Is up to four. More than a week since Hurricane Maria directly hit puerto rico, growing frustration on the island over a lack of basic supplies. The Trump Administration is congratulating itself on the recovery efforts. Well find out whos right there. Deeply disappointing. Thats how the vice chair of the Senate Intel Committee described the presentation twitter made to the committee as we learn more about the social Media Companys role in russias meddling in the 2016 election. The Trump Administration has made big promises on tax reform but new questions whether the final product will be able to live up to the president s word of a middle class miracle. Amid all the partisan rancor an emotional moment on the house floor as congressman Steve Scalise returned for the First Time Since he was shot and nearly lost his life three months ago. Well cover all those stories and more. Welcome to morning joe on this friday, september 29th. Im willie geist along with the host of deadline white house 4 00 on msnbc, former Communications Director for george w. Bush, nicole wallace, good to have you here. Donny deutsch is at the table, senior political analyst for nbc news all those stories and more. On a special edition of morning joe. Noah rothmann, chair of the department of africanamerican studies at Princeton University. Eddie glab jr. And New York Times reporter. Joe and mika off this morning. Yesterday they were in boston for an event as part of their visiting fellowship at the Harvard Institute of politics. Theyll be back on monday. So the food supply is reportedly dwindling in remote towns of puerto rico more than a week after Hurricane Maria struck the island, huge portions of the population lacking fuel, water and communications. And the Trump Administration is being pressed to step up assistance. The u. S. Military has announced its sending a threestar general to the island to help direct the recovery efforts. The white house was asked yesterday why it took so long to make that move. A top Homeland Security adviser says the military had been involved from the start and it took time to realize that the local government couldnt handle all the lodge stijs of distributing the aid, that the general who helped turn around the governments response to Hurricane Katrina was not buying that. I dont know what the hells going on back there. Theyre using words i dont understand. We never used words like without partners. No, im not your partner, fema, im a command that you give me a mission and say, take water, fuel, and save the people of puerto rico. Thats what we operate off of is a mission. The military didnt get that mission until yesterday. I heard a conversation earlier today where they indicated that if the Task Force Commander wanted to do air drops, he could make a recommendation. Thats bull [ bleep ]. Now that commander buchanans on the ground, he need to be given orders and figure out what rules need to be break to save lives. This bureaucratic response is not working, with all due respect to the white house, they try to put lipstick on this pig but this thing is moving too slow. That is Lieutenant General russell honore, commander of the Hurricane Katrina effort. President trump has waived the jones act which restricts foreign ships from carrying cargo between u. S. Ports but that waiver lasts only ten days. Senators john mccain and mike lee are pushing a measure that would permanently exempt puerto rico from the jones act. President trump continues to defend the governments response, fema and First Responders are doing a great job in puerto rico, massive food and water delivered, docks and electric grid dead, locals trying really hard to help but many have lost their homes, militarys now onsite and i will be there tuesday, wish press would treat fairly. Also puerto rico is devastated, phone system, electric grid, many roads gone. Fema and First Responders are amazing. Governor said, great job. So nicole, as usual, the president has to remind you hes doing a great job, despite what you may be hearing. He is right that it is a logistical question in puerto rico. We had the governor of puerto rico on the show yesterday and he said the president has been responsive, hes been dill adjacent, weve talked to him again and again, but all this aid sitting on the ground and no way to distribute it around the island. The people of puerto rico dont think the press is treating this unfairly. I think the people of puerto rico feel like the press has been the one jumping up and down since before the storm hit the island. The press reported what meteorologists reported which was this was going to be the worst storm in 90 years to hit puerto rico, this was the worst storm in 90 years to hit puerto rico. This was one of the hurricanes that came down exactly as forecast. It was predicted before the storm hit that the island would lose power, the island is without power. I think until the president takes himself out of the equation and puts the people of puerto rico in the center of it, im not sure decisionmaking will flow from the west wing the way it needs to, to rectify the things that werent in place before. Jeremy bash who was chief of staff at the pentagon says the military douse logistics. The people are desperate to have people build cell tower, bathro bathrooms, cooling centers, some electrical grid thakoon replace the one that was demolished. Its not time for excuses and explanations and after action reports. The president talks about puerto rico like some bystander. He can actually fix it if he sort of puts the things in place and gives the military the power to do so. Go ahead. Its even worse than that. If you truly had empathy as a human being or a leader, no matter how even if things were going in the right direction, you say, this is not enough. You see the pictures, youd feel just this human being. Im not able to clinically diagnose anymore but obviously this man sees this, yet will instead of doubling down, we need to do more, its the opposite, im doing a great job. So the no matter what he cant take himself out of it. He congratulates himself out, so its even worse than that. No matter what this is kind of almost a larger, more devastating example of what happened with the military family. Where theres not an ability to empathize with the other side, other than how does it affect me . And its tragic. So obviously the conditions on the ground, 100 of the electrical grid is down. More than half of the hospitals are out. They cant get clean drinking water. The reports not only from puerto rico but islands off puerto rico, theyre running out of cash, they cant get fuel are. We know whats happening. The coverage has been there. Is it fair to criticize President Trump here . Hes really been pretty engaged on this. As i said, weve heard from leaders in puerto rico who said, actually, President Trump, weve talked to every day, we think hes doing all he can to get things here. But has he been a step too slow . Or is the criticism fair . I think the criticism is fair now. I dont think it was fair when it began. Which was instantaneously. We heard perverse, wish fathering the thought, that this was the next katrina. Obviously for political incentive. The notion that was purveyed across the media was the president was not engaged in this, which was false. There was no evidence to support that beyond the extend to which he wasnt tweeting about it. When he does tweet he talks about how shipping interests dont want this jones act, puts his foot in his mouth. When hes not talking about it i have more confidence that hes doing his jonathan when he is. It seems to me President Trumps moral instincts arent necessarily connected to the right thing. Right . His instincts dont lead him to do the right thing immediately. His instincts are really about optics. How im perceived. Press coverage. Thats the first thing. The second thin is it seems to me that in the midst of the crisis that was happening in puerto rico, we were dealing with Donald Trumps culture war with the nfl players and his attack on steph curry and the like. And it seemed to me at that moment, when 3. 5 Million People without power who are trying to rebuild their lives after a category 4, 5 hurricane devastated the island, it seemed at that moment President Trump was supposed to use his bully pulpit to bring attention to the island. To bring all of our resources to bear. And thirdly, we must never forget puerto rico, these folks are americans. What we are witnessing, we are witnessing our fellow folks experiencing extreme suffering. And i think this has to be made very, very clear to all of us on the mainland, that these are, in fact, americans. I think President Trump kind of failed in making that clear. That suffering is real and gets worse by the day as these areas cant get supplies like drinking water. St. Croix was hit by the category 5. It doesnt have 3. 5 million, but usvi, virgin islands, are struggling as well. A guy we all know, a Great Television producer, is about the optics, bush at 9 11, we think back to obama after ferguson, after the execution of the Dallas Police officers. You felt them there. You saw them. They werent doing it for optics, they were just there. With houston, a guy who is a Television Producer, for him not to be able to go down and at least produce for himself, forget the real reason to do it, he never even connected with human beings on screen. He fails miserably in these catastrophic, almost ready for tv moments for somebody to be president ial and its odd he recedes in those moments. The revelations about expensive noncommercial travel keep coming for health and Human Services secretary tom price. The latest report from politico. Price accompanied by his wife and top aides took military jets to major cities around the world, including a 95minute flight from berlin to geneva that cost 16,000. While other Department Staff flew commercial. To put this in context, Kathleen Sebeli sebelius, five years as hhs secretary under president obama, told politico she never took a military jet and always flew commercially overseas. According to politico, the combined cost of secretary prices noncommercial air travel tops 1 million since may. A white house official tells nbc that trips aboard military jets were approved because price had no deputy secretary to handle matters while he was overseas and he needed access to secure communications. In a statement earlier yesterday, secretary price said he will take no more private charter flights, no exceptions. Price avoided outright apology, said all of my political career ive fought for the taxpayers, it is clear to me in this case i was not sensitive enough to my concern for the taxpayer. Price promised to write a personal check to the u. S. Treasury for the expenses of his private travel, the taxpayers wont pay a dime for my seat on those planes. Price appears to have literally meant seat, paying back a fraction of the cost. Price was asked about all this last night. You say in a statement the taxpayers wont pay a dime for my seat on those planes. But youre writing a check for, we understand, from your officials, 51,887. The total cost is estimated at more than 400,000 for the 26 flights since may. Is that okay . Well, as i said, theres an ongoing review being done bit Inspector General. I think its important that we wait for that review. All of the trips, as i mentioned, had been approved, approved by the legal department, approved by the administration department, within hhs. Been deemed to be appropriate, official travel. And so we need to let the Inspector General go ahead and act. Secretary price also said he was not sensitive enough to my concern for the taxpayer. Here are those very concerns in 2009 and 2010 after democrats in control of Congress Approved buying private jets. I think weve made it halfway where we ought to, and that is cut it from eight to four jets. Now we need to cut it from four jets to zero jets. This is just another example of fiscal irresponsibility run amok in congress right now. I want to say to the speaker, dont you fly over our country in your luxury jet and lecture us on what it means to be an american. So that was tom price, first eight years ago, the second bite seven years ago. How big a problem is this for tom price . Does he survive . Its a big problem. If they can find someone else to take his job he probably wont survive it but its not clear anyone wants that position to be confirmed. The mindset that would cause a cabinet secretary to do this, particularly one with a record of speaking out against government waste and protecting taxpayers, is just phenomenal. He can say it was approved all he wants. Theres been very little reporting that ive seen about who signed off on this, who generated these requests. But if youre an adult who understands how the world works and youre in the government and you get on that many charter flights, particularly some of the ones to philadelphia and nashville and places he owned homes, the level of bad judgment is, for many people around the president , disqualifying. Is it really that big of an obstacle to get rid of somebody and just have an acting secretary . We dont have a nominee for dhs, nobody seems to even notice that dhs is headless. Well, you could have an acting secretary for a while. But in the way the president thinks about these things, he wants smaller problems, not bigger problems. Yeah, i guess noahs question is for President Trump, whos let it be known through the press hes annoyed by this, he doesnt like the behavior of tom price. Why let him continue to sit there . If you listen to tom price he sounded one of those apologies, im sorry there was so much concern about this. Not necessarily, im sorry i wasted taxpayer money. If youre tom price you should definitely worry about your job. The idea that the president is openly fuming against him. The idea the president is upset that this looks bad on him and the people he surrounds himself with. This is someone who built a campaign, President Trump built this campaign on working class people on appealing to middle class people, on draining the swamp. Then tom price now making having more and more headlines about how luxurious his travel was, the idea hes paying back 51,000 when the price tag could be Something Like that 1 million, its not hard to understand there are people who are going to say, okay, really hes not actually making an apology. But i think the idea that President Trump is letting him keep his job, at least for now, it goes back to the idea that the president is now already having to deal with the cultural issues, the cultural war issues with the nfl. Hes having to deal with puerto rico. Now he has to fire tom price, that to me i think in his mind, hes probably elongating the headlines and hoping this will go away. Its not just tom price. Its scott pruett. We talked about him. Steve mnuchin. Vos. Thats all under review. Now a fourth Senior Member of the trump cabinet is acknowledging flights on expensive private and military planes. Politico reports interior secretary ryan zinke has taken several chartered flights including a 12,000 trip to his hometown in montana, as well as flights to two caribbean islands. What is wrong with these people . A Department Spokeswoman said the trips were precleared by the ethics office. In most cases these are small Government Conservatives who talk about waste, fraud and abuse, protecting the taxpayer. I dont know. How do you begin to explain it . One word, richard painter. He was the ethics adviser during the bush years. I couldnt have had a soda with mark helprin without having to prove that id paid for my own soda. The idea that these people are getting on private jets heres the other thing. When donald trump says that i could shoot someone on fifth avenue and my base would forgive me, hes largely correct. But that does not extend to his crony cabinet. They do not afford the cabinet the same latitude on ethics, on political incorrect language, on bad press. So he is the only person who can get bad press for his administration. He does not sort of have the latitude to take on water for his cabinet. Its the bad mindset of the people at the top. They shouldnt be even thinking of getting on these planes. How could the process exist within these departments that people in the Legal Affairs department, the ethics office, how could they possibly sign off on it . Clear it. Does ethics and stupidity if you talk to price, if youve gone from washington to philadelphia, forget the expense. To go to the airport, get on a private jet, get to philly, go back its actually less time to take an amtrak. Thats the ridiculous thing. Just the efficiency of just how you manage your day that i need this largess. So thats stupidity on top of moral corruption. You should probably recuse yourself in talking about private air travel. People told me these things, i dont know. Have you been on the acela . I love the acela. Thats the way to go. Its great. The little dishes they bring you, you meet people i dont think this is the set i bring my own dish and i put it on oh, i see. Right, right, yeah. Dishes . No its the same thing. You get a sandwich and it costs 200 bucks more. Thats what im talking about. Its a dish. Well tell