Trump, governors monitoring path, progress of Irma in U.S.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Sunday from Camp David monitored the progress of Hurricane Irma, which he dubbed “some big monster.”

He was briefed on preparation and response for the dangerous storm, and spoke by phone with the governors of states in its path.

Trump spoke with the governors of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee, and also has talked several times over the past week with Gov. Rick Scott and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

Irma made its U.S. landfall over the Keys on Sunday.

“Every group is coordinating really well,” Trump told reporters when he returned to the White House Sunday afternoon. “The bad news is this is some big monster, but I think we’re very well put.”

He added that he planned to soon travel to Florida, but warned residents to heed orders to evacuate.

“That’s a path you don’t want to be in,” he said of Irma’s threat. “We tried to warn everybody. For the most part, they’ve left, but that’s a bad path to be in.”

Brock Long, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, spoke with ABC News’ “This Week” about coordination across the levels of government.

“We have been leaning forward for multiple days,” he said. “We basically pushed everything we can forward, including three days’ worth of commodities into the state. We have teams, incident management teams, power teams ready to go.”

Also Sunday, key Republican lawmakers reflected on Trump’s siding last week with opposition party leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to raise the debt limit and keep the government running for the next three months in a package that included relief funds for Hurricane Harvey, which flooded much of south Texas, including Houston, earlier this month.

Trump’s Republican Party colleagues had sought a longer debt ceiling extension.

“In all due respect, this was not an exercise in bipartisanship,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) “were surprised to hear that he had cut this deal with Chuck and Nancy. And the way you do deals is you sit down together.”