Good Friday morning. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing sponsored by

Farma. And I'm Anna Palmer. We're 53 days from Election Day and a storm is barreling toward the East Coast.

People will probably lose their lives and their belongings. The response to the storm already has some

Republicans spooked. It's always sensitive to talk about the

political impact of the storm of this nature. But with utility companies predicting power

outages for weeks and roads already flooding, President Donald Trump's government will be under

a microscope. And yesterday when he denied 3,000 people died in Puerto Rico following Hurricane

Maria,

the president showed he wasn't exactly savvy in dealing with suffering.

A top hill Republican pointed out that North Carolina has several house seats up for grabs.

If you combine government dysfunction with a dash of insensitivity, that has the potential

to be a drag for the GOP.

The president's reaction to the travesty in Puerto Rico might be instructive in predicting

how he could react to an electoral calamity in November.

There are a bunch of districts across the country where the president's approval ratings

are in the high teens.

If Republicans lose the House, will he accept a scintilla of blame?

Hurricane Florence has hit land. The AP is reporting that catastrophic flooding is expected over

the Carolinas. The National Hurricane Center said Friday that Florence is bringing with

it a life-threatening storm surge. As of 11 p.m. last night, Florence had weakened to a category

one hurricane with 90-mile-an an hour winds off the North Carolina coast.

The followout from the president's tweets about the death tolls in Puerto Rico from Hurricane

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