Milton takes west coast my source tonight is the mayor of tampa, but they blunt warning for those who are staying behind plus vice president harris is kicking off a media blitz. What she just said it a new interview tonight about firing that glock that she owns and his israel is marking a somber anniversary. The number of antisemitic incidents here at home is off the charts. We're going to bring the latest data to tonight. I'm kaitlan collins, and this is the source debris from hurricane helene tonight, florida is now bracing for another monster storm hurricane milton is barreling toward florida's west coast with winds that are up to a mindboggling 180 miles per hour. This storm has exploded from a tropical storm to a category five in just 24 hours. Milton, as it is turning over that very warm water in the gulf coast, right now is more power kafle than any storm on this planet. This year millions of people across the tampa bay area are being warned to get out. Now most floridians, as we can see, are following suit jamming the highways and rushing to safer ground officials. There are preparing for one storm as some residents and other states are still unaccounted for or after helene, which has now killed 235 people in total you would think that sobering number would encourage world leaders to stick, to encourage our leaders here to stick to the facts. Given how many lives and livelihoods have been shattered but donald trump has continued to push outright false information, which vice president harris today blasted, is irresponsible information being pushed out there by the former president about what is available. It's extraordinarily irresponsible. It's about him, if not about you. And the. Reality is that fema has so many resources that are available to folks who desperately need them is harris was telling reporters about what fema is offering to those who are affected by these storms. She was also asked about reports that florida's republican governor is dodging her call false. Reporting governor desantis has ignoring your calls on hurricanes resources and help. How does that hurt the situation here moments of crisis, if nothing else it really the moment that anyone who calls themselves a leader i'm going to put politics aside people are need support right now and playing political games with this moment in these rights of emergency utterly here and it is about political gamesmanship that is doing the job that you put the people first now, governor desantis denied those reports and we are just learning tonight. He did speak with president biden a short time ago as he's made clear, his state has gotten what it needs from the federal government i didn't know she called me. I saw that, but i don't i was not aware of that the president has approved of what we asked for we're thankful for that. Everything we've asked for from president biden he is approved we'll have more on that. And the misinformation that we've been seeing spread by some officials today. But we're going to start tonight with a live update on when and where milton is expected to strike. I want to get right to cnn's chad myers, who is in the cnn weather center in chad. This became the strongest storm of the year anywhere on the globe. It just took a matter of hours what can you tell us about how strong it is right now and where it's headed in florida extremely warm water. Here's the yucatan peninsula, here's the bay of campeche. This is the gulf of mexico hundred and 80 mile per hour winds around the center of the core. Now, what i can find right now, because we have a hurricane hunter aircraft in it at this point, it's not getting any stronger and i bibi that's maybe tongue in cheek, but it is not it has been getting stronger, had been getting stronger all day long. Hour by hour. It got bigger and bigger and bigger. Now at least it's flattened out and hopefully by morning it'll flatten out some more. But from 50 to 180 miles per hour in 36 hours tropical storm warnings, hurricane warnings are already posted and you'll notice that hurricane warnings are almost all the way to the east coast of florida because hurricane conditions will be there. We're going to have major winds, major hurricane wins in this entire purple area from fort myers all the way up toward the last hurricane hit and hurricane winds all the way across orlando so to the east coast, the surge is going to be a big problem. This storm is going to carry 15 feet of search, and that's a problem because we've talked about the damage we saw the damage from the last storm and the surge with that storm was only six and seven even on up to her, it was really bad. Cedar key nine, but now now we're talking ten to 15. I know you're going to talk with the mayor of tampa. This is a big concern of his all the way from denied and all the way down to fort myers. This is going to be a major slosh of the ocean. Ten to 15 feet deep and some of those barrier islands are not going to be recognizable yeah. It's just a scary prediction. Obviously, we'll be watching it all closely. Chad myers, we'll continue to check back in with you as you're watching this. Thank you. My source tonight is the mayor of tampa, florida, jane castor, mayor castro. It's great to have you here. I know you have a lot going on what is your number one message to tampa residents tonight? the number one message as it has been for several days now, is that you need to prepare do whatever you need to do, and then get out of the evacuation zones, which now are evacuation zone a and b and as we all have heard, so so many times now you hide from the wind and run from the water and we are talking about right now the possibility of a direct hit would tend to 12 foot tidal surge put that in perspective, hurricane helene, which just left the tampa bay area a week ago there was six foot storm surge and that was literally devastating to so many in our coastal area. We 126 miles of coast just in the city of tampa so people need to be heeding that warning. And from the looks of traffic on omar northbound highways, they're doing just that. Yeah. We've seen how jammed up those highways are. I know a lot of the tolls have been suspended to help facilitate people getting out of there what would you say to people tonight who were saying, you know what? i'm going to ride this out. I've written others out. What would you say to people who aren't heeding those evacuation orders? well, i can tell you right now that they may have done that in others, there's never been one like this and this helene elaine was a wakeup call this is literally catastrophic and i can say without any drama to station whatsoever, if you choose to stay and what are those evacuation areas you are going to die wow. I mean that is an incredibly blunt message and i know you have a lot of experience dealing with these storms. You don't say something like that lightly, mayor i've never said that. In ten to 12 foot surge. I mean, if this takes a jog to the south, that's going to save us from the storm surge. But it stays on the track that it's projected to be on right now. Or if it goes a bit north, would be even worse. Some of the predictions are saying that pinellas county to the south of us, the entire county is going to be underwater so this is something that i have never seen in my life, and i can tell you that anyone who was born and raised in the tampa bay area has never seen anything like this before people need to get out and your message is just this isn't survivable this, if we have that predicted storm surge, it is not survivable. I can i guess you what that means for the general hospital there in tampa because it's on a bit of an island. There was actually this amazing thing that was used during helene the aquafence as it's known to stop the storm surge and it worked. But but from what i read, it said it can only stop out 15 feet of water. Are you worried that may not be enough for this storm? i am worried about that, but you know, it worked before that. It's not on a kind of an island hits on an island. They were silent. And of course that hospitals close to 100yearsold was built. There, wouldn't be built there under current conditions. But that aquafence really save that hospital so hopefully the engineering behind it continues to work where the weight of the water holds that fence down and keeps the water from coming in. But it is rated for 12 feet. So if we hit the storm surge, is that high tide hopefully that fence will hold and the surge will just go over the top of it we'll see what happens with that. Yeah. But they have all the patients are up higher on higher floors. But it certainly they would take out the electricity, the generators, and so forth at that location may or you're dealing with such serious matters here having to move hospital patients to higher floors in case of a big storm surge closing the tampa international airport. Obviously, a very busy airport, so many steps that you're taking and delivering this blunt message tonight i just i can't believe i have to ask this, but i do want to ask you if the misinformation that we've seen about storms and the federal response is getting in the way actually an effecting your disaster. Response as a city official it's not you know, that is just all noise out there. And it really is sad that individuals would stoop to that level it's to bring politics into something like this. President biden just called my cell phone less than an hour ago. To ensure that we had everything that we needed. The administrator for fema came here from north carolina where they are handling the issues up there flew into tampa, drove around with us and then went over to the barrier islands in pinellas county, st. Pete, clearwater we have the resources from the federal government governor desantis, kevin guthrie, the emergency manager. They are on top of it. Everyone is working together to make sure that we keep our communities as safe as we possibly can during this event. Yeah. Just seeing how urgently you're working to clean it from one storm and prepare for the next mayor we're thinking of everybody in tampa hoping everyone stays safe. Thank you for taking the time to join us tonight. Thank you. Kaitlan. I appreciate it it. And as we've reported here on the source on friday, a lot of the misinformation about the federal government's disaster relief efforts is being unleashed by none other than the former president and a new interview on fox news, trump repeated that again, saying at one point that storm victims were only getting 700 50 bucks from fema so we're in almost $300 billion for ukraine and yet they're offering people $750 for immediate me or the worst but for the worst hurricane that anybody seen i want to bring in cnn's chief media analyst, brian stelter and brian that port there at the end. I mean, it is only for immediate needs. Its if you need to get baby formula, water, food. And the next immediate timeframe, it if you're one of these people who's had your house completely destroyed by this. But this is catching on this $750 dollars thing that that's all of these victims in north carolina and these other states you're getting it's just not true, but your explanation took a few sentences and it's cheaper and easier for donald trump to lie about it. Thankfully, fema is fighting back. They have a rumor control page at fema. Gov, but the people who most need to read it are the ones who won't believe it. And this is the unfortunate result of decades and decades of why in about government of eroding trust in institutions. Of course, we should all be skeptical of the government. We should all hold government accountable. But there's been so much destruction of truth and trust that we're at the point now where people would rather believe anonymous, probably four propaganda actors on x than they would actually believe their local government officials but they're looking at actual government officials who are also spreading this. I mean, it's marjorie taylor greene, the congresswoman from georgia know that they would they do control the weather. She said they control the weather. She posted this tonight, this meme or not even a meme, i guess i wouldn't call it it says they can't control the weather and then she listed which of patents underneath it as if that is evidenced that someone is controlling the weather. And i think some people might see this and say, oh, that's marjorie taylor greene. Of course. She's spreading conspiracy theory. There is a very famous meteorologist in alabama, james span. Everyone follows him. Everyone looks to him when something's happening that he it did post earlier today was essentially, please stop sending me these conspiracies about the government controlling the weather and they created this hurricane because all that garbage is overwhelming. His inbox and he can't help share what his true meteorologists including government meteorologists at the national hurricane center are going to save lives in the next few days. And marco rubio the senator from florida, who on friday was tweeting about the fake jobs report, sowing doubt about the government statistics today, he is imploring his constituents to believe the government forecasts to take the government information seriously, to believe the government data what a difference three days mix from marco rubio and he is supposed to be one of the more responsible ones. I mean, that's ultimately what's so frustrating here. Kaitlan, as we see these government forecasters and these broadcast meteorologists trying to save lives. I spoke with a person donald carolina on saturday, a public information officer and rutherford county who said that debunking all these lies has quote, consumed resources that could have been more effectively utilized in the recovery efforts and what i'm afraid is that we are seeing the same thing now with hurricane milton. We're seeing the same lies starti