i consider that a huge failure institutionally. >> reporter: do you find he's not willing to take any responsibility? >> absolutely. nobody wants to. >> reporter: with now new answers mccraw faced more questions outside the meeting. sir, what happened to the director's report? there was no response. and so, wolf, he was due to give this directive report. we have no idea what happened today. we were expecting one thing, completely something different happened. certainly you can see the frustration on the families who really expected to get something today, and they didn't, wolf. >> lots of disappointment. shimon prokupecz, thank you for that report. and tour viewers thank you for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in the situation room. erin burnett out front starts right now. out front next, new video into out front families of russian soldiers bravely speak out sharing recordings of phone

calls, loved ones on the front lines. they sar their training just for the cameras. they're sitting ducks treated just like pigs. tonight after an arrest republican kari lake is not going to let it go. and world affairs expert ian gram an why he thinks the chinese president was escorted from that meeting. and good evening, i'm erin burnett. out front tonight hell on the front lines. new video just into out front from an independent russian news organization. it's a jaw dropping reporting of a russian woman speaking to her husband on the front lines in ukraine. listen for yourself. >> translator: my love, how are you? >> translator: i wasn't listening to all the bull [ bleep ] people were talking about, but now we don't know where we're going.

we don't have anything to eat and we don't know what our objectives are. >> translator: it's [ bleep ] hell here. >> translator: they're [ bleep ] us with rockets. we're in some village under constant shelling not far from where people are living. it's getting closer to the evening. our group was being jerked around in these woods left to right. >> it's hell here, jerk around left to right. another video shows an outraged father saying his children are being treated like animals. >> we are speaking out because things have gotten out of control. our children are at the front lines yet their commanders are treating them like pigs. >> translator: they don't have any armored vehicle. they have just one tank that isn't going anywhere because they've run out of fuel. where are they supposed to go? are they supposed to run? they're just sitting ducks.

>> and despite putin pushing propaganda showing his forces getting adequate training, according to family members of soldiers it's all a sham. >> translator: they didn't have any training at all. for two weeks they were at a military camp. they went out only twice to practice shooting their weapons. that was just when the tv station came to film it. it was all just for tv. >> all for tv. this obtained by independent russian journalists. today the man in charge of the invasion, putin, went on tv for four hours. he ranted and doubled down on his baseless theories and claims about the war. >> translator: russia is just defending its right to exist and to freely develop. power over the world is what the so-called west is banking on, but this is a dangerous game. we never intentionally said anything about the possibility that russia could use nuclear

weapons. >> put a pin in that one, but he went on -- like i said this is four hours. he went off on gay rights, on the salaries of workers in the west, on genders, all this in a rambling speech coming as the head of putin's private army tells cnn that wagoner is indeed recruiting sick troopers and sending them to the front lines and these new soldiers according to ukraine are forced to wear colored wristbands to signify their infections. fred, what is the latest you're seeing on the ground tonight? >> reporter: hi there, erin. we managed to get to the front lines in the fight for kherson, of course a very important city the russians are apparently trying to defend. and the soldiers on the ground there told us they definitely believe the ukrainians have the

upper hand in that battle. they think in the end they'll prevail but also acknowledge the russians are digging in for a massive fight. here's what we saw in the trenches right on the front lines. across these fields are the russians. that means we need to get into the trenches that snake their way in this battle space in southern ukraine. so this is the actual front line between the russians and the ukrainians. they say that the russians are only a couple kilometers in that direction, and obviously there's a lot of shelling that goes on here almost all the time. a destroyed tank right outside the ukrainian position shows just how fierce the fighting is here. spent cartridges from cluster bombs and russian flack vests also still lying around. while some thought the ukrainians might quickly oust the russians and take back the key city of kherson, in the trench a feeling of stalemate. >> translator: there is shelling every day. in some places, less, and some more. we would shoot back but we have

nothing to shoot with here. >> reporter: inside the main headquarters the unit commander who goes by the call sign shows me the gear they use to monitor the russians movements and communicate with their own units. he says they've observed the russians strengthening their defensive positions here. >> translator: with our efforts we're showing them we're stronger and slowly pushing them back from our territories. >> reporter: this territory was all russian controlled, but now ukrainian troops are inching ever closer to kherson. and taken out massive russian supply routes ukraine says russian forces need to get out of this region or risk being besieged. >> they are not ready to go out of kherson, but they know it will be -- we will have success,

they will not have possibility to exit. >> reporter: ukraine's military is pushing russian troops back on several front lines across the country, and as his army displays clear signs of weakness, russian president vladimir putin ripping into the u.s. and its allies during a speech in moscow. >> translator: world domination is what the so-called west bet its game on, but that game is without doubt a dangerous, bloody, and i would say filthy one. >> reporter: but the ukrainian troops in the trenches say they are nty and hope to retake much of this key area of south ukraine before winter sets in. >> so the ukrainians clearly moving forward on the kherson front, but one of the things, erin, we also hear at night especially in the odesa region is outgoing fire from ukraine, from machine guns apparently trying to take down those iranian made kamikaze drones

russians keep launching at critical infrastructure here in this country. we heard from ukrainians today. they say hundreds of thousands of people are currently without power especially in the center of the country. the ukrainians are saying they're trying to do their best to try and eliminate threat and repair the damage, but of course it's something very difficult and something that takes a toll especially as winter draws closer, erin. >> thank you very much, fred pleitgen, for being inside those trenches. i want to go now to doug london, the former cia counter terrorism chief, served in the cia clandestine service for over 30 years, tracking kjb agents, and also author of "the recruiter." also with me is rob lee, senior fellow at rpri's program and also a former infantry officer in the u.s. marines. i appreciate both of you very much. and doug, you saw fred's report, you know, in the trenches right on the front line there talking

about the gains that ukraine has been able to make near kherson and putin's front lines. putin today speaks for four hours, right, and it's a rambling four hours. in those four hours he rejects the idea having ever said russia would use nuclear weapons. just a few days ago on russian state tv she said today we train how to annihilate the usa and the formerly great britain. do you believe putin? >> well, thanks, erin, there was nothing new or surprising in putin's four hours of talk and the chief executive to spend doing speeches, but there were some indicators and signposts that we saw. he's playing the old hands of victimization, airing the grievances, castigating the elitist west and setting up rules that keep russia down, and that is trying to decouple the

allies, sow discontent and political pressures. i got the sense from his comments today he feels a bit of reprieve from the desperation he likes to think he's under with the elections coming, the energy crisis and problems looming in europe and the winter coming. he's looking less desperate which also makes me think he's less inclined to resort to weapons of mass destruction at least if crimia was threatened. >> and let me ask you about that in just a moment. first, rob, you posted a video on twitter today. it was russian aircraft launching rockets at ukrainian positions reportedly in donetsk, obviously that ongoing front line there. have you seen any notable changes in putin's strategy in recent days? >> not in recent days. i think last few weeks we've seen this campaign of bombing where russia's been increasingly targeting ukrainian infrastructure and power plants.

and, you know, i think my view is more of an asymmetric response because ukraine has the upper hand on the battlefield and trying to go after the economy, and other ways increasing the cost of the war in ukraine but other way trying to deter further arms deliveries. overall on the battlefield itself ukraine has a number of advantages, and there's some stalemates in some areas, but i think overtime ukraine will likely be able to use those advantages to achieve more success and russia trying to respond in a way they can respond basically. >> as part of this everyone is trying to understand how stable putin is, how stable his inner circle is, and i mention that response to cnn and the head of the group and regarding those soldiers. he's recruited prisoners, now forcing prisoners to wear bracelets to identify various diseases that they have. and it comes right after he slammed putin's defense minister making it clear he thinks he should be gone. that's all out in the open.

he used to be in the shadows but now very much putting himself front and center in this war. what does it say to you in terms of the strength or the fissures in putin's inner circle? >> i think it's fascinating and i think if reflects the fact putin does not have the control he'd like to have or sometimes attribute. "the washington post" in fact identified that he'd confronted putin and talked about the cl clumsiness of the russian military. but he's an opportunist, spent nine years in prison for robbery, prostitution charges. he's not exactly a military strategist. and that he'd at least have the room to be so public in his comments, and after all it was his media chief recently arrested i think two weeks ago for leading the defense

minister. >> it could be extremely revealing, right, and as you say perhaps says something about putin. so, rob, when you look at the strategy and the battlefield successes of his troops or lack thereof. when you compare his troops to we just heard all these families talking about their children being treated like pigs and they're not even getting their training, they don't have any money -- they're not getting paid, not getting money to eat, compare his troops to those, what do you see in that comparison? >> i think on both sides there's significant issues. there's significant man power problems and we know they've been recruiting prisoners, showing videos and based on what they're doing in fighting and being put in extremely risky situations. of course on the russian military side you're seeing a large number of mobilized units being deployed, many deployed

with minimal training and sometimes being thrown right into the fight. the big overall point is that russia has a very significant man power issue. they're addressing it in different ways, none of those ways are particularly positive. and you look at the ukrainian side, if you would have had much better morale and whereas the russian morale it's increasing the force involuntary troops that don't necessarily want to be there and didn't want to volunteer. >> you have the russian media outlets able to get the videos now, these recordings of conversations or of parents of soldiers. we're seeing more and more of that. does that signal something? >> it's an unprecedented showing of issues. he wants people, wants the west, all to be reckoned to him so he can control the flow. he's not had that opportunity, and now he's got these internal fissures in his own inner circle

and a public that's getting more vocal. so it doesn't reflect well on how much time he might think he has to right the ship. >> all right, thank you very much for the ticking, the ticking time there. and next the secret meeting between trump's legal team and the justice department in washington. so what was this about? plus the two nominees for governor in arizona pointing fingers at the burglary of the headquarters of democrat katie hobbs. was it politically motivated or not? well, guess what, tonight police have a suspect. and it's been five days since the former president was escorted out of that meeting in front of cameras. he's not been seen since. state media says it was because of a health issue. ian bremmer doesn't buy that explanation. how come, he'll tell you. help you find and unlock opportunities in the market with powerful, easy-to-use tools

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when you use dove dry spray? [laughing] it shows. try dove dry spray. our weightless formula with 1/4 moisturizers is effective and kind to skin. leaving you feeling instantly dry and confident. new tonight former president donald trump's legal team and federal prosecutors meeting in secret today about the mar-a-lago documents case. cnn just learning the meeting involved demands that the former president return all sensitive documents. our camera there as trump's legal team left the federal courthouse in d.c. this is what they saw. i want to go straight to cnn justice correspondent evan perez. and evan, just to be clear here about the importance of washington, it is extremely unusual for trump's legal team to be there and not in florida. so what do you know about this meeting? >> right, what this -- the fact they're here in washington tells us a lot.

it tells us this has to do with the proceeding that this judge here in washington has been overseeing, which is the subpoena that was served to the former president and his legal team back in may that they should turn over all documents that were marked as classified. and of course we know the fact that they found additional documents when the fbi conducted a search in august. we know that all those documents were not turned over, in other words, the former president did not satisfy these subpoena demands. and so what we know is that there have been these discussions behind the scenes, and today there was a two-hour hearing before the chief judge in washington and a discussion at least we know at least in part had to do with the justice department's continued belief that not all documents that were in the possession of the former president have been properly turned over. in particular they're concerned about classified documents or documents that were marked classified. now, as you pointed out those lawyers did not answer any questions when we asked them

today, but we know that whatever proceeding was going on it was probably not complete, and so we're probably going to still yet to hear what the judge decided at the end of this hearing. erin? >> all right, thank you very much, evan. let's go now to ryan goodman. so let's just break this down. what is the significance of trump's attorneys being in washington, right, having this happen there? this is not happening in florida. >> so i think it's significant in that the center of gravity is turning to washington and not florida. this could have been potentially back to the old magistrate judge who had initiated the first search. >> right. >> but it's not. it's in d.c., and i think the significance is if the justice department brings an indictment the big question is where. do they bring it in florida, or do they bring it in d.c.? in d.c. it's more favorable to them. the d.c. court of appeals is better than the florida circuit.

>> and they have that latitude to do that, to choose? >> it's -- it's not complete latitude. in fact, part of the issue is that the d.c. court of appeals has this rule that says if all the activity is taking place outside of our jurisdiction even though it's pointed at obstructing our grand jury maybe you have to be back in florida. so it's a big question. so the fact it's shifting towards d.c. is important. >> and what do you think that such a meeting could be about? are they still -- are they negotiating which documents and where or who has what? or what do you think just this hearing is about? >> so it could be this idea maybe the trump side says maybe we'll cooperate with an additional search and they're working out the details and conditions of that because some of the reporting has suggested they'd try to do something like that. but do they specify this is just in mar-a-lago? huge question is are they also going to go for other trump properties? >> there's trump tower, bedminster, other places where he could keep things.

>> and there's actually the one document the government did file in the d.c. district court that said they've never been really responsive to our subpoenas. >> where do you think this goes in time line, the center of power shifting to washington, what does that do? >> if we do ever see an indictment, it takes place in d.c., that's huge. and the second part there might be another set of searches of trump properties, but i wouldn't expect that before the mid-terms because their 60-day rule. so they might be setting that up as soon as the mid-terms are done, people voted and decided on that -- >> and they're ready it go. of course that's the time line of either one of the announcements. so you've got everything honing in on that crucial window right after the mid-terms. thank you as always. and next kari lake lashing out after democratic katie hobbs

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tonight a war of words erupting in arizona after a break in at the campaign headquarters of gubernatorial candidate katie hobbs. police have announced an arrest. lake just holding a press conference firing back.

>> she's pulling stunts and you guys are falling hook, line and sinker into it. she puts out a statement about a petty theft that happened at her office. she knew darn well that i had nothing to do with this. >> kyung lah is out front live outside phoenix outside that press conference. a lot of finger pointing going on. what more do you know? >> reporter: well, we're just seeing the very end of an almost one-hour news conference. you just played a little snip of kari lake really just tearing into the local reporters, the national reporters, but i kind of want to take a step back and explain how all of this happened. the phoenix police just a short time ago announced that they had a suspect in custody for the burglary at hobbs' campaign headquarters, and this is the man that they currently have in custody. a 36-year-old daniel mota

dos reis. he's been booked on one count of third degree burglary. what the phoenix police did not do is make a connection between dos reis and any politics here. there doesn't appear to be any connection. and that's the connection the hobbs campaign is making saying the rhetoric they believed then allowed this to happen. so that was the implication, and lake has been tearing into the press for repeating that. what we are hearing from the hobbs campaign is that they're continuing to talk about that hostile environment. and let me read you a little quote here. in that statement they say, quote, let me be clear kari lake's preposterous allegation this break-in was staged is unfounded and her refusal to condemn the threats that have become more common in our politics continues to stoke

chaos. let's zoom out now, erin. what does this really mean for the race for governor? i just got a quote from a state gop operative, and he said and it really just boils it down that hobbs is the victim of a small burglary, but lake is the winner in this story. it is a victory lap for her, that news conference that she had. on this roundabout this burglary lake wins. and so what we don't know is how does this play out in the minds of voters? we are 12 days away until election day. early voting is under way. do they care about something like this? do they care, you know, who wins these sort of small battles, or do they actually care about substantive issues like the economy? so that is something we are watching unfold in realtime, but undoubtedly, erin, this is an ugly race with two candidates who are continuing to jab at each other. >> kyung, thank you very much. very ugly and one the whole country is watching.

i want to go out front now to steven richard in maricopa county. pushed back against baseless claims of voter fraud and just trying to get the vote count and get it right. the burglary on hobbs' campaign headquarters obviously is stoking the flames in what is an already ugly and intense matchup. how worried are you about how much worse things are getting with only 2 days until election day? >> well, we've been in battle mode for almost two years now, so we're hardened to most of this, but people have actually been pretty well-behaved. the e-mail correspondence has been pretty positive. we've seen some bad actors at different locations, but i don't want to discount the fact that already 400,000 people have returned their ballots, and it's gone smoothly. it's gone successfully. and we've heard positive things. >> so let me ask you about that. that's a lot of people, 400,000,

whatever they may or may not think about an issue like this, whatever they care, their vote is already gone, they've already cast it. your office tells us you've received nine cases of voter intimidation from the secretary of state, which is more than had previously been reported. woo and we saw video of two armed individuals wearing tactical gear staking out a ballot drop box. that was in mesa, arizona. in your county a man says eight to ten people were trying to take photos of his license plate. he says then they followed him. what can you tell me about some of the new reports you're hearing about? >> well, obviously that type of exhibitionism is disappointing and unproductive because there are lots of great ways to get involved in the process. you can be a political party observer. heck, you can work with us, maybe not those particular individuals but other people are certainly welcome to work with us. we're still hiring. stuff like that is unfortunate because it makes people think twice before participating in

this process, and we've been trying to convey the very many measures that we have taken to secure every single voting location, and there are other voting locations if anyone is daunted by that particular site where, unfortunately, a few bad actors gave arizona another black eye. >> one of the people encouraging voters to steak out ballot drop boxes is in your county, republican senate nominee blake masters. he's being encouraged by former president trump to lean harder into election lies. i just want to play a clip between masters and trump in their documentary. here it is. >> you've got to go stronger on that one thing. a lot of complaints about it. look at kari. kari is winning with her little money. and if they say how is your family she says the election was rigged and stolen. you'll lose if you go soft, you'll lose the base. >> i'm not going soft. >> honestly i don't want to put

you in the realm of politics because of what your role is and that's very important but this is the kind of rhetoric that has led to you receiving death threats, you know, just this constant it's rigged and it's stolen. what goes through your mind when you hear that sort of audio? >> well, more than what it means for me is what it means for the system. and so why would you even participate? why would you vote if you really believed that? why would you run? so i think we're going to see a revealed preference here in that peoples actions are speaking louder than their words and blake masters and others continue to run very competitive races, and i think that's telling about how they feel and about how republican voters feel, and they might win all of these races if not a lot of these races, and so let's hold out there, let's have a great election, let's, you know, wait until we see something to say something like that. >> all right, steven, i appreciate your time. thank you. glad to speak to you again. >> thank you so much. >> okay. and next famed international affairs expert ian bremmer on

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tonight there's still no word on the condition or whereabouts of the former chinese president hu jintao five days after he was abruptly escorted after the chinese congress. that's where xi jinping tightened his grip by securing an unprecedented third term. thats this is the remarkable video. it shows hu moments before he's led away trying to read a stack of papers covered up by a red folder and then he's blocked by higher ranking party officials and as it's happening xi

gives -- it's an incredible moment that has raised so many unanswered questions. out front now ian bremmer the president and founder of the eurasia group. still the official explanation of state media is hu had a health issue even though we haven't heard from him now in five days. you don't buy that what do you think is really going on? >> nobody buys that. this is a health issue. you saw the video. you saw that xi jinping didn't make any effort whatsoever to try to sort of show a level of compassion. he's the guy that ordered the removal. it was -- it happened on the back of xi's direct nod. and as people took him out and former president hu was

uncomfortable in being removed in that way. as you say every other senior member of the communist party of china were saying to themselves, there but for the grace of god, to mix the metaphor, this is xi jinping showing he's in charge. he's broken all of these norms in the communist party. first of all, of course, essentially making himself head of the party for life but also in terms of promoting all of the loyalists as opposed to people that had the kind of experience that traditionally would have been required for a lot of these roles. and, you know, the fact that the most powerful man in the world by a long margin happens to be the dictator of a authoritarian surveillance state is something that should give all of us pause. it's not the world we were hoping we were heading towards. >> it is still pretty stunning to see this. to make this loud and clear to people he waited to do this, xi did until the cameras were in the room. but he waited until after hu had

formally cast his vote in favor of xi. so in china that's all anyone saw, he was in the room. it's amazing they have not seen the video there. >> just like when you go to russia they have no idea many things going on in the war. they think the ukrainians are a nazi regime. i mean when you control the entire information narrative as the chinese do, you can say lots of things to your people. and everything we're discussing about hu jintao and supposedly being ill, there is not a person on the ground in china getting that media from their country, not from the left, not from the right, not from anywhere. the reality is china has a stranglehold on the information the average citizen receives, and that makes it a lot harder to engage functionally with 1.4 billion people on the planet.

>> so here's the thing i want to understand, hu jintao is 79 years old. he's not going to come in and threaten xi jinping for the office. >> he's younger than the american president. >> that's true. but in this cay why now? why does he want to make an example out of him? what's the motive? >> we'll probably never know what the motive is, but one thing you can see is that hu seemed to be distraught by -- by what was going on in the room at that point, distraught by the fact that none of the people he wanted to see promoted were actually promoted. usually there's some horse trading going on so maybe he got bad information, maybe he thought his people were going to be promoted and suddenly they weren't. he noticed the way they were lined up is not the way it was supposed to. certainly the open up that file in front of him which would have

had the positions of those people might have been a piece of that. but we're speculating here. the point is he didn't need to do that irrespective of what motivated it. why he did it was to show everyone in that room and everyone in the world outside of china that he controls this country. he's in charge, he has the power, and we need to pay attention. this is a country for the last 30 years has been growing quietly. they always say to the americans, oh, we're teenagers, we're not ready for leadership, we still need time. that's not been xi jinping at all. xi jinping's leadership is we are now ready to play a global leadership role and we intended to be treated by respect from a position of strength by everyone out there. that's the message that was being sent loud and clear. >> very loud and clear. you spoke with elon musk last month who weighed in on this and other things. this is before he tweeted out that peace plan that included

details like ensuring crimia's water supply, that were incredibly specific and very favorable to putin. i spoke with the former cia chief john brennen, and he said to me, quote, he talking about elon, looks to things through a personal finance prism, he'd made sorely misguided and harmful statements and he goes onto say i think elon musk needs to be very careful about what he's saying. musk has of course weighed in on a possible russian settlement that was very favorable to putin. he has weighed in on taiwan in a similar way. what do you think? >> i -- i don't think it's the problem is an overly narrow perspective. i think the problem is that he's conflicted. you know, you have star link, which is a company that is essentially funded by the u.s. government. it's nasa and it's the pentagon, and they've provided a lot of support on the ground to ukraine

in the early stages of the war. and the ukrainians were very thankful for that. at the same time you've got tesla, which elon musk also owns, it's a global company that needs supply chain and develops its art financial intelligence and wants market access to china. and, frankly, those two things don't necessarily play well together geopolitically. if you ask why he would have made the comments he made on taiwan, that's obviously a piece of it. it's relevant. and so my view in that environment would be when you have two business models that are geopolitically completely not condprunt, you're better off saying i'm not going to make those geopolitical decisions myself, i'm not going to talk about those. happened be much better off if the pentagon was paying $100 billion a year for star link and let them decide where the jefencing is going to be, and elon's position is going to be not my business. that's a much safer position, and ultimately one that will

give him a lot less trouble. >> ian, thank you very much. i appreciate it. >> my pleasure. and next a sliver of hope for democrats in new economic numbers today, and this from treasury secretary janet yellen to cnn. >> i don't see tine signs of a recession in this economy at this point. >> plus an update tonight on the 8-year-old boy who's right now on his way to making history by scaling el capitan. when moderate to severe ulcerative colitis persists... put it in check with rinvoq, a once-daily pill. when uc got unpredictable,... i got rapid symptom lief with rinvoq. check. when uc held me back. i got lasting, steroid-free remission with rinvoq. check. and when uc got the upper hand... rinvoq helped visibly repair the colon lining. check.

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we have solid household finances, business finances, banks that are well capitalized. and we've been creating average 300,000 jobs a month. >> reporter: it's an economic scorecard that hardly tracks with an exceedingly unsettled elec electorate. >> the disconsent seems to be very real. the misdirection of the economy seems to be very negative. why? >> inflation is very high. it's unacceptably very high. and americans feel that every day. >> hello, syracuse! >> reporter: the split screen that is weighing down americans for month. on the day the economy delivered a bounce back quarter of growth, soaring costs, a reality with no near-term solution that has included not just democrats' midterm prospects. >> in terms of the time horizon, years is not very helpful when there is a midterm election in 12 days.

i know you don't come from a political background here, but how much does that weigh into the policy process that you guys pursue? >> well, as i said, we're doing everything that we can to supplement what the fed is doing to bring inflation down. and medium term, we have an historic investment in the strength of our economy. the passage of three very important bills. >> reporter: but also, what officials view as a historically rapid recovery. >> tease are problems we don't have because of what the biden administration has done. so often one doesn't get credit for problems that don't exist. >> reporter: all as biden's legislative wins have driven tens of billions of dollars in private sector investment to manufacturing across the country. is the kind of message at this point to some degree, we've done the work. be patient. it's coming? >> yes. but we're beginning to see

repaired bridges come online. not in every community. pretty soon many communities are going to see roads improve, bridges repaired that have been falling apart. we're seeing money flow into research and development, which is really an important source of long-term strength to the american economy. and america's strength is going to increase. and we're going to become a more competitive economy. >> reporter: and erin, obviously patience is not something democratic candidates have right now. very clearly an urgent effort to try to forestall losing the majority. one thing officials are trying to weigh right now, who will leave the biden administration after the elections, however they turn out. yellen says she is not going to be one of those people. she laid out the economic plans going forward and said i want to be part of that. erin? >> all right, thank you very much, phil mattingly. and next, an update on the 8-year-old who is trying to become the youngest person to

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and tonight an 8-year-old close to making history. sam baker has now climbed more than half of california's el capitan with his father. they could reach the summit by this weekend. that's nearly 3,000 feet. now sam's father, joe, posted this picture of the two together after their first day of climbing, writing "sam showed so much courage today. i was blown away at his resilience and stamina. into the night, we have already crossed the halfway point. up we go." and we hope they will soon reach that summit. thanks to all of you for joining us. "ac 360" starts now. good evening. almost since the moment a gunman entered robb elementary school in uvalde, texas and murdered 19 children and 2 teachers, their loved ones have endured