Im michaela ferrera. Out west those stories and more right now at this hoir. And at this hour, were talking politics, policy, and the law. Theyre all at the center of a raging debate over the crisis at the border. President obama heading to texas this afternoon where he will meet with the governor of texas, republican rick perry. One of his fiercist critics on the immigration issue. He has not scheduled a visit to the boarder to see the crisis firsthand for himself. Tens of thousands of unaccompanied children, mostly from Central America, have been flooding to texas through mexico. We are covering this issue from all angles. We want to begin with our senior white house correspondent. Jim, maybe you can give us, youre probably the closest to the information there. Any update as the president changed his mind, will he head to the border . Reporter not at this point. It doesnt look that way, michae michaela, i think it would be incredible after Top White House officials have said the president is not going to the border on this trip for the president to the go to the border. What he is doing instead is hes going to sit down with Texas Governor rick perry as you said at an event in dallas later on this afternoon. Its going to be a round table discussion featuring faith leaders and other local elected officials in dallas who are talking about converting schools into temporary housing facilities for all of those undocumented children flooding into the United States across the southwestern border. I did talk to a senior white house official earlier this week who is not ruling out a president ial trip to the border, but perhaps at a later time, not during this trip. But i have to say, one of the issues that i think youre going to hear about u up on capitol hill today is the president s trip hes on right now. Hes in denver, giving comments on the economy in about an hour from now. But michaela and john, if you look at the pictures from the president s trip so far. He was playing pool with the governor of colorado last night. Drinking beer, he was shaking hand with a guy with a horses head on his head. You know, there was one person at a bar asking the president if he wanted to smoke pot. And the president is out there in denver having a good time mixing it up. The bear is loose as they call it out here at the white house, but yet hes not making this trip to the border, and i think the optics at some point are going to become a major problem for this president in the same way they were a problem for president bush during Hurricane Katrina when he have flying over the gulf coast instead of getting done there down there, getting on the gulf coast beaches and getting his hands dirty. The president recovered from that from an imanl standpoint, i think the white house has to be very careful here as these optics of the president going loose, you know, his critics may wonder why isnt he loose enough to go down to the border . How will this affect the policy hes after here . The president asking for 3. 7 billion to help fight this crisis at the border. And jim, i was speaking to a democratic congressman this morning, a democrat who was not falling all over himself top support the president and these this 3. 7 billion request. Any question how the white house is doing . I think the white house can see whats happening on capitol hill almost immediately republican lawmakers were say nothing, theyre not going to rubber stamp this request, and they see this request for nearly 4 billion as a blank check. And after hearing that from republican lawmakers, john, as you said, thereve been democrats who said hang on, wait a minute, henry who called this president Obama Katrina was on cnn earlier saying they cant trust whatever the president sends over. They have to look at this appropriations request. This puts the president and the white house in a difficult situation. If they cant get the money aprotorated right away, how are they going to deal with this flood of children coming across the border . They have to be kept somewhere, and according to administration officials, they dont know how long they need to be housed while they go through this immigration frosz. Very difficult situation for this white house. At the white house, thanks so much. As politicians bicker over policy, the lives of tens of thousands of children are in limbo. Waves of underaged immigrants, mostly from Central America are swarming across the southwest border. Federal officials are running out of places to house them. It is a huge and growing problem this year. Some 60 to 80,000 children are expected to cross. Ed lavendandera is in dallas. There are a lot of congratulations, what are the big reasons behind the explosion of numbers . Its such a difficult question to answer, john, i think the biggest miss take you can make in these types of situations is try to just pinpoint one reason for why this happen. Of course there are critics of the Obama Administration who said that the administration and the way its talked about immigration is kind of opened the door for all of this, but you have to take into account the ability of cartels and human smugglers to take advantage of these situations and creating miss information and dispensing miss information to get all that misinformation to get all that. The profit side for these drug traffickers. Weve been told that for Central American migrants coming from the areas that can cost as much as 8,000 per person. If you just crunch the numbers on the situation from them, you can see the profits that are made. Some 50,000 people the u. S. Gochlt says in the recent crisis in this surge have moved in the United States. 50,000 at 8,000 a head is 400 million that human smugglers have profited from this. These are ruthless people who would take advantage of any dined of situation. So i think its very hard to pinpoint it on one reason. I think you have understand that its more complex than that. Especially when you consider the desperation that many people feel. No one reason makes it so hard to fix. In texas, thanks so much. Giving us context into the complexity of this. Its not easy stay or go. No magic wand here. Other stories at this hour, rockets and missiles flying back and forth between israel and gaza today. Israels president said an Israeli Ground defense on gaza may happen quite soon. Palestinian officials report 37 people were killed since monday in israeli strikes. Well have the experts weigh in on this situation on this crisis later at this hour. Dornld sterling set to be back on the witness stand. Challenging his wifes efforts to sell the l. A. Clippers. Sterling gave contentious, often testy testimony yesterday saying this about his wife shelley. My wife cant run anything, she is beautiful, she is intelligent, but she cant run these things. You think its my ego. Sterling teared up at times becoming combative, especially over his mental state. Including a neuroologists of being drunk. Thousands of people dealing with the aftermath of fastmoving and severe storms. Killed at least five people. At least four were killed up near skooer accuse, new york, when the storm destroyed several hopes. Boy in manchester, maryland was kill when the storm chuck a church camp. 300,000 people still without power. Look at that tree. A fella got quite a shock while recording a storm in his california neighborhood. Nuts. Nuts. H cell phone caught it all, check it out. Yeah, you hear his yelp in thnd nearly hit him. Doctors say it must have been just a few feet away. Stand income his garage, thought he was safe, the strike left him paralyzed for a few minutes. He says he still has ringing in his ear and hes feeling body aches, but doctors say he is going to be just fine. Good for him. Oh. That was me yelping by the way, in addition to him. We were all yelping. Yelping. Ahead for us that the hour, one congressman says the Immigration Crisis could become a katrina moment for the president. Is that really fair . Our experts will weigh in. George clooney slamming reports by a british tabloid, well tell you about his new oped. 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Call today to request your free decision guide and find the aarp Medicare Supplement plan to go the distance with you. Go long. Im sure that president bush thought the same thing, that he could look at everything from up in the sky and that he did that for a long time. Sop i hope this doesnt become the katrina moment for president obama saying that he doesnt need to come to the border. He should come down. That was Texas Democratic congressman henry cualler. Hes under member was his own party. Heres what former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee says about the president skipping the border. Its like flying into new orleans in the highest waters of katrina to see creole cooking but never getting near the superdome or the Convention Center where thousands languished in squaller. We are joined by skally cone and ross. Let me ask you off the bat, is it even fair to compare this so to katrina . Hundreds of people lost their lives, their homes, their lively hoods, is this a Fair Assessment . This is the nature of american politics, we always compare whatever is happening right now to something that everyone grease was a disaster in the last presidency. So obviously there are big differences, katrina was a specific Natural Disaster that happened in a very short time as hurricanes tend to do. This has been much of a slow building crisis, you know, that child migrations have been increasing over the last three years, theyre spiking now. But i dont think it has the same, i dont thip it has the same resonance for the american people. I think its bizarre that the president isnt going to the border. When youre taking fire from democratic congressmen over the issue, theres no reason to even risk the kind of perceptions that were associated with bush just flying over the disaster area after katrina. And i think its sort of strange feature of this president s entire second term. A weird, sort of disconnection from some of the basic optics of being president. But, yeah. Ross brings up optics. We have to talk about optics, last night the president was out in denver, shooting pool with governor john hickenlooper, having beers there, everyone deserves to have their fun. Is that a picture the white house should be concerned about with this crisis, with this discussion hanging over his head . Look, on the one hand we could have a conversation about every optical moment and choice that this white house has made. Not all of which i would necessarily agree with, but i do think its fascinating they seem to be held to a ridiculously higher standard of oh hes only supposed to do one thing at one time. Theres always crisis. Theres always problems and he has to jug al lot of balls at the same time. Look, this sort of notion of he should be going to the border. Look, if i were this president , i would be going to certainly visit these camps where the kids are being housed and the humanitarian conditions, but the reason to not visit the border is very obvious. This is not a border crisis. These kids are coming to the border, they are getting stopped, the border is working, republicans are trying to turn this into a their ty of oh the border isnt working, we have a crisis. The immigration policies arent working. These kids, this uptick in kids coming from all over the place, to all kinds of countries from Central America has been happening since long before the president started giving immigration access to younger kids. It isnt working, well one could argue it isnt working if you have numbers that were seeing, 70, 80,000 children arriving and then being stuck in a purgatory where conditions are poor. Im not disguying theres not a crisis. But what republicans are saying, its a sign the president has failed to secure the border. Theyre not slipping through homes, its just not happening. But i think that everybody understands when people talk about securing the border, theyre including the system for holding deportation hearings, the system for housing refugees and so on. I think yes, obvious its not, technically a problem with the border patrol, although it is in the sense that theres a since that the agents who are essentially stopping the migrants and taking responsibility for them are being forced to neglect other duties like drug interdiction dropped off during this crisis. There are specific problems that are happening on the border, and then talking about a border crisis, i think reasonably encompasses a lot of the other difficulties were having right now. Where you place the crisis, there is one, and it does need to be discussed. Hopefully the president and rick perry will make headway when they talk. Lets hope they do. Thank you. Before we go, lighter moment in president ial politics and you mentioned a little bit earlier on a fund raising trip to colorado yet. President obama happened to stop by a bar on a boys night out with the states governor. He asked some roort unusual questions. Of course remember, marijuana, legal in the state of colorado. So listen to the offer the president got here. Do you want a hit, man . Do you want to hit this . Now roos, i am ross, do did you hear they are . Were in the postpresidency when he says yes. He understands the optics of the office. Did he owe america an answer to the question, sally . You know, look, i dont even know where to begin here with this, right, like. I think ross is right, at least the white house optically got this one correct. Its clooes not as drugged aled as all the attacks on the president. Those are the people who are smoking up. He took it in good humor, chuckled, kept it pushing. Probably a smart reaction. No right answer to that question. Great president of the United States. I wish i could, but sally, ross, great to have you, appreciate it guys. Thanks guys. Ahead this hour, were talking about women training with ak47s trying to protect their city, thats next. What does an apron have to do with Car Insurance . Every time you tie on an apron, you make progress. And we like that. Because progress is what we make, too. He cadillac summer collection is here. During the cadillac summers best event, lease this 2014 ats for around 299 a month and make this the summer of style. Unidentified bodies, two children, found in the predominantly shiite town of alexandria. Iraqi militias are forming a new defense against them. Women in dag baghdad, wives, daughters, sisters, they are learning how to use an ak47 while the men in their families are on the frontlines. I want to bring in our cnn military analyst. Its interesting to see that, a little different from them taking up arms and joining them on the frontlines. Theyre staying at home and the idea is that theyll be able to protect, should isis infull trait baghdad, what do you make of this . I think this is an assessment, kind of a backhanded assessment of the shia dominated iraqi army, where is it . Theyre out in the field, but evidently these people feel they cant rely on the army. These are militias doing this. They are a long time iranian sponsored group, theyve been there since the 80s and now theyre training twoim protect themselves. They have decided the iraqi army is probably not capable of stopping these guys from getting into baghdad. And you talked about that, that, those 50 bodies. Those were found south of baghdad. It looks like were seeing them go around the city. Theyre trying to surround the city. Worry about a type of street fighting we saw back in 06, 07, thats what i think this lends itself to. The region in turmoil right now, obviously fighting in israel between the Israeli Forces and hamas in gaza. I want you to look at video right now. It is a wedding disrupted due to an air strike, watch this. Thats in israel right now. More than 100 rockets fired out of gaza. The israeli forced responded with air strikes of their own in gaza. Now the israeli president as well as many other leaders there saying a ground offensive on gaza could happen really any minute now. We seen a big esklation in the capabilities of hamas. Used to be they were firing rockets. We were talking about