And this is cnn newsroom. And we begin with Tropical Storm florence. The window to safely veer away from the u. S. East coast is closing. And already a number of states are bracing for possible impact. The storm is getting stronger as it churns over the atlantic. Its forecast to become a hurricane in the next few hours. And a major hurricane on monday. The governors of south carolina, North Carolina and virginia already declared states of emergency. We are preparing for the worst and, of course, hoping for the best. But being prepared, being prepared is always the best strategy. Meteorologist derek van dam is here with the latest for us. Right now even though its going to be a hurricane, its still a big swath of states. We dont know exactly where it is going to go. From north florida to the carolinas and georgia, Everyone Needs to be prepared for the landfall of a u the. We need several more runs and days to hone in on the location, but nevertheless, the entire southeast coast, unfortu
keeping him in the dark. that raises questions of whether he s in an ivory tower, doesn t have a handle on what s going on. so that raises a lot of questions about his leadership, his administration, and i think when you look at what the allies are thinking, they re asking those questions, as well. elyse, just a quick follow up here. are there any allies the white house going back to them saying we share intelligence. this is a good thing for everybody. perhaps we ve gone too far in listening in on personal cell phone calls but this is to protect all of our allies when it comes to going against these terrorist plots figuring out where that leads to, that this protects everyone? well, there is an element of everybody does it, suzanne. but at the same time, when you say everybody does it it, it s like apples and oranges because clearly the united states has surveilance capabilities that far surpass any of the countries that we re talking about. also, yes, the u.s. maintains these sur
to foil terrorists but angela merkel has to come back and the allies have to come back and say, well, are you saying that i am under suspicion for terrorism? there s really no correlation between tapping the personal phone of an ally and any of these terrorist plots. so it raises questions, are these for political motives, to find out what germany and other countries are doing on syria, on iran, the euro crisis? . it moves more into the breadth and the scope here. all right. elyse labott at the state department, diana, thank you all, appreciate. the president gets a presidential daily brief. it s a notebook, comes to the residence every morning. he takes a look at it. it s all the security threats around the world aggregated intelligence. would he be able to tell that that was a cell phone call from angela merkel or is it all a general kind of statement, general threats? a lot of people wondering how
syria giving up its chemical weapons to international control but syria signing onto an international chemical weapons ban. these talks in geneva, very key, as the administration puts it, the last thing standing in the way of u.s. military action in syria. with secretary kerry on his way to geneva, the administration s word of the day was time, as in any deal will take more of it. i m not going to place a date or a time limit on it. i don t have a time line to give to you. so i expect this will take some time. reporter: the administration s made the basics of a deal clear, syria s chemical weapons must be secured, removed from president bashar al assad s control and destroyed. however, achieving those goals now relies on a negotiating partner in russia with a gaping trust deficit in washington. a point raised by cnn s elyse labott at the state department. you think the russians are
inspectors who were there can take blood and hair samples, brain tissue samples from deceased victims and run them through a device called a gas chromatography machine. even if that area of damascus was decimated by syrian army shelling right after the chemical attack, experts say it s not degraded to the point where you can t get an accurate test. they can grab samples from walls. they may not be prevented from getting an accurate sample. appreciate your reporting. secretary of state john kerry making the case for action abroad. cnn s elyse labott traveling with him.