In on them. Listen. I left and went to town. My wife called me, she said, we can see the fire way over there. You need to come and get me. I said im on my way. So i just throwed down everything, took off over there. I got on quartz hill and theres two or three or four lanes of traffic coming up, wouldnt let me down in in. So i just dropped everything and i took off running down there and i helped some guy that got burnt and was trying to get out of there. I got him and helped him out of there. And when i got back down there, the fire was just intense. But i still tried to get down in there and they come and stopped me, wouldnt let me down in there. I got my car and took off and passed everybody in the dirt and went all the way around to the other end of quartz hill and come up keswick, and my son was in there. He was up there, but i didnt see him. He was up there and then gary, my son, was on the other side of the house. And gary opened the door to go
what he was trying to do, and hit by the reality of what happened. The story of ed bledsoe and so many stories. Bledsoe said that no one told him anything about evacuating. He said that his wife had called 911 and they told her someone would come get her. For more now, dan simon has been following this story. He has the latest from one of the worsthit neighborhoods in california. Reporter for the first time were now beginning to hear Fire Officials express optimism about the overall effort. They indicated that the Containment Number is going to go up. That means that the resources that they put into this fire now seem to be working. You have about 3,500 firefighters on the front lines, and obviously a lot of aircraft dumping water on the hot spots. In the meantime we are in the lake redding estates subdivision, and you can see this is one of the homes that has been destroyed. You can see this is a twocar garage. You see the two vehicles right here. And underscoring the random nature of it all, you can see next door, you see this house
The latest news from Around The World. Really heard a good answer for that unless they evacuate large swaths of the population days in advance. And that creates chaos as well. So its tough. Brianna sacks, im sure you heard that story just a few minutes ago of Ed Bledsoe Talking about the fact his wife called 911 and they told her that someone would get her. So certainly the evacuation word getting that out very important. Thank you for your time today. Well keep in touch with you. No problem. Thank you, brianna. Brianna and our other reporters, pedram is here now, saying this fire just moved ahead of all the officials and the firefighters and the police. It was taking the lead, and thats where they are. Yeah. An incredible fire. When you think about the month of july across the western if youre watching us from there you know its absolutely among the hottest weve ever observed. In place like seattle, washington second hottest july going to be wrapping up here soon on record across that region. But really the northwestern
corner of the u. S. And in particular northern portions of california, you look from space, from regd points southward, the smoke, the haze, all of this really seen from space. Many, many miles up into space looking down toward the surface because of the vast nature and how expansive the flames have been over the last several days in this region. In fact, when you do the math its about 140 square miles of land that have been consumed because of the carr fire. You take, say, the island of manhattan, thats about 22 square miles of land. Thats about six times the amount of land of manhattan encompassed there and consumes in a matter of a few days. Kind of puts a perspective on the scale of this fire. 5 contained. But again you heard firefighters and officials saying that will be expected to be increased in the next couple of days. Of course we have the Ferguson Fire farther toward the east and the Cranston Fire farther toward the south. But upwards of nearly 90 largescale fires, almost every single one of them related to at least some drought thats been in place. We know the carr Fire Associated with a vehicle that had broken down, pulled to the side of the
road, and ignited the flames on the dry grass across that region of northern california. And unfortunately in this part of the state if you have been here you know the lay of the land. Very mountainous, very hilly terrain. And the thermal signature of these fires shows you the landscape theyre atop of. When you have a landscape as such, when you have sloped land like this, it often allows the fire to pick up speed and tremendous speed as it travels uphill. I use the analogy frequently of taking a Match Lighting it and holding it straight out. And you see that burn slowly toward your finger. But if you give it a slope it burns very rapidly toward your hand and thats whats happening on these hillsides and these communities. Thats an easy way to understand it. Pedram, thank you so much. Thank you, pedram. Still ahead here on cnn newsroom, the u. S. President attacks the Russia Investigation as an illegal scam as he calls it, and thats just the beginning. Why he claims the Special Counsel, who is a republican, he claims he has numerous Conflicts Of Interest. Well look into that. Also ahead, President Trump is threatening to shut down the
government over his border wall. But a shutdown could make the midterm elections even more challenging for republicans. Well delve into that. Youre watching cnn newsroom. Come on dad higher higher parents arent perfect, but then they make us Kraft Mac Cheese and everythings good again. I wok Harmonica Interrupts ld. And told people about geico. Harmonica Interrupts
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an image of the u. S. President there arriving back to washington after a weekend at his new jersey golf club. Mr. Trump arrived at the white house with his granddaughter on sunday. The president did not make any Public Comments during his weekend away but he did go on another twitter tirade on sunday. This time he called out special Counsel Robert Mueller by name, alleging he has Conflicts Of Interest, that his investigation is rigged, and that hes leading a team of angry democrats. It is worth reiterating, Robert Mueller is a registered republican and he has the Justice Department stamp of approval to oversee the Russia Investigation. Our Boris Sanchez takes a closer look now at the president s twitter rampage. Reporter cnn has reached out to the white house to get clarity on specifically what President Trump was referencing when he mentioned Business Conflicts with the special Counsel Robert Mueller. We have yet to hear back. But previous reporting may indicate what the president was
talking about here. Earlier this year the Washington Post and the New York Times separately reported that the president had privately expressed frustration with what he sees as Conflicts Of Interest with Robert Mueller rooted in what he believes are unpaid dues that Robert Mueller owed his golf club in virginia. A spokesperson for the Special Counsel at the time responded to the Washington Post saying that those claims being made by President Trump were inaccurate. Of course the broader context here is that reporting came out when the New York Times published that four sources had told them that President Trump tried to fire Robert Mueller last year and that in that process he expressed his frustration to don mcgahn, the white house counsel. Don mcgahn refused to carry out that order to fire mueller. In fact, he threatened to resign according to sources. At that point President Trump backed off of his decision to try to fire mueller. Now hes obviously frustrated again, tweeting out some of his
most direct attacks on the Special Counsel. The backdrop of that of course is this bombshell reporting. Sources close to Michael Cohen, the president s former attorney, saying he is prepared to testify to the Special Counsel that President Trump approved that june 2016 meeting between his son donald trump jr. , other members of his campaign, and russian nationals, promising dirt on hillary clinton. It also comes on the heels of the release of that secret recording made by Michael Cohen of a conversation that he had with President Trump. Rudy giuliani, the president s relatively new attorney, talked about those recordings this weekend, suggesting that they had been tampered with or doctored. Listen to this. He abruptly ended that recording as soon as the president said the word check. We are now what were investigating is why did how did that happen . What actually did happen . What was eliminated . And then hes got to raise that question with every one of these tapes, how many of them did he play around with. We have determined the fact that he tampered with the fact in the sense that he abruptly midconversation turned it off. Now, we know he didnt do that for a good reason. Reporter the president and his Legal Team Strategy here is clear. They want to question the credibility not only of Michael Cohen, who just a few months ago they referred to as an honorable man, but also the veracity of the recordings that he made. Boris sanchez, cnn, traveling with the president just outside bedminster, new jersey. Lets bring in freddie gray. Hes the Deputy Editor at the spectator, a weekly british magazine, to talk more about whats going on here on this side of the pond. Freddie, thank you for talking with us. We just heard that story from our reporter about what the white house is trying to do to debunk the Mueller Investigation, something theyve done over and over again. The question is is it working . Well, i think that every time trump goes on one of these
twitter tirades, i think there were 17 yesterday, which is pretty spectacular even by his standards, everybody assumes that its a sort of venting of frustration. He has obviously the cohen thing hanging over him. He has Paul Manafort coming up this week, the Paul Manafort trial. So he must be very tense and anxious. And everybody assumes that this is an unconscious, unwilling venting of rage and anger. Im not sure it is. I think perhaps hes trying to hype up the sense of drama to a certain extent. And in fact, often when he goes on these tirades About Mueller or about the mueller inquiry, i admit yesterday was spectacular, its really a Diversion Tactic because hes preparing to do something more significant on foreign policy. Perhaps it will be iran. Well see. Thats true. Well, the president continues to paint the free press as the enemy of the country every step of the way. Yeah. As this Mueller Investigation ticks on. Saying dont believe anything
you see or hear. The question is how many of his supporters believe him . Apparently a lot. How does he continue to get that support do you think . Well, i think it saddens me to say it as a journalist but i think unfortunately the media are a lot more hated than wed like to admit. And while we may all agree, and i think you know, even News Channels that are usually very opposed to cnn have been supportive of cnn over trumps war with cnn, but i think that the truth is a lot of people dont trust the media. A lot of people think of the media as bad if not worse than the politicians. So it is quite an effective tactic among the base, although i think the vee mens with which hes now doing it is perhaps alienating rather a lot of people who fundamentally believe in free speech, thank goodness. Yeah. And you talk about that vehemence. The New York Times met with him recently to talk about that and they wrote about it. If we have that. About the meeting. Mr. Trump expressed pride in popularizing the phrase fake news when he met with the New York Times and said other countries had begun banning it. So the publisher of the New York Times responded that those countries were dictatorships that that they were not banning fake news but rather independent scrutiny of their actions. It seems, though, the meeting with the New York Times nothing to cause mr. Trump to back down. Sorry. We lost mr. Gray yeah. Thank you so much for joining us. We lost you there for a moment. Can you hear me now . I can. Sorry. Youre back. Oh, yes. So sorry about that. My point was as we have to go here, though, that this president just will not back down no matter how the media tries to respond to his continuous attacks. No. He will not back down in the war on the media because he senses hes going to win it. Well, thank you so much. Well wait and see about that, wont we . Those of us in the media. Freddie gray, thank you, from the spectator. Thanks for joining us. We just keep reporting the news. Yep. Thats all we can do. The u. S. President is now 19 months in office and is returning to a Central Campaign issue that fired up his base in 2016, a promise to build a border wall. But a change in whos paying for it. Lets listen. We are going to build a great border wall we will build a great, great wall. Were going to build a wall. Dont worry about it. Oh, were building it. I promise, we will build the wall. And whos going to pay for the wall . [ crowd shouts mexico ] how about no . Mexicos not going to pay for that wall. In fact, President Trump apparently expects congress to foot the bill for his border wall. And hes again threatening a Government Shutdown if he doesnt get his way, tweeting, i would be willing to shut down government if the democrats do
not give us the votes for Border Security which includes the wall. Meantime, more than 700 children separated from their parents at the border still have not been reunited with their families after the courtordered Reunification Deadline passed on friday. Cnns Kaley Hartung has more for us from mcallen, texas. Reporter as weve reported on the impact of President Trumps Zero Tolerance policy, weve learned no two Family Stories are the same. But there have been some Common Threads among them. That of confusion and frustration. At times chaos and incredible challenges in communication. The story that best encapsulates where we are today, though, is that of a woman well call alejandra. About a month and a half ago she and her 6yearold daughter crossed the u. S. Border. They had fled their home country of honduras because of the Gang Violence there. When they crossed the border, they were detained and separated. 11 days ago alejandra was told that she would be reunited with her daughter later that day, given her paperwork for release. But that never happened. As of today she continues to sit in a Detention Facility in texas. Her daughter remains in new york. And as alejandra asks questions, as she sits in limbo, heres what she says shes told. Translator the first thing that i ask is always, do you know when will be, my girl will be brought here so she can be reunified with me . And they tell me, no, i dont know anything, they say to me. Reporter alejandras daughters attorney has been told a red flag has been raised in the childs case. Hhs says they will not comment on specific cases. But a spokes