and sarah matthews held an event in support of kamala harris. >> there are some of the people in this country were also going through things because of donald trump. because donald trump has mastered this ability to target and manipulate people based off of their greatest fears and anxieties. he targets these people and manipulates them. he seduces them into his power and tells them that he is the solution to

their problems. i know this because i was once one of those people that really believed in him. i grew up in a family that was fairly disenfranchised by the government and felt that he could change things for us. i believed that he could be that person. it was the compassion, empathy and forgiveness. the love that really brought me back and gave me a second chance at life. i was looking at leaders like liz cheney and also jamie raskin. it was leaders like nancy pelosi. president biden, vice president harris, who showed me. >> somebody republicans, and most of them are men, who either made a decision that they could look the other way

and that they could ignore what was happening, or that they could lie about what was happening. you know, when you come to a place, as a country, where you have one party that is dedicated to erasing the truth about the most serious attack on our capital since the war of 1812, that party has lost its way. those are not people that we can trust to lead us. look, i think it's the only donald trump who has to be defeated on november 5th, but also those who have enabled them. >> we'll have more live coverage of the situation in florida after this break.

autumn is here. that means if you don't have leaffilter, you're stuck dealing with leaves, debris, all kinds of headaches. oh. excuse me. i'm sorry to interrupt. i'm ray sparks from 318 down the street.

you did our gutters last year. the sparks family. we cleaned, sealed and installed leaffilter. yes, sir. of course. i love you, man. you make me feel so free. to schedule your free inspection, call 833 leaffilter today. or visit leaffilter.com our live coverage of hurricane milton continues as the storm crosses the state of florida now. joining us now is nbc news correspondent stephanie, who was in tampa, florida. stephanie, what's the situation there now? >> reporter: lawrence, it's pretty incredible. for hours we have been lashed by winds and torrential rain. the rain is coming down in a biblical way for hours here. we have been watching it. there's a pond that we can see

over the balcony of this parking garage, as well as a canal. we have just been watching them slowly and steadily rise for hours now. there's a flash flood emergency right now in tampa, st. petersburg. that's because the rain has been falling so quickly and so heavily. they say that is a life-threatening situation and that people should not leave their homes unless that water is actually threatening their lives. that's the situation we are dealing with here. really, the brunt of hurricane milton is lashing on tampa, lawrence. >> stephanie, thank you for the report. joining us is congressman jared of florida. he is a former emergency management director for the state of florida. congressman, is this developing in a way that you expected and can you for see what it is happening in florida tomorrow?

>> reporter: thanks, lawrence. i know florida is dealing with a serious weather event. my guess is that hurricane milton's name will be retired when this is all over. i know a lot of people think that florida dodged a bullet by tampa bay not seeing the storm surge. the area needed. florida is getting a triple whammy right now. you are seeing record storm surge in port charlotte. you're seeing 100+ mile per hour gusts in tampa. there will be significant damage in the area. then we have 126 tornado warnings, most of florida history, the second most other than the 2011 alabama tornado outburst. there are reports of tornado damage all over the state of florida. specifically, in st. lucie county, going through the park out there. there's a lot going on in florida right now. we are used to this year in florida. we will band together tomorrow and start the response. when the sun comes up tomorrow

we will see a lot of damage across the state. >> what is florida going to need tomorrow? >> reporter: everything. we are going to need everything. don't get me wrong, kevin gottfried, director of emergency management, has been stockpiling and position all those things. the first thing is going to be swift water rescue crews. trying to rescue people in harms way to get them out. whether that's in their house or on the roof or in collapsed structures. and then it's going to be getting people medical attention that might be injured. it is going to be, obviously, starting the recovery process. we have 1.5 million people without power. there's a lot that we are going to need. i know the biden administration is artie working to make sure that florida has those resources. >> congressman, thank you very much for joining us today. >> thanks. >> we will be right back.

that is tonight's last word.