Venezuela is sparking a forceful response and even put an army on high alert. We begin with breaking news. With deadlines on family reunification looming, the Trump Administration is now saying that still as many as 3,000 imMigrant Children remain separated from their parents, but they do say they are working hard to comply with court orders to reunite those families and that they plan to meet those deadlines as much as they can. Hhs secretary alex azar says that even under these circumstances, the administration wants to treat people as humanly as possible. The president tweeted, Law Enforcement at the border is doing a great job, but the laws they are forced to work with are insane. When people with or without children enter our country, they must be told to leave without our country being forced to endure a long and costly trial. Tell the people out and they must leave, just as they would if they were standing on your front lawn. Cnns senior White House Correspondent jeff zeleny is at the white house. Jeff, looking at these numbers here, it looks like the administration has made no progress. In fact, there might be some back slipping here on how many children are still being held away from their parents. Jim, that certainly has been the question all week long. What are the numbers here . How many people is this administration talking about . Those numbers have been impossible to find because they, quite frankly, have not been answering the questions. Just a short time ago, there was a press briefing on this. There were the numbers you just said. 3,000 is the estimate here. The number of children under the age of 5 is around 100 or so. But that is no movement. The fact is the deadline is coming up for reunifying the families and children under the age of 5 by the 26th of july. No sense of how this is going to happen, when this is happening. Talk of dna being used to link parents and children. Im not sure this cleared anything up here. It certainly did not show theres been progress in terms of reunifying these children and their parents. We are weeks after the president signed that executive order, jim. Thats right. The last number that hhs gave was 2,047. Now they say possibly 3,000 or around 3,000. Yes, its an approximate number. It could be more than that. We simply do not know. That was a ballpark figure. You think there would be a precise head count here. These are people were talking about, after all. And some of them kids. Apparently 100 children under the age of 5. The other big step looming for this white house, the agenda for President Trumps summit with president vladimir putin. Tell us what youre hearing there. This certainly is going to be something thats on the president s schedule coming up. We heard from a couple Senior Administration officials just a short time ago this morning on some of the agenda items for that meeting thats going to be in helsinki a week from monday, on the 17th of this month. They are going to be talking about arms control. They are going to be talking about syria. The question always, jim, as you well know s russian meddling going to be a central part of the conversation of the dialogue between the u. S. President and the russian president. Up until now, the u. S. President , President Trump, has rarely, if ever, acknowledged the extent of meddling in the election that all u. S. Intelligence agencies agree upon, but Senior Administration officials were telling reporters a short time ago that russian meddling will be one topic of discussion. Time and time again, whether it was at their first meeting at the g20 summit meeting or last fall in vietnam when president putin and President Trump met briefly on the sidelines of the apec summit, theyve never fully addressed in a fulsome way russian meddling in the elections. I think theres little reason to believe they will again. The president simply wants to overlook that fact, but Administration Officials say it will be at least one of the topics but certainly not the topic. Syria, arms control at the top of the list. What keind of topic will it e if just last week the president doubted russian interference. Jim, thanks. The first of three Court Ordered deadlines for those children separated a the border is tomorrow. The youngest of the children must be reunited with their parents by next tuesday. Joining me now is nia malika henderson, as well as cnn political analyst Eliana Johnson and juli davis. Looking at these numbers here, its in the numbers. 2,047 was the number hhs gave last week. Now they say 3,000. Looks like there are more children in custody today than before. It certainly sounds like theyre headed in the wrong direction. Its hard to know because they havent been giving consistent numbers. We dont know how accurate the counts they have are or the counts theyre giving to the public. That 2,047 they put out last week, that represented six children having been reunited with their families since the president had signed his executive order. This is obviously a much slower process than anyone wants to see. Certainly now that theyre facing a Court Deadline next week for these youngest of children to be reunited, its hard to imagine how they get from a half dozen to a hundred in the space of a few days. The fact theyre now looking at dna does tell you they were not prepared to have to do this. They obviously dont have another way of tracking who these children are related to and how to get them back with their families. Theyre really having to play catch up. Obviously the numbers speak for themselves. Theyre not able to do it. Its interesting. Often the president will tweet out alternate explanations for things. In that tweet where the president is trying to turn the focus back on the families, dont come to the border with your children, comparing it to someone standing on your front lawn. Politically, this issue had somewhat turned through the president s efforts and democrats efforts of this idea of abolishing i. C. E. Does this turn the focus back to the situation with those kids at the border . I think we have to see it certainly as we approach this july 26th deadline. I think more and more focus is going to come to what are the numbers. But i think the president was put on the defensive when he signed that executive order because his base didnt want him to do it. Yet, there was enormous political and media pressure on him to do that. You saw increasingly aggressive tweets from him about how strong he is on border policy. So the administration was sending out inconsistent messages, but what i think weve seen since the signing of that order is sort of a return to the strategic and policy ambiguity from the administration and lack of transparency in terms of numbers and exactly what is happening on the border. Right. And nia malika, it seems to expose here, despite whatever pr efforts the administration is attempting, that there was no hard plan for reunification when the president issued that order. Right. The plan was for this separation, right. Because we heard from sessions and we heard from kelly that this was what was going to happen. That kids might end up in foster care, as has happened. But there was no database set up. There was no tracking system. There was no estimation as to how many children they might expect to come across the border with their parents. Now we have a real patchwork of systems in place here. Some kids might be in new york. Their parents might be in another state. Some kids are in foster care. Some kids are in shelters. Now you have sort of faith organizations and nonprofits stepping in to really try to figure out how to reunite these kids. It really shows incompetence by this white house and by this administration. The fact theres no plan for reunification means there was no plan for the implementation of the zero tolerance policy, which i think is even more shocking since the administration was in full force behind that. Zwl it also shows, does it not, that it really wasnt a priority. This is a policy instituted intentionally by this administrati administration. Presumably if you cared, you would have had some process in place. They talk about the power of deterrence and how people have to know theyre going to face consequences if they enter the country illegally. That was the whole point of having the zero tolerance policy in effect and the whole point of telling people f y, if you brin your children, you could get separated, but you would have thought if that were the objective, they would have had a plan in place to say, okay, well, if youre willing to go home, if youre willing to abide by the laws, youre going to be reunited with your family. Now to elianas point, theyre sort of in the worst of both worlds. Not only did his base not want him to sign that order, the president himself was e areluct to sign that order. It actually hasnt had any effect. Hes had to walk back the policy, and he hasnt been able to reverse the negative effects. Its a tough spot. This is, is it not, the way things play out under trump, right . As i hear you talking about that, i was covering north korea, it reminds me, you have things thrown out there, get the summit together, but there were no specifics about what was actually going to be agreed to. You youre trying to clean that up. You see this pattern with a whole host of issues, foreign and domestic, with this administration. I think its particularly acute in the immigration policymaking process. At politico, we wrote a piece about president ial adviser stephen miller. Hes hosted sort of secretive immigration policy meetings. The Government Agencies are caught unawares. I think that injects sort of chaotic and confusing aspects, particularly into the realm of immigration. And tough on kids. Its 3,000 kids, for crying out loud. I know that the president calculates theres a political advantage here, but the hhs said today, a hundred of those kids are under 5 years old. So theyre sitting there in some random border post or somewhere else around the country, and they still havent been able to talk to their parents. Some of them probably cant talk to their parents because theyre 2 years old or 9 months old. So theyre having to resort to these dna testing to figure out who these kids are, who their parents are. It really is a nightmare scenario for this white house, and republicans certainly are feeling that. Likely a lot of those folks are back home in their states, hearing from constituents about this. Polls are showing most americans think this is an inhumane process thats going on. And it is a humanitarian crisis of this administrations own making. Theres no amount of spin that can get out of this. He sort of cant declare victory at this point because there are humans involved in various places. Little humans. I want to get your reaction. We have some news from the white house. The white house officially announcing now that it has hired the former fox news executive bill schein as assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff for communications. He was ousted from fox for his handling of the networks Sexual Harassment scandal, a series of them. He himself a protege of the late roger ailes, who was pushed out for his own involvement. Reaction . Evidence of the increased symbiotic relationship between fox news and this administration . Well, yes, that, but also i think that weve come to see that the president really wants people around him who he knows and feels like get him and he gets them. This is clearly an example of that. Theres obviously been quite a bit of flux with the communications staff. Theres been displeasure between the president and john kelly, his chief of staff, and i think theres a real sense that they need someone in there who can talk directly to the president or at least the president feels that way. It seems like bill shine is going to be that person. It remains to be seen how thats going to affect the rest of the communications structure, which has been a bit dysfunctional. Theres still been no hope hicks replacement. Sounds like bill shine has a communications role, but hes not the communications director. I suppose you could say the president is the dmun kagcommun director. Thats the thing. As you said, this is donald trump. Hes his own Communications Adviser now. Hes got someone there in bill shine whos only going to amplify a lot of those i think stin instincts he displays all over twitter. He has a history of producing images that ignites the president s base. This also underscores the power, i think, of sean hannity. Bill shine was hannitys first producer. Theyre the best of friends. I do think this will only strengthen, really, the links between the white house and fox news, something thats really unprecedented, i think, in modern history. And sean hannity and the president , we know, speak frequently. Thanks to all of you. We have a lot more news coming up. He may not have been thinking outloud, but President Trumps question about, yes, invading venezuela, a country, puts an army there on high alert. Plus, an Alarming Development in the uk. Were told that a couple that has been poisoned by the very same russian nerve agent used in the previous attack on a former russian spy inside the uk, now were learning whether they knew each other and what it is that might have exposed them to this substance. You shouldnt be rushed into booking a hotel. With expedias addon advantage, booking a flight unlocks discounts on select hotels until the day you leave for your trip. Addon advantage. Only when you book with expedia. You always get the lowest price on our rooms, guaranteed . Lets say it in a really low voice. Carl . Lowest price, guaranteed. Just stick with badda book. Badda boom. Book now at choicehotels. Com he eats a bowl of hammers at every meal he holds your house in the palm of his hand hes your home and auto man big jim, hes got you covered great big jim, there aint no other so, this is covered, right . Yes, maam. Take care of it for you right now. Giddyup hi this is jamie. We need some help. Welcome back. News now on the special counsels investigation. Robert mueller is said to be hiring more prosecutors to look into possible collusion and obstruction of justice by President Trump and his associates during the president ial campaign and the transition. Mueller has started tapping Additional Justice Department resources, including career prosecutors and fbi agents. Bloomberg says the new hires could be a sign that mueller plans to eventually hand off some of his investigations as the overall probe expands. I want to get more insight on all this from someone whos been part of an investigation like this before. A former Watergate Special prosecutor. Richard, hes already got a lot of investigative threads to look at regarding the president and manafort. Now hiring more prosecutors. What does that say to you . Well, this is a targetrich environment for any prosecutor, and he has dealt out to the Southern District of new york and other places from time to time pieces of the investigation. He has only, i think, 17 fulltime lawyers on his staff, which is very thin for the amount of work that hes got in front of him. And so having assigned and delegated individuals who are at justice, who can be using to him in pursuing leads is a logical consequence of all hes got on his table. So with the Southern District in new york in Michael Cohens case, it looked like he farmed out there. You have possible criminal activity related to taxi licenses, et cetera, things that wouldnt naturally be his focus under the russia investigation. With these hires, does that look like to you stuff that he wants to that he sees as under his umbrella or stuff he might want to say, hey, you take a look at this, not really relevant to the central focus of in investigation. On the one hand, he has two trials coming up this summer for manafort. One in alexandria and the other in the district of columbia. While his resources are drained to take care of those two trials, he still has ongoing investigative needs. It is entirely logical that he would seek to supplement what resources he has with available people from the department of justice or the u. S. Attorneys office. Hes drawn upon the Southern District, the eastern district, and experienced prosecutors from the department of justice in staffing his needs. What hes wound up with is a meritocracy of highly experienced, capable, nonpartisan individuals who have demonstrated their b ability time after time over decades. Thats the thing. The president of course has called moo called mueller and his whole team a bunch of closet democrats. You go into the department of justice, career prosecutors, to tap these folks. Certainly seems to undermine the president s argument. Of course it does. And its right out of the same nixon playbook. He did the same thing with the watergate staff, with no evidence of any political bias. Its just one of the things they do. Another thing they will do is squawk about the amount of money that has been expended in connection with the investigation. Its just par for the course. Final quick question. As you see mueller hire more prosecutors in this parlor game of when will he finish, wrap this up, is this an indication to you its close end toing or that theres a long way to go . Well, i think there are steps that need to be taken. You have to see whos going to cooperate and what Additional Information any such cooperation brings to the table. But any sense this is going to wrap up tomorrow . I have the sense that by the end of the summer well see a report and see some additional indictments. Well certainly be watching. Thanks very much. Coming up, reports that President Trump once floated the idea of invading venezuela has now reached that countrys president. What hes telling his army to do in response. And as the soccer team trapped inside a cave gets a crash course in scuba diving, hear why some of the boys there are really just not close to being able to get out. Im a small business, but i have. Big dreams. And big plans. So how do i make the efforts of 8 employees. Feel like 50 . How can i share new plans virtually . How can i download an efile . Virtual tours . Zipfile . Really big files . In sec