wait a minute. that's news? this is "piers morgan tonight." good evening, a big story tonight. just a little while ago a house committee voting on partisan lines recommending that eric holder be cited for contempt as part of the ongoing battle between congress and the administration over the fast and furious failed weapon sting operation. it could end with an unprecedented event. the united states congress holding a sitting attorney general in contempt. the measure goes to the full house next week. in a statement, the attorney general called the vote, quote, an election year tactic intended to distract attention. but does this battle come down to simple politics? or is it something more serious? i'll ask the special counsel, lanny davis. we begin with a poll showing president obama with a 13-point lead over mitt romney among likely voters. according to latest bloomberg national poll.

frank rich joins me now. strong stuff here, frank. >> i'm not the headline writer. >> i know what you're getting at. we played this ad. the infamous daisy girl which i may play early from a very early presidential campaign where a little girl goes running through a flower-filled field and it gets blown to pieces by a nuclear bomb. if you vote for that guy, that's happening to your daughter. i know the theme of the piece. interestingly, uh you're saying, although you don't necessarily agree with negativity in ads, you think they're very effective. and if obama is going to win, he has to step up a gear and go double negative on romney? >> yes. first offal awe, there's a long history back to the days of pony express. forget about television and the internet. they're always used they're always used equally by democrats

and republicans and to unilaterally disarm which some seem to be suggesting to obama and ed rendell and others said it was nauseating and what have you, it is just ridiculous. this is the world we live in. >> you talk about previous negative ads. one of the greatest ever -- people think it's bad now. get this. you cite this in your piece. andrew jackson v john quincy adams in 1828. adams was accused of murder, drunkenness, dock fighting, slave trading and canbleism. and also said jackson's wife and mother were both whores. >> bigamists, yeah. >> unbelievable. >> everyone says this is a horrible modern development in american campaigns. it's always been there. that was the early part of the 19th.

>> even though he got called a cannibal, murderer, dock fighter, slave trader, he ended up winning the election. >> appealed to the base. >> how effective is a very strong negative campaign? i mean, historically, since the second world war, say, is there evidence to say that when you go really negative against a vulnerable opponent perhaps, you'll win? >> they're not determinative, but they cement a trend that's going. and they're essential for that reason. the daisy ad sf johnson versus goldwater. the problem now is that they've become so ubiquitous, you've got to have the creativity that the daisy ad showed. >> let's see the daisy ad. it remains my favorite political ad in history. let's see a bit of this. >> eight, nine -- >> ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero.

these are the stakes. to make a world in which all of god's children can live. or to go into the dark. we must either love each other or we must die. >> vote for president johnson on november 3. >> given that it's about nuclear holocaust, we shouldn't be laughing, but -- >> it is laughable. i interviewed the poor girl, who is now a woman who is horrified when she finds out what they had done with her lovely little flower performance. >> the reason why the ad was effective in its day of 1964 is first of all, it played on a real fear of the public, which was then nuclear holocaust and godwater had a habit of using loose language about nuclear weapons. also, it was very craftily done

goldwater's name was never mentioned in the ad. it just captured people's imagination. captured once in primetime on nbc and it blew goldwater to smith renes. >> no one would do exactly that ad now. one of the two campaigns may come up with a fear-inducing ad that works. there was an attempt abandoned by supported by jer maya wright. >> john mccain decided not to press that button and that's why people say you lost. you didn't get nasty enough with obama and you should have gone that far. >> he did run an ad comparing, as for obama he ran, remember

that ad about mccain didn't know how many houses he owned, but a creative ad, a real fear-inducing ad has to get above the fit for tat for the ad as that are generally run. >> let's look at romney's latest ad, which has just come out. >> of course, the economy isn't where it needs to be. >> well, mr. president, you had your moment, we've seen the results. and now, mr. president, this is our time. >> what do you think of that? to me, it's a bit tame. the gloves have come off yet, have they? >> it's tame and it's mediocre as a piece of advertising. not to say that obama has come up with great ads either. i would argue the most effective campaign ad we've seen in the cycle wasn't done by either campaign. the chrysler ad done with clint

eastwood. >> fantastic ad. >> you need that kind of dynamite. that was not a negative ad, but that kind of creativity was needed. >> remember watching it live with no warning aboutwhat was coming and the clear impression you went away with was the bailout of the car industry was a fundamentally good and successful thing. so, it was a very well orchestrat orchestrated, very simple message using this great movie star. >> exactly. while i think the obama campaign had nothing to do with it, it stunned sufficiently that karl rove both complained about it and said, hey, it's a very effective ad. >> it was a great line. he hated it so much because he knew it was good. >> exactly. >> which is probably the sign of a good one. >> absolutely sg let's look at obama's new ad here. >> mitt romney campaigned as a job creator. >> but as a corporate grader, he shipped jobs to mexico and as

governor he did the same thing. outsourcing state jobs to india. now, he's making the exact same pitch. >> i know why jobs come and why they go. >> outsourcing jobs, romney economics. it didn't work then and it won't work now. >> pretty simple message. clearly obama sees the whole romney/bain background as a vulnerability whereas cory booker and others, bill clinton, as well, don't agree with him. the polls today, a bloomberg poll has obama with the widest lead he had for quite some time. >> right, which also might be a reflection of the new immigration move that he made late last week. i think that both bain and the record in massachusetts, they're obviously very fruitful for obama, but at a certain point, i think people will get tired of them. and they feel like reruns. particularly since they were given a workout by the

republican adversaries to romney during the primary period. so he's going to have to find a bigger message. not that he's wrong, but people will tune it out from familiarity. >> if you're into this nuclear negativity, the real button some would say to press with romney would be the mormonism, his views on abortion, on gay marriage and the social issue hot buttons, which he's very carefully trying to avoid. would you go there if you were obama? >> i guess that's one hot issue, but i would say there's something even more, which is people don't really know who romney is. you find there's no opinion -- a fair number of people have no opinion about him. he's a mystery man. do people really know where hive wills. his whole record was wiped from hard disk that he left. we don't know the tax returns that he gave to mccain. his investments remain murky. that to me is a more primal scary thing for people choosing a president than any specific social issue. >> i saw you getting involved in the rubio debate earlier today. >> uh-huh. >> in the sense that -- well, i

had frank on yesterday saying he doesn't believe for a moment that actually rubio will be the vp pick in the end. what do you think of why romney has now come out and said yes, we are vetting him. rubio said he wasn't being vetted. what do you make of it? what is going on behind the scenes here? >> my guess is that rubio indeed will not be the vice presidential nominee. and my guess is abc news had it correct when they said he wasn't being vetted. what happened during the course of the day yesterday was suddenly it looked like another diss at hispanics. probably offended some conservative donors who love rubio, which many do. romney came before the cameras and said, oh, yes, of course, we're giving him a full vetting but i think it's just, i hate to say it, just another etch-a-sketch moment. >> if you were mitt romney, who would you be leaning towards now? who is the smart pick? >> i don't think there really is

a smart pick. i think it's really first do no harm. he's probably going to end up with another boring white guy like himself. and as long as that guy has been thoroughly vetted. >> pawlenty? safe pair of hands, good talker. or a bit more controversial? maybe chris christie who could galvanize the public better than most other candidates. >> i don't think chris christie would work. first of all, he's still a northeast republican, a little bit suspiciously moderate by that party's standards, but also he would just completely upstage romney. and already reading reports of romney is a bit irritated that christie tends to be late to events. there's been investigation of a sort of halfway house that christie is involved with. i think he wants someone safe and who people will forget who he is by the time of election day. >> come on, you're mitt romney, who would you go for? throw a name out there that would be the kind of person you're talking about.

>> well, i think if he had got, given that type of person, he should probably go for paul ryan. because paul ryan is, like him or not, sort of the intellectual of the conservative movement right now. the base loves him and certainly a presentable guy. i think he is much more interesting than pawlenty or the two most talked about. i don't think it will happen, though. if i were he and going in that direction, that would be the most interesting choice. >> let's turn to the possible contempt charges facing eric holder. the attorney general. he's refusing to hand over documents. the president invoking executive privilege. whenever i hear that phrase, i think okay, they're covering something up. am i right to be that cynical? >> probably, but i have a feeling in this case it's pretty small potatoes. and also in one way, the executive privilege stand has been used so much by democrats

and republicans, clinton, bush and so on. i think it's sort of lost its luster. i don't think this is a really huge issue, this fast and furious. it is among the republican base. congress will rev up the base a bit on it, but i think it's not really a big deal. >> thank you very much for coming in see you again i'm sure very soon. coming up attorney general eric holder under fire. the president is standing by his man, but will it cost him politically? also president clinton's special counsellor, lanny davis. ♪

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the clerk will report. >> 23 ayes, 17 nos. >> the ayes have it. and a contempt report is ordered reported to the house. >> that was a house committee vote today, recommending the attorney general eric holder be cited for contempt of congress. how much problem will this be for the president and his administration in lanny davis was white house counsel for president clinton. the perfect guy to ask about all this. you have been a good friend of eric holder, have been for 20 years. and when you were with president clinton, he famously operated this executive privilege 14

times. what is your view of this? how serious is it for eric holder? how justified is the criticism? >> well, first of all, this is an historical battle within the constitution going back to andrew jackson who defied congress and said you pass the law, now you execute it. congress and the white house over the year, democrat and republican presidents have fought over executive privilege. george bush resisted turning over documents during the firing of the u.s. attorneys on the grounds of executive privilege. president clinton did it so many times because he was slapped with more subpoenas by newt gingrich than by any other president. >> what does it actually mean? for those hearing this phrase, like me, who aren't completely up to speed on the minutia of the detail, it just sounds murky. it sounds like they've got something to hide. why wouldn't they just be coming out with it otherwise? >> the constitutional principle, versus the political reality. the constitutional principle, i work for the president of the

united states, and i want to give him advice. i don't give advice if i know if i put it in writing someone in congress can hold a press conference about it. i'm going to guard my advice. same thing as a staff member or member of congress if the president asks for it. they would assert the same. that's what it's about. confidentiality and the ability to get candid advice. having said that, in the political arena, it looks like a cover-up. what eric holder did, and he's been a friend and a man of absolute integrity, he went to the chairman and said let's sit down, let's go through these documents, let me show you why this needs to be protected, having nothing to do with your inquiry of what went wrong in this tragic misguided fast and furious operation that began under this bush administration, this stupid technique. he wanted to work this out, and for some reason, i think it's all politics, chairman issa didn't work it out. and that's why the contempt citation is really over the top, as far as i'm concerned. >> what do you think will happen?

>> i think that the house will not vote contempt. if they do, a party line vote will simply reinforce exactly why today i'm organizing a company with michael steele to get past this food fight hyper partisanship that the american people are sick of. a party line vote of contempt will take the 9% approval rating of congress, down to 3%. we'll be left with family and staff members who approve of congress. >> you wrote this great piece together to obama and romney, stop negativity. ironically, i just had frank rich on the show saying the opposite. he says all the negative campaign should be ramped up to an extreme scale on both sides. because actually that's the way you get to what they really stand for. they pulverize each other like great champion boxers and in the last round you find out what they're really made of. >> it's easy for frank to say that watching the gladiators kill each other and it's gory and it's fun. but i don't think frank rich

means that distortion and lies are good for american politics. michael steele, former chairman of the rnc, republican national committee criticizes mitt romney for taking a barack obama statement that he doesn't know anything about the economy when he was referring to john mccain taking it out of context and then mitt romney says well, if it's out of context, what's sauce for the goose. >> frank doesn't like the negative ads. what he's saying is instinctively he doesn't think they're a good thing, per say. what he thinks is that mitt romney is going to throw the negative kitchen sink at barack obama, so he has to fight fire with fire. if you're going to get into that game, you may as well pulverize him with the maximum negativity. >> so here's the quick answer. i completely agree that's a reality that frank is describing. but the answer is to debate issues and give people a debate choice on issues about solving problems. the company we organized is purple nation solutions, and

that to me is what frank would agree with. we can get them to debate obama and romney on what are we going to do about the national debt. why hasn't barack obama endorsed simpson bowles which would take an across the board approach. what is romney going to do with debt if he doesn't raise any revenues? let's hear that debate. that's negativity contrasting ideas. that's what we think ought to happen. >> can a presidential candidate win through positivity alone? >> well, it isn't necessarily -- the answer is yes, but contrasting, i think, barack obama's ideas are better than mitt romney's. i think he's got a better approach on national health care. i want to know how romney is going to take care of 33 million uninsured people if the supreme court overturns this law. people want to know answers. so there's negativity, but it's negativity about issues. it's not personal attacks. cory booker tried to say that and you know who condemned him worse than anybody?

this administration actually said he's dead to us when cory booker said more positive on that particular program about barack obama than he said negative. all he said was he didn't like the personal attacks on both sides. and his own fellow democrats, fellow obama supporters criticized him. >> wasn't cory booker a bit naive? i like him very much, but wasn't he naive if he was going to oppose the bain line of attack. that is a central plank of barack obama's attack on mitt romney, isn't it? he's basically saying if you judge him on the economy through his record at bain, he's going to destroy jobs. that's why he got so touchy about it. >> if you read the transcript, it was almost all positive about barack obama. does a friend say to a friend what you're doing, which i think is wrong, he should keep doing if he wants to get him re-elected? that was the effect of saying he's dead to us. harold ford jr., a supporter of barack obama's, governor ed

rendell of pennsylvania, myself, all thought the bain attack isn't going to help you, barack obama. tell why your health care plan is good for the american people. not the distorted ad about bain. >> i want to change gears a bit and move to the jerry sandusky trial. you worked a lot with penn state and you have some pretty interesting views, i would imagine, about what's going on this week. cuban cajun raw seafood pizza parlor french fondue tex-mex fro-yo tapas puck chinese takeout taco truck free range chicken pancake stack baked alaska 5% cashback. signup for 5% cashback at restaurants through june. it pays to discover.

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dottie sandusky didn't say it didn't happen. she said she went to bed after her husband and that her husband went down to essentially tuck the overnight guests, the boys into bed. >> that is tom klein, the attorney for alleged victim number five. today, the defense rested its case. tomorrow, closing arguments begin. back with me, lanny davis. legal adviser of penn state. you're a top lawyer, you've been a white house counsel, crisis management expert. all of these skills are pretty

seriously tested in this case. on the face of it, it's pretty grim for penn state, isn't it? >> well, first let me say, i have to be very limited in what i can say to you about this, piers. a man is in trial and he's entitled to the presumption of innocence and the jury is going to decide mr. sandusky's fate. i can tell you that in working for penn state. i love yale as a great university. i have never seen an alumni, a student body, a faculty that loves a place more than i've seen in the penn state family. and i know one thing, that they should not be judged or identified with this particular tragedy, if it turns out he's guilty, may he go to jail for a long time. this great university should not be defined by this tragedy. >> is it a problem for penn state when you have such an iconic character, joe paterno,

for example, wielding such power through just his years of experience, decades of experience. that if it turns out that sandusky is guilty and he gets laid out for a long time and it is sort of confirmed again that joe paterno and others knew that that brings shame to penn state. doesn't it? an institution that more young boys were allowed to be abused simply because those in positions of authority for whatever reason didn't do anything. >> look, just to be clear to protect myself, i didn't know we would be talking about this subject tonight and i can only say that joe paterno was a great man and passed away. he did admit to a grand jury that he knew there was conduct of a sexual nature from someone who told him and he reported that fact to his superior. and we can judge that decision or not, but i still say that things happen in big institutions and they shouldn't

be judged by the aberration. if mr. sandusky is conflicted, he does not reflect penn state as i've come to know it and love it. he is an aberration. he doesn't reflect humanity, if he's convicted, doing these awful things if he is convicted. >> do you feel optimistic that whatever happens that every other version of penn state in america that has sporting athletic, great sports teams, athletic coaches and so on and academic institutions that they will be at the very least now be more transparent that they may have been what happened there? do you think there's been a seismic shock to the whole system in this country? >> well, without focusing on just higher education, i think a good part of government's problem is an absence of transparency. a good part of what happens inside congress behind closed doors is an absence of transparency. i worked for a company and did

some lobbying to this company and said to the client, when we walk in a member' door, we are on c-span. and that idea of transparency, which i believe is an across-the-board problem is i think a big solution. even in the world of campaigns where you have these huge super pacs without transpairacy as to who is giving the money and piing for these negative attack ads, which i'm going to shamelessly plug. my company purple nation solutions are trying to engage in a new type of politics where we're looking at solutions to problems, not food fights. >> lanny, i wish you all the very best. >> brought it back to my company. >> great how you held down all these great jobs. >> strong opinions in great american politics, smashing pumpkins front man billy corgan is not happy with president obama. ♪ ♪ you can never, ever leave

without a piece of you ♪ ♪ you will never be the same the more you change the less you feel ♪

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♪ 1979, a killer song from the smashing pumpkins. they've been churning out hits for years, selling 30 million albums and treated to worldwide fame. their new album "oceania" is out today. >> they said you would get it wrong. >> i know. billy corgan is the founder and front man for the smashing pumpkins. joins me now. welcome, billy. >> welcome. >> i was expecting like a smoldering volcano when they booked you. i thought this angry man of rock would come in -- >> i'm sure you'll get to it, piers. you're very good at that. mike tyson of music.

>> i like your show, that has a lot to do with it. you know? i talk to a lot of people and i don't respect them and i walk into the room with that. >> well, that actually means a lot to me. >> i've seen you do some great interviews and for somebody who has been interviewed a lot and people in my business should understand. there's the right interview and you start phoning it in because it's just robot language. >> what is the kind of interview that absolutely sends you demeanted? >> they google. they just google you and go with all the headlines. they don't actually get, to me, if you're talking to an artist, such a rare opportunity to get into the mind of the art aest and the greatest interviewers, people like you and charlie rose, they penetrate into a place where you go, okay, now, i understand why they're like that. that's what i want to know as a fan of somebody. >> what do you think of america right now? >> you're starting right off there. >> yeah. i'm interested in your view of

the country. >> i'm very disappointed in my country right now. i think we've kind of lost our moral compass. we've turned into a whining society. i think we have to get out of this paternalistic churn we're in where we want daddy to come and save us and the banks to come and save us. we need to get back to a level of social responsibility that we haven't seen in a long time. i'm just an artist. i can only say so much and do so much. i'm not a hero. i'm disappointed. the level of political and culture rhetoric is so low. it's kind of shocking. everybody seems to be okay with it. well, that's just the way it goes. i'm sorry. i'm from the lower middle class. i see the middle class hollowing out. i see people in my family really struggling and yet we're arguing about these kind of stupid nuancy things that political commentators know are bs, but they play around. meanwhile, it's affecting real people with real lives and families. that's really hard for me to

watch. >> your comment about paternal and maternal responsibility. you, of course, grew up in a weird situation, where both your natural parents kind of distanced themselves from you at a very young age and left you just to run your life as you could. how much has that guided your sense of people not being reliant on their parents? >> that's a really good question. i don't know. i think we all take our experiences -- from a spiritual point of view it's whether we transmute those experiences into something positive. for a lot of years i just complained. and i looked like a very unhappy rock star. and one day i woke up and i thought i had a different responsibility in this world. i didn't know if it was being in my 30s and started thinking about the world differently and seeing my place in it and started thinking wow. you know, my record sales versus

what's really going on in my country or the world. i mean, i've got to get some proportionality here. once i started doing that, i started seeing the world with much different eyes. >> politically, you've been -- i wouldn't say vague, but nobody has ever really been able to pin you down. are you an obama man at heart? >> no, no. i was raised a democrat in a somewhat liberal family. when you grow up around drug addicts and freaks, you tend to lean left. as a kid, it was a lot of anti-nixon stuff. in essence, in my family's mind, the '50s, archetype of the shutdown alcoholic male worked with the republican party for a while. but i also remember my grandmother connie sitting in front of the tv when reagan was nominated, nominated before the candidacy and crying. saying he is going to bring this country back. she thought reagan was going to

restore to this country whatever she thought. so i've lived in both paradigms. i'm at the point where i don't trust either political party. i don't see a reasonable third party independent run from anybody that's rational and going to get there. but the choices we have are so compromised. i just don't get it. but again, that seems -- everybody wants the theatre more than they want the reality. >> what is the kind of leader that you're craving in an american president? >> moral compass. and that's where i'm disappointed in the president. is he ran on a moral compass agenda. but what happened? i'm sure there's lots of good reasons and i'm sure they'll roll somebody out to counter thoughts like that, but i don't see it. and i travel the world and so do you. i've seen foreigners really shift on their view of america. and that's hard for me to take. i still believe in my country. i know the working class of this

country is really what this country is about. that's where i grew up, that's my people. when i see them broken down, that's hard to watch. >> i saw the premiere of the new drama "news room" based around a cable news show like this. starring jeff daniels. i watched it last night. jeff daniels character makes a speech to a bunch of students. the point he makes. he's asked what he thinks about america. he says it's completely wrong to say america is the greatest country in the world. it used to be. and it can be again, but if you look at all the criteria, education, science, literacy, et cetera, et cetera, america is lagging way behind now many countries. what do you think? >> i agree. i don't see the vigorous democracy -- not democratic -- the vigorous democracy that i was raised to believe in. and i don't understand where that went. now, does that mean somebody wants that debate to go down

because it's easier to control, you know, an archetized people? or is it just we're all so stuck in our phones now we don't have time to car about the reality of our country? i don't really understand all the causal effects. i have theories, but -- >> one theory could be the celebrification of america and most of the civilized world and politics. maybe that's part of the problem. i want you to hang on to that thought. how much can we blame celebrities? let's start naming a few. ♪ [ truck beeping ]

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thought someone like you would rail against the whole paris hilton genre of evidence. yet you've been maty with her and other stars of that genre. >> that's true. >> so what is your real -- >> i even rolled in the hay with a few of them. >> i know you have. do you want to name how many you've rolled in the hay with? >> more than one and less than five. >> jessica simpson was one, right? did you actually roll in the hay with her? >> she actually has a hay bale in her bedroom. >> so a little part of you is drawn to these kinds of stars? >> absolutely. look, i grew up in the 1970s. and, you know, "dallas" and "gilligan's island." i love american culture in that way. when it's risen to this other kind of psychotic level that is kind of frightening, especially some of the messages that send young women and if they were supposed to carry some kind of mantle. jessica who can't gain five pounds or lose five pounds

without creating a headline. you can say whatever you want. to put a woman in that position, that's not her creating that position, and i don't want to hear this argument, it's a little more complicated than that. i give credit to people like paris and kim kardashian who is creating an industry out of america's obsession with them. it's the people who pretend they're not that that drive me crazy. >> i like them, i see no problem them doing the best that they can, they both work very hard at it. is there a problem fundamentally with the society and culture that puts people like that on a pedestal, in sense, it inevitably chips away of more people who are -- we go back 50 years and you have the great singers and great artists and the only way to be famous is to be talented world-class.

>> the way hollywood beauty standards have shifted. lauren bacall to girl next door. nothing wrong with girl next door, they want to project, it's easier for them to protect on somebody like kim car dashi kardashian. there's a next door neighbor sort of snippy quality to it. >> what do you feel about twitter? you're an active tweeter. >> unfortunately. much to my detriment. >> you can't help but read all the terrible stuff on there. which is one of the down side. the internet has made everybody archie bunker, which i love. it effectively has. everyone now has a voice, if they want, on twitter. why shouldn't they have a voice? why shouldn't their opinion, their tweet be as valuable to the world as yours or mine? >> i have no problem with that.

i have a problem, if you talk to most people, they have a hard time understanding what social responsibility means. you know what i mean? i'm out there and i understand the social responsibility and the position. i just don't say anything i want. >> tell me quickly about "oceania." what do you feel about this album? >> what's interesting about it in my life, i made some great albums in the '90s, which became sort of almost like a mill stone around my neck. you'll never reach that height, again, you need the old band and then i made an album just as good as those albums and wait a second, now, why did you stop making these kind of albums? they can't understand the cultural aspects of be an artist and be in the downturn of the music business and have fans start making it about the fast and you find yourself reacting and rejecting against those expectations only through maturity and a little bit of spiritual revelation have i realized that i was demipiminis

myself on some level to answer some question. i could have done this all along and now i'm in a good place where i can do this. >> you there true to yourself. an unusual quality in many musicians in my experience. certainly of the modern type. i wish you the very best with it. thanks for coming here. >> thank you for having me. copd makes it hard to breathe,

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for tonight only in america and now the weather. atmospheric conditions are not exclusive to this country, but what seems to be unique to america is the extraordinary obsession over them especially at this time of year. today is the first official day of summer. and it's been hot, insanely hot in some places. i walked across new york's central park in the blistering midday sun and i suddenly understood what lawrence of arabia went through. but is that news? my old buddy al roker made it sound almost biblical. >> here are some of the temperatures we're talking about from d.c. to boston, 95, 97, albany, boston 97, 98 and 99 degrees in d.c., pittsburgh 91 and this extends back to the

west, as well. >> wow. al you're scaring me. next you're going to tell us it's going to get hotter in july. record breaking temperatures, severe heat, should we just huddle under a sprinkler and cool down? it's supposed to be like this on the first day of summer. that's why it's called summer. it's pretty well always like this on the first day of american summers and yet the reporters found out showing sweating workers on the street and children frolicking for safety in fountains and always a crowd favorite, frying an egg on the pavement. let me simplify things for everybody, in the summer it's hot, in the winter it's cold and in between you're going to get rain, cloud and the tornado. the weather has been like that in america for longer than america has existed. it's not news, it's just a fact. so calm down and carry on. that's all for us tonight.

"a.c. 360" starts now. big developments in a story we have been following from day one with big developments on the bungled atf operation called fast and furious. it could set off a constitutional battle between congress and the white house. fast err furious let buyers purchase guns in the united states and smuggle them into new mexico. the idea was to track the guns as they made their way inside the drug cartels. instead the atf lost track of those guns because u.s. authorities never bothered to tell mexican authorities about the scheme. they never had a way to actually track the guns. that is, not until people started dying. >> the only way you're going to find those guns in mexico is where? >> at crime scenes. at the death, at the site of somebody who's dead. at a gun battle betw