the frustration that is going to likely contribute to problems for them in the fall. >> well, but the economic message is so strong for republicans that it is confusing that the president keeps kind of changing topics. just look at that tweet about lebron james right before going to ohio. what a random thing to tweet about. >> going to ohio, yeah, uh-huh. that's why republicans love him so. thanks for joining us on "inside politics." see you back here this time tomorrow. wolf starts right now. have a great day. hello, i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington. thanks for joining us. dirt and deceit. the president outright admitting the trump tower meeting with the russians was for dirt on hillary clinton and in turn admitting the original narratives about it were a ruse. the new legal exposure for the president and his family. plus, moments from now, the president of iran will respond to the u.s. restoring sanctions since president trump pulled out of the nuclear deal.

and once again, the first lady of the united states contradicting her husband in a very public way. this time over the president's criticism of lebron james. what message is melania trump sending? all that coming up, but let's start with that online admission by president trump. here's the tweet. quote, a complete fabrication that i am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son donald had in trump tower. this was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal, and done all the time in politics. our white house correspondent kaitlan collins is joins us from berkeley heights, new jersey, near where the president is vacationing at his bedminster resort. what are we hearing, kaitlan, from there today on the president's statement that donald trump jr. met with the russians with the expressed intent to get, quote, dirt on hillary clinton and whether the president will finally sit down with the special counsel robert mueller? >> reporter: well, wolf, it's been total silence from the white house so far, which isn't

surprising given that those same officials with t officials are the ones who maintained vigorously for months that the president had no role in drafting that statement from donald trump jr., which we now know according to the president's legal team that he actually dictated. the president tweeting saying that meeting was actually to get dirt on hillary clinton and not about russian adoptions as he initially maintained. while the president is also claiming in this tweet that that meeting was routine, he's portraying it as something above the books, but then it raises the question of if it is so routine and it is perfectly legal, why did they publish that misleading statement in the first place saying it was about russian adoptions and not about obtaining dirt on hillary clinton? wolf, you can't ignore the backdrop to all of this, which is that latest cnn reporting that the president is growing increasingly concerned that his son donald trump jr. may be exposed in the mueller probe. he's been worried about his family for months now being

affected by this, that they could possibly be entangled in, this particularly his son-in-law jared kushner, who was also present in trump tower on that day meeting with those russians. but in recent weeks, sources who speak with the president frequently have told cnn that the president's attention has turned to donald trump jr. here. in that tweet, the president is defending donald trump jr. sitting down with those russians. he's saying it's perfectly routine, but wolf, he does distance himself from it at the end saying that he had no knowledge of that meeting beforehand. >> kaitlan, thank you very much. kaitlan collins reporting from new jersey for us. this trump tower meeting story has evolved significantly over time. let's take a look back. july 8th, 2017, "the new york times" first reports on the meeting and donald junior responds with a statement saying it was, quote, about russian adoptions. "the new york times" reports the president's son was promised dirt on hillary clinton at that meeting. then donald junior issues a

second statement saying clinton was mentioned, but the meeting was mainly focused on adoptions. two days later, donald junior releases his e-mail exchanges with the publicist discussing the possibility of dirt on hillary clinton before the meeting. also, president trump denies knowing about the meeting beforehand. turn to july 12th. multiple reports indicate that while on air force one, the president was involved in preparing donald trump jr.'s initial statement about the meeting claiming it was about russian adoptions. the president's lawyer jay sekulow denies mr. trump had any involvement in releasing that statement. but on august 1st, the story flips. white house press secretary sarah sanders admits the president, quote, weighed in on that statement. later, donald junior tells the senate judiciary committee in september he doesn't recall the details of any white house involvement but says he never spoke to his father about the initial statement. and then in a major flip in

january of this year, the president's lawyers tell the special counsel robert mueller in a letter that mr. trump dictated the statement himself. fast forward to late last month, cnn reporting that michael cohen is willing to tell the special counsel that the president did know about the 2016 trump tower meeting in advance despite numerous denials from president trump and his team. and that brings us up to speed. the president now admitting the meeting was designed to get information on an opponent, but once again claiming he did not know about it. now jay sekulow admits he was wrong when he denied the president was involved in that first misleading statement. listen. >> i had bad information at that point. i made a mistake in my statement. i talked about that before. that happens when you have cases like this. i think it's very important to point out that in a situation like this, you have, over time, facts develop.

that's what investigations do. >> all right. joining us now to discuss all of this, cnn's chief national security correspondent jim sciutto, our legal analyst and defense lawyer, ross garber, and cnn's chief political analyst gloria borger. it sounds like this is a pretty incriminating series of events. >> sure, it is, because the president effectively came out and said this was not a meeting about russian adoptions. this was a meeting about getting dirt on hillary clinton. we know that the statements that were made about the president dictating that statement on air force one were intentionally misleading. we know that. they've tried to correct the record. there's a question about whether the president would have to testify on this. will he talk to mueller about this? is this something in these negotiations that his lawyers would allow him to answer questions on? i kind of doubt it. maybe in writing.

and then there's also the other question. we have reporting from jake and kaitlan about him being worried about don junior. by the way, the cfo of the trump organization is also talking to the special counsel. so there's a lot of stuff unraveling right now. >> he's been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury. here's what the law says. i'll put it up on the screen. this is the specific law. it shall be unlawful for a foreign national directly or indirectly to make a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value or to make an express and implied promise to make a contribution or donation in connection with a federal sta federal, state, or local election. the key words here, other thing of value. quote, dirt, opposition research, which is clearly a thing of value. >> yeah, so in the president's tweets, he says it's not legal.

i think there's a fairly good argument it's not illegal, that information would not be considered by the courts to be a thing of value. largely because of the first amendment. once you start saying that us talking to each other constitutes a thing of value, it winds up being a slippery slope. then the other thing the president points out, actually fairly, is that if information is a thing of value, then what about the information that came from russian nationals to the clinton campaign and the dnc through steele? and that's a fair point also. >> let me get to that in a moment, but here specifically is the exchange. i'm going to put it up on the screen also. this is what rob goldstone, the publicist, told donald trump jr. this is obviously in advance of the meeting. this is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of russia and its government's support for mr. trump, helped along by aras and

emin. those are the two russians who were also involved. to which donald trump jr. e-mail responds and says, if it's what you say, i love it, especially later in the summer. specifically, the dirt. closer to the november election. >> trump and his aides have been caught in a series of lies about this meeting. the facts show. the e-mails show it. they initially said it was about adoptions. they only admitted that was a lie or changed the story when there was physical proof to the contrary. over the course of time as we had people testify before special counsel, it raises the question now why is the president definitively changing that original story. so the facts show a series of lies there. i'll leave the legal question about what constitutes material support to the lawyers. ultimately, let's be frank, it's going to be a political question. if robert mueller is able to

substantiate what support this gave, it will become a question for the congress and really the american public as to whether accepting help from a foreign adversary is something that a president should do. keep if min mind, there's histo here. other american presidential candidates have been offered things by russians. they've also been offered dirt on their opponents, if you go back to 2000, and they refused it and reported it to the fbi. >> campaigns pay for opposition research. that is a thing of value. the law says that a foreigner cannot provide, quote, other thing of value, in addition to money or a donation to a candidate for federal, local, or state running for office. so the argument is that opposition research is a thing of value. >> here's the issue. in the case of clinton, there's

no argument -- >> we're not talking about clinton. we're talking about donald trump jr.. donald trump jr. was offered a thing of value, and he colluded, if you will, he colluded with gold goldstone and the others to try to get that thing of value. is that conspiracy to obstruct the law? >> see, i think where we're going to wind up is on the question of conspiracy. >> which is the same as collusion. >> well -- >> a different word for collusion. >> in some ways, it is a different word for collusion. in terms of the thing of value, i do think that becomes a slippery slope, and there are first amendment issues there. >> what's the first amendment issue? >> people are the righave the rk to each other, to listen to each other. >> but you don't have the right to go to a representative of the russian government and seek that kind of dirt on hillary clinton. >> an adversary in the midst of an influence campaign on a u.s. election. >> again, i think ultimately under the law, that is not going to be considered a thing of value because of the slippery slope of it. >> but this is from a foreign

national, right? >> exactly. >> and that's not legal. >> well, but again, we should talk about the clinton situation because it's not dissimilar. in the clinton situation, there is information coming from russian nationals to the clinton campaign through somebody else. nobody's paying the russian nationals. but wolf, you hit on something that i think is going to be the key to it, which is conspiracy. what else, if anything, was happening here? what else did donald trump jr. or anybody else know about the russian government's efforts? >> donald trump jr. says in that e-mail to rob goldstone, the british publicist who's working as a liaison with the russians, if it's what you say, i love it, especially later in the summer. what does that say to you? >> it means, i want it, i want it later in the summer when we're closer to the election. you know, the question is how much of this was going on. if you were running a campaign,

say you're the general counsel of a campaign, okay. somebody in the campaign said, you know, we got these russians coming in, and they want to give us some dirt. wouldn't you expect to get a call as the general counsel, and what would your advice be? >> it's a terrible idea. >> so you'd say -- >> putting aside whether that particular act is illegal, it's a terrible idea. also because it raises tons of red flags about other issues. >> so you say don't do it? >> look, it is a terrible idea. but then it's a different question about whether it's illegal. again, i think in the broader context, you do have to wind up looking -- >> if you're the general counsel, it would be stupid. >> terrible. terrible idea. >> the other issue, look at the context. this happens in the midst of an influence campaign on the election where russia was trying to influence in a whole host of way, including stealing information from clinton aides, exposing them for maximum impact. also keep in mind the context of

this specific meeting. they ended up talking about just adoptions. what is that about? that's about the mack ngnitsky . that's something the kremlin hates because it imposes severe financial sanctions on oligarchs and other businessmen close to the government who are involved in human rights abuses, okay. so what you have in that context then is the quid pro quo. we're going to offer you dirt on the hillary clinton campaign. by the way, can we talk about these sanctions that we've hated for ages and which the russians brought up repeatedly? i think you have to look at the broader picture there to understand what the context of that exchange might have involved. >> then there's the next level, which is michael cohen says, well, the president knew. so the president says, i didn't know. does that add another level to the conspiracy? >> there are so many more things we would need to know to be able to size that up. all i'm saying is right now based on what we know, just that meeting, i don't think a court would say that just that meeting, even if there was dirt

or opposition research, i don't think it was a crime. i think the question is going to be all of the optics, all the things you and jim and wolf are discussing, what else was there? what else did the trump campaign know about, if anything? i think we're going to learn more about whether that stuff exists or not in order to be able to size it up. >> you made a good point earlier, gloria, who said the chief financial officer for the trump organization for 40 years, if not longer, has been called before a federal grand jury because he obviously knows a lot about what, if any, trump organization, business deals were going on with russians in the '80s, the '90s, and the 2000s and beyond. that's a source of enormous concern to the president of the united states. >> as would michael cohen. >> and michael cohen for 12

years. >> i know the president is deeply irritated, presumably one of the reasons he's been speaking out and tweeting angrily in recent days. guys, good discussion. thank you very much. moments ago, the trial of the president's former campaign chairman resumes. rick gates is set to testify fairly soon. stand by. plus, senator rand paul raising eyebrows again, this time you're going hear what he told russian lawmakers during a visit to moscow. and the president's criticism against lebron james is being called racist and hateful. now the first lady of the united states is contradicting her husband. we'll discuss. sometimes a day at the ballpark is more than just a day at the ballpark.

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happening right now, the trial of president trump's former campaign chairman paul manafort has just resumed moments ago. the big question right now is will manafort's former business partner rick gates testify against him possibly today, possibly later this week. gate, as you might recall, pleaded guilty to two criminal charges and cut a deal with the prosecutors. he's now cooperating with them. we also know today's session is starting off with the cross-examination of manafort's former accountant who testified last week that she helped him prepare fraudulent tax returns. joe johns is over at the courthouse in alexandria, virginia. joe, is there new indications right now if we can expect to see gates testify today, tomorrow, later this week? what's the latest indication? >> reporter: wolf, it isn't clear right now. it could be today. it could be tomorrow. we may here a little bit more about timing in just a little bit. that timing could be affected by, number one, what you already mentioned at the top, the

testimony of the accountant. she testified on friday. her cross-examination continues today. that's the first thing. another thing that's going on is government has asked to put a couple fbi forensic accountants on the stand to read, essentially, the e-mails of paul manafort. the government is trying to make a case he was a very hands-on manager of his affairs. depending on how the judge rules on that, he's been really trying to push this thing through, if he says yes to those new witnesses, that could affect the timing on rick gates. now, of course, he's a critical witness for both sides, the prosecution and the defense here. rick gates was a top associate of paul manafort for a long time. he even served as the deputy campaign manager in the trump campaign around the time when

manafort was actually running the show. gates has pleaded guilty already to some related offenses. he's awaiting sentencing. he's cooperating with the government. so a star witness for the prosecution. for the defense, they see him as the guy they can pin the entire case on. the defense has already made it clear that in their view, gates is the person who was behind the scenes, pulling the strings, and, if you will, creating the underlying illegality that's at the root of this case. so hopefully we'll learn in just a few minutes whether this thing is going to go quickly with gates today or perhaps tomorrow, wolf. >> you'll keep us up to speed. we'll keep a close eye on this, of course. joe johns over at the courthouse, thank you. meanwhile, a democratic lawyer getting ready to respond live to the president's outright admitting that the purpose of that trump tower meeting was to get dirt on hillary clinton. you're going to find out what

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trump tower. president trump now saying the purpose of the meeting was to receive dirt from people with direct ties to the russian government on his opponent at the time, hillary clinton. joining us now, a democrat, member of the armed services committee. thanks for joining us. what's this revelation from the president, this latest tweet over the weekend from him, what does that say -- mean for the russia investigation right now? >> i think it's extremely important. it's one more piece of a mosaic that clearly spells out that during the 2016 election, the trump campaign was deeply involved in getting information from the russias, ans, and throughout that campaign, the russians interfered in the election. this mosaic is a very, very bad one. you add to that the continuing reluctance of the president to say anything at all bad about putin or the kremlin. you go, something is seriously

wrong here. one more piece of a very, very bad mosaic. >> the president claims that even if he colluded, he says collusion is not a crime. so what kind of jeopardy do you think his son donald trump jr. is in after this revelation from the president? >> well, i think you have a conspiracy here. and a conspiracy is a crime. it's based upon an illegal act that is obtaining information from a foreign government. opposition research is extro extraordinarily expensive. hillary clinton spent a lot of money on the steele document. that's another issue. let that be set aside. in this case, the opposition resear research, provided the meeting was about what the president said, adds up to an illegal act. if one or more people are involved, you now have a conspiracy. you have two crimes going on. you have an election law and a conspiracy. this is a very, very serious

matter. unfortunately, the house of representatives and the senate -- well, at least the house of representatives is simply in the going to go into this. that in itself is an affront to our democracy. we need to know exactly what happened. we need to make it very clear that henceforth, there will be no involvement by any foreign government, friend or foe, in the american election process. and here we are today with five of our intelligence chiefs all saying russians are here, they're involved yet again. and the president says that's fake news. this is just plain wrong. >> let me quickly get you respond to what the trump supporters are saying, that hillary clinton, by her campaign, the dnc spending money to get opposition research on donald trump through the christopher steele dossier, as it's called, going to fusion gps, the pr firm, and getting that, was that a violation of the law, trying to get that kind

of information? because a lot of that information in the dossier originated with russians. >> two wrongs do not make a right. if, in fact, it is wrong, it is wrong. and if there's a krcrime, it's crime. that should be dealt with separately. whether it is or not, i couldn't say. but i do know that in this situation in trump tower, we have evidence that, a, the russian government was directly involved, that their representatives were at the meeting, and that it was specifically to obtain something of enormous havevalue. that is dirt on hillary clinton. that's the issue at hand right now. if you want to take up the hillary clinton steele dossier as a crime, go ahead. take that up later in a different form. but right now we're talking about the president of the united states and his campaign. we have yet to learn -- and this is something that i think will be found out in the very near future, that the president

himself was aware that this meeting was going to happen, and he was given information about what happened at that meeting. the blocked telephone call from donald junior to whom? i'm quite sure mueller knows to whom that blocked call was placed. we'll see. all of this is going on. i think perhaps there's another thing underlying this, wolf. that is the president is beginning to clean up his statements because he is going to face mueller interview. i think he's in the process of trying to put aside all of the previous lies so that he doesn't put himself in perjury. >> let me quickly on a totally different subject, because you're in california, let me ask you about the tweet from the president blaming the california environmental laws for the current wildfires in your state. your district, as i said, just south of the largest of those fires. at least six people are dead.

what do you think of the president seemingly ignoring the death, the destruction, and taking a direct swipe at your state, california, a state that clearly obviously didn't vote for him? >> well, first of all, lake county, where this 250,000-acre fire is currently burning, is my district. those are my constituents, some 20,000 of them that have been evacuated. fortunately, not too many homes, but a lot of people whose lives are disrupted. one example, i was at the evacuation center a couple days ago. there was a woman sitting by herself at one of the tables at the center. i sat down next to her and chatted with her a while. she said, i think my mobile home is gone. i just came back from the hospital. i said, what happened? are you okay? she said, i just found out. i said, what did you find out? she said, i found out that my twins are actually triplets and i'm six months pregnant, and i don't know that i have a home. she gave a hearty laugh, stood up, and said, i'm going to go to dinner now.

very, very brave. extraordinary people that are in harm's way that are being cared for by their neighbors, volunteers for the red cross. 20,000 in my district. further north in the redding area, seven people have died already in that fire, and it's still going on. a thousand homes. it's very, very tough, very difficult. >> but what do you say the to president? the president is blaming california's environmental laws for a lot of the problem. >> wolf, it's one more display of his ignorance, his gross ignorance. water flowing down the rivers out to sea has nothing to do with these fires. if i'm ignorant, that's a problem. if the president is ignorant, it's a crisis. and it goes on and on and on. his ignorance not only about water flowing out to the sea but about the maintenance of the forest. we do have a new law in place that will provide better forest management in the future, but

the president's ignorance in this is just astounding. and when he's ignorant, it's a crisis for this nation and could very well be a crisis for the world. >> congressman garamendi, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. coming up, in a new interview, iran's president hasan rouhani says president trump's calls for direct talks are meant to create division inside iran. this as new u.s. sanctions kick in later today. and sources tell cnn there's a strong possibility of another summit between president trump and north korea's kim jong-un. but as north korea allegedly continues to develop missiles, what could come out of another summit? we'll discuss that and more. stay with us. stay at la quinta. where we're changing with stylish make-overs. then at your next meeting, set your seat height to its maximum level. bravo, tall meeting man. start winning today. book now at lq.com and it's also a story mail aabout people start winning today.

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iran's president hasan rouhani opening up in a new interview about president trump's call for direct talks. the timing of interview no coincidence. the u.s. now reimposing sanctions on iran this week after pulling out of the nuclear agreement. iran is also facing an economic crisis as its currency continues to plunge. joining us now, senior diplomatic correspondent michelle kosinski. this is clearly a sensitive moment right now. iran is going to have to make some major decisions. the u.s. is going to have to make some major decisions. the european allies are going to have to deal with this as well. >> yeah, this is when it gets

real. this is the first round. there will be another tougher round in 90 days. this is serious. it's going to hurt you. we're serious about this. but at the same time, we want to talk to you at any time without preconditions. so you can see that iran's reaction is exactly as expected. angry and saying, you know, what is this, this is u.s. hypocrisy. it's unclear how this can bring iran back to the table to give up something more than it already did in the actual existing iran nuclear deal, which by the way u.s. allies want to keep. >> the administration, the trump administration, karoun, insists they're not working for regime change in iran, but the country right now is going through some very difficult moments economically in particular. >> well, this is the difficulty when you're talking about

countries like iran that have, you know, people in power that have worked for the united states but not everybody in power really wants to. there's hardliners that would be more difficult for the united states to work with. you think that, okay, when there's uprisings, maybe things will liberalize. that's not always the case. pre situation. there's not really a regime change that would be in their interest to work towards. so they're basically trying to put the squeeze on iran. it's an opportune moment in a way because there's already internal pressures that make the economic situation very, very delicate in which case when sanctions are reimposed, they'd really feel it there more so than, let's say, maybe a place like russia would feel it directly. but you don't quite know where that's going to end up. you hear rouhani today saying come back to the jcpoa. everybody else wanted it but you. clearly that's not the way the united states is playing their cards. it's really not clear where this is going to go.

>> also, sanctions don't necessarily lead to regime change, which we've seen for such a long time with north korea, cuba. >> speaking of north korea, now there's talk a second summit between the president and the north korean leader kim jong-un. what are you hearing? >> there needs to be a second summit since the first one didn't really go anywhere and didn't really define what even the outlines of what each side wants will be. so it's possible that this could be before the end of the year. location is not established. would it be in pyongyang? would it be in washington? we know they've been communicating by letter. so it's possible this is progress. i mean, you know the administration wants to call even the fact they're talking progress. but if they do meet again, i mean, it's time for there to be some kind of structure around where this is going in both the short-term and long-term. >> what are you hearing? >> you have to kind of keep hope alive in these talks because there is so much buildup at the outset. nobody expected this could happen quickly. and nobody who's on the expert

side of it had much faith until they reached the point of which, okay, north korea is actually putting in a full list of all of their nuclear -- not just the places where they produce these things but all of the materials and parts as well. until we get to that point, this isn't really real. you're never going to get there over night. look at past administrations too. at this point, there was a lot of -- i don't want to call it bluster, but there was a lot of pomp and circumstance at the beginning about what would be happening here. it hasn't happened yet. you need to get people excited about another summit again, potentially to keep that pilot light going. >> maybe a do-over. >> we'll see if that meeting takes place. guys, thank you very, very much. coming up, the first lady melania trump contradicts her president once again, praising lebron james for his charitable work as her husband attacks him. also, the government accountability office is now warning the white house that it is at risk of wasting billions and billions of dollars on the president's border wall with

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a shocking warning to the white house by one of the president's key campaign promises a. government watchdog now reports that the trump administration is in danger of simply wasting billions and billions of dollars on the border wall with mexico. cnn's government regulation correspondent rene marsch is working the story. what are you learning? >> well, the government accountability office is just not holding back. they say that dhs, department of homeland security has not done a full analysis to determine how much this border wall would cost.

they actually say that the dhs does not consider costs when it is building. but the harshest part of this report we have -- i want to put it on the screen here -- the watchdog report says that by proceeding without key information on costs, acquisition baselines and the contributions of previous barrier and technology deployments, dhs faces an increased risk that the border wall system program will cost more than projected, take longer than planned, or not fully perform as expected. as you can imagine, we are starting to get reaction in. one of the ranking members on the house homeland security committee thompson is saying that this is the perfect example of the administration being so committed to a campaign promise without thinking about costs. dhs, for its part, it wrote in the report that it disagrees with much of what is laid out here saying that they have been properly following policy as this process goes through. however, cnn did reach out to the department for additional

comment, and we have not yet heard back from them. >> the gao, likely trump administration basically has simply given up on this notion that mexico will pay for the wall. >> clearly. and they are not very happy with what they are seeing as far as the calculations being done as far as how much this will cost and whether the limited resources that dhs does have f they are using it in the most cost-effective manner. gao not convinced that is happening. >> we don't even hear the president insisting any long hear the mexico will pay for the wall. he did throughout the campaign. at least 12 people are killed, more than 60 people shot across the city of chicago over the weekend. another deadly weekend in chicago. we are going there. shocking story, indeed. also, cnn goes inside one of the world's biggest motorcycle gatherings and talks to bikers about politics and president trump. you are going to see what happened. with liberty, we could afford a real babysitter

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so how do i make the efforts of 8 employees... feel like 50? how can i share new plans virtually? how can i download an e-file? virtual tours? zip-file? really big files? in seconds, not minutes... just like that. like everything... the answer is simple. i'll do what i've always done... dream more, dream faster, and above all... now, i'll dream gig. now more businesses, in more places, can afford to dream gig. comcast, building america's largest gig-speed network. a truly staggering number of shootings in chicago over the weekend. counting nearly 70 people as victims. 70 people shot a. dozen, 12 of those, died in the rash of violence. the youngsest just 11 years old. let's go the our national correspondent ryan young. he's in chicago for us. ryan, people are watching this all over the world. they are finding it hard to

believe that a dozen people are shot and killed over two days in the city of chicago. nearly 70 other people are shot. what is the mayor saying? what are they doing about this wave of shootings in a major american city? >> reporter: great question. we are outside of district 6 where they had this news conference. this is one of the troubled areas they had issues with over the week. i can tell you, 66 people shot. of course 12 dead. something i want to highlight here. there were 14 people under the age of 18 shot. two of those died. this has been a summer where they have had some sort of success. not only did they have success, some of the numbers dropped dramatically. but they had a we had where a lot of people have been talking about gang violence, mass shootings, people having parties outside. after a funeral someone showed up and started shooting. at some times some of the shooters just walked away, didn't even try to run. there was a lot of emotion at the news conference. listen to what the mayor had to

say in talking about the weed's violence. >> we can talk about the weather, but the weather didn't pull the trigger. and you can talk about jobs, and they count. but in parts of the city where there aren't jobs, people did not pull a trigger. there are values. there are too many guns on the street. too many people with criminal records on the street. and there is a shortage of values about what is right, what is wrong. what is acceptable, what is condoned, and what is condemned. >> reporter: wolf, think about this. they confiscated over 5,000 guns off the streets here in chicago. and there is still a number of illegal guns out there. on top of that, the mayor had a summer program where over 30,000 kids were attending the program just this summer. but still, despite all of that, one of the things that we heard

in an overall theme was for was for people to start calling in and give tips to get some of the shooters off the street. unfortunately, people stay silent about the shootings. we have seen the community taking to the streets. two times this summer we have seen people protesting against violence. more needs to happen. after this weekend, wolf, it's tough to see the numbers that we have seen, especially with all the young people involved. >> like a war zone in parts of chicago right now. i covered wars. it is an awful situation. ryan young thank you for the report. i will be back at 5:00 p.m. eastern in the situation room for our international viewers. amanpour is next for our viewers. in north american, newsroom with brooke baldwin starts right now. wolf, thank you so much. i'm brooke baldwin. you are watching cnn. up first, despite narrative after narrative, story after story, lie after lie, turns out it was about getting