Florida Begins Hurricane Milton Cleanup; 2 Million Still Without Power as Flooding Remains Threat

Good evening and welcome to the Capitol Report on Entity Television. I'm Steve Lance. Here's a look at what's coming up. Hurricane Milton leaving a path of destruction across Florida, claiming at least 16 lives. Recovery efforts still underway with power restoration a top priority. And Vice President Kamala Harris finishing up three days of events in Nevada and Arizona, which she said at a campaign stop while in Scottsdale. Former President Trump now in Nevada after rallying in Colorado earlier today. We'll hear from the voters. This is Capitol Report, live from our global headquarters in our nation's capital. Here's Steve Lance. At least 16 people have died as a result of Hurricane Milton in St. Lucie, Florida. Multiple tornadoes killing six people, destroying many homes. Entity's Jack Bradley joins us now, live from St. Lucie. Good evening to you, Jack. So how are the recovery efforts looking out there right now? Well, the recovery efforts are underway right now, Steve. And like you said, the six people that have died in the storm as a result of those tornadoes were just 10 minutes from where I am. Where I am right now is at an Owls Family Farm, which is a landmark of St. Lucie. Once a bustling place, now completely destroyed. The building behind me used to be two floors. Now that second floor is all over the ground here below us. I spoke to the owner who says he doesn't know how he's going to recover from the devastation. Take a look. This is just used to be a two-story, 100-year-old citrus packing house. And now it's a one-story, 100-year-old packing house. We haven't figured out how exactly we're going to get it back to its old glory. But this was all beautiful, full of citrus trees and oak trees. And now it's just, you know, trees are gone. All of them. It's just one second you're here and one second you're not, you know. So we feel grateful. People say, oh, you must be, you know, depressed or sad. No, my whole family is okay. All my employees are okay. They're like family. Now, this storm has knocked out several trees and a big issue for many people are the flooding. As we can see, the flooding is incredible, as well as the blackouts that are happening all throughout Florida. Still many people without power, utility workers are trying to get the power back on. There's power lines all across Florida just fallen and people need to watch their step. And especially when they're dry, floodwaters contain electrified water because of these fallen power lines. And here in St. Lucie, the tornado killed six people, of course, and tornadoes are not common in this area. I spoke to the residents just a bit north of here, right where the tornado hit, about what it was like during that catastrophic event. Take a look. It was scary. Very scary. I never seen anything like this before in my life. Traumatized right now still. Blessed to be alive. And one thing I can say, the two things we saw, if another one come here, god damn it, I'm gone. I had a shed. It was on a block or whatever. And within three seconds or whatever it took, it blew all my shed over. All the trees came down. And if you can see this, that's not my tree. It came from over there. And all these trees was in my yard. And we had water up to the road. So what now? Well, one thing I can do now is wait on god to send me somebody to help me. You know, hopefully people will help me whenever that time comes. So we'll see. Like right now, I got no water, no electricity. So you got to flush toilets the old-fashioned way. Get the water out the canal and flush it. A couple hours north of here is where many Floridians from the Tampa area, which was hit hard by the hurricane, evacuated to. They also missed that tornado, those groups of tornadoes, which many of which split into different parts. I spoke to many of the residents who stayed over on the east coast of Florida and are returning home back to Tampa now. Here's what they said. We pretty much had a hurricane party at the hotel with all the other people. Yeah. Hanging off the balcony, drinking, you know. Okay. It was a good time. Too much information. They said no power, no water. We're hoping that changes by the time we get home. A little bit of flooding, some trees down. Some people got like roof problems and things like that. But other than that, it wasn't as bad as they expected. And how's the journey back home? Terrible so far. How long were we stuck on this road? We were here for over an hour. I suppose there was a bad accident here somewhere. We were backed up all the way past the county line. It's crazy. I've been driving. I left at like 11 30. Usually it's like a three and a half hour drive. It's about to take me like five hours to get there. Yeah, a class hamster came home with us the Friday before and was expected to stay two days. He's been with us now for about a week. Authorities say that the death toll is expected to rise as search and rescue units are underway. We already know that there are 16 confirmed deaths as a result of Hurricane Milton, Steve. Really important look at the human toll that these natural disasters take. Excellent reporting, Jack Bradley live in Florida. Vice President Kamala Harris following up events in Las Vegas and Phoenix yesterday with a campaign event in Scottsdale, Arizona. Today, former President Barack Obama encouraging people to get out and vote for Harris at a stop in Pittsburgh on Thursday evening. And today's Jason Blair reports. Vice President Harris finished up a three day Western US tour with a campaign event in Scottsdale, Arizona. During a talk, she praised Senator and former Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who passed away in 2018 after a long battle with brain cancer. I'm McCain, but man, I mean, what about an incredible American hero? Harris also said she wants to create a bipartisan Council of Advisors who can then give feedback on policy as we go forward. Former President Barack Obama started a campaign sprint for Vice President Harris in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Thursday. Are you fired up? Obama made his case for Harris to about 400 people at the University of Pittsburgh Fitzgerald Fieldhouse. We need a president who actually cares about solving problems and making your life better. And that's what Kamala Harris will do. Obama brought up Harris's plan to implement a $6000 tax credit for first time parents. I don't have to tell a lot of you, raising kids is hard. And she wants to make it easier to afford stuff like a crib or a car seat or diapers. One of his biggest messages, though, was encouraging people to, quote, get off your couch and vote. Put down your phone and vote. Grab your friends and family and vote. Vote for Kamala Harris. Along with Obama, former President Bill Clinton will be hitting the road for Harris starting on Sunday in Georgia. It's reported that he'll be doing smaller scale events in swing states as well as visiting, quote, hard to reach rural voters. Also announced, First Lady Jill Biden will start campaigning for Vice President Harris. For four days, starting on Saturday, she'll visit Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to, quote, highlight Vice President Harris's vision for a new way forward. Reporting in Washington, D.C., Jason Blair, NTD News. Two Lebanese soldiers are dead today and three more wounded in an Israeli strike in Beirut. Hezbollah has regrouped and persisted in its attacks on Israel. And joining me now to discuss the latest developments is Blaise Mishtal, Vice President for Policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. Blaise Mishtal, thank you so much for joining. Good to be with you, Steve. It's great to have you on, Blaise. So an Israeli strike reportedly killing two Lebanese soldiers, injuring three others today. What is the Lebanese army's role in this conflict? And why is Israel or excuse me, what is Israel doing to avoid harming them? Sure. Well, I think the important thing to understand is that there is a dominant armed actor in Lebanon, and it is not the Lebanese armed forces. It is Hezbollah, which effectively controls the security in the country, the government and many other functions besides. And we know that the Lebanese armed forces have been dominated and infiltrated by Hezbollah. They have not stopped the group's spread. And in fact, multiple Hezbollah members are actually part of the Lebanese armed forces. So I think there's a lot of complicated, overlapping issues in Lebanon. And until we know more, I think we can't assume what happened, whether these were merely Lebanese soldiers, whether these were also Hezbollah members, whether they posed a threat to Israel. But I think it's very clear that this is not a military that has been standing up for the well-being and interests of Lebanon and the Lebanese people. They've let this terrorist group take over their country. And I think that's why at best Israel has been asking them to get out of the way of its operations, just like it's been asking civilians to evacuate the area so that it can operate safely and with minimal casualties against Hezbollah. Reports are coming out now that two UN peacekeepers were injured in the area, the IDF saying that it warned UN forces hours before the strike. Talk about the Israeli military's efforts to protect civilians in these strikes. And is Hezbollah operating near UN peacekeeping stations and how these can ultimately be, these incidents and accidents can become propagandized if not responsibly reported on by the media. Yeah. So I think the first important thing to understand is why are there UN peacekeepers in Lebanon? And they're there nominally to enforce a UN Security Council resolution which says there should be no armed group in Lebanon other than the Lebanese military. And the peacekeepers are there to make sure that happens. But what we've seen is Hezbollah has been operating throughout Lebanon regardless of the UN presence. And in fact, as you said, Israel has published photos of Hezbollah tunnels, bunkers, infrastructure, just meters away from UN bases. So these peacekeepers aren't effectively doing their jobs just like the Lebanese military hasn't been doing their job. And that is why Israel has asked civilians to evacuate, the military to evacuate, and the UN peacekeepers to evacuate because they're not serving a purpose there other than effectively at this point protecting Hezbollah, which is trying to use them as shields. So both for their own security, and I think the security of Israel, it's been important to try to clear them out. And that's why Israel has been very clear. It says we are going to operate in this area. It gives up the element of surprise. It tells the enemy exactly what it's going to do for the purpose of trying to make sure that people get out of harm's way and have advance notice that they are coming. Blaise, lastly, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant saying everything is on the table in responding to Iran's missile attacks. What factors do you think Israel is considering here? And what are the potential consequences of Israel attacking Iran, specifically the nuclear facilities? Yeah, so I think there's two things that Israel is trying to balance here. One is the fact that they are engaged in a seven-front war. They come under attack almost daily from Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and twice now from Iran itself. So they have to manage this war on seven different fronts, but particularly Gaza and Lebanon. That takes up a lot of their attention and bandwidth. But on the other hand, they know that, as they call it, the head of the octopus is Iran. What Hamas and Hezbollah are doing, their weapons, their training, their funding, it all comes from Iran. And so ultimately, this threat, this region-wide war is not going to end until Iran decides it should end, until Iran is defeated. And so I think Israel is trying to balance how do we make sure that we deal with the immediate threats on our borders in Gaza and Lebanon, but how do we try to start putting pressure on Iran, not just so they stop attacking us directly, but that they tell their terrorist proxies to back off. And so I think there's a consideration going on between Washington and Jerusalem on what sort of targets, what sort of pressure, what sort of message needs to be sent to Tehran to get them to try to back down. Blaise Meshtal, appreciate your perspective. Thanks for having me. And coming up, as the financial toll of Hurricane Milton continues to rise, Hurricane Helene has already caused $47 billion in damages to homeowners. What are the first steps victims should be taking to rebuild, and how can they protect themselves from scammers looking to exploit their losses? We'll speak with a Miami attorney to get some important advice. And with 36 million registered Hispanic voters, the largest minority group in the United States, their impact could be decisive in the upcoming general election. We'll explore how Hispanic voters might shape the results when we return. This historical election, you need the best political team. We bring the data-driven, unbiased reporting you won't find anywhere else. We cut through the noise so you can make informed decisions. Stay with NTD for the news that matters to you. We are NTD. Will radical lies determine your child's future, or will timeless truths fathom the good, equips children with wisdom against the world? Our homeschool curriculum teaches high schoolers to think critically. We provide primary texts, original content, reasoning tools, and mentoring videos to help them transform America. Teach your children to navigate the world's woke confusion. Teach them to fathom the good. Rated in the best hearing aids of 2024, the Audion Atom 2 series offers superior sound quality and functionality for a fraction of the price. For just $189 a pair, the Atom 2 features four different hearing modes for all types of hearing loss. It packs crystal clear sound, a nearly invisible design, and is even rechargeable. I actually like them better than my old $5,000 hearing aids. They're so comfortable, I forget I'm wearing them. And the sound is amazing. The Atom Pro 2 is our smallest hearing aid yet, featuring advanced background noise cancellation, and is the world's first hearing aid with built-in UV cleaning that kills 99% of bacteria. I could not believe how my hearing and life changed without seeing a doctor or having a hearing test. Join over 500,000 happy customers today and get the hearing you deserve. Call 1-800-433-6359 or go to audionhearing.com to get your pair of Audion hearing aids starting at just $189. A large retail store just canceled a huge order leaving us with a ton of extra my pillows. But you know what? That's their loss. I'm going to make it your gain. For the first time ever, you get standard classic my pillows for wholesale prices. Only $1,488. I can't believe I'm even saying that. Only $1,488. But it gets even better. For a limited time, I'm going to offer my entire classic collection at wholesale prices. Upgrade to a queen-size my pillow for just $1,888. King-size only a dollar more. Get my body pillows for $2,988 and multi-use my pillows for only $988. So go to mypillow.com or call the number on the screen. Use your promo code to take advantage of wholesale pricing for the first time ever on TV, including my standard size my pillow, only $1,488. They've never been offered this low before. We have limited quantities at this price, so limit's going to be 10 and once they're gone, they're gone. Performance that truly matters for each and every one of us. This is what you've been waiting for. See it at least once in your lifetime. Shengyun. Get tickets now at shengyun.com. And welcome back to the Capitol Report. I'm Steve Lance. So what are the first steps to take when filing an insurance claim after hurricanes like Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton? And how can you protect yourself from falling victim to predatory scams? Here to share his expertise is Robert Gwynne, a partner at the Cole Scott Kassane law firm in Miami. Robert Gwynne, thank you so much for joining. Thank you very much for having me, Steve. I appreciate it. Of course, Robert. 16 people up until this point have now died from Hurricane Milton, the latest hurricane to ravage Florida. More than 230 people reportedly died in Hurricane Helene. It's actually too soon right now to measure the financial loss from Hurricane Milton. But Helene is reportedly estimated to have caused anywhere from 30 to 47 billion dollars or even more in flood and wind loss. Where do people in communities really start in the rebuilding process? And what can people who are not insured do with their livelihood at this point? You know, we're hearing a lot of reports with regards to FEMA and the ability for FEMA to be responsive. I think the one thing that everyone needs to keep in mind is FEMA was never created to be a substitute for insurance. You can get some immediate assistance from FEMA as an individual, but FEMA itself was generally created to communities for debris removal, rebuilding of roads. And so, you know, FEMA does exist. Claims can be made through FEMA. I think the initial payments are about $750 for the immediate emergency food, baby food, clothes, things of that nature, in order to kind of get those wet clothes off of people's backs. And then the individual FEMA claim can ultimately be up to $42,500 for any individual. The question, though, that you posed about how do people who aren't insured go about rebuilding? It's unfortunately it's a tough question because if you don't have the savings to in the bank to do the rebuild, you're kind of at the mercy of can you get a loan? Can you apply for a small business loan? The good news, I think, with regards to that is ultimately I think that percentage of people that are not insured is a rather low percentage overall. And the reason why I say that is because if you have a mortgage, if you have a mortgage back home, you are required under your mortgage contract to have at least some type of homeowner's insurance. It doesn't necessarily require flood insurance. I'm not saying it's going to necessarily make somebody 100%. But for the vast majority of Americans that own a home, we have mortgages on our home and the mortgage requires that we have homeowner's insurance. And in times like these, that homeowner's insurance, if it's the right kind of insurance and it was the right type of loss, should afford the coverage for people to begin that rebuild process right away. Talk to us about the financial insolvency challenges of Florida's insurance industry and how Helene and Milton could affect the insurance companies. A lot of the national carriers that you see the ads for on a daily basis, they don't write in Florida because they pulled out after Hurricane Andrew in 1992 because you just had a situation where it was untenable for national carriers to make a profit, quite frankly. And so now what you have is you have a lot of Florida-based insurance companies. The interesting thing and the good thing about those Florida-based insurance companies, if there is an insolvency issue, there is a Florida Insurance Guarantee Association, it's called FIGA, that backs policies and will pay out on claims that are covered claims under the policies. Florida also has Citizens' Property Insurance, which is a quasi-government entity that is also backed with taxpayer funds in order to pay out covered claims. So there are options out there. It's not as though it's a dire situation of no insurance. What I do think is some of the legislation that we saw passed here in Florida in December of 2022, and then again in May of 22 as well, was a lot of legislation that was passed in an effort to stabilize the insurance market. And so these storms are kind of the first major storms that we are seeing to see what that impact is and whether or not that legislation that was passed is going to have the desired effect. And as a Florida homeowner, I'm very hopeful that it does and that we do see the stabilization. How can the hurricane and flood victims prevent falling victim to scams while trying to recover and rebuild after these storms? Take videos, take photos of all of the damage that you have. Hopefully, the people that have been impacted, if not having their policy, would have had the deck page or would have taken a picture of the deck page or reach out to your insurance agent that sold the policy to you or the insurance company. And the reason why I say that is because there are certain conditions in the policies that are placed on both the carrier as well as the homeowner. And so you want to know what those conditions are as well so that you can make sure that you're complying with the requests of the policy. The final thing that I would say with regards to just insurance companies is some of the carriers down here in Florida have a preferred contractor endorsement. And what that means is essentially if there's a covered claim, rather than pay out on a claim, they will allow the homeowner to use a preferred contractor that will just do all of the work and that out-of-pocket expenses is rather limited to a homeowner. And if you have one of those types of policies, it's incredibly important to work with your insurance company to utilize those preferred contractors because the way that the law has developed over the last several years is the failure to use those kinds of contractors can greatly reduce, if not void, a claim altogether. And what we have seen, unfortunately, is we've seen contractors or people that have claimed to want to help the homeowner and say, oh, don't listen to those, don't work with those kinds of people and really have ultimately led to a detrimental impact on the claim process itself. Robert Gwynn, really appreciate your perspective. Thank you. Thank you very much, Steve. Hispanic Americans are now the largest minority voting bloc in the United States. In the past two elections, Republicans have made notable gains with Hispanic voters and their influence will be critical in each and every battleground state this election. Our Washington correspondent, Luis Martinez, joins us with the latest insights from the Data Hub. That's right. According to the latest Pew Research Census data, there are 65 million Hispanics in the United States. That's roughly 20 percent of the U.S. total population. Of those 65 million Hispanics, there are 36 million registered Hispanics voters eligible to cast their ballot this November 5th. That makes them the largest non-white voting bloc in the United States for these general elections. The second largest voting bloc, as we can see here, is 34 million people who identify as black, followed by 15 million the Asian American population. So this is going to be a crucial vote. The Hispanic vote is the larger in every part of the battleground state than the margin of error or the difference in between Republican and Democratic candidates. So we know that the Hispanic vote will be crucial in all of these battleground states. So now let's look at the state of Arizona. The state of Arizona has 25 percent Hispanic population. If we look here at the presidential race, we can see that former President Donald Trump is leading in the presidential race in the state of Arizona by one point. But very interestingly enough, we can see here in the senatorial race, to fill in that empty seat that Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema is leaving open, we have the Democratic candidate Ruben Gallego, current congressman of the state of Arizona, leading in the polls. We see that the difference is of seven points in between Carrie Lake and Ruben Gallego. The Hispanic vote could make that difference when it comes to November 5th. We also know that when there's a presidential, also the president also in the ballot, people tend to vote across party lines. Now let's look at the state of Nevada. In the state of Nevada, we have the inverse. We have a candidate Kamala Harris for the Democratic candidate leading here with one point above former President Donald Trump, and a very large difference here in between senatorial candidates, in between Jackie Rosen, the incumbent, and Sam Brown, the Republican opposition candidate. The big difference could be because of that incumbent status that gives more name recognition. Important. We need to see that here in the state of Nevada, there's a 22 percent of Hispanic voters in that voting pool, and there are of course that's a 22 percent. It's larger than the difference in between the presidential candidates and also the difference in between the senatorial candidates. But if we go back here to the numbers, there's something very important to mention about those 36 million Hispanics that are eligible and registered to vote, and what is very interesting is that of those 36 million, around 21 million, so that's roughly 60 percent, are under the age of 50. So we're talking largely third, fourth, fifth generation Hispanics that don't necessarily relate as strongly to identity politics as they do to messaging on the economy. So lastly, just to wrap up, 36 million eligible Hispanic voters, 60 percent of them, so 22 million, are under the age of 50, and they will be deciding the major battleground races this come November 5th. Back to you. The race for control of the House is razor thin, with Democrats pushing to flip the chamber in their favor. Meanwhile, the most vulnerable Democratic candidates are distancing themselves from Vice President Kamala Harris. So what are they focusing on in their campaigns? And today's Melina Wisecup has more. House Democrats only need a net gain of four seats to be able to flip the chamber in their favor. That means they need to hold on to the number of seats they currently have, as well as flip four that are currently held by Republicans. But with this year being a presidential race, the top of the ticket could influence down-ballot races, making for a tough race for Democrat-controlled districts that Trump won in 2020. So what we've seen in these districts is those Democrat incumbents try to emphasize that they're an independent voice for voters. And one way that they do that is to distance themselves from not only the party leadership in Congress, but also notably from Vice President Kamala Harris. Here's one example from Alaska last night, a debate between the two House candidates. And if it's our economy, if it's regarding guns, I'm happy to vote against my party. Will you be voting for Kamala Harris? It's a secret ballot. And I think both of our presidential candidates have flaws. Peltola was the only Alaskan Democratic delegate not to vote for Vice President Harris's nomination at the DNC this year. She originally flipped the seat back in 2022 from red to blue. A similar situation we see over in Washington's third district. This will be the first down-ballot race for Congresswoman Perez to defend her seat, which will be a challenge considering that Trump won her district not once, but twice. Who's to blame for the crisis taking place at the border, do you think? Well, I mean, I've been very clear that the president should have taken more action. She's one of six representatives who voted with Republicans this Congress to condemn Vice President Kamala Harris's handling of the southern border. Another on that list, Democratic Congressman Jared Golden of Maine. Across six years, I voted for about 80 billion dollars for CBP, for Border Patrol, for ICE. I stood up to the Build Back Better proposal that was President Biden's premier legislation. I said no to it. But Golden does have experience navigating tight races. He carried that Trump won district even back in 2020 when Trump's name was at the top of the ticket. And of all these Democrats that we've mentioned, none of them have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. And when Democrat leadership was pressed on this, the House Democrat campaign chief responded in their defense, telling The Hill earlier this week the reason that they're all elected right now is because they have been independent, authentic voices for their districts. Coming up, tackling gerrymandering. Ohio voters will soon decide who should redraw their districts, elected officials or a panel of appointed citizens. We'll hear from an expert and get reactions from voters on the proposed amendment. Millions of children are fighting to survive due to inequality, conflict, poverty and the climate crisis. Save the Children is working alongside communities to provide a better life for children. And there's a way you can help. Please call or go online to give just $10 a month, only 33 cents a day. We urgently need 1,000 new monthly donors in the next 30 days to help the You can help provide food, medicine, care and protection, plus so much more that a child needs by calling right now and giving just $10 a month. All we need are 1,000 monthly donors in the next 30 days. Please call or go online now with your monthly gift of just $10. Thanks to generous government grants, every dollar you give can have up to 10 times the impact. And when you call with your credit card, we will send you this Save the Children tote bag as a thank you for your support. Your small monthly donation of just $10 could be the reason a child in crisis survives. Please call or go online to give to save.org to help save lives. According to ancient Chinese medicine, persimmon is considered a medicinal herb and is used to help lower cholesterol, improve vascular functions and prevent diabetes. Perilla seeds can nourish the lungs and spleen. It is used to treat asthma and improve pulmonary functions. Puritan Green Vegetable Omega-3 is made from persimmon and perilla seeds from Wangmei Mountain in South Korea. It contains over 90% of omega-3, 6, 7 and 9, the highest concentration possible without chemical additives. The soft gel is made of natural seaweed. It is 100% organic and vegan. Both adults and children can take it with peace of mind. Ancient recipes were passed down from heaven to bring prosperity and longevity. Puritan Green Vegetable Omega-3. And welcome back to the Capitol Report on Entity Television. Tools to limit screen time on TikTok apparently serve little use. That's according to accidentally released documents regarding the social media giant. The documents were obtained by Kentucky Public Radio and NPR. They're linked to a major lawsuit against TikTok filed by a bipartisan group of 14 attorneys general. In these documents, TikTok executives reportedly acknowledged the app can be addictive for teens. The company unveiled time management tools for minors, but a TikTok executive is quoted in the document saying their goal is to quote, not to reduce the time spent on the app, but just to increase public trust. The lawsuit also claims TikTok officials knew the time limit tools reduced daily usage only a minute and a half, yet they did nothing about it. This information came out after the Kentucky attorney general's office accidentally filed redacted versions of its legal filings. The suit alleges the platform has harmed the mental health of young people. And putting an end to gerrymandering. On election day, Ohio voters will be weighing in on that one issue, a law that seeks to eliminate the state's redistricting commission and replace it with a group of appointed citizens. To discuss that measure, we're happy to have with us Mark Gabert. He's a senior director at the Campaign Legal Center. Mark Gabert, thank you so much for joining. Thanks for having me. Of course, Mark, gerrymandering, it's a concept that still many of us are unfamiliar with. In a nutshell, can you explain to us exactly what it is, the history behind it, and ultimately why it may pose a problem? Yeah, absolutely. This is a problem that goes back a century or more. And it's the manipulation of voting districts to favor one party or another or to favor one race of voters or another. And this has been a sort of stain on American democracy for quite some time that we are making efforts to make go away through court and through policy as each election cycle comes. So I guess to put it into context, talk to us about the normal checks and balances in a redistricting procedure, and how can this process be hijacked, if you will, by partisan politics? Absolutely. So there's some federal laws, the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting discrimination on the basis of race. Certain states have independent redistricting commissions that have bans on partisan gerrymandering. So drawing districts to either crack voters who are of one political party into multiple districts or to pack them all together, so you increase the number of districts that the party in power gets. And so there's a patchwork of laws across states, but there's no federal prohibition on partisan gerrymandering, unfortunately. And there have been efforts in Congress to do that. The Freedom to Vote Act is one that would do that and would ban that at the congressional level. And so we see sort of a patchwork across states where some states have prohibitions and these commissions of citizens who do the work instead of the legislators. I mean, ideally, what you want is to have citizens who are not politicians choosing how the districts will be drawn on neutral factors that treat all voters equally rather than having politicians behind closed doors pick the voters that they want to be voting for them. Coming up this November, Ohio voters will actually be weighing in on this issue, which seeks to eliminate the state's redistricting commission and replace it, to your point, with a panel of citizens, which are, however, there is a caveat, appointed by retired judges. Do you believe this measure will effectively address the problem? Yeah, the Ohio system that's on the ballot, this is Proposition 1 in Ohio, is sort of a gold standard reform effort that ensures that politicians will not be the ones who are, you know, conducting the redistricting. And that there's other protections in it as well. There's, you know, a cross section of citizens who are Republicans, Democrats, Independents. There's requirement that a certain number of each of those people, you know, agree on a map. There's standards for how the map must be implemented. And this follows what Michigan has done, which is another state that has sort of a gold standard commission form. What Ohio had now is a panel of politicians, the governor, the secretary of state, people appointed by the legislators. And we saw what that leads to, which was seven times the maps proposed by that panel were rejected by the state Supreme Court as violating the law because they were partisan gerrymanders. They just couldn't let go having their partisan gerrymandering. And so we, you know, we really want to see the measure in Ohio get passed this time, because Ohio is too important of a state to have its citizens be discriminated against on the basis of how they think and vote. Mark Gaber, really appreciate your perspective. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. So just how common is gerrymandering in the US? And do voters prefer having elected officials or a panel of appointed citizens to draw their districts? NTD Sam Wong was out on the National Mall right here in DC to hear from the people. Where are you from? Texas. Right by Texas. Arizona. Oregon. Stowe, Ohio. Albany, New York. Now living in San Diego. Outside of San Diego. Do you think people in your states are affected by gerrymandering? Yeah, absolutely. Although it's primarily a Republican state, a red state, I mean, there's still local and city elections that are going on. And there's definitely gerrymandering going on. Yeah, I suppose. It all depends on how you look at it. Not as much as they used to be. Arizona voted for and created a new commission to deal with the gerrymandering. I don't think so. Unlike other states, you know, during the work of the census, our state really invested to do a proper census. With New York losing representation in each census, it calls for some pretty divisive line drawing in the maps. No, we don't. I don't. I don't think so. Well, our districts haven't been modified in my recent memory. When it comes to tackling gerrymandering, would you rather have elected officials to deal with it, or would you rather have a group of appointed citizens to tackle it? I would definitely rather have independent people. Citizens, pretty much. And why? Because they do all the work there. They're paying the taxes. I think there would be a risk of a retired judge appointing his cronies. And on the other hand, the elected officials, you would expect them to just fall in line in some party line that elected them. I don't think having elected people make those decisions is in the best interest of democracy. I'd say with elected officials, they've all got their own power base in mind. And, when they gerrymander, they're going to go and do it for whatever their particular group is in power today. I think if I had my way, it would come down to the people, as long as they're being guided by the true spirit of why we want districts. I think elected officials have to be the top in charge. We have access to so much more data now. They could do this so much more efficiently, effectively, fairly if they wanted to. And coming up, what might the easing of inflation in September mean in the context of jobs, health care, and buying a home? We'll take a closer look at the numbers with an economic policy expert at the Heritage Foundation. That and more when we return. Hi, I'm Susan Lucci. You may know me from my many years on television. I never thought about heart disease until I had my own heart event. I felt this slight pressure on my chest, just slight. I thought, oh, it's nothing. It'll go away. I didn't get it. I did not get it. A few days later, while shopping at a boutique, that pressure returned much stronger. It felt like an elephant pressing on my chest. I had a 90% blockage in my main artery and a 75% blockage in the adjacent artery. I was rushed into surgery where I received two stents in my arteries. Stents developed through research funded by the American Heart Association. Those stents saved my life. That's why I'm in front of you today. Asking you to join me in supporting the American Heart Association by becoming a monthly donor. Call now or go to helpheart.org. For only $19 a month, just 63 cents a day, you can help fund the next medical breakthrough. Get the next person trained in CPR, the next hospital certified in high-quality cardiovascular care. I'm so grateful to the American Heart Association. Their research helped save my life. I can enjoy life with my children, my grandchildren, and my friends. Heart disease is America's number one killer and your support now can help save your life or the life of someone you love. Give $19 a month with your credit card and we'll send you this special t-shirt that you can wear to show that you are helping save lives. Please, listen to your heart. The only reason I'm here today is because I did. So, please call the number on your screen or go to helpheart.org now. Join me as a monthly donor today and help save even more lives. Thank you. Imagine a coffee that cares for your health. Expertly fermented with a 50-enzyme complex to enhance flavor and remove bitterness. Small batch roasted to a decadent medium dark. Resulting in a brew that is gentle on digestion, low acid, and up to 90% less caffeine than regular coffee. Try America's first enzyme fermented coffee today. And welcome back to Entity's Capital Report. Cleanup continues in the wake of the deadly Hurricane Milton, which has claimed the lives of at least 16 people so far. Thousands still being rescued as many residents remain without power. Entity's Christina Corona tells us more. Milton hit Florida as a Category 3 hurricane on Wednesday night near Siesta Key. It has since been downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone and is expected to keep weakening in the coming days. At least 16 fatalities have been confirmed in Florida due to the storm, including five from tornadoes in St. Lucie County. President Biden provided an update on the federal government's response to Hurricane Milton. We're going to be going to Congress. We're going to need a lot of help. We're going to need a lot more money as we identify specifically how much is needed. Estimate that it caused damages around $50 billion from Hurricane Milton alone, just alone $50 billion. I want everyone in the impacted areas to know we're going to do everything we can to let you help you pick back up the piece and to get back to where you were. As of Thursday night, first responders have rescued approximately 1,000 people and efforts are ongoing as officials warn that floodwaters in some areas have not yet gone down. In a dramatic rescue, a crew from Coast Guard Air Station Miami heroically saved a man who was found clinging desperately to a cooler about 30 miles off the coast of Longboat Key. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis gave an update on debris removal efforts, highlighting the progress being made across the state as crews work around the clock. We paused a lot of our road projects with the Department of Transportation and we did an emergency debris removal and we were here in Manatee, Berry Islands, Pinellas. You know, we did like 50,000 cubic yards of debris in 72 hours. He also emphasized that people in need of shelter can still stay in hotels, assuring that accommodations remain available for those displaced by Helene or Milton. Some people had storm surge. They had the muck and gut. It may take some time to rehab that. You can stay in a hotel for up to 60 days and it'll likely be extended for perhaps up to three to six months. More than two million customers were without power in Florida on Friday, according to utility tracker Find Energy. Melissa Satius from Duke Energy reported that as of 6 a.m. Friday, 845,000 customers across 35 Florida counties were without service, with Pinellas County being the hardest hit. Damage assessments began early yesterday with crews and drones deployed at sunrise. In addition to helicopters to do surveying, at the same time we began restoration of critical facilities such as hospitals, 911 centers, lift stations, water treatment plants, those kinds of things. President Biden is scheduled to travel to Florida on Sunday to visit areas impacted by Hurricane Milton. Christina Corona, NTD News. Inflation appeared to have cooled in September. That's according to the numbers put out by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Joining me now to discuss what the latest data might mean for the economy is Joel Griffith, research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Joel Griffith, thank you so much for joining. Thanks for having me. It's great to have you back, Joel. So let's talk about inflation cooling in the month of September. Consumer price index. Talk to us, what are some of the biggest surprises here? Well, the administration and some are loving to claim another victory lap here, but the overall inflation rate is still averaging above the two percent target level the Federal Reserve has set. And if you look, if you strip out the volatile components like food and energy, the core inflation rate is actually accelerating at around three point six percent a year, which is nearly twice the rate the Fed has said is their target. So we've seen the Fed try to declare victory over inflation. We've seen the presidential administration try to claim victory over inflation. But the fact is, inflation is still rising at higher than the target rate, meaning that your paycheck is still going to be worth less and less. And at the same time, we have the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates dramatically, which could yet stoke more inflation. Joel, I'm going to ask you about the Federal Reserve in just a second, but talk to us about the job market performance in the context of these inflation numbers. Yeah, well, we continue to see the total number of jobs increase month over month. But we need to keep in mind that when you look at the top line jobs number, that includes full time jobs, part time jobs. It's not an account of all the workers, per se. It's a count of how many jobs are held. So what I'm concerned with is that over the past year, you've actually seen the total number of full time jobs come down by around half a million. And what that suggests is that you've got a lot of individuals in this country that are working double and even triple jobs in order to make ends meet. So, Joel, what are some of the challenges going back to the Federal Reserve and achieving its inflation target based on what we're seeing in today's economic trends? Well, the big challenge is that over the past four years or so, ever since we had the government, the COVID shutdowns, we saw government spending increase enormously. And to finance that spending, our central bank printed a lot of new money to buy government bonds in order to finance those government operations. The big concern is that a lot of that new money has ended up on deposit at banks. Of course, what do banks do with that money? They lend it out. The money multiplies. Every dollar you put in in the deposit of the bank can multiply into 10. So what the Fed has tried to do in order to mitigate an explosion of new money as banks lend out resources, the Fed began increasing interest rates in hopes that this would deter people from taking out loans. So the big concern here is that now the Fed wants to stoke economic growth by encouraging banks to lend more by lowering the interest rate. But the fear is that you'll start to see these dollars multiply even more quickly, which could increase further inflation. So in effect, what you have the Fed is doing here, they're trying to mitigate the damage from their own mistake. The Fed should have never printed up these copious amounts of money to fund the increase in government spending. But the Fed chose to do so anyway. They've tried to mitigate the damage. And unfortunately, at this point, they might make matters far worse. Joel, obviously, pocketbook issues at the top of the list for most voters. Talk to us about the current healthcare costs that people have, and some of these trends and how they influence the future job market and employee recruitment process. Yeah, well, the increase in healthcare costs, whether it's your insurance premiums, or your doctor's visits, if you don't have insurance, that continues to increase at a rate greater than the overall rate of inflation. And a lot of that damage really stems from Obamacare, which went into effect now roughly a decade ago. And this has really impacted individuals who need to buy insurance plans on their own because they're self-employed. Back in 2007, 2008, back when I was self-employed, you could buy a decent plan that'll cover you against catastrophic injury, sometimes for $200 a month. That's actually what I paid back when I was self-employed. You can't get those plans today. It's because a lot of new regulations went into effect dictating what kind of items an insurance plan must have attached. And now, if you're a relatively young adult working on your own and you want to buy an insurance plan, you might be spending close to $1,000 per month for those premiums. This is a big problem, especially for the entrepreneurial class. Joel Griffith, fascinating insights. Really appreciate it. Thank you. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to a Japanese grassroots organization of atomic bomb survivors. Japan's prime minister saying it was very significant for that organization. The group is made up of witnesses to the only two nuclear bombs ever to be used in conflict. It has been decided that the Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded to Nihon Hidakiyo. It is extremely significant that the Nobel Peace Prize be awarded to an organization that has worked for many years to abolish nuclear weapons. We will appeal to the world as we always have done for the abolition of nuclear weapons and the achievement of an everlasting peace. And that is all we have for you tonight on the Capitol Report. For round the clock original news coverage, visit us at ntv.com slash live and download our entity mobile app. From the nation's capital, I'm Steve Lance. Have a nice weekend. See you back here Monday.