he said oh, yeah, i know felix sater.s brokering a deal for me this very moment with russia and i knead vladimir putin on my side to make it happen. what do you think would happen to donald trump's presidential prospects right then and there? he had to deny knowing satyr, he had to deny the deal. he kept the deal he hit this deal from the american public. >> david, i feel like i'm starting to feel like there is is this mountain of not just trump russia connections and trump russia deals and trump russia financial connections but this mountain of documented false denials and it includes this one from the president but it also includes, you know, jeff sessions saying he didn't have russia contacts. he did. paul man fort saying he didn't have russia contacts. he did. flynn saying he didn't have contacts, don junior, jared kushner. whether they said it out loud or they put it in sworn statements and applications for security clearances. over and over and over again the same thing going in the same direction. what does that ad

i'm going to tom sater soon to get a sense of where the storm is. also i'm going to be asking tom and i want to give him preparation if he's able to do is to zero in on the clearwater area and tampa area and this whole area to give a sense of where things are right now just to kind of give the bird's-eye view of what ryan is experience. ryan what area of clearwater are you in right now? >> reporter: we're clearwater on one of the main roads here, we moved before and i want to make sure i say the right name here. one of the things, hold on, sir, tell me once again, where are we exactly? i want to make sure. say that again? come forward for me. this is actually the owner where we are right now. so i know this is an evacuation zone. tell us where we are now? >> armitage road. >> have you experienced a storm like this? >> no, first time. first time. >> a little nerve us? >> yes, a lot nervous. >> reporter: you let most of your employees go home but this is a concrete building so you felt pretty safe. >> that's true. >> reporter: what is the next step, d

he's repeatedly denied in other forums he knew fee mix sater well or he knew any particulars about sater's background. that's not true. he's known for the better part of 15 years that sater has had questionable ties, and as abe wallach, a long time deputy to trump told me, you can get a deal with donald trump if you walk into his office and put a bag of cash on the des action. he doesn't care about doing due diligence. he cares where weather you have "good genes" we heard that one before, but at the end of the day if there's money on the table trump will do a deal and i think the dangerous thing for him in all of this is it establishes quid pro quos around these transactions that get to this issue of bribery, treason, high crimes and misdemeanors, the issues that mueller will be weighing that ultimately could go to the congress for itch peachment. >> the reason felix sater is important, not only did he have an office in trump tower as we reported many times before the mob ties but he and michael cohen then come up again when they attempt to sort of float this idea of an omnibus peace deal

tom sater joins us now. tom, i believe we have your audio now. >> yeah. >> tell me, is this a direct hit for miami? >> don. the last couple days we did have a window, it was shutting on us that maybe the system would miss and move away from the outer anks into the atlantic. the window shut completely. somebody's going to get socked and it does look like it's going to be southern miami and may make its way south and north across the entire state. now, we had a pressure drop at 8:00 p.m. the winds take a while to catch up, don, to that pressure drop. so the pressure drop means it's trying to get stronger. we did lose 5 miles per hour a little earlier today at 175 but you wouldn't know the difference. the video you were showing of the turks and caicos looks like it did in st. martin and barb a barbuda. everyone needs to look at that because that's what's heading in our direction. the warnings issued, of course, for the bahama islands. this is brand new. anyone joining don on his broadcast tonight, you got to kn

>> tom sater, appreciate it.he governor of puerto rico reporting significant damage from hurricane irma. joining me is deborah adams, a houston resident vacationing in puerto rico. my goodness, deborah, what timing. what was the storm like and where are you? deborah, you there? >> yes, i'm here. i'm actually at the marriott hotel. we were moved down from the ninth floor to the fourth floor earlier today. and we were told to come down to the lobby around 6:00 so that they could have everybody that's in the hotel to be in one place. so it was about 60 guests at the hotel during the time of the storm. >> and what's it like now? what are you seeing? >> well, actually, i have been outside. the streets are clear. there is no flooding. and the walgreens have reopened. >> were you worried about -- did you have to evacuate? did you try to do that? >> well, in the beginning of the storm, have i an ocean view from my room. and the current was really rough. and the palm trees were bending and the visibility was very, very lo

i want to bring in tom sater. if you can for alex and everybody in this area, give us a sense of what is happening in sarasota. what's happening along the west right now. >> get ready for more rainfall. we have a pretty good band that it's going to be making into your area of tampa. you can see where sarasota is, we're looking at look the colors. but look at the orange on this close up radar. we continue to talk about the center, which really night now is 23 miles to the east/northeast. we still continue to see tremendous activity and downpours in that front right quad ron. it's in the bright orange and red. but it's fanning out to the north and off to the northwest. and then west. so these bands as the system continues to move north will continue to slide in your direction. so definitely flash tlooding. fort meyers, 84 miles per hour. port charlotte, 79. tampa, 60. but also more haven. the edge of the screen, they are in a pretty good rain pattern as well. they have picked up ten inches and they are going to add

. >> reporter: tom sater is tracking irma. we're going to start with cnn's leyla santiago. she's in puerto rico right now feeling the brunt of it. leyla, there is no simple way to evacuate puerto rico, so how are residents taking cover? >> reporter: just in the last half hour, the governor of puerto rico has announced that there are about 3,000 people in the nearly 500 shelters that have been established on this island. if you just look behind me, you can tell it is windy. these waters on the northern coast of puerto rico are certainly becoming more and more aggressive already. we know of a lot of road closures in the area. so for many who will soon probably be dealing with flooding, it is too late to sort of do any last-minute preps or last-minute moves for those who are not already in shelters, jake. >> and leyla, puerto rican officials have warned well before irma that it might even be months before crews are able to restore electricity to the island. explain that situation. >> reporter: right. first of all, they were already seeing a lot of power outages right now and n

let's go back to tom sater.terms of where irma is, it could be just north of the island? >> i think we're watching, really, a wednesday event for the northern part of the island. this is where we're going to have significant storm surge for puerto rico. remember, we only have is a little bit of time. i think the eye, anderson, is going to move over to the island of barbuda probably at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. if it moves to anguila, that would be early morning. with as strong as it is now, the waters are even warmer when you get closer to cuba and the u.s., so that's just fuel for the system to continue to be a monster strength. again, major category 4, maybe 5. >> tom sater, appreciate it. we'll be right back. s, 83% try to eat healthy, yet up to 90% fall short on getting key nutrients. let's do more. one-a-day men's. complete with key nutrients we may need, plus heart health support with b vitamins. one-a-day men's. (woman) there's a moment of truth.etes, and now with victoza®, a better moment of proof. vi

tom sater in the weather center. we'll explain that in a moment. we have correspondents across florida. all across the region. to cover every angle possible of what's happening over the next 12 to 24 hours. and yes, this storm will be an intense storm for the next 24 hours. probably hitting the florida keys early this morning. and all day into the night tomorrow. t going to be a long and difficult day for the people of florida, southern florida, and points beyond. we'll be following this storm not just tomorrow but in the days ahead as it moves into ore states. let's check with tom. >> you were talking about what's it going to look like when it gets to ore states. the 21 models na make up the u.s. model. once it makes its way through southern georgia and moving into northern alabama i want to let everybody know, if they don't know the country well enough and watching on the west coast. this area is pine country. hardy pine. really tall, massive trees that have extremely weak root systems. you get heavy rain on those roots and you get a stiff wind,

around because the bulk of the storm, the worst of it is still several hours away according to tom sateroing horizontally. we're blocked by the sheraton hotel we think somewhat but the wind here is not quite as much as we're seeing in clearwater, but again, the worst yet to come. i want to go to miguel marquez, who is south of us in punta gorda, a town which was just hit so hard, devastated back in 2004 in hurricane charley which we were covering. lot of people thought tampa would be hit. the storm took a turn at the last minute and hit punta gorda directly. miguel it's very dark there, obviously darkness has fallen all over this area, that's what makes it so scary for people now at night just to not be able to know exactly, not be able to see what is postentially coming at them, at their house especially with the storm surge due in the early morning hours on tomorrow morning. >> reporter: yes, i think, look, it is getting dark. it shouldn't be this dark but because of the cloud cover, the rain and intense wind, you can barely make out anything. i'm only about 30 or 40 feet from the came

let's go live to our meteorologist tom sater at the cnn severe weather center. what's the latest forecast? what's the latest, tom? >> you'll see the most massive storm we've seen before. there has only been one recorded in history that's been any stronger, and that was hurricane allen in 1980. we are watching this most likely make its way directly over the island of antigua. could decimate them with loss of power, loss of communications and water. as it makes its way across the u.s., virgin british isles, could make landfall there as well. if you look at the winds alone, it is going to be massive. this is going to leave a path of destruction. what is this back behind it? that's jose and most likely will become a hurricane, but we're not going to worry about that. it should slide into the open waters. we have new concerns as a new track from the national hurricane center has more of a curve, looks more like after interacting with cuba on friday and saturday. wolf, it looks more like it's going to be a west coast of florida deal. however, the computer models which

let's go to meteorologist tom sater.om, walk us through why the models cannot yet determine irma's path. >> well, jake, we're still some time away. even forecasting cloud covering in your neighborhood five days out, you're going to have some differences in what could occur. however, this continues to a maze us because it continues to strengthen. hurricane wilma in 2005 was equal in strength to this. there's only been one hurricane in atlantic-based history in 1980 and that was alan. this will do some catastrophic damage to the antilles. that's antigua. they will see their conditions deteriorate tomorrow afternoon. we're talking about power knockout, infrastructure damage, water issues. we haven't seen anything like this since wilma which plowed into cancun and just about wiped them out. the model showing it moved off to the north, what do we have here? this is jose. could become a hurricane. let's not worry about jose right now. it's most likely staying in open waters. this is what we're watching. the national hurricane

in the meantime, let's get an update on the storm from our meteorologist tom sater.lateest? >> tropical storm irma, the center is about 150 miles due south of atlanta where now we're reporting in georgia already two fatalities. one in a suburb of atlanta from a fallen tree. it's nice to see the dry air infiltrate the system. in the next hour we'll go through the number of records irma has smashed and wree writing the record books. watches are still in effect where the water is high. until it recedes we'll lose these watches and warnings. in red, jacksonville, mentioned this two days ago when it was 500 miles away from naples that jacksonville, with a large extent of these bands, was going to see that wind coming in from the ocean. in jacksonville, on the st. john's river reaching over 5 1/2 feet. it's breaking the record by half a foot from matthew lass year. in savannah, the savannah river, getting up to over 12 feet. missing the record from matthew by just 0.2 of an inch. into charleston on the harbor, water over the battery. getting up over 9.92 feet. that place i

you guys have been watching this for a week, tom sater. how are things looking?dy to irma last thursday, we mentioned we need four or five days. it's only been three. the computer models are giving us more confidence and it's not looking good. it's a category 3, soon it will be a 4. hurricane watch for the lesser antilles, barbados, antigua, st. kit's, british virgin islands may be next. the national hurricane center track makes it a category 4 into monday and tuesday, keeps it at a category 4 towards the bahamas. it's trending southward. we don't want that because it would bypass florida and get into the gulf. we don't want landfall of any type. quickly for you, just to give you an indication, two different models that we're watching, pretty much in differences, it doesn't seem to want to come up, but let me explain it, we're going to have the possibility of a florida landfall or a carolinas landfall. know more in a couple of days, on 9/11. one saving grass, ce, ana, that pulls up and gets pulled away. it does not look good, category 4 or 5. >> we'll keep our fi

mainland. >> thanks very much, tom sater. >>> ahead, new information on the destruction?rida that's still unfolding right now. our correspondents are all across the area that took a real beating from irma. we'll get a live update after a quick break. (vo) dogs have evolved, but their nutritional needs remain instinctual. that's why there's purina one true instinct. nutrient-dense, protein-rich, real meat number one. this is a different breed of nutrition. purina one, true instinct. another day at the office. why do you put up with it? believe it or not you actually like what you do. even love it. and today, you can do things you never could before. you're working in millions of places at once with iot sensors. analyzing social data on the cloud to create new designs. and using blockchain to help prevent fraud. so get back to it and do the best work of your life. there's nothing more important than your health. to help prevent fraud. so if you're on medicare or will be soon, you may want more than parts a and b here's why. medicare only covers about 80% of your part b medi

and now i want to go to cnn weather center with tom sater. and irma has covered an amazing amount of land since the landfall. >> yes, and let's back up and talk about this amazing storm which is only two weeks after harvey. we see what we are talking about as far or actually, missing the graphic not in here, but we will talk about this in more duration, coming off of the coast of africa and developing in 24 hours from what was a tropical storm to category 2, category 3, category 4 and hitting the northern islands of the lesser antilles, and devastating the islands and the dutch evacuating many off to the n thenet erlands and five days now without food and power and without communications in the need of shelter. the u.k. is sending a navy ses sell to the u.s. virgin islands and the u.s. is there for the virgin islands, and then staying off course of the dominican republic, and so they were breathing a sighf of relief. the heavy rains moving into the dominican and puerto rico. then it turned to the turks and caic caicos, and that has never happ

for more on what lies ahead, let's go to tom sater in the weather center. let's talk about the most important things, the strength of this and what is the forecast is. >> well, it was the strongest hurricane to ever make landfall in the leeward islands. we know that for sure. still just 5 miles per hour in strength away from tying allen in 1980. but this has surpassed alan, anderson, now been churning for over 31 hours, winds 185 miles per hour or stronger. allen did do that. super typhoon haiyan that devastated the philippines didn't do that. rockport in texas was hit by winds of 130. this is 55 miles per hour stronger than landfall with harvey in texas. 55 miles per hour. that alone will snap some power lines and down some trees. good news is, we're looking at the eye to stay north of san juan, but the wake it has left and the destruction, we are now watching, we talked about it, that the eye would swallow barbuda, which it did. st. martin, france's foreign minister said the tallest building had been completely destroyed. most of the buildings have been d

tom sater, helping us. appreciate the enormity of this storm. people living in south florida, by the way, are already not taking any chances. they are clearly in the path of the storm. the size and strength of irma, that has not been seen as we said in a decade. they're stocking up on supplies. buying water. groceries stores, emptying all shelves as we speak. a visitor evacuation order for the florida keys actually goes into effect tomorrow. an evacuation for residents will be told, the timing not announced at least not yet. we expect that very soon. i want to speak a little more about the threat from irma with miami beach mayor philip levine joining us. thanks for joining us. what are you telling folks in beautiful miami beach right now should they pack up? should they get out of town? how should they prepare? >> wolf, right now what we're doing, working closely with the county. we have been preparing for the last week. we've been telling folks, residents of miami beach, make sure you have a personal plan to deal with this hurricane. communicat

imto go to tom sater in the weather center. what's happening in the clearwater area, tom, where we see our ryan young right now? >> dorngs ry >> don, ryan just had a gust of 78 miles an hour and the storm center is still 75 miles south-southeast so it's going to get worse. anderson in tampa had 70-mile-per-hour wind gusts. what we're noticing here, we're into the second half of this event now for florida. the center is now crossed into southern portion of our new tornado watch box, which we are having me. we are seeing significant rain band across florida, cape canaveral and offshore. this is severe weather. we even had a tornado earlier around south of cocoa beach that was moving northwest at 78 miles per hour. in the melbourne area they picked up almost 15 inches of rain and still coming down. as we take a look over toward tampa where ryan and anderson were, we've got a pretty good band of rain that you can obviously see from the live shot, but their winds are now east to west. so, it's pushing the water out of the inlets, ou

tom sater has been all over this storm in the weather center for us. so, this thing is huge. >> it is. remember what rockport looked like when harvey was a category 4 at landfall. that was 130 miles per hour, brooke. we're at 185. this thing continues to strengthen, it seems like, every couple hours. i've never seen anything like it except for one storm that devastated the philippines several years ago. but this eye is well defined. it just looks like a buzz saw. as it makes its way to the northern islands, it's going to knock off communications and power and water sources, could devastate anguila and antig antigua barbuda and puerto rico is under a state of emergency of this model actually carries it up here. that's jose named today. could follow suit. let's hope it becomes a fish storm. national hurricane center track continues to keep it as a catastrophic hurricane. that's a category 4 or 5. these storms, brooke, can only sustain their strength for so long. it's like taking a top and spinning a top on a table. that's centrifugal force and movement s

let's go to tom sater in the weather center. >> not much of a change, anderson. we found a slight drop in the pressure. typically that happens as this goes maybe through some strengthening. takes a while for the winds to speed up to catch up to that pressure drop. that's really the only change right now. we're going on hour 60 that this has been a category 5. that really staggers the imagination. we went 24 hours without a landfall. although in the turks and caicos now, around cookburn harbor, they're getting pounded pretty hard. there will be a fewer smaller islands that take landfall. but it's still mainly over the open waters. a big thing happened today, do not take this lightly, national hurricane center placing a hurricane watch. this is a big, big deal. they don't do this lightly. they don't slap one somewhere on the u.s. because it costs millions and millions of dollars to do this. with the federal and state and the local resources, and the money that pours into this for evacuations, for getting gear in place, this is a big deal. they've studied it, analyz

in the 90s, he worked on a case linked to the mafia and russian organized crime that involved felix sater, a trump business parter who is now of interest to mueller's investigation. andrew goldstein moved to washington this summer. he's with the u.s. attorney's office in manhattan, where he was overseeing an investigation into former campaign chairman paul manaford, which mueller has taken over. and one of the more experienced members of the team is james 84les, a former law partner of mueller's who cut his legal teeth in the 70s when he served on the watergate special prosecution task force. >> this is a highly elite team and, you know, if there aren't cases here at the end of the day it's going to be because there aren't cases there. >> reporter: today white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders repeated that the president was right to fire james comey. mueller and his team are also investigating where that was obstruction of justice. anthony. >> mason: jericka duncan at the white house. thanks. and still ahead, a family shows evidence of a brutal attack and says the police are n

let's go to our meteorologist tom sater. he's tracking the storm for us. i understand there's a new forecast that just came up? >> there is. we're going to get a new trak later on. i guess the better news wolf is we're down to category 2 status. didn't take long for the eye trying to redevelop already now it's over open waters but 110 mile per hour winds last night this monster grew to what is now considered the tenth strongest hurricane in the history for the atlantic basin. so 175 mile per hour winds and it didn't look like we had time or space to lose strength after lashing the southern coast of st. croix. it continued to make its way to puerto rico. out of 22 observation sites only one is still working. we may never know how strong it was when it made landfall. the mt.s having its way with maria. now it's 75 miles off the coast of the dominican republic. computer models here they are. it from this point forward we have to go further and look at other tracks first let's go to the national hurricane center. they pick it up to a hurricane 3 instancety. we

cnn's tom sater in the weather center. give us the latest. >> the 5:00 p.m.ry four, but in the last few hours it strengthened another 10 miles an hour. it is stronger than harvey. we saw the devastation there. only a handful of storms have been this strong for the lesser antilles since the satellite era began. it has its eyes on the caribbean and the south eastern u.s. six to nine foot storm surge, heavy amounts of rain for puerto rico. a state of emergency. the center looks like it stays over water for the most part. throughout the week we'll see some deviation to the north or south. we may see some fluctuations in the strength. it kaerls carries it as a catege to the northern coast of cuba. come friday night we expect the trend to turn north ward. if that occurs, it depends on the timing of when the turn to the right occurs of who will have a landfall, in florida or carolinas and at what time. let me show you a computer model. we will put the european and u.s. back to back, on top of each other. you wand to see them trending together. that gives you confide

. >> we'll keep our fingers crossed, tom sater, thank you so much. >>> you are in the cnn newsroom. i'm ana cabrera in new york. tonight, a defiant north korea says it's tested a hydrogen pom, its most powerful nuclear test ever. the u.s. responds with a fresh warning to the kim jong un regime. north korea claims it tested a bomb that can be mounted on a missile. it's the first nuclear test since president trump took office. defense secretary james mattis did not mince words during a statement he made outside the white house this afternoon when he warned any north korean threats to the u.s. or its allies will be met with, quote, a massive military response. watch. >> we had a small group, national security meeting today with the president and the vice president about the latest provocation on the korean peninsula. way have many military options. the president wanted to be briefed on each one of them. we made clear that we have the ability to defend ourselves and our allies, south korea and japan, from any attack. and our commitments among the allies are ironclad. any threat to the u

tom sater joins us more with both disasters. let's talk about mexican city. what are you learning about the impact of the earthquake? >> believe it or not we haven't had much of the way of aftershocks. typically we would have a few by now. there was an 8.11 days ago. anything within 42 miles is shallow. closer to the surface, the more shaking there is. typically around the globe we'll have one 8.1 or greater. if you look at the usgs shake map, mexico city was on the very northern extremities of this because you've got a 75-mile difference from the epicenter. we have 15 and a half million feelings strong shaking and that doesn't include those that felt light, moderate, or even strong. the computer models hinted at the fact there was a 39% chance we would have 100 to a thousand fatalities. that's what we're seeing now. the problem is the infrastructure that's been compromised. thousands of homes and businesses, what we have there, originally if you have a 7.1, in the future, you can here's the shake map. all these yellow dots, anderson, these were all the after

vtb bank is who felix sater says he had lined up to finance the trump tower moscow project, the one the neglected to publicly mention while running for president. but this story today out of washington is about a different rushing ton -- russian, alpha bank. it is not u.s. sanctioned like other russian banks but alpha is linked to vladimir putin and been subject to a bunch of good investigative reporting and reportedly also subject to the fbi investigation under the special counsel's probe into russia interfering in our election. the interest is because of still unexplained heavy and at times exclusive computer server interactions during the heat of the campaign between servers for alpha bank in russia and trump organization in trump tower. this was first reported by slate.com in october just before the election and after the election during the transition in january, there were further allegations about alpha bank being involved in the russia influence campaign to swing the election for trump. those allegations turned up in the dossier, the so-called dossier which was published by buzz

tom sater is in the severe weather center tracking irma's path. thinking not again, too soon, where is she? >> well, it looks like she's making her way to the northern islands of the lesser antilles. if you have a flight to british or u.s. virgin aisles in the next couple dales, cancel. it will not be enjoyable. if you have this weekend, call ahead. communications could be knocked out. category 3, will make its way to category 4 this afternoon or tonight. so here are the watches and oranges, next will be the virgin islands and puerto rock rico. the computer models are in agreement. national hurricanes center carries it at a qorei 4 straight through the caribbean. now depending on interaction with land it had regenerate. these waters are extremely warm, so that's jet fuel. we are losing our window for the only hope of missing the u.s. that window is shutting quickly. if you look at the models, though, they do have it being drawn northward. >>> this weekend, get ready, start preparing now, this is landfall in southern florida on one model, and into

tom sater has the newly updated forecast. this caught a lot of us by surprise this afternoon.y 4. is there any chance it may spare the florida coast at this point? >> there is a window of possibility that maybe the system could skirt away from the u.s. coastline, but that window, jim, is shutting rapidly. this system irma is just as strong now as harvey was when it made landfall in rock poport ane know now it devastated them. it's moving over such islands as bermuda, turks and cacos. what's next is the british virgin islands and puerto rico, the northwest virgin islands, they'll most likely have most of the rain will stay over water which would be great. it's what happens after that. the time line breaks it down, dominican republic toward haiti, then toward cuba. friday will be interesting. this is the national hurricane track. now, if you look at this, you think why wouldn't it just continue its forward momentum and get in the gulf of mexico? we can't rule that out yet, but we think we're going to see the system get pulled northward. high pressure is keeping it on the souther

strongest storms ever recorded in the atlantic, on a collision course with puerto rico, and our tom sater center tracking it. any updates on the forecast? >> we have about another hour until we get the next advisory from the national hurricane center. i can update you. but the reason we're dealing with the size and magnitude, the environment is just pristine for this. we don't have any dry air trying to infiltrate the system. in the last two months we had a lot of saharan dust. this is about 23 miles in diameter, going to swallow some of the leeward islands, and barbuda, anguilla, the people there can't just evacuate, they have to hunker down and hold out. british virgin islands as well as puerto rico. with the system, i think the storm will stay north of puerto rico, but this is new. we have a warning now for the coast of the dominican republic, as it moves counterclock wise it will throw . most likely will become a hurricane in the last 20 minutes or so. it will not follow irma and head to the north. the models, this is unbelievable. right now, irma is much stronger than harvey when it

they've seen felix sater who's at the very least, you know, a mob-tied former felon, and who knows who else is at the other end of that russia deal. >> jill wine-banks, i couldn't help but notice a report in politico tonight, "senate russia investigators weigh issuing interim report." now, we're told this is being considered at all because of what's been picked up about russian influence in our elections. senator warner said the interim report would address election security. there is that, that we sometimes forget about. what would it help, what would it hurt to issue an interim report, do you think? >> i think it's important for the american public to know what's going on. so an interim report would help on that. the risk is that it may reveal something that will allow future witnesses to craft an answer that fits what the already known testimony is and that's one of the things you want to avoid. you want to be able to have honest testimony uninfluenced by anyone else. i'd also like to add that if the strategy of the communications director is to continue this attack on mueller and o

let's go to tom sater at the severe weather center. what's the latest, tom? >> we're actually not seeing much of a change in the national hurricane center, wolf. is their track from this morning any different for this afternoon? no, not much. it still wants to place it right around miami and the east coast of florida. irma is now the strongest hurricane to ever plow into the leeward islands. yesterday we mentioned only hurricane alan from 1980 was stronger by 5 miles an hour. irma today, however, has surpassed alan. by continuing to churn for 24 hours with winds over 180. alan nefertiti dver did that. we are getting a closer look at this eye which is 450 miles in diameter. communication is out. power is out. until the back edge slides through these islands, aircraft will not be able to get up to assess the damage from above. i'm sure civil emergency management crews are on the ground trying to assess the damage, but we've had no contact. the system is moving at 116 miles an hour. if you look at the gusts, 118, 515, 185 and then the instrument broke. that's ho

let's check in with tom sater. what's the latest? >> we saw a trap in winds.gain its strength back and most likely will. it's still a category 5 storm. and it's making its way on the track projected for several days. the interesting thing to note here, we were talking about, that the hurricane watch has been lifted to a warning, which means this is imminent. it took a while for the computer to gather the information. i was wondering why key west is pink under a hurricane watch. it's now red. all the way to dell well beach. and the hurricane watch slides from ft. pierce to sarasota, bradenton. it makes sense, it's earlier than expected. but let's get the word out. if you get away from the costlines and get inside, you're going to be able to ride the system out. we want everyone to get away from the storm surge. get in a sturdy building. we have two days before this makes landfall, don. >> tom, thanks very much. new warnings for florida as miami brace farce direct hit. we'll talk to some people that have done battle with this have done battle with this monster s

but certainly i think what was so surprising about this storm, tom sater at the weather center will tell you how accurate the tracking of it was, but still there was a lot of confusion -- once it made that turn and suddenly it seemed like it was going to be more of a western storm, you know, a lot of people who had gone west to, to tampa, to fort myers suddenly needed to evacuate. they tried to go to miami or jacksonville, orlando thinking they'll get out of the way then. then the storm kind of starts to dissipate and then it jogs more to the east, but thankfully tampa avoids a direct hit. that could have been really a very damaging situation for tampa. but now we're seeing what's happening in jacksonville. so i just think it was a confusing storm. it was a very powerful, clear storm early on, but after it made that turn and after it hit, made landfall in the u.s. and the keys and then made landfall again in western florida, i think it became very confusing and really, you know, minute by minute, hour by hour it seemed to kind of shift and change. >> yeah. interesting the people who thou

>>> cnn's tom sater is in the weather center. tom, look at the eye of that thing. it is huge, it is barreling, a hurricane category 5 heading for the caribbean. >> we know the damage. remember the pictures from rockport, texas when harvey was a category 4 storm. the maximum winds at landfall that devastated that area was 1 130 miles per hour and we're at 185? that is a huge difference. this is going to make landfall. this is going to devastate thousands and thousands of homes and businesses, and millions as it continues along the chain here. we've got the warnings in effect for the northern islands, lesser antilles, puerto rico, and now add the northern coast of the dominican republic. this storm system is most likely going to stay over water so it's got a fuel source. we don't have any winds to sheer it and make it down, and it continues to make its movement toward the bahamas, mainly to the south of there, but they could see a storm surge down 20 to 25 feet. then we'll be watching the u.s. coastline. jose is a tropical storm, most likely will be a hurricane soon.

tom sater in the weather center. we'll explain that in a moment.to cover every angle possible of what's happening over the next 12 to 24 hours. and yes, this storm will be an intense storm for the next 24 hours. probably hitting the florida keys early this morning. and all day io e

i'm going straight to meteorologist tom sater. the continental hurricane, florida in its path. introduced irma, we said we would need four or five days and it's starting to unfold. but when we showed you a model last thursday, the european model and the u.s. model were 1200 miles apart. the u.s. model up by the northeastern u.s. and the european down by florida. well, now they're pretty close and i'll show you. this system right now is just as strong as harvey was when it made landfall in devastated rockport, texas. the winds are the same, 130. it's moving over the northern islands of lesser antilles. then it's the u.s. british virgin islands and that will go to a warning as well as puerto rico. six to nine-foot storm surges, heavy rain. most of the heavy rain will stay over water, but here's a time plan for tropical storm winds. tuesday, wednesday, thursday, dominican republic, haiti and possibly extending into florida. but let's run the hurricane track and you'll get an idea. it hasn't really moved much, it's been trending south, and if you look at this, you think, my goodnes

our meteorologist tom sater. what is the latest? >> well, let's back up and we can let everyone know what the latest is by looking at the destruction that we're getting reports from from the islands of barbuda and st. maarten. prime minister from barbuda saying that the island is barely habitable. the french foreign minister in st. maarten is saying now the four largest buildings on the island are completely destroyed. most of the buildings are partially or completely destroyed. we have not heard yet from anguilla. that is monstrous. we talked about super typhoon hayan, the strongest storm to make land fall anywhere on the earth. this was in november 2013. that was powerful. but this one surpasses that in the sustaining strength. this has now been over 30 hours with winds of 180 miles per hour or stronger. so, again, there's a big, big concern here. notice the radar. we're about 50 miles from san juan. so, we didn't expect the land fall in puerto rico and it will not, it will not make land fall in dominican republic or haiti. but no

hurricane irma, namely the damage it could do if and when it hits south florida so let's go to tom saterher center. how bad could the winds be if this storm makes a direct landfall in miami? >> pretty devastating, obviously, anderson. when we look at a storm of this magnitude, it's defying really the rules of nature here, by hanging at a cat 5 for so long. this track, if it goes right, moves toward cuba, and comes up from the south, it's going to affect millions of people. so for those that are deciding they want to hang out a little longer, that you're in a high-rise building. take a look at this. keep this in mind. winds at a cat 3 or cat 4, at the surface they're 145 miles per hour. the higher you live in a high-rise, the more the winds increase. if you're at 30 stories, they increase by 20%. the 145 mile per hour wind is 174. because you don't have the friction with the ground. if you live in a, let's say, the 80th floor to 100th, that's 30% stronger. so that same 145 mile per hour wind, anderson, is up to 189. it's amazing. you're going to see cranes swirling. three weeks ago, we ha

tom sater is in the weather center. let's check in with him h. tom, i mean, you know, it moved to the west coast. that surprised a lot of people who were on the west coast who had gone there from the east coast and then it started moving hooes. and certainly a lot of people in jacksonville are certainly surprised to see the record setting flooding there on the ground tonight. >> it's interesting to note. i mean, the forecast and the warnings from the storm surge and the winds, it did encompass all of florida. and we were talking this for days. a lot of it, even with harvey in texas, if you tell someone they think three, four, five and then they got fort or 50 it's hard to fathom. and that's part of the issue here as well. when you talk about a category 4 hurricane and a storm surge, it's hard to fathom the damage. and the forecast even called for 3 to 4 million without power. it's a little bit greater of the even a couple of days ago when the storm was 500 miles from naples, we were talking about that surge coming into jacksonville and the radar

. >> you are track it, tom sater, as always, you are on it, and when we check in later with you, andnk you for being with me, and on behalf of my colleague john berman and i, thank you for being with us, and our live coverage of hurricane irma continues with "the lead with jake tapper." >> this is cnn breaking news. good afternoon, and than kwouk, brooke. irma's destruction is not over yet as the former hurricane now tropical storm is continuing north with millions of americans still in its path. right now, the streets in downtown jacksonville, florida, are so flooded that the national weather service says that the flooding has surpassed the city's previous flooding record of 1864, the year before the lincoln assassination. and a short time ago

tom sater is tracking this from the cnn weather center. tom, what does the latest track show? in pretty good agreement, that's what you want to see from your computer models that they have a handle on the environment. unfortunately, it puts a major hurricane impacting the u.s. next weekend. now right now, we're looking at a storm that's just as strong as harvey was when it made landfall in rockport, texas, know how it devastated them. suffering there, suffering in the northern islands of the lesser antilles, anguilea is going to take a direct hit, lose power, communications. 6 to 9 foot storm surge. next the u.s. virgin islands. puerto rico under a state of emergency already. conditions are going to start to deteriorate tomorrow afternoon. with the way this is moving, going to take a look at the track, the time period, as it slides through the caribbean, sometime friday afternoon, i expect it to be in the northern coast of cuba. that's critical because we expect the system to move to the right. a turn to the north. so until that turn occurs, we're not going to be able to say e

you know, get the e-mails he had with felix sater and others and i put more credence on that. i believe he'll do whatever it takes to protect donald trump and we have talked before about the possibility of pardons coming into this. whether that's on his mind or not. i do believe he defines himself as donald trump's defender. >> i want to ask you, you know this administration probably better than anyone. is it too cynical to say why is this taking place on tuesday when the president will be on the world stage? certainly probably even by washington standards his speech in new york will be a big event. the testimony will be a big event but are we reading too much into the fact that this scheduling conflict has happened? >> i think the tire has been here -- the story has been here, you can't write it better than if you tried and this is another example of this. of course trump had to straddle this investigation and whatever else he's been trying to do in office for the entire time he's been there. so i think it's really no exception he has to do that on tuesday. >> all right, ali