Trump And First Lady To Visit Storm Survivors In Texas; Trump Administration Seeks $7.858 For Disaster Relief; Hurricane Survivors Return Home, Survey Damage; The Biggest Health Risks From Harvey's Floods; Floodwaters Could Pose Serious Health Risk
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Most of the staples are out. A lot of isles are empty.</s>SARAH MURRAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The President and First Lady, Melania Trump are going to get a firsthand look at the devastation.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's our house.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My husband sleeps in the truck. I sleep on the tailgate.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not only is the water contaminated, it is highly contaminated.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will continue to coordinate with them and bring all of the relief and the comfort and everything else that we absolutely can to the gulf coast.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, has new details about the real reason President Trump fired FBI Director, James Comey.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is a serious obstruction of justice investigation going on, against the president of the United States.</s>SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We will be fully transparent with his investigation. And frankly, I don't have anything to add beyond that.</s>MURRAY: All of this as the president weighs whether to bring to an end the deferred action for childhood arrivals or</s>DACA. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I actually don't think he should do that.</s>TRUMP: We love the dreamers. We love everybody.</s>ANNOUNCER: this is NEW DAY weekend with Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul.</s>VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Good Saturday to you. Thank you for being with us. Today, the president will get a chance to look at Harvey's devastation. A few hours from now, the president and first lady will head to Texas and Louisiana. The waters there, we know, are starting -- just starting now to recede, but the misery, unfortunately, the death toll as well are rising this morning.</s>CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: The president and first lady will leave the White House about 9:00 a.m. Eastern. Their first stop will be meeting with victims of Harvey. They're going to do at an airfield on the outskirts of Houston.</s>MELANIA TRUMP, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: I just want to tell them to be strong and everything will be OK.</s>BLACKWELL: The president's promise of swift government response is now handed over to Congress. The White House is requesting $7.85 billion in disaster aid, that's a couple billion more than initially expected. A vote on the aid money has been scheduled for late next week in the House.</s>PAUL: And in political news, the New York Times reporting Special Counsel Robert Mueller has new details this morning about the reason President Trump fired former FBI Director, James Comey. The Times reports the Justice Department handed over a letter drafted to Comey, but one which was never sent, in which the president explains his rationale for the firing. The White House Council reportedly thought the letter dictated by the president to a top aide was "problematic." And so, it has a lot of people wondering if this new information is pointing to where the investigation goes from here.</s>BLACKWELL: Also, the futures of about 800,000 young undocumented immigrants said to be decided by the president next week. His decision on the dreamer's program is coming on Tuesday, and he's not giving any hint, yet.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The dreamers, they're worried.</s>TRUMP: We love the dreamers. We love everybody.</s>BLACKWELL: Let's start with the aftermath of Harvey. This morning, the death toll is at 50. Let's go to CNN's George Howell, he's live in Houston at the George R. Brown Convention Center. George, good morning to you. I assume people are starting to wake up, 6:00 local time there. What's happening, what's going to happen on the day ahead?</s>GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Victor, we are starting to see more people out and about after another night's sleep here, this home away from home. Many people who don't now have a home left to they can turn to. We're starting to see also the numbers diminish here. The latest estimate that we got from the Red Cross, somewhere between 1200, perhaps, people that are still here. The number, just a few days ago, 8,000 people. So, what we are seeing now, Victor, we're seeing people go into these communities to determine the extent of the damage. I want to give you guys a couple stats though because it really tells a story. According to the governor of the state, Greg Abbott, some 440,000 Texans, as we understand, have applied for federal aid. So, you really get a sense of how many people are asking for help from the federal government at this point. $79 million has already been doled out in aid. And at this point, some 42,000 Texans are in shelters of a various kind throughout the state of Texas. To talk about this shelter, again, the numbers are starting to diminish, but Producer Leslie Perrot just went out and determined, there are so many services being offered just quickly from FEMA assistance, housing assistance, legal advice, free transportation, play areas for the kids, Sunday worship services and counselor assistance. So, you do get the feeling that people here are getting a lot of help as they take those steps to get back out there and see what's left of their homes.</s>PAUL: All right. George Howell, thank you so much.</s>BLACKWELL: Well, a lot of the volunteers and first responder who've been working to help people have been at it for days. And one of them in Houston is Chris Eves. These are a few of the pictures that he has taken over the last couple days of the flood. He's been a volunteer firefighter for 24 years now, and he and his wife have hosted displaced people in their home since the storm began. Chris is on the phone with us. Chris, good morning to you. I first want to start with the decision to welcome some of the people into your home. There are firefighters who were doing God's work there trying to rescue people, help people, but not everybody invites people into their home. Why have you and your wife decided to?</s>CHRIS EVES, VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTER: I mean, it's the right thing to do. You help your neighbors. You help a fellow man in a time of need. You know, you just hope that people would return the favor to you if you needed it.</s>BLACKWELL: Chris, how many rescues are still happening? Is that phase over or are people still being pulled out of their home?</s>EVES: No, sir. That phase is over with. We're pretty much just in clean up mode right now.</s>BLACKWELL: How many people do you have with you in your home?</s>EVES: Nobody right now. They were all kind of place, found hotels for them to stay. So, right now, it's just my family.</s>BLACKWELL: Give us an idea, if you can, from your perspective, the gravity of what you were seeing, being there, how this has impacted your community.</s>EVES: It's just, I mean, devastation. I mean, I don't have figures on hand, but I thought it was, say, 60 percent of Dickinson flooded.</s>BLACKWELL: What do people need most from authorities?</s>EVES: They've really -- right now, people need clean clothes. They need somewhere to take a shower. They need somewhere to sleep.</s>BLACKWELL: Yes. It's the basic things that so many of us take for granted; a place to do laundry, a place to take a shower, electricity, if you can get to it.</s>EVES: Right.</s>BLACKWELL: They've had a good fortune. At least, some people to be welcomed into your home. Chris, thank you so much. Thank your wife as well. And thanks for being with us on</s>NEW DAY. EVES: Yes, sir. If I could just thank just a couple of people for all the help that we've had. Our initial response was only ten people. And from our station of volunteers, until we got help from the Texas Interstate Farm Mutual Aid System, we had a strike team from the Dallas area that is still here and still assisting us. So, I just want to thank them and the state of Texas.</s>BLACKWELL: Absolutely. You just did. Chris Even, thank you so much.</s>EVES: Thank you.</s>BLACKWELL: All right.</s>PAUL: In just about two hours, the president and first lady are leaving Washington, and they're going to go to that area on the gulf coast. They are set to meet with survivors of Hurricane Harvey in Texas and in Louisiana. Live from the White House right now, CNN White House Reporter, Jeremy Diamond with us. Jeremy, what do you know about this trip?</s>JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That right. Well, in just a few hours, we'll see the president and first lady heading to Houston as well as to southwestern Louisiana. This will be the president's first chance to visit actually and meet with some of the survivors of this storm. This comes, of course, just as yesterday the president's administration requested $7.85 billion in emergency federal disaster relief aid from Congress. The House of Representatives is expected to vote on that next week. And of course, the president here is hoping that Congress will swiftly approve that request for aid. Most of that aid will go to FEMA, which is, of course, handling the primary, federal response to Hurricane Harvey and the ongoing flooding there. The president, today, with this visit, you know, will have a chance to really demonstrate that empathy, that many of his critics said he lacked in his first visit to the area, which came just a couple days after Hurricane Harvey first made land fall. Vice President Mike Pence visited the area just two days ago, and he set a pretty high bar for what the president will have to do to demonstrate some of that empathy, you know, hugging survivors, clearing some debris even in the area. So, we'll have to see if the president meets that. But even as he is leaving Washington, of course, a lot of new changes happening at this White House. The president is dealing with the changes implemented by his Chief of Staff, John Kelly, aimed at putting a little bit more rigor here. But the president will also be losing, it seems. At the end of the month, one of his closest and most loyal advisers, Keith Schiller, the president's Director of Oval Office Operations, who was his former body guard for nearly two decades. Sources telling me, Dana Bash, and my colleague, Noah Gray, that Keith Schiller has told people in the last couple of weeks that he is planning to leave the White House. That, of course, could leave the president feeling a little bit more isolated.</s>PAUL: All right. Jeremy Diamond, quite a wrap up of headlines this morning. Thank you so much.</s>BLACKWELL: Well, police are now managing mandatory evacuation in the Los Angeles area.</s>PAUL: Firefighters are working to protect homes from a growing wildfire. Take a look at some of the images we're getting in here this morning. This has burned 2,000 acres in a matter of hours. We know at least 200 homes have been evacuated, thus far. The fire is burning in the mountains there above Burbank, and the things it's moving downward. Now, firefighters say strong winds are helping fuel this fire and it's causing it to burn in four different directions, which really makes their job tough.</s>BLACKWELL: Yes. A report from the New York Times, suggests the special counsel may be targeting the president over his firing of FBI Director, James Comey -- former director now. And it centers around a problematic letter, as it's described. All of this as the president weighs whether to bring an end to the Obama-era program that protects undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation.</s>PAUL: Also, from infectious diseases to snakes, health officials are warning of possible lasting dangers from Hurricane Harvey. Stay close.