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start." nice to have you with us. i'm ashleigh banfield >> and i'm zoraida sambolin. it's 5:00 a.m. here in the east. let's get started. attorney eric holder to be held in contempt in congress. yesterday the members of the government oversight and reform committee voted along party lines to recommend citing him for contempt for failing to turn over subpoenaed documents from the botched fast and furious gun operation, documents that are now off limits to republicans, and everyone else, because the president has invoked executive privilege to keep all of those documents now under wraps. joe johns is live from washington, d.c., this morning. joe, this is the first time that president obama has used the executive privilege. i think it was president clinton that maybe used it 14 times. how rare is this, and what is going to happen next to the attorney general? >> reporter: it is rare, but on the other hand, presidents do it, and most presidents do it at least once or twice during the course of four years or so. as you said, president obama's done it once. president george w. bush six times. bill clinton, 14 times. president george h.w. bush, just once. and ronald reagan three. so all over the place, but once or twice during the course of an administration, you'll see it. so big question, i guess, what happens next. a vote on contempt in the full house would be next, assuming there's no negotiated settlement, which is typically what happens in these cases. after that, it would be referred to the united states attorney for the district of columbia, which, by the way, is headed by attorney general holder. that's the justice department. so kind of unlikely that the justice department would agree to prosecutor its own attorney general. that, of course, means a thing like this could be thrown into the courts which could go on for years. most of the time what you see in situations like this is some type of negotiated settlement. the question would be whether disclosure of the information the committee is seeking could be arranged by letting just a few people look at it or narrowing the kinds of questions that are asked of a witness, something to that effect. but still, given what's going on in washington, you could certainly see how this thing could start creeping toward the house floor as soon as next week, zoraida. >> republicans are accusing the white house of a cover-up. democrats are calling it a witch hunt. former presidential adviser david gergen talked to john king last night about how this sounds to americans. >> for a lot of americans who don't understand the complexities and really don't care about the complexities, i think it's one more illustration, as if we needed anymore, that washington is broken. >> it can be very confusing as you're watching this, right? congress has never held a sitting attorney general in contempt. is this political? >> reporter: people are going to say that, certainly it's an election year, and lost in all of this is the attorney general's claim that releasing this information would affect ongoing investigations, ongoing prosecutions, and that's the kind of thing a court might want to actually weigh in on, if you will. but clearly, the sides are very far apart this year, democrats calling this a witch hunt. republicans saying they need to get to the bottom of it. they say they need to find out whether they need to pass other laws, for example, to make sure it doesn't happen again. the sides are very far apart on this one. >> and just unprecedented that eric holder is going through this as a sitting attorney general. thank you, joe johns. at 7:00 on starting point, elijah cummings will join soledad o'brien live. and then at 8:00, soledad goes one on one with senator charles grassley, the ranking member of the committee. if you live in the northeast, you know it was hot, hot, hot. absolutely brutal. temperatures are expected to break records today. rob marciano is here for us. man, i was trying to get through it. i was trying to blow up the slip and slide for the backyard and almost passed out. >> may be better to do it today, ashleigh, because it's going to be even warmer. there were records yesterday. some of them are tough to beat because of what we've seen in the past. newark set a record of 98 degrees. richmond, 98 degrees. burlington, vermont, 95. even as far north as the canadian border. toronto set a record high. video of folks just trying to stay cool. there were cooling stations set up at some of the bigger cities. the water over the head that's always a popular number. boy, if you can get to the beach. this time of year, the atlantic up there, it's pretty chilly. it will cool you off in a hurry, that's for sure. let's look at what we saw yesterday in the big cities and what we'll see today. boston 97. today's forecast high 98. boston, 97. today's forecast high 98. and in d.c., we may well touch 100 degrees today. i think that's a record. you couple in the humidity, and that makes it feel much warmer than it is. and you get sunlight, warmer than that. we're looking at heat indices of about 110 or better. we will see a bit of a cooldown come saturday or sunday, but today especially, and tomorrow will be hot as well, it's going to be dangerously hot. stay cool out there. >> that's the key, rob. dangerously hot. this isn't just an inconvenience. this could be lethal. >> yeah. year over year, unfortunately, heat is actually the number one weather related killer out there. check on the elderly, your neighbors that may be sick. those are the ones that are more susceptible. >> and the little ones also, you've got to keep them hydrated >> and don't lock them in the car, that's for sure. >> and your pets. water pouring through the seats, leaving a seal on the road. torrential overnight flooding leading to the evacuation of many homes and even zoo animals. i have friend that lives in this area, and she said it's horrific. zoo workers recovered two seals and a polar bear that managed to get out. all that rain softened up the roads opening up a sinkhole that swallowed a car. so far no reports of any serious injuries. after refusing to accept his resignation in the spring, there's been a change. officials in sanford, florida, have now fired police chief bill lee. you might remember that he took a lot of heat for how he handled the trayvon martin shooting after deciding not to arrest gunman george zimmerman. the city managers in that city of sanford say they dismissed him because the people of sanford need a chief that they can trust and respect. the interim chief has been sitting in, richard myers will remain on duty. he'll have that job while the department searches for lee's replacement. new developments in the trayvon martin case. police releasing a heart breaking 911 tape of martin's father calling them 12 hours after his son had been shot and killed. a worried tracy martin was trying to file a missing persons report after his son had failed to come home. >> my son's up here with me, and he left -- i'm in sanford. he don't know anybody up here. >> and you said it was your son that's missing? >> yes. >> how long has he been missing for? >> since last night. >> tracy martin had no idea at the time of that call that his son's body was lying in the sanford city morgue. closing arguments are set to begin in just under four hours of the child sex abuse trial of jerry sandusky. the former penn state assistant coach did not take the stand and testify yesterday before his defense team finally rested its case. sandusky is accuseded of sexually abusing ten boys over a 15-year period. the jury is expected to begin deliberating sometime after today's closing arguments. lebron james has the chance to win his first nba championship tonight as the miami heat take on the oklahoma city thunder in game five of the nba finals. the heat lead the thunder 3-1 in the best of seven series. it's the first time the thunder have faced an elimination game during the 2012 postseason. miami's all-star trio -- lebron james, dwyane wade, chris bosh -- will try to clinch the championship tonight in front of their home crowd at american airlines arena. hang in there, oklahomans or anyone who loves that team. it could happen. it's never happened before, but it could happen. >> it's nine minutes now past 5:00 in the morning on the east coast. soaked but saved. watch this video. it is absolutely remarkable. there is a couple in a waterfall, and, yes, while cool, it is extremely dangerous. ♪ [ female announcer ] letting her home be turned into a training facility? 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i can't afford one, i don't know how to say it. >> so 3 of the top 5 going to foreigners? >> but when you have gm able to beat the industry average, that shows you progress in the detroit. we're making progress. >> there you go. >> guess what else we're making progress on, romans? >> what? >> gas prices. >> yea, she knows. i can never stump you. you're on it. >> they're going down, down, down. because christine knows so much about this, we're going to make her work hard on it. she's going to explain why it may sound like terrific news, but there's a catch. ami, florid. in here, great food demands a great presentation. so at&t showed corporate caterers how to better collaborate by using a mobile solution, in a whole new way. using real-time photo sharing abilities, they can create and maintain high standards, from kitchen to table. this technology allows us to collaborate with our drivers to make a better experience for our customers. 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[ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet? good morning. 22 minutes past 5:00 on the east coast. we are minding your business this morning. u.s. stock futures down this morning, this after mixed markets closing yesterday. the dow losing 13 points. >> and all that because of the federal reserve saying growth is slowing. christine romans here to continue the explanation. >> it's not so surprising the federal reserve is lowering its forecast for the year for the u.s. economy. if you've been watching this program, you know we've been saying we've hit a little bit of a rough patch here, the recovery is ailing, and a lot of folks are saying, when you look at the consumer, when you look at the u.s. economy, you can see some real concerns here about what's happening. the fed basically said that too. the fed chief ben bernanke saying, look, the labor market is improving, but it's not improving as quickly as you would like and not improving enough for anybody to improve it. he did reject the fed being out of ammunition. the fed has been doing herculean things to keep the oxygen flowing in the financial system. something called operation twist, they're going to do that, something that keeps the money pumping. but the fed chief saying that might not be the end of it. listen to exactly what he said. >> if we don't see continued improvement in the labor market, we'll be prepared to take additional steps if appropriate. >> so be prepared to take additional steps if appropriate. there are a few things maybe the fed can do, but they're not doing them right now. they're extending operation twist and lowering the growth forecast. let me tell you exactly how they lower the growth forecast. gdp 1.9% to 2.4%. that's not enough to make you feel better or grow the jobs market. they see the unemployment rate at 8% to 8.2%. their previous forecast was the jobless rate would fall to 7.8%. but they're seeing 8% unemployment so far this year, so status quo. that's tough. and status quo and a slowing global environment means commodities are going down big. this is the silver lining, if you can call it that. gas prices are going to keep going down because oil prices are back down to $80 a barrel. $80 a barrel. remember? gas prices will probably keep going down. you've got commodities down worldwide after the fed announcement. a slowing global growth means commodities are down like gold and copper. oil is down like 15% over the past few months. we'll expect to see gas prices continue to go down as well. >> that unemployment number, that really sticks out. no modern president has been reelected with unemployment over 8%. >> 7%. the rate was 7.2%. >> 8% unemployment is tough. it's tough in an election year. it really is. and some of those battleground states have been improving, though. maybe tomorrow or monday, i'll do this. i'll look at the battleground states and show you that most of the unemployment rate has gone up. but 59% of people, according to bank rate, say they're going to walk into the voting booth, and they're going to vote based on their personal financial situation. >> that day. >> that day. with congress threatening to step in, the nfl takes action. coming up, what the league p