Puerto rico. Obviously you are in touch with people on the island. What are your biggest concerns as we speak this morning . Responses been a little slow out of the gates, so to speak. We should have declared the whole island in emergency situation with no electricity, half the households have running water, and you can see the images of people leaving the island in shifts, trying to get to the airport. It is a desperate situation. The army should have been sent a long time ago, and i hope it is not too late to prevent a deepening of this entire crisis. I just hope that we react much faster, we send the troops down ofre to take control distribution. Supply seems to be there, it is just a question of logistics. I think the only entity that is capable of taking control of that situation is really the army, the armed forces. Efforts ramping up quickly in the last couple of days in particular. The headline in the wall street journal front page puerto rico aid trickles in. Deployed a threestar general to puerto rico to oversee efforts, and the department of Homeland Security waive the jones act to allow nonus ships to carry cargo from the u. S. Mainland to puerto rico, in addition to the Transportation Department saying it was making 40 Million Dollars immediately available to pay for road and bridge repairs. What can you tell us about the status of the infrastructure in into maria,going and obviously there has been a big impact in the storm itself. Plant, which ago, isabout a decade. Is third main thing is it more than 40 years old, and it needs organization. Right now, all of the information and power lines are not operating, and you really need to restore all of that before you can start energy regeneration. They need to restore electricity quickly. Backy, it will calm online. The reality is that puerto rico is a very diverse geography, the people in the interior, all of the towns away from san juan, especially, are going to be a long, long haul before they get electricity. They do not have electricity, they do not have water present because it comes from pumps. There is a complicated sort of situation in puerto rico with infrastructure. For example, there was no satellite system in place for communications. That, the armyve has that. So hopefully they are bringing cell towers to restore communications, some people are coming back online with those, but this is almost 10 years after. 10 days after. It has been a long way for these measures to be in place. Refugees,e a class of of american citizens that are fleeing the island, and the question is are they going to come back yet go back you go host back . Host we welcome your phone calls at 202 7488000 for democrats. 202 7488001 four republican. For independents and others, 202 7488002. Theif you have ties to island of puerto rico, either you are living here or have relatives in puerto rico, we would love to hear from you on a special line. 202 7488003. Edwin melendez, how much more difficult is it for puerto rico in this situation not, for to have a stronger representative presence in the u. S. Congress . Mr. Melendez as you know, that has been an issue for ever, the fact that we only have someone that can speak but not vote on most matters. Have fourd that, we infive Puerto Ricans congress. They play a tremendous leadership role. They helped avoid the financial crisis, and now disaster. Have someone who is concentrating on very important states. New york is the National Capital of , and florida is a state that a lot of Pay Attention to. Has distribution, and then in connecticut, illinois, pennsylvania all of those are important places where the puerto rican elective officials are working in local and state legislatures and the like. They are very influential and can move the needle when it needs to be done, but longterm we have to rethink the whole relationship with puerto rico in the United States. Host we have a call waiting from florida. Good morning. Caller good morning. I have a couple questions. First of all, my heart goes out to all of the puerto rican citizens. Horrible totely watch all of this. Having said that, i keep wondering what their politicians are doing . What are they doing with all the money . I am sure they get taxes, they get tourism, all kind of money how is it that they have not spent in their infrastructure, building code, and such things were the production, especially because they are out in the ocean, sort of isolated and in the path of most hurricanes that come in. That is very relevant and an important question, because i think the situation in puerto rico prior to the hurricane is a shared responsibility. It is american responsibility and virgo has been unincorporated territory for over 100 years now, since 1998. So the local political leadership, at some point they showed it to be incompetent, inadequate, not on top of what needs to be done. For example, the last two decades, there is no consensus of how to move forward with the economy and everything else. The corruption, so when the law to controlss enacted finances and to allow for bankruptcy, there was a theiment in congress that political elite was incapable of really bringing the country back into a modern society with progress, as it was in prior decades. Modernizing the infrastructure at the time, but 30 years later, here we are with a completely inadequate system. So i think reforms both in puerto rico and in the United States are necessary to move forward. Have a caller from silver spring, maryland. Tell us about your ties to puerto rico. Caller hi, good morning. My mothers family is from puerto rico. They are in the south of the country, the southeast. Difficults been very to watch from afar. It is very troubling to not be able to speak to my family that you get thirdhand accounts of somebody saw somebody at a shelter. Me, i find all of this, especially in contrast to the response to harvey, really troubling. I cannot help but see that the leadership and generally speaking i think, the Congress Needs to have seems to have no regard for the life of Puerto Ricans who are u. S. Citizens. For me, you see how they responded to texas, which was completely adequate, and there is a lot of devastation there. But i cannot help but feel that the administration has looked at puerto rico and seen it is politically or economically speaking, it does not contribute much to the country and therefore does not deserve the same sort of response. Host we appreciate that. We will hear from mr. Melendez, and good luck with your family. Go ahead. Mr. Melendez unfortunately, toy of us have been unable have influence in puerto rico for a long time. I just got a text from my son, who said his cell phone was back online. So things will start improving a little bit. Thethe reality is that response was inadequate. Katrina, those who are in charge of that, he had 250 other countries to his disposition after the Bush Administration realized that this was an emergency situation. There is nowhere near that workersf emergency there, and i saw an interview last night with the helicopter driver, saying that you know, their heart is broken every time they pass part of the houses, because people are waving at them and they have to let them the that they will be back next day and the next day with supplies. Insulin, soators, it is very heartbreaking to see what is happening, and the very slow response. The day after, we knew what 20 inches of water meant in terms of floating and in terms of the destruction. It is still not too late, people are still waiting for help, but it needs to be redoubled. With trump will visit puerto rico and the Virgin Islands next tuesday, tweeting about the aftermath and reaction. Recovering from the storm this theing, tweeting administration and the government, every time they have Senate Armed ServicesCommittee Member jack reed will be speaking now. He will be talking with abc news correspondenton jonathan karl. This is held at the council on foreign relations. [indiscernible conversations] all right, i think we are going to start. Thank you all for being here. Welcome to the council of foreign