daughter. we can have a play date. i also have a new project i want to share with you. i'm not sure the world needs another podcast, but it's my first one and i'm proud of it. i hope you like it. it's called "all there is." i started recording it alone while i was packing my mom's apartment after she died. and it's a podcast about the people we lose and the things they leave behind and how we can move forward with loss and laughter and with love. we don't talk about loss and grief i think enough in this country. and we all could feel very isolated and alone in our loss n our grief. and i found out reaching out to other people, talking to them about their experiences with loss and grief, incredibly empowering and really life changing. and i want to share those interviews with you. you can find a trailer for the podcast at cnn.com/audio or any place you listen to podcasts. the first episode will post a week from today on september 14th. you'll find it on apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. the news continues.

let's hand it over to kasie hunt and "cnn tonight." >> you're right. we don't talk about grief enough. i'm very much looking forward to listening to that podcast. thank you very much. i am casey hunt, and this is knight. we're in the midst of another general election season that will test donald trump's impact across the board. independents turned away from him in 2020. and as criminal investigations widen by the day, those independents are being reminded why they still don't like him. two third of independents say in a new poll that they don't want the ex-president to run for office again. and though he is not on the ballot this november, democrats, led by president biden, have tried to frame the midterms as a choice between democracy and trumpism, which the president defines as a threat to democracy. democracy voters, meanwhile are energized over abortion rights, trump, and more 62 days before the final votes are cast. where does that leave republicans who are on the ballot? they are stuck right back where

they were answering for the now former president's actions. >> i don't really have any comments on this whole investigation that's been dominating the news for the last month. >> and it is dominating the news. and while many republicans are trying to step out of trump's shadow or at least ignore it, there are some others that are making moves to potentially run against him in 2024. the visible presidential primary already underway with possible gop contenders making their way to iowa and new hampshire. among them, trump's former vice president, mike pence. let's talk to someone who served as chief of staff to pence in the white house. marc short, welcome to "cnn tonight." thank you so much for being with us. >> kasie, thanks for having me on. >> it's great to see you. based on what your boss, current boss, former boss, long-time confidant and person you worked with, doesn't seem it's a

question he's going to run. so, what's in the card? when is the announcement? >> oh, kasie, i don't think there's a foregone conclusion on that to be honest. i think the way pence has always addressed these questions is to say, you know, where can we serve best? and that's the conversation they're going to have in prayer and say, where are we being called? but they're also going to say, where are the places we can contribute to this country. if you look at the vice president's schedule over the next 60 days, you would see him crossing the country entirely trying to help candidates. he is the former governor hoff indiana and served as the vice president of the republican governors' association. >> it's been interesting to watch how he has handled his former boss on the campaign trail. there have been instances where they have come in direct conflict just in terms of the candidates they're supporting. but the former vice president has also been careful not to necessarily pick fights with his

former boss rhetorically. just curious, what is the thinking behind how he carves out a lean for himself in the republican party when the former president is so front and center? >> oh, i don't know that he's looking to carve a lane, kasie. i think the way he looks at it is he's always been a consistent constitutional conservative. >> is that a dig at trumpism? >> no, i'm telling you what mike pence is. i think if you go back to the time he was a house leader, it's because during the bush years, when there was a lot of expansive spending, mike pence is only one of a handful of republicans who is consistent in voting against republican priorities like medicare expansion, like the wall street bailout, like no child left behind. he was the conservative calling republicans back to their standard. and that's what he's always been and is going to continue to be. >> what is the sense of how the raid on mar-a-lago or the search of the former president's home in mar-a-lago, how has that

impacted the behind the scenes thinking for republicans who are thinking about challenging him? i mean, the trump team blassed o out today a several weeks old story about how desantis fell in polls against trump because the raid happened. >> i think there is truth to that. i think it energized republican support behind donald trump because they felt like there had been an out of control state here. think about it. the first thank you former president had with the fbi is jim comey lying to him and coming in saying you're not a target of investigation, when clearly he was. and the fbi knowin passing arou the steel dossier they knew was false. there is a lot of skepticism among department of justice and fbi. i think that rallied a lot of people around him. having said that, i think as we head to the midterms, we're going to be more successful if we're talking about joe biden. we're going to be more

successful if we're talking about joe biden's crime in our inner cities, catastrophe on our border with 200,000 border crossings each skpefr month. if we're going to be talking about the idiotic energy policy we're trying to import from europe that's going to leave americans without the energy they need and pursuit of policy that's going to provide vehicles. >> that seems tough in light of -- i take your point about some of the skepticism, especially among the former president, his closest aides about how things were handled in the beginning. you fast forward to now, you've seen the pictures of the classified documents he took with him. mike pompeo, who is also making similar rooms to run in 2024, he said those documents should be returned. do you agree with that? it seems problematic, and it seems to be independent voters think it's problematic. >> i think for a lot of us who had concerns about hillary

clinton transferring emails to a personal server. >> she would say nothing she had was classified. >> which i think jim comey himself repudiated. >> he did, but then it was changed back. >> i think to be consistent, i think it's also questionable as to the documents the president has at unsecured place at mar-a-lago. i would share some of that criticism. >> do you think he should give them back? >> there's a lot more we don't know at noint. and i think there's an extra burden on doj and fbi to be transparent because of that history. >> let me ask you about bill barr, the former attorney general, who you know from working with him in the administration. he's combing out pretty strongly in the past couple of days -- i think a lot of us who have covered him have been surprised. he did raise concerns about the possible indictment of a former president. he's been very critical. were you surprised by that? why do you think he's had this change of heart? zblild be a little bit surprised because i think the efforts here seem rather unprecedented. and what i mean by that is that it seemed like there could have

been still another way to get those documents without a raid on a former president's home. having said that, i think bill barr came back to serve in donald trump's administration because of his concerns about the politicization of the fbi and doj. so, i think he's ail very credible person to give commentary on the subject. >> one of the other things that's going to come up here as we head into this midterm season, we are going to see more january 6th committee hearings. congressman raskin, who's a member of the committee, was out talking about this over the weekend. take a look, and then-i'm going to ask you about it. >> vice president pence was the target of donald trump's wrath and fury and effort to overthrow the election on january 6th. the whole idea was to get pence to step outside his constitutional role and then to declare unilateral lawless powers to reject electoral college votes from the states. so, i think he has a lot of relevant evidence, and i would hope he would come forward and testify. >> so, he said he hopes that he

would come forward and testify voluntarily. is that going to happen? >> kasie, i think that there would be a lot of concerns with that. i think the events of january 6th and the aftermath have been pretty public. and in fact, despite the pressure campaign that congressman raskin talks about, vice president was open in writing an open letter to congress and the american people explaining the decision making he went to and the decisions he reached on january 6th. even though there were lawyers advising the president that this extraordinary pow thaer had never been used in 250 year of our republic somehow had magically been found and they were saying they would never want kamala harris to accept electoral votes from texas or alabama, the vice president is very open in his letter. and then a couple weeks later, there was another controversy about the 25th amendment. he wrote another very open letter to the american people and to congress about it. so, i do think there are very significant constitutional concerns about at this point you know what the vice president did. you know the pressure campaign. you know his explanation.

if they're asking for personal conversations between the president and the vice president, that, i think, has executive privilege. and i think democrats should be careful what they wish for because if they go down a path of subpoenaing the vice president -- >> it's not just democrats too. it's liz cheney and adam kinzinger -- you don't count them. >> as i said, as i said -- if you go down that path, you'll have the reality that republicans will soon be taking over the house. do they want republicans subpoenaing kamala harris? you may say thaes different, she's an incumbent vice president versus a former vice president. i think a lot of republicans are interesting to know about hunter biden's contract for ukraine when joe biden was president of the united states. i think this is a very dangerous path -- >> so, do you expect a subpoena? >> i'm not going to anticipate one way or the other what the committee is going to do. and i think that will be a decision, if it comes, between the vice president and legal counsel. >> i did speak with liz cheney a

couple weeks ago. >> vice president pence was a hero on january 6th and that it's very clear that there was tremendous pressure from a number of different places on him. and he did his duty and he didn't succumb to that pressure. and if he had succumb to that pressure, things would have been very different. >> do you want praise from liz cheney like that? >> i think that liz cheney has actually a very strong conservative record. i think she has a lot of great service to our country. i do have concerns about this committee though, kasie. i do think it's a poison committee. i think its make-up is poison. and i think there's not enough conversation about the fact that the person chairing the committee is someone who voted against certification when there were no evidence of fraud. so, i have a lot of concerns

about the committee. having said that, i think that she has served our country very admirably in many ways. i appreciate her voting recording. >> she certainly thinks very highly of the former vice president's actions on january 6th. we really appreciate the conversation. we have much more to come on the interesting, shall we say, evolution of trump's former attorney general bill barr. he is not dodging questions about the documents scandal. instead, he's leaning into them. next. we were told, super young, that you have to be tough,

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so, at one point, former attorney general bill barr was one of donald trump's staunchest allies, shielding the former president from legal scrutiny and defending some of the president's most controversial decisions. but since trump's refusal to accept election defeat, things have apparently changed. barr has emerged as one of trump's most notable critics.

he has appeared on fox news three times in the past five days to criticize trump's legal defense in the mar-a-lago search. and today he said this about the justice department's case against the former president. >> i think, you know, as i've said all along, there are two questions, will the government be able to make out a technical case? will they have evidence by which they could indict somebody on, including him? and i -- that's the first question. and i can they're getting very close to that point, frankly. but i think at the end of the day, there's another question is, do you indict a former president? what will that do to the country? what kind of precedent will that set? will the people really understand that this is not failing to return a library book, that this was serious? so, you have to worry about those things. and i would hope those kinds of factors would incline the administration not to indict him because i don't want to see him indicted. >> joining me now, former special prosecutor shan wu, bakar ri sellers, cofounder and

editor and chief of "the dispatch" jonah goldberg. thank you for being here. i appreciate it. shan, let me start with you on the legal stuff here. i thought it was striking to hear barb say, well, i think the doj has evidence to indict at this point or at least they're very close. what do you think is behind the sudden shift? >> what's behind the sudden shift i don't think is anything legal. most people are agreeing there's a certain critical mass of evidence here that makes trump face some serious exposure. i think what's behind the shift is he's self-serving. he wants to point out if he was leading doj, they might move faster. maybe they should move faster on this. he's also at the same time supporting his idea of protecting presidential power. i think it's kind of funny for him to say that garland is going to exercise prosecutorial discretion when he himself exercised it so blatantly to distort the mueller report. it's a question of discretion for garland is what it's going to come down to. >> john, what do you think is

going on? you're a sharp political observer. >> i think it's -- bill barr, who i've met a couple of times, he is -- he was never quite the trump sycophant that he was portrayed by a lot of his critics as. he was -- he's one of these guys who comes by -- he came by his support for trump honestly because of his dislike of the left and his belief of presidential prerogatives and presidential power and his own theories about the constitution. i disagree with a lot of his decisions, tact decisions, on a lot of things. but his book was quite critical of trump. things he said over the last year have been quite critical on trump. and i think on this -- i think what he's doing here is he is just telling the truth as he sees it, which is so strange in the current political climate. and we all have to sh did it's too clever by half. there must be something else

going on. >> what's your take? >> first of all, i've never met bill barr. i can tell you i think all of us agree he does remain steadfast in one thing, and that's the principle of protecting presidential power and presidential authority. i think we can agreen that, that that is where he's coming from and that's where this kind of refreshing view emanates from. what most people have a problem with -- and just make it as simple as possible for people. when you have merrick garland and many others who echo that term like you tell your children, no one is above the law, but then you see not once, but twice, bill barr, the same perso person, when he talks about the mueller investigation and he talks about the obstruction of justice, and the evidence is clear there is evidence to charge someone with obstruction of justice, that has not happened. then you heard in his statement today, the question should be, should a former president, even

if the evidence rised to beyond probable cause, should a former president be indicted? for me, the answer should be yes. now, the politics aside, whether or not you can get a jury to find him guilty is another question. but the three of us would be indicted by now, or at least i would. >> your answer is the same as the answer liz cheney gave me when i interviewed her about this. >> you're trying to never win a democrat -- >> sorry. i apologize. there are a lot of democrats who are fans of liz cheney actually. jonah, what's your take on this, the politics, what it would mean? is there, in your view, a valid reason to think about that or is that just a really bad idea? >> first of all i actually think it's never been true that the president is above the law, below the law i think is the wrong framing of it that you hear all over the place. it is -- there's just a different standard for presidents. the standard position of the justice department is you can't indict a sitting president.

>> he's not a sitting president. >> i understand. but my point is we treat presidents differently in this country in all sort of ways. personally -- i've been meaning to write this for a while. i think the ideal scenario would be for the justice department to indict trump and then for president biden to take one for the team and actually pardon trump on the condition that he never run for office again. that would hurt him politically. it would be patriotic and good for the country. it would be a profile in courage. democratic party would hate him for it. republican party would hate it. but, i totally respect the position that trump should be indicted that the president shouldn't be above the law. let's not kid ourselves, that doing so is drastic thing politically that will have bad consequences. >> to his point though, one of the things if we want to look back at history, the failure to dietrich rich nixon is why we're here and why we have lawlessness and recklessness. if we're going to have a legal standard, we need to abide by

it. whether or not joe biden pardons donald trump is truly a political question, which i think he may consider doing. but he should be indicted. >> the whole idea is if you're too concerned about looking political as a prosecutor, you become political. barr a very political prosecutor, and for him to sit there and say, would you be concerned about what happens to the country. that's not what garland should be concerned about. he should be concerned about following the evidence and the law. >> thank you so much. next, a long white house tradition was broken during the trump years, another long white house tradition. but today it returned along with a warm welcome for former president barack obama and former first lady michelle obama. they finally had their official portraits unveiled. >> i want to thank sharon sprung for capturing everything i love about michelle, her grace, her intelligence, and the fact that she's fine.

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barack and michelle, welcome home. welcome home. >> a warm and emotional reception today for former president obama and the former

first lady back in the white house for the first time since they left in 2017. the occasion was the unveiling of their official white house portraits, a long-standing bipartisan tradition that hasn't been celebrated in a decade. the last time was back in 2012, when obama hosted president bush, 43, of course. president trump, in contrast, hosted no white house events for obama, who was his predecessor. now portraits of the first black president and first lady will be on display in the hallowed halls of the white house alongside past presidents. even styles breaking from the past with their contemporary look. for obama that meant choosing artist robert mccarthy. >> he paints people exactly the way they are, for better and worse. he also paints subjects looking straight ahead. so, it feels like you're face to

face, forming a connection. and what i want people to remember about michelle and me is that presidents and first ladies are human beings like everyone else. we have our gifts. we have our flaws. and when future generations walk these halls and look up at these portraits, i hope they get a be better, honest since of who michelle and i were. i hope they leave with a deeper understanding that if we could make it here, maybe they can too. >> as for the former first lady, she chose artist sharon sprung, who depicted her in a modern strapless gown seated in one of the most formal rooms in the white house. it's something michelle obama said she never could have imagined would be part of her story. while calling out trump without naming him, peaceful transition of power or the unveiling of white house portraits, she says it's these traditions that lay the foundation of our democracy and the promise that comes with

it. >> traditions like this matter, not just for those of us who hold these positions but for everyone participating in and watching our democracy. you see the people. they make their voices heard with their vote. we hold an inauguration to ensure a peaceful transition of power. and once our time is up, we move on. and all that remains in this hallowed place are our good efforts and these portraits, portraits that connect our history to the present day, portraits that hang here as history continues to be made. so, for me, this day is not just about what has happened. it's also about what could happen because a girl like me, she was never supposed to be up there next to jacqueline kennedy and dolly madison. she was never supposed to live

in this house, and she definitely wasn't supposed to serve as first lady. >> all right. coming up we're going to go beyond the portraits and look at the relationship between the 44th and 46th presidents. that's ahead. and we'll look at an announcement tonight in the most closely watched senate race in the country. we'll be right back. excited abot pronamel repair because it penenetrates deep into the tooth to help actively repairr acid-weakened enamel. i recommend pronamel repair to my patients. (man 1) oh, it looks like we're in a screen saver. (man 2) but we need to go higher. (man 1) higher. (man 1) we're like yodeling high. [yodeling] yo-de-le-he... (man 2) hey, no. (man 1) we should go even higher! (both) woah! (man 2) i'm good. (vo) adventure, elevated. (man 1) let's go lower. (vo) discover more in the subaru outback wilderness. love. it's what makes subaru, subaru. subaru is the national park foundation's largest corporate donor.

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former president obama following up his trip to the white house today by hitting the campaign trail. a source tells cnn that he's expected to campaign for a number of candidates this fall, not just congressional candidates but also some down ballot. joining me now is jonathan mar martin and jonah goldberg are back as well. the relationship between president obama and president biden is certainly an interesting one. the idea they're both going on on the trail also very interesting to me. what do you make of what tension is there? >> thanks for having me. alex burns and i wrote about their relationship in our book "this will not pass," -- >> oh my goodness. >> it's important -- >> we were talking about this before the break for those who don't understand why the panel is cracking up. >> well, the idea that they had a personal relationship,

biden biden/obama, was always overstated. every pick for vp going back through the history of the country is a political choice. it's done for political purposes. that was certainly the case with joe biden in 2008. and so, look, i think they developed a more personal rapport over the course of those eight years in the white house. but it was always more transactional than it was portrayed in the press. and i think we've seen the reality of that since biden became president because, yes, there are still tensions. i think biden has sort of liked the fact that he has the potential, at least in his mind, to be a bigger sort of figure on policy than potenlicy, and he's mentioned that in private, as we report in the book. and obama himself, i think has been frustrated by some of the coverage of biden being more transactional. there were a dozen joe manchins in the democratic party.

it was a more conservative caucus that obama was dealing with 15 years ago. >> sure. so, before we move on to other politics, i want to underscore the historic nature of what we saw at the white house today. what does it mean to you that the first black president is going to be hanging on the halls of the white house and the fact that trump ignored it all this time? >> i don't really care about trump. the disregard for the purposes of the moment. what you saw today from the former first lady wearing braids as she gave that eloquent speech about her not supposed to be there, the love those two share, the admiration, him saying one thing about michelle is that she's fine, you know, having them just speak about not just what this country was but what it is, but what it can be. for me, i think it's amazing to see that this couple, this very highly educated, successful couple that rose to the highest office in the land, the

definition of black excellence, when they rose to power in 2004 and became president in 2008, how that can lead to so much white grievance politics. and that's what we saw the rise of the tea party, et cetera n 2010. it's fascinating we were able in this country and historians will look back at it to go from this figure to donald trump in one election. and i think that that is what you saw on display. you saw what this country can be versus that backdrop. >> certainly this turns us straight to midterm politics. at the end of the day, trump only got one term. you are correct, he continues to do it to this day. but a lot of republicans in elected office i think are really wishing he would just go away. and jonah, you mentioned that you wrote a column yesterday. and it's titled enough "sure enough, trump is sucking the air out of the gop's midterm momentum" there are republican

candidates leaning into trump, getting them more to be more engaged. walk us through what you think the president is interacting in this midterm cycle? >> on the portrait part, if i were president, i would not commission a hyperrealist painter. something to obscure all this. i actually think there's something of a symbiotic corelationship between the current president and the former president in the fact that joe biden very much wants to make the race about donald trump. donald trump wants to make everything about donald trump. it serves both of their purposes. it sucks all the oxygen out of the gop primaries. and the problem is, you know, going back to 1862, there's only been three times where the out party didn't win seats in a

midterm election. and that -- a big part of the reason for that is that when you're the out party, you get to make it just -- you can be all things to all people. you can make the election a referendum -- >> all about them. >> it's all about them. they're backseat drivers. we would drive better. the controversies on trump and his role in hinges makes it a choice rather than a referendum. >> the clip you did early about the mitch mcconnell doing the no comment, if you watch that clip a second time, you'll see that he's actually, in mcconnell's very cryptic way, he's venting, as he says, what he says. >> 100%. >> he says, i have no comment on the story we've all been watching now for the last month. it's been dominating news for the last month. that's his elbow, doing it in a way that's going to extend the

story too too much. that gets to the heart of the frustration on capitol hill in the gop who see a golden opportunity to take back at least one chamber if not both chamber of congress if they can make this about the party in power rather than a choice election based upon them and their former president. >> but that ship has sailed because one of the things that happened early on was no republican stopped trump or if she could stop trump from weighing so heavily in these republican primaries. so, now you have candidates like blake masters. now, you have mastriano. now you have herschel walker. now you have these candidates although some of them may win. now they pose significant problems. >> also post-dobbs, it doesn't feel like republicans aren't driving policy. >> right. >> the post-dobbs climate, you have state legislatures doing things about abortion that makes it feel like republicans are not backseat drivers. >> you know, this is an

important point. reflect what i call the demand side problem that the gop has. a lot of their voters in these primaries want trumpian candidates. it's not that trump is sprinkling magic trump dust and blessing these candidates. it's that 40 plus percent of voters in these primaries prefer a trumpian candidate. and that can be a lot of votes in a multicandidate primary. so, that's why you have some of these candidates now on the ballot struggling because it's what their voters want. in fact, the longer term challenge isn't just trump. it's what their voters want. >> in some ways they've awakened a dragon. and mitch mcconnell knows that better than anyone else. >> one best seller, two best sellers, three best sellers. i appreciate you all for being here tonight. >> everyone's arguing about who has the most best sellers here at the table. the battle americans are fighting for one of our most basic needs coming up.

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in jackson, mississippi, today, epa tray store michael reegen vowed that the biden administration will do everything it can to help a city struggling with what he call aid public health, social justice, and economic crisis. he visited the water treatment plant at the center of this problem with local and state officials, including mississippi governor tate reeves, who offered this update. >> wither doing investigative testing on the water. if you're producing perfectly clean water out of the facility, it typically takes about three days to get the entire system flushed out with the water that was already in the system. i do think, as you get into the weekend and into early next week, we will have a better idea

of the samples and what the quality looks like. >> cnn's senior national correspondent sara sidner is in jackson tonight. sara, the governor went on the say that while those early tests are positive, they're just not where they need to be. and that means that this problem continues for so many people. you spoke with a father and a son who are among those impacted. >> reporter: yeah, and not just a father and son. we spoke to a lot of different residents about what this has meant to them. really, they are furious that in the capital city of mississippi in the united states of america they do not have clean drinking water coming out of their taps. >> e is for egg. >> reporter: charles wilson iii is a single bad who wants nothing more than to protect his children. he helps with hardware and takes

part in p bedtime. he never thought the biggest danger would be the drinker water. >> can you drink out of the water fountain at school? >> no, i'm going to die. >> a 6-year-old worrying about death over the government's failure to ensure safe drinking water. >> i mean, do you have a heart? what god you serve? it's an insult, the capital city of the state of mississippi. and this is what we go through. >> you don't have clean drinking water. >> no. >> reporter: wilson uses bottled water for drinking and boils water every day multiple times a day for everything else. this time, it was a flood that took out the water treatment plant, where pumps had already been failing, leaving 150,000-plus residents without safe drinking water. do you remember when the water seemed to go bad here in jackson? >> well, really about 10, 12

years maybe in that area. >> more than a decade? >> it's really got worse. >> reporter: but families in jackson say the water crisis in the capital city of mississippi started long before the emergency that got the country's attention. even the new head of the environmental protection agency knows that. >> just this year alone we're going make over $10 billion available for investments in clean water. >> it sound lieks an emergency, everyone should be trying to make sure the kids of this community have drinking water. where is everybody? >> we're here now. you seen a federal and local presence here. the last time i visited jackson, the community members said we don't want anymore finger pointing. we want our government to work. >> people are waiting for the tap water to be clean and safe. how long do they have to wait to have clean drinking water? >> the honest answer is we didn't get into situation overnight shs we won't get out overnight. we're working around the clock as quickly as possible to

provide stability to the system. this is why this administration fought so hard for the bipartisan infrastructure law and the historic investment will go a long way in rebuilding the infrastructure and trust in this country. >> reporter: the epa administrator knows that trust is going to be hard to come by because when jackson said the water was safe over the years, it wasn't. >> my son has adhd, he has emotional and developmental disorders and he's not caught up with his class. >> jackson had a number of violations from the environmental protection agency over decades. >> reporter: so ten months ago, corey sterns sued on behalf of hundreds of jackson residents who he says are suffering the affects of led in their tap water. >> your heart goes out to them because we've experienced that. >> reporter: no one understands the suffering of people in jackson better than these folks. residents of flint, michigan. in 2014, their city changed water sources to save money but

failed to treat or test it properly. the result? deadly bacterial contamination and lead poisoning of residents. >> the problem for kids especially is they are developing, and they are growing. so you don't know the effects that the lead poison they experience today will have on them in five years, ten years, 20 years. >> so why does this say -- >> reporter: the bell family says high lead levels in their 7-year-old grandson resulted in developmental issues. >> we're not the only family that suffers. >> reporter: adults aren't immune, either. their next-door neighbor testified in front of congress. >> we started experiencing hair loss. we started experiencing rashes. and blood pressure issues. so we're being told everything is fine. >> reporter: eight years on, flint is using a different water source and replaced many pipes. but she and her neighbors still cook with and drink bottled water using upwards of ten cases

a week. do you drink out of your tap water? >> no, i'll never drink the water again. >> reporter: flint like jackson is predominantly black with a low tax base which experts say plays a significant role in the water whoas. what does justice look like to you? >> they won't tell the truth. we know they're not going to admit. so the only thing i can think of is legal action. >> reporter: the children of flint won a $626 million settlement over their poisoned water but the people of jackson are still waiting just for clean drinking water. never mind justice. what kind of justice can they get? >> there is no justice for the people of flint or the people of miss issippi when it comes to fixing what happened to their children's brains. >> i'm so happy that the spotlight is on what is going on in jackson because i'm not the only parent who has a child that is suffered because of this water. >> such an important story.

the issue of unsafe water, it simply isn't limited to jackson as bad as it is there. how big is this problem? >> you know, we talked to an expert, someone that studied the safety of water across the united states with u.c. irvine. she's associate professor. she said that seven to eight percent of the population is living with unsafe water in this country. that's 20 million americans. and so we put that to the epa administrator who we met here in jackson today and he confirmed that that sounded about right and that that needed to be taken care of as fast as possible. >> that's wild. seven to eight percent of the entire country, the population of the entire country. have officials offered any timeline to come back to jackson for when people there will finally be able to drink water out of their taps? >> this is what has people so frustrated because the residents here say don't let what you're

hearing from officials fool ya. we've been dealing with boiled water notices long before this flood ever showed up and long before america ever saw what was happening to us here in jackson, mississippi. the capital of the state. they are furious that they are not getting any kind of idea as to exactly a timeline as to when they're going to be able to trust the water coming out of their taps and at this point, because they have been going through this for so many years, i think that trust has been eroded and that trust might be eroded indefinitely just like when they're going to get clean water. >> i was going to say, it seems like the kind of situation where ultimately like the people you spoke to in flint, the trust is just permanently broken between many -- between these people and their governments. sara sidner, thanks very much for your reporting tonight. >> sure. >> we'll be right back.

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thank you so much for watching with us tonight. i'll be back tomorrow. "d "don lemon tonight" starts now. >> i envy you. you get to go home and rest. i got two more hours to work. >> i'll be up with you. >> i got miles to go. see you tomorrow night. this is "don lemon tonight" and barack and michelle obama were at the white house today. there was a time that would be normal, expected a former president and first lady back at the house where they lived for eight years for the unveiling of their official white house port portraits, hosted by the sitting president. >> barack and michelle, welcome home. [ applause ] >> welcome home. >> let's face it. how much normal have we seen the past