High watermarks could continue now for not only weeks but potentially months. Where do to get a briefing for the president. Who will be getting a briefing from all those on hand to try to keep this going and try to keep the rescue effort going. We are also hearing separately that the president with cabinet secretary in tow is promising immediate federal leave to any and all who need it. 49 inches of rain right now, good enough for a record in these types of events. More is expected. Rains are pounding louisiana coast as we are told. This on a day gas prices continue rising. They are up at about a 10 cliff, that would be a National Average in terms of the futures market here because of what is going there even if you are not affected by whats going on. The Houston Convention center meanwhile over 9,000 evacuees there. That is double what they could realistically handle. They want to spread the wealth to other centers and other texas cities and towns. San antonio chief among them are all offering to take on as many as they need. Again, we are keeping track of this and Economic Impact thats pretty severe. Airlines that have been witnessing in dealing with closed airports i know indicating that they are going to resume flights to the area but probably no sooner than thursday. With so much going on right now, i do want to get a handle of things with jeff locke in houston, what he is seeing because of just what its like moving people, rescuing and evacuating from his high water areas. I bring you this update from a rescue boat in this area lets neighborhood that adjoins the Barker Reservoir as you see over there, folks who are in these houses yesterday, this was not flooded yesterday. These folks and talking to on the boat here have just gotten out of their house. You did not see this coming. No, we didnt. The thing is i got up yesterday morning and i looked out in the water was up to the mailbox, and it kept arising in. So i monitored it about every two hours last night and from 11 to two, it actually receded. And you thought you were okay. We were pretty cool. What is happening now as they are releasing water from the Barker Reservoir. What they told us is that weve got to really good drains, one is right over there and one that is over here. It said that they drain into the reservoir and the reservoir come back around. I just want to give a shout out to this man, the pastor of the name of the church. Power and miracles. There you go. Power and miracles. We need a little bit of both. We need a picture, dave can do it. We are not alone in the rescue mission out here. This neighborhood needs help right now. Some people are providing it. It is a flotilla of not First Responders. They are overwhelmed. They are doing great but they cant do it all. And folks have come to volunteer their time i dont know how to do it. They are a godsend, says the man. This is an ongoing crisis as you can imagine and the president of the United States is in austin beating with the governor right now. Close to half a dozen cabinet members to try to see if they can marshal the resources that are needed here and get everybody on the same page. That is crucial in the new Jersey Governor Chris Christie urging lawmakers not to delay hurricane relief. That was a problem that he encountered that with Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The governor on the phone right now. Very good to have you. Good to be back, thank you. Neil what do you make of this back and forth over aid and might tie to a debt ceiling measure or whatever, but it seems eerily familiar to what you encountered with sandy relief that is hung up purely and empirically trees. Its familiar and you are showing the pictures of the reallife suffering is continuing and can get worse in houston given the nature of the storm. The federal government should not be arguing with the people of texas and with congress about how to get this done. The aide needs to be delivered. As high as the debt ceiling or other things of the gross error. Peoples livelihoods should not be tied with whether or not the United States congress can responsibly get to a place where they can play their bills. They are paid to do that. They should do that. There also paid to make sure they take care of folks in the moment of disaster like this. Neil you would think whatever funding youre going to have, how it attaches to anything they could provide those. Absolutely not. Straight up or down vote on the aide that is necessary to make sure that the people in houston not only can get through this first period, but i should tell you from a Hurricane Sandy experience that if this last for a while afterwards and the rebuilding that people are going to need it back to where it needs to be productive economically, to get schools back up and running. This is extraordinary damage here. It was in the tens of billions of dollars, and we need to make sure that we do that for the people of texas. It should not be held political hostage sandy was and quite frankly from a lot of people who represent texas and the United States congress. Neil i talked to a few of them today. They argued at the time while they wanted sandy relieved, the package had bloomed a 60 billion plus. John boehner was among those at the time concerned that people were throwing a lot of other things into this that had nothing to do with the aid that you wanted. What you make of that . They had control of that first of all. Secondly, a lot of it went into the National Flood insurance plan. There is nothing else involved in that. People had already paid for it. So a lot of that is disingenuous and political rewriting. What matters is not rehashing that argument but what matters is to say listen, people waited over 65 days for federal relief aid to be voted up by congress in sandy. Six times the amount of time they waited after hurricane andrew and even more than they waited ten times more than they waited for hurricane katrina. You should see we are getting worse worse over time. These things are getting more politicized. The desk back disaster should should not be politicized. Its about getting their lives rebuilt and i can tell you from knowing so many people in new jersey in the new york area who were devastated by sandy, they dont want to hear about political arguments. They want to hear the federal government is going to come in a partner with the states to get their homes and their businesses rebuilt and get their lives back together. Neil a great deal of discussion as to President Trump visiting the area today, he was in Corpus Christi and now hes in austin and already some accounts on that that say he is there too soon. You cant win at this. Criticized for arriving in new orleans too late. I do think this president is reacting to it . I think hes done a great job so far and for anyone to argue he is there too soon, lets remember Hurricane Sandy happened in october 29th 2012. President obama showed up in new jersey on october 31st 2012. Two days later. President trump is following the same type of rhythm. I think its the right thing to do. I think it was important for president obama and i can tell you from having traveled with him that day, it was incredibly important for him to see the devastation for himself. It was important for him to hear from people were being affected and clearly informed decisions he made his is Going Forward. President trump has put together a great team of folks to go with him to texas. This is not some type of photo op. This is the working time where he met with Governor Abbott and they figure out what they need and what the priorities are and the basis for a relationship thats going to continue for months Going Forward to make sure the challenges are met. I think President Trump has done an extraordinary job so far. He and the first lady are right to be down there meeting with members of the cabinet. The cabinet members of Governor Abbott and Governor Abbott and the president are going to need that relationship as they try to navigate the bureaucracy and the challenge that will come up in the storm. Neil governor christie, weve been watching with a mesmerizing pictures that have been coming out. Many people that are stranded in their homes and some Great Questions as to whether the mayor of that city was wise in holding off an evacuation. The governor had said hes not going to secondguess anyone. The mayor had a very logical reason to hold off on that, but it did make me think of you, and you had some divisions in new jersey and Atlantic City at the time about evacuating and that he learned it later on to regret that. How do you deal with that . As governor, you got to make the ultimate decision about ordering evacuation or not. And Governor Abbott made a decision to defer the mayors judgment. Thats perfectly acceptable and i think what Governor Abbott di did, this is another one of those deals we talk about President Trump and when president s go in or dont go in, ill give you two examples. In new jersey, you are called in 2011 with hurricane irene, hurricane irene was predicted to be almost as bad as Hurricane Sandy. And as a result, i made the decision to evacuate the jersey shore in the summer during the height of our tourist season and hurricane irene did not really hit the shore area with any kind of great effect at all. I was really brutally criticized for overreacting and evacuating. Fast word a year later to hurricane super storm sandy. The same thing was presented to me and i was getting a lot of advice from people saying or member, your criticized last time for evacuating. Maybe you shouldnt this time. You make the best decision you can make based upon the information is being given to you by the National Weather service and with your folks on the ground and they are always going to be critics. Those critics are the ones sitting in a big chair and making decisions. I think what weve done by the mayor is the best decision and by Governor Abbott. I dont think you should be criticized for it. The fact is that no matter where they evacuate these people too, theyre going to be real challenges because of how devastating the storm is. I understand some of the criticisms. I sustained a lot of it. They made the best decision they can make given the information they got and thats why new jersey, we set our urban search and rescue teams to houston to help with those evacuations and our state police have a ton of experience doing and ive ordered our folks to assist him. We set personnel down there in houston right now helping to evacuate folks and get them back to safety. Neil one thing we remember from sandy is it hung around a while. Did a lot of damage. It was more like a noreaster, storms you had to deal with everything else. The devastation, the destruction was there. And for quite some time. Indications are with the storm, pretty much the same. We are told that this could be something that lingers in the october. As a governor or an official in a capacity to help people, how do you help people with that and to brace for something that could land and be with them for quite some time . What you have to do is first keep them very wellinformed. Thats the thing that will get people even more anxiety ridden our surprises. As governor, is to go out and spent half my day out with the public for a couple of weeks after sandy to make sure that they could see me in here for me directly and get the information i had. Secondly, with a cover needs to do in a situation is narrow your objectives. So you need to say heres what im going to do. What are the steps i need to take to return my peoples lives as close to normalcy as possible. For us, the four steps were return power, get kids back in school, make sure that roadways are usable and possible, and make sure that gasoline is available for people for their vehicles and their generators. Those were our first four priorities. If you keep yourself narrow, that restores a sense of normalcy to peoples lives and that combined with giving a great deal of information on a realtime basis calms things a bit. Neil my kids resent the fact that they were back at school so soon. I know they do. So did mine. When that didnt work out quite as we plan. I know youve got to go. I do want to get your sense of the battle, the budget battle in washington and we got this debt ceiling going on. May be attaching this provision to reprove i really for texas. It didnt drag on a while. To think an event like this could change that . The risk of shutting down the government and that could add to more problems or what do you think comes out of an event like this . You would hope that what folks in washington would understand is that we want to go down there and run the government not close it. We had a brief closer as you know in new jersey this year. The only one of my eight years, the speaker of the assembly chose to not send me a budget and close down the government. Anytime the government is closed down, its a failure by the people in charge. So i would absolutely urge the president and the members of congress that is your job to resolve these issues. Its your job to come and find Common Ground and not close down the government because the people wont tolerate it. They dont like when the government is closed down and its seen as a failure rate i see it as a failure as well. It doesnt mean that you cave on every demand on the other side, but a goodfaith negotiation, but he sits down, everybody is got to give a little bit. Thats the nature of government today, they have to give a little bit to get a little bit. Once you do that, keep the government open and keep moving in a positive direction for the American People back to what we really need. Thats what ive done in new jersey for seven of my eight years and its really worked out better. We have lower spending, lower taxes than we have before. Weve been able to meet our conservative priorities while also making sure the government continues to operate and provide what people have come to expect. And the services that they are paying for is not our money, its theirs. Neil you had no problem citing republicans who blocked that with sandy. He called republicans on the carpet if you feel its necessary. This president has called republican leaders, Mitch Mcconnell among them for failed legislative initiatives. What you think about that . A lot of people saying hes burning bridges with the folks hes going to need. I think youve got to be selective when you do it. Because in the end, you need to be able to work with these folks. Need to make it on the issue and not personal. Policy disagreements, we can always argue about policy and still be civil to each other. So i dont have any problem with the president laying out his disagreements with members of congress. Where i differ is we cant make it personal. Because the same people, you dont make a deal with this time, youre going to have to make with the was on something else. Thats one of the things the president is getting adjusted to coming from the Business World versus being in the governmental political world. Mitch mcconnell is not going anywhere. Paul ryan is not going anywhere. You dont want to burn those bridges are to have a policy disagreement, but dont make it personal. I think the president i believe over the course will learn that, will learn that these things dont need to be personal, that they can be worked out in a way that makes some sense even with as you said, i called him out personally on the phone and in public that this is unacceptabl unacceptable. I never said that he was a bad guy. I never said he wanted to hurt the people of new jersey. But their policy decision not to move the sandy aid quicker than 56 days, that her people in my state and you have to stand up and state the facts. President speaks the facts and dont get personal and congress shouldnt get personal with him either. If we do it that way, we wont be able to get by the stuff. If we make it personal, we run some real risks. When are you going to join this administration after its all said and done . One never knows. I have another 140 days as governor of new jersey. Im looking forward to being the first governor in 30 years to complete two full terms in new jersey, and ive got a lot of work to do on the Opioid Crisis in our state, im the chairman of his opioid commission. I got a little lot of work to still do on that in the next 140 days in office and then wilsey was going to come next. You know my wife would like me to reach my financial potential. I dont know if taking things washington would be the best thing in the world for that. I still have two kids to put through college. Im always there for the president , we speak regularly. I spoke with him just this past friday about a number of these issues and hes my friend, hes been my friend for 15 years. I will always be there to help him. Only time will tell. Neil is going to have a trial, he might have to leave and if it happens under your watch as republican governor could appoint a successor to him, would you ever think of pointing yourself . I dont see that happening, and whether theres a vacancy or not. I really do believe that executive traditions as well as legislative traditions that i have much more about executive branch kind of guy. Neil thank you for taking the time. New jersey governor. I already said it. Governor chris christie. You will get me in trouble. Neil i apologize for that. Thank you very much. Thanks for having made. Neil in the meantime, another Texas Refinery is closing. That brings up 60 of the u. S. Total Refining Capacity in the gulf that is offline right now. I think it really depends on how long is offline. The longer its offline, the more potentially problematic. The closing refinery is alw