The Vice President spent The Weekend in pittsburgh preparing for the debate. During a Radio Interview that aired this morning, she talked about what she expected from trump during the debate. He plays from this really old and tired playbook, right, where he theres no floor for him in terms of how low he will go, and we should be prepared for that. We should be prepared for the fact that he is not burdened by telling the truth. And we should be prepared for the fact that he is probably going to speak a lot of untruths. For his part, Donald Trump held a rally in battle ground, wisconsin, on saturday. As both candidates prepare for tomorrows debate, new polling shows an extremely tight race. A New York times Sienna College national poll gives trump a 1 Point Lead over the Vice President. The Yougov Poll of michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin show a close but tied race in the battleground states, with the results in the margin of error. With us now, Nbc News correspondent, garrett haake, who covers the Trump Campaign, and bloomberg White House correspondent, kayla. How is Donald Trump preparing for the debate . Donald trumps Debate Preparation is anything but traditional. He looks to do policy sessions. He sits around, as formal as around a Table at maralago, sometimes the chairs on his plane, and refreshes himself on his own record through conversations with advisers and with helpful folks like tulsi gabbard, the former democratic congresswoman who was recently brought into the Trump Campaign to help Trump Workshop his Attack Lines and pivot off them to something that can be a substantiative debate answer. Theres no podium. No lights, no one standing in for Kamala Harris. I think some of that comes from the fact that Donald Trump doesnt like a lot of scripted preparation for anything, and some of it comes from his belief, his confidence, some will say his cockiness that he will be the dominant figure on the Debate Stage as he believes he was against Joe Biden in june. Thats how he was talking about it on the Debate Stage in wisconsin. Were run by stupid people, stupid, stupid, people. And we found that out at the debate with joe. How did that work out . And were going to find it out again on tuesday night. You hear that bravado from trump on saturday. The challenge for somebody like that, the thing that debaters expect you not do is lower the bars so thoroughly for he or she to clear. Kayla, youre in pittsburgh where the Vice President has been undergoing intense debate preps. What have those preps looked like . In a hotel in pittsburgh there we go. With trusted aides. Its fair to say that the Debate Stage is someplace that shes comforTable. She was a prosecutor. Shes tried dozens of cases and really rose to national prom in Accordance Prominence with debate officials. It will be more difficult with those muted mics while the other candidate is speaking. The campaign is hoping there could be unscripted moments where they can have an organic Back And Forth, something like what we saw with Biden And Trump where they had the Back And Forth about golf, theyre hoping the network could be compelled to unmute those mics. Kayla, im having a whole ton of difficulty. Theres some technical issues on your sound, and i apologize for that. But, garrett, in a social Media Post late last night, trump said he would vote for an amendment on the ballot in florida that would legalize recreational Marijuana Use in the Sunshine State . Whats the reasoning behind this . Thats right, jose. Trump has been flirting with this position for a while. Hes talked about this issue going Back some time. He takes position at odds with the governor of the state ron desantis, interestingly enough. He have talked about the idea that he doesnt think people arrested for small amounts of Marijuana Possession should have significant time in jail. He talks about the idea that its important to get this legalized, done right. There needs to be sufficient regulations and laws put in place so in his view, you dont have people sort of smoking on every street corner. We do half an hour on this show, jose, about the politics of Marijuana Legalization in the country where you have an interesting Patch Work of states like South Dakota and New Jersey agreeing by referendum to legalize cannabis. You see Donald Trump presumably not considered a friend of the legalize It Movement coming out for exactly that position in florida. His home state. Garrett haake and kayla gardner, thank you so much. Appreciate it. New this morning, Vice President harris is getting support from ten retired generals and admirals, including three with four stars. They signed a letter defending harris from republican attempts to tie her to the chaotic 2021 u. S. Withdrawal from afghanistan. This comes as the house foreign Affairs Committee released a Report Outlining what it says are the biden administrations failures on afghanistan. The report says biden administration officials watered down security warnings, they waited too long to launch an Emergency Evacuation of american and afghan allies and kept a large Embassy Staff amid a troop drawdown. The report says the Vice President appeared to be working in Lock Step with the president. The White House has said the report is based on cherry picked facts. With us, is retired major general randy manor, one of the people who signed the letter supporting harris. He used to be acting Vice Chief of the national Guard Bureau. Thank you for being with us this morning. Why did you decide to sign on to this letter . Well, first of all, all my entire life i have been very apolitical, not only of course required because i was an active duty general and also a National Guard officer, its something where every since 2016 where i have seen what trump has done, how he has treated people, how he has dealt with crises, i have been just absolutely opposed to such a very dictatorial Strongman Bully Type of a leader, and so it was easy for me to add my name to this list of those ten officers and ncos. General, what is it about Donald Trump that you believe disqualifies him from being president again . So theres two things, and the first thing im going to do is appeal to every single veteran and military member thats watching this as well as the parents of veterans, the brothers, the sisters, the spouses. Never before, not once in our history has there been an american president who has quite frankly called our veterans and militaries losers and suckers. And has turned the hallowed ground of arlington, quite frankly, into a political arena. My father is buried there, perhaps ill have the honor of being buried there as well at some point in The Future. The important thing i want to say is he is not a manager of crises. Not only did he Set The Tone for what happened in afghanistan by negotiating literally the release of 5,000 hardened taliban fighters, which of Course President biden had no say in, that was one example of poor management. And then also during covid, he could have been the hero of the world by creating under the national defense act, Creating Ppe and ventilators, not only for our own country, but to export. Instead, the fact that he did not make certain decisions resulted in the loss of literally Hundreds Of Thousands of americans to disinformation and the lack of available resources. These are the reasons why he should not ever be the president of the united states again. General, the House Report on the Investigation Withdrawal said the Vice President was in their words in Lock Step with the president on the withdrawal. Whats your reaction to that . Two things, one is, its extremely easy to dive into details of things that went wrong. Clearly there was a Suicide Bomber that got through, and that is obviously horrible and resulted in the direct loss of american lives and many after afghan lives. Of course that happened and other things happened as well. We have to step Back for a second about the comment that Vice President harris was in lock stop. In 3,288 pages in that report, harriss name is only called out three times. You would think that if this heavily partisan report would have been generated, they would have sprinkled in a few hundred references to harris to have referred to her more often. Of course she was involved in terms of being aware of whats going on. The president of the united states makes the calls, and thats important for every viewer to understand. So i say again, 3,288 pages, her name is mentioned three times. That doesnt make sense. And, general, democratic Vice President ial nominee Tim Walz has been criticized by republicans over his record in the National Guard and statements that implied that he was in war. And i know that youve got a very close relationship with the National Guard. Do you think the Harris Campaign needs to do more to clarify these issues . I believe that the governor as well as the Vice President and the White House have clarified these details. This is a highly politicized campaign at this point. Quite frankly, theres a lot of wrong information being put out, especially by trump, and also of course by vance. I find it abhorrent that literally any veteran would call Someone Elses service an act of Stolen Valor, which is very well defined in the federal statute. There is no Stolen Valor involved whatsoever. I was the acting Vice Chief, the number two person in the national Guard Bureau in 2010. I was the general officer in the pentagon, the army staff, responsible for the alert orders for national Guard And Army reserve units. The timing does not add up whatsoever, and, in fact, those are literally all falsehoods that he ran. He served honorably for 26 years as a citizen soldier, and, again, that puts him in the ranks of 1 of all americans who have stood up and said i will do this. Sergeant major general randy benner, i thank you very much for joining us this morning. Appreciate it. Very well, sir. Forecasters have named a new tropical storm that could very well become a hurricane off the u. S. Coast. Well show you where it is headed. Plus, thousands flee their home as an unpredicTable wildfire burns out of control in california. Plus, armed and dangerous, what were learning about the urgent Man Hunt underway in kentucky for a accuse Man Accus Mass shooting on a kentucky high. Were Back in 90 seconds. Youre watching Jose Diazbalart reports on msnbc. Obal Payments Solutions help their clients move money Around The World seamlessly in over 180 countries. And help a partner like the World Food Programme as they provide more than food to people in need. Together, citi and the World Food Programme empower families across the globe. [introspective music] recipes. Recipes written by hand and lost to time. Are now being analyzed and restored using the power of dell ai. 14 past the hour this morning. Following Breaking News from two extreme weather systems. Just moments ago, tropical Storm Francine formed in the gulf of mexico. Its forecast to strengthen to a hurricane later this week. Meantime in california, thousands of residents have been forced to flee their homes as wildfires rage out west, Fuel Bid sweltering heat. Right now, 15 active blazes are burning across the state. Scorching more than a half A Million acres. Take a look at this. Crews dumping buckets of waters from the skies, Flames Engulfing entire neighborhoods. Joining us now, steve patterson, and Msnbc Meteorologist bill karins. Steve, i know youre close to one of the fires. What are you seeing there . Were about 70 miles northeast of the Los Angeles area. Its less about what i see and more about what i feel because this is not one of those winddriven fires. Its not going to cut through a bunch of vegetation and possibly homes and then die, which in some respects is good news because firefighters know where it is. Its not moving all of a sudden. The Bad News is its sitting on top of us, which makes the Air Quality terrible. I can feel it in my eyes, many my nose. Clearing my throat every few minutes. For me, and a lot of people including communities that are dozens of miles away, chaff Air Quality warnings, its gross. For these firefighters it is very dangerous. Firefighters, though, making progress overnight. It was cooler, humidity a little bit better. Theyve got about 3 containment on the fire. It is still incredibly hot. Its going to get over 100 degrees again today. Those guys are in very very treacherous terrain as well. Its a little bit erratic up there, and pushing in about three different directions with communities on all sides. 35,000 homes still at risk. School districts canceled today. Homes evacuated, of course, and three firefighters injured. Very dangerous fire. You dont need a lot of wind to make for a dangerous fire. Not the only one burning across the state. 15 major fires including this one, including the boils fire in northern california, destroying 30 structures. The Bridge Fire in angeles national forest. Hundreds of acres already burned there. Firefighters have a lot on their hands. Because of the heat, zapping the moisture from the ground, when this moves into the fall and those winds pick up. Its essentially match sticks across the state of california. Going to be a very dangerous season in the next few weeks and months. Jose, steve, take care of yourself, put a mask on urgently. That stuff can get to you. How is the heat impacting these fires . The heat is everything. Its been so hot, so dry, and they are so lucky its not windy. If you saw behind steve, you didnt see the dead grass blowing around or anything. The fires are creating their own weather. Thats how theyre moving. Theyre not wind driven. Thats good. I want to show you the current Wind Gusts in the area. Were at zero. The mountains rolling at 5 miles per hour. The Containment Numbers should increase. Extremely rugged terrain. You can see the Valley Area where the homes are. Thats what theyre trying to prevent. Any movement of this towards those neighborhoods. I mentioned Air Quality programs. Most of that taxic air is going to be headed southwards toward the coast. San clement, most of Los Angeles, today, at least, the winds off the water, keeping you and your Air Quality a little bit better. As we mentioned, theres fires burning in the west. We have 70 large blazers in 11 different states. This is the peak time of when we expect the fires to burn and burn fast. I know youre tracking now tropical Storm Francine. This is going to be a big story in a hurry. This is going to be one thats on top of us before we know it. Lets get the latest on the hurricane center. Theres an aircraft flying through the storm. They reported Back, yes, this is strong enough and organized enough to call it a tropical storm. You can see some of the rain on the, you know, Northwest Side of the storm. You cant see the other portion of it. Its too far away from the radar. The Hurricane Forecast has this, making landfall in louisiana, roughly about 48 to 60 hours from now as a category one hurricane. That cone of uncertainty goes from the beaumont, Port Arthur area, lake charles, fayette, louisiana, new orleans, baton rouge, these are all areas well be concerned with. The Heavy Rainfall will be the center to the east. Im not concerned with Heavy Rain in houston, corpus christi, a little bit in brownsville, texas coastal areas. This will mostly be a glancing blow for you. Louisiana, mississippi, thats where were going to deal with the Heavy Rain threat, and this will be during the day wednesday and thursday. This slowly dies out as you head along the mississippi towards memphis. Mostly isolated Heavy Rain and tornadoes. Everyone wants to pay attention to spaghetti lines. When you see all the lines close together, thats what we call excellent agreement. Were thinking theres a high probability this storm is going to be heading toward Lafayette Or Lake charles somewhere. Thats the center of the storm, and to the east of there would be the strongest winds and rain. It doesnt look at this point like we have any direct storm heading to new orleans. As you know, we have to watch this very carefully in the days ahead. The wind damage, flash flooding, and all through the state of louisiana. If you remember last week, they got drenched, a ton of rain, and this is coming right on top of it. Theres such low lying areas, the whole area is Sea Level or less. That will be the issue. Even with a category one in the area, we will get the storm surge. Worst Case Scenario would be carry 2. That will be an issue when we pinpoint that landfall location. Bill karins, thank you, my friend, appreciate it. Up next, the desperate plea from authorities as they search for man who opened fire on a Kentucky Highway on saturday, injuring at least five people. Also, a warning from Liz Cheney who fellow republicans who