were they for that i had trouble or charles economist and president of the market institute and derek holley president of reaching america and member of project twenty one guys thanks both of you for being with us and i think eric welcome to the program appreciate you having me on a pleasure just one day after the usual media drones praised him for his presidential speech about afghanistan donald trump held a rally in phoenix arizona that was vintage trump and by vintage trump i mean full ally's racial dog whistles and self-indulgent whining about the media and also included this call to shut down the government over the border wall. no the obstructionist democrats would like us not to do it but believe me we have to close down our government we're building a wall. so just a few hours before that absolutely bonkers phoenix rally the new york times published a story about how mitch mcconnell hasn't spoken to trump in weeks as privately expressed uncertainty that mr trump will be able to salvage his administration after a series of summer crises obviously the institutional republican pa

joining me two mayors in the area, mayor nick hunter of lake charles, louisiana and mayor derek freeman arthur, texas. good evening to both of you. i appreciate you joining us here on cnn. mayor free man, harvey is set to make landfall in your community just hours from now. are you ready. >> we're ready. port arthur has taken a few major hurricanes, hurricane ike and rita. we're ready. you can't of course, fight mother nature. she's giving us one right now. we're ready for it. >> mayor hunter, national weather service is predicting a 24-foot storm surge for parts of louisiana. parts of the coast. how are you preparing? are you ready? >> well, we are as ready as we can be. we did have some scary moments last night where we had to evacuate about had 300 to 500 citizens. and we have a very resilient population and we are as ready as we can be. >> so mayor freeman, what's your biggest concern at this hour as you watch all these horrific pictures and you're out and about i'm sure in the neighbors talking to people. what's your biggest concern. >> that we've done everything we can. right now