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Republics Will Proceed with Contempt Vote Against Eric Holder. Interview With Florida Congressman John Mica. John Edwards' Mistress Tells All. Discouraging News from the Fed Board of Governors. Turmoil Over Health of Hosni Mubarak. Man Who Killed Molester Found Not Guilty.

Aired June 20, 2012 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Here we go, hour two. Welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

We begin with the word bigfooted. Bigfooted by the president of the United States. Very, very soon, Republicans say they will go ahead with a contempt vote against Attorney General Eric Holder even after President Barack Obama invoked his executive privilege to withhold these documents about the botched Fast and Furious gun running investigation. And these are the very documents that Republicans, they wanted Holder to turn over and they are fuming over this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN MICA (R), FLORIDA: Bringing about one of the worst besmirchments on the history of the Department of Justice is indeed an injustice to the Congress, to the American people and this important investigative arm of the House of Representatives.

This is a very sad day for the United States of America when the president would engage himself at the last minute and try to exert executive privilege.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That was Florida Congressman John Mica speaking at today's hearing.

And he's joining me live.

Congressman, welcome.

Today, here we go. You have the president using executive privilege for the very first time during his presidency -- we should remind our viewers of that -- to block your committee from seeing these Fast and Furious documents. We just heard you say this is a very, very sad day. What is this about this, the executive privilege, that irks you so much?

MICA: Well, here you have one of the highest judicial offices of the United States, the chief prosecutorial officer, the attorney general of the United States. Now, his office and possibly the attorney general was involved in selling weapons to drug dealers in Mexico where an agent of the United States was murdered with those weapons. All we're trying to do is get information to conduct an investigation about that matter.

And here, again, the president of the United States I think has done a great disservice to this whole process by trying to again close down what we're trying to do. And this may go back to another administration. What he's doing is wrong and it subverts the congressional investigative process.

BALDWIN: And just to go back to what you said, that Eric Holder is possibly -- and that is the word -- possibly involved here in Fast and Furious.

MICA: Right.

BALDWIN: That is being investigated. That is what Chairman Issa wants to get to the bottom of, who knew what and when.

I want to play a little something. This is what President Obama actually said to CNN. This was back in 2007 when he was just a senator running for president. Here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 2007)

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D) ILLINOIS: There's been a tendency on the part of this administration to try to hide behind executive privilege every time there's something a little shaky that's taking place. And I think the administration would be best served by coming clean on this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, Congressman, fair to say his views have changed.

(CROSSTALK)

MICA: Yes, by his own words.

And, again, this is a pretty serious matter. It's a pretty sad day. Again, you have the Department of Justice, our chief prosecutorial office in the land involved in an incident in which a U.S. agent was murdered with weapons that the Department of Justice provided.

Now, for almost one year, 11 months throughout most of 2011, they denied any knowledge about any of this. Then they changed their tune. This is unprecedented. There's a place for executive privilege, and it should be invoked in certain instances.

But this isn't going after political appointees. This isn't going after some secret mission that should be kept confidential and you exert executive privilege. This is a very serious matter that...

(CROSSTALK) BALDWIN: It's a serious matter, if I may interject, though.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: But he has the right to do this. I was actually glancing at my computer because I wanted to pull up this list of sort of the past six presidents or so and their examples.

MICA: Right.

BALDWIN: President Clinton, I remember off the top of my head, used it 14 times. President Bush I and II did as well.

But here is my question. And thank you, guys. Here is the map I was looking for.

Sir, if -- Congressman Mica, if this executive privilege essentially protects Eric Holder here as we go forward, now that it's been used by the president, my question then is why go ahead with a contempt vote? Why? Because for a lot of people, this is Republican vs. Democrat and they say this is just theater. It amounts to nothing.

(CROSSTALK)

MICA: No, it isn't.

And I'm not sure how much of the executive privilege will hold. And that will probably be contested.

But we're going to go forward. It's our responsibility to go forward. He is in contempt of subpoenas of the Congress and we want him to comply. Last night, he came in. The offer was almost ludicrous, that he would provide us with some documents if we would drop the investigation.

That's an offense to the American people, to the system of justice and to this whole process. We need to get to the bottom of what went wrong and make certain people are held accountable, one, and, two, that this doesn't happen again.

BALDWIN: Congressman, I know that the other side never likes it when a president invokes executive privilege. Former President George W. Bush, he did it six times, including blocking documents and testimony over Justice Department firings. That was back in 2006.

How is President Obama's use of executive privilege any worse than President Bush's?

MICA: Well, again, you have to look at the instances.

It's been used by both sides, and sometimes politically. But there's no case that I can think of -- I have been on the committee, and it's a good thing to be there for some time to see how these different maneuvers are used. But there's no instance in which you have had a Department of Justice or an agency like that involved in expediting the transfer of weapons into another country to drug dealers and then a U.S. agent killed. There's just nothing that compares to this.

And there's no reason this shouldn't be investigated. And now if he's invoking executive privilege and saying the White House knew something about this, this raises even more questions in my mind. I think we will continue the contempt proceedings in just a few minutes. And then we will see where we proceed from here.

BALDWIN: OK. We will be watching.

(CROSSTALK)

MICA: He is in contempt. He is in contempt of Congress.

BALDWIN: I hear you. Congressman Mica, thank you.

MICA: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Want to just get to a little background here on executive privilege. Presidents have used it 25 times since 1980. And I just want you to take a look at a couple different presidents and how many times they have used it.

As I mentioned, you see at the top of the list President Obama. This is time number one for him. Former President Bill Clinton did the most, by far, you see, using it 14 times.

I want to bring in chief White House -- say that again? OK. Thank you.

Jessica Yellin, White House correspondent, chief, Jessica Yellin.

Explain what happens if they do continue. You just heard Congressman Mica saying he is in contempt, he is in contempt. So, if he is, then what?

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, then there will be a clash between the two branches. And we have seen this before.

The legislative branch can now today have a vote in committee and that -- this committee could vote because it's Republican, overwhelmingly Republican, could vote to hold Holder in contempt. Then it will go presumably to the House floor. And that could happen as soon as next week, hold him in contempt.

And then the executive branch could decide, nope, we're not turning over those documents. And then it sort of goes to the courts to figure out who wins. And then it goes into that netherworld of forever -- we will see how long that takes to work it out.

Brooke, the White House has a very different perspective on this than Congressman Mica does, as you might imagine. But we have seen these kinds of clashes many times in the past.

BALDWIN: You bring that up. I said because of these clashes, and these instances of executive privilege, give me one -- a good example, I was talking to senior political analyst David Gergen.

And I said give me one of the infamous usages of executive privilege. And I also said then why -- as far as the timing here today, why would President Obama use it now? Here's what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: The egregious uses of executive privilege occurred modern history with Richard Nixon that he used executive privilege widely with regard to -- tried to with regard to Watergate kind of related things.

But there are legitimate uses of executive privilege. It's a privilege that's recognized by the law. It's not an unqualified privilege. And that's why it's a gray area about when a president can use it and when he can't. And it's usually thrashed out in the courts.

But typically the parties settle and agree to negotiate long before you spend two years in a courtroom over something like this. Why did President Obama do this? Because what's happening here now is that Republicans would very much -- what they would ultimately like to do is force Eric Holder to resign. They would like to have a major, major resignation five months before the elections and claim one of the top officials of the United States over -- in a -- quote -- "scandal."

And the president doesn't want to let that happen, obviously. He respects Eric Holder. He wants to fight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So Jessica, David Gergen's point ,he was saying, look, this is such a bigger picture issue. This is election-year politics. This is a very public battle. And this is less about the status of the attorney general.

YELLIN: OK.

Let me shade that a little bit more for you, Brooke. There are two things I would like to point out. One is we're not talking about the documents that relate to the actual case, the actual details of this case, whether guns -- how guns crossed the border, et cetera.

What we're talking about is -- are e-mails and documents that follow the investigation. So, they are looking to now subpoena documents about how should, what should we turn over press inquiries related to the investigation? So, they are specifically talking about the exchanges between the White House and the Justice Department related to the congressional investigation.

Is that clear? So, it's after the fact. All these documents are related only to the investigation. So it's not necessarily like the criminal wrongdoing itself. It has to do with the follow-up and the P.R., if you will.

Secondly, I think it's not only necessarily about getting Holder to resign, but there's also this larger effort to make the president in an election year seem political, very political. He's just another politician. And the more that Congress can make him look that way and seem that way, that plays very well into the larger narrative that's on the campaign trail right now, and this certainly goes to that end, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Jessica Yellin, as always, thank you for the context.

As Representative Mica, a member here of this committee, just mentioned to me, they are minutes away, minutes away of holding this vote, this contempt vote there on Capitol Hill. We will keep watching.

A dour prediction today from the nation's central bankers. Ben Bernanke and the Fed Board of Governors said the rate of unemployment will remain above 8 percent through the end of this year. Let's take a listen here to Fed Chair Bernanke. He spoke live just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN BERNANKE, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: Based on their projections for economic growth, FOMC participants foresee slower progress in reducing unemployment than they did in April.

Committee participants' projections for the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of this year have a central tendency of 8.0 to 8.2 percent declining to 7.0 percent to 7.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014, levels that would remain above participants' estimates of the longer-run normal rates of unemployment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Alison Kosik live at the New York Stock Exchange.

Alison, walk me through how the markets responded here. And also before we do that, if we look back to last fall, last winter, we saw the rate of unemployment steadily dropping. A lot of people thought, hey, great, we're out of the woods finally. We hit the wall in February. We're not sitting at -- it's 8.2 percent.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right.

BALDWIN: Chairman Bernanke saying not going to go too much lower, if at all the rest of the year. Not exactly sunny

KOSIK: Yes, not exactly sunny. Yes.

It's interesting. You look at how his take was on the economy earlier this year. And he thought, you know what? We're going to see the jobs market get better. But now he's thinking, it's not getting -- it's not going to be getting better any faster. That's what he's pretty much saying today.

So, yes, he's lowered his expectations on the job market; he's lowered his expectations the economy. As for jobs, you put it up there on the screen there. The unemployment rate, he sees it ending this year anywhere between 8 percent and 8.2 percent. But hello? We're at 8.2 percent right now.

So you know what that means? If we're going to end the year at 8.2 percent, it means we're expected just to kind of run in place and just kind of muddle through this economic recovery. Two months ago, the Fed was much more optimistic, saying the unemployment rate would fall faster.

And you know what? Bernanke just finished up that press conference where you just played that sound bite, and he said people are finding jobs. They're just not finding these jobs at the rate he'd like to see -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: And part of the news he made, he said, yes, we will extend Operation Twist. It's the bond-swapping program that was supposed to expire at the end of June.

KOSIK: Right.

BALDWIN: They're continuing it. So this is another effort to free up credit. But as you and I were talking last hour, you can't force banks to lend and you couldn't force consumers to borrow.

KOSIK: Yes. Exactly. Because you know what it's about, Brooke? It's about creating demand.

Banks in this environment don't want to lend. They don't want to face a risk of default. And you know what? The last thing business owners want to do is take out another loan in a bad economy.

BALDWIN: Right.

KOSIK: But by extending this Operation Twist, the Fed felt it had to do something. And by lowering these long-term rates, they are hoping that it could spur the economy just a little more.

But you know what? You see how much it's done so far, it just hasn't done much, so, investors not too happy. You see the market reaction, the Dow down, what is that, 61 points -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Alison Kosik, thank you.

A lot more news unfolding here. Take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: One passenger calls it four hours of hell. A problem on a JetBlue flight forces pilots to pull off a nightmare ride.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. The news is now.

(voice-over): Sex, politics and confessions. John Edwards' mistress tells all and we have got an inside look.

Plus, an American with a ridiculous amount of ammo in his truck says he took a wrong turn as he sits behind bars in Mexico -- new calls to get him out.

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They don't give a damn about Hosni Mubarak.

BALDWIN: And as the former Egyptian president clings the life, a power struggle inside Egypt, a country that gets more than a billion dollars a year from the U.S.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Would you believe extra chairs had to be brought in for all the people who showed up at the Jerry Sandusky child rape trial today? They were there expecting to hear from the former football coach himself taking the stand, and they were disappointed.

Let's go to "In Session" correspondent Jean Casarez.

And, Jean, word had it he was prepped to testify, he was ready to testify. So, what happened?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I don't know.

He looked like a man that was going to testify. He had a complete suit on. He had shiny shoes. I mean, it looked like somebody that was going to take the stand.

Well, here is what happened. There was a long conference in the judge's chambers before the moment would come that he would take the stand. And, you see, if he takes the stand, he can say anything he wants to on the direct examination. But it's the cross-examination. He can open himself up to have any question whatsoever.

I think the defense may have wanted to know if we can tailor this very narrow examination. Then the prosecution can't ask him all those tough questions. The answer they got may have been one that the defense didn't like. From that result, so he didn't take the stand.

BALDWIN: So, so he didn't take to the stand. I know there were a lot of breaks this morning and a juror was replaced sort of last minute. Why?

CASAREZ: That's right.

She was sick. Juror number six, she was a female. She was one of the very few jurors that did not have a connection to Penn State. She doesn't really watch the news, doesn't listen to television, worked for a property management company. She was so sick, she couldn't come to trial.

So, it was alternate number one, also a female. And I think she was very excited because she jumped up and she went and she sat down in juror number six's seat, Penn State connection, graduate of Penn State in human development. And she will now be part of the deliberating jury.

BALDWIN: Jean Casarez, truTV's "In Session," I appreciate you. We will talk again tomorrow, as we know closing arguments begin tomorrow 9:00 a.m. Eastern time.

A plane ride so violent, passengers are throwing up. The jet was near a runway, couldn't land. Now JetBlue has got some explaining to do.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We have all experienced some plane trips that could be described as a rough flight, but probably not like the 155 people on a JetBlue flight from Las Vegas to New York this past Sunday. Some describe it as hours of hell after the pilot reported a double hydraulic failure shortly after takeoff.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: JetBlue 194, we're going to keep you in our airspace. How long do you need for holding?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got a lot of stuff to deal with, so at least maybe 30 minutes. Plus, we're heavy, so we're going to have to burn a lot of gas as welcome. So it would be a lot longer than 30 minutes.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BALDWIN: A lot longer than 30 minutes.

Take a look at this. Looks kind of like your son or daughter's scribble. But this is the flight path. This is Flight 194's flight path flying in circles and circles almost four hours to burn off the fuel to make that emergency landing.

The plane circled so many times, passengers got sick.

Columnist and passenger S.E. Cupp tweeted -- quote -- "The plane turned into a vomitorium for five hours. And, after all that, I'm still in Vegas," she tweets.

The plane finally burned enough fuel to head back to the Las Vegas Airport. You can see it there on the runway, landing safely. We asked JetBlue about Flight 192. All we got was a statement laying out the timeline and confirming the plane lost one of its hydraulic systems.

But to S.E. Cupp, returned to Twitter with this update: "So, @JetBlue is putting us on another flight. Compared to this one -- comped this one" -- excuse me -- "and offered us all a free round-trip ticket for our flight from hell" -- end quote.

Yikes.

The U.S. gives more than a billion dollars to Egypt each and every year. But there's this intense power struggle happening there right now that could change everything and leave America vulnerable should something happen in Middle East.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: More than a billion dollars, that's how much the U.S. gives to Egypt every year. But right now, the relationship could be in trouble as Egyptians are waiting to hear if their former leader is still alive. They are also waiting to hear who the next president could be.

Ivan Watson is in Cairo for us -- Ivan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WATSON: Brooke, a lawyer for the family of Hosni Mubarak tells CNN that his condition has improved since he was moved from the prison where he is supposed to be serving his life sentence for the role in killing of hundreds of demonstrators 1.5 years ago to a military hospital.

He's been taking off a respirator, we're told, and his wife has been allowed to visit his bedside. Now, the strange thing is, if you ask Egyptians about the man who governed their country with an iron fist for nearly 30 years, many of them say they don't really care about his current condition.

They are much more concerned about who won last weekend's presidential elections. Was it Mubarak's hand-picked prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, or was it the candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Morsi?

Both campaigns have been claiming victory. And we are still waiting for the official results to be published. And we have been told in the past that it should be on Thursday. There's another twist to this story. And that's the military council that has governed Egypt ever since Mubarak was forced out of office, it has issued a number of decrees over the last week dissolving parliament, for example, and usurping wide-ranging powers, legislative powers, executive powers, inserting itself in the process of writing a new constitution.

That's triggered possibly a power struggle with the Muslim Brotherhood, which sent thousands of its supporters out into Tahrir Square on Tuesday night to chant no, no to military rule.

And a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman has told CNN, if the opposition candidate, Ahmed Shafiq, is declared the victor in the elections, then the Muslim Brotherhood will call this sheer forgery, and they reserve the right to take to the streets again in defense of their candidate. Hard to tell whether or not that's bluster or not.

Brooke? BALDWIN: Ivan Watson for us from Cairo. Ivan, thank you.

You know, for every parent, it's really the ultimate "what- would-you-do?" One dad kills a man who is sexually abusing his daughter. Not only are we hearing the dad's 911 call for the very first time, we're hearing whether he will be punished.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: I know a lot of you have been talking about this young father in Texas who caught a man molesting his little girl. What did he do? He beat him to death with his bare hands.

It was actually left up to a grand jury to decide whether the dad committed a crime or not. The grand jury has decided he did not.

Sunny Hostin, CNN legal analyst, is here. Sunny, do you think this decision by the grand jury was based on law or was it more emotional, that they felt that this man did what any father would do?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I will tell you that, under Texas law, justifiable force, deadly force, can be used to stop a sexual assault. And, so, there is no question that the law supported what he did and protected what he did.

Did emotion play a part in it? Of course, it did. I believe it did, considering just all the feedback, Brooke, that I've been getting on Twitter, on Facebook. People are really, really fired up about what happened here.

BALDWIN: Speaking of emotion, I have to play this 911 call. This is the father's call to 911 for the very first time. This was played during the prosecutor's news conference.

(BEGIN AUDIO TAPE)

VOICE OF FATHER WHO KILLED MOLESTER: Never mind that. I'm going to try and load him up in the truck and go to a hospital. I don't know what to tell you, man. I don't where I live. I don't know the address.

I don't know nothing, ma'am. I don't know what to tell you. All I know is he's dying on me, ma'am. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.

(END AUDIO TAPE)

BALDWIN: You can hear the sort of voice wavering. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. It's impossible to know really what role the phone call played in the decision, but obviously, it factored in.

HOSTIN: It had to have been a factor, but what's interesting to note on that call is that he is calling 911. He is explaining under that clear emotional distress what he had done and what he had seen happen. Medical authorities did confirm that a sexual assault did take place. We're talking about a 5-year-old little girl. There was a witness who saw this man forcibly take her behind a shed. That witness ran to get the little girl's father and he responded to her screams.

So I'm certain that, while that phone call played a part in this grand jury's decision, there was evidence supporting what this father said happened.

BALDWIN: It's horrendous. Does the outcome of this case, do you think it could give cover for other parents who might find themselves in similar situations?

HOSTIN: I don't think so. This was appropriate under Texas law because deadly force is justified to stop a sexual assault in Texas. Remember, this man in Texas saw a sexual assault being perpetrated upon his daughter, a parent's worst nightmare, right?

I'm a parent and I just can't imagine being confronted with something like that. But certainly, the message here is not to encourage vigilantism. He did the right thing in calling 911 and reporting what happened.

BALDWIN: Sunny Hostin on the case. Sunny, thank you.

Sex, politics and confessions, John Edwards' mistress tells all and we've got the inside look.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just a quick reminder. You can see these live pictures. This is the House oversight committee. We are minutes away from this contempt vote regarding Eric Holder, our attorney general, over this botched gunrunning scheme, the "Fast and Furious" operation.

The president jumped into this today for the very first time, asserting executive privilege. Again, we are watching and waiting for that vote happening on Capitol Hill.

Now to this. Rielle Hunter is perhaps not the most hated woman in America, but she is one of them. She is the woman who went on Oprah, telling all about the affair she had with John Edwards while he was busy running for president when his wife, Elizabeth, was dying of cancer.

She had his love child, so now, of course, she has written a book, a book that gives all the intimate details of Hunter's six-year affair with John Edwards. It is entitled "What Really Happened -- John Edwards, Our Daughter, and Me."

CNN producer Raelyn Johnson has been following the Hunter-Edwards for quite some time now. She's good enough to join me from New York.

Raelyn, Rielle Hunter gets pretty down and dirty in this book, including her first sexual encounter with Edwards. How does she even begin to explain how she hooked up with him in the first place?

RAELYN JOHNSON, CNN PRODUCER: She says that she met John Edwards in a bar in New York. On that first night that they met, it was a completely sleepless night that it was extraordinary and she completely surrendered to John Edwards.

And get this, Brooke. She says that she followed his lead.

BALDWIN: OK. The obvious follow to that is, is she giving any hint in the book as to her relationship with Edwards right now, on or off?

JOHNSON: Well, there's going to be an article coming out in "People" magazine where she says that they are still together, but here is what we know. I want to read you this excerpt from the book in which she says, "I really have no idea what will happen to us. The jury is still out. But I can honestly say that the ending is of no concern to me anymore. The love is here and, as sappy as it may sound, I love living in love."

BALDWIN: I love living in love. Let's play a little clip of Rielle Hunter. This is when she was giving an interview just recently to ABC. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RIELLE HUNTER, JOHN EDWARDS' MISTRESS: First and foremost, I'm a mom. Rielle Hunter is a mom.

And I'm also a woman who fell in love with a married man. I'm not the first woman who has done that, and I'm not going to be the last.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: This was an affair that brought down a candidate for president, mired a dying woman's final days in all of the tabloid fodder. Is there anything in this book that might change the negative perception of Hunter as a husband-stealer here, Raelyn?

JOHNSON: I think that might be hard to do, but Rielle Hunter is trying her best. I think what we're really going to see is it wasn't just Rielle Hunter after John Edwards, that it takes two to tango, and that he pursued her in the beginning from the very first night and that the two of them were adults.

We're also going to find out from her side of the story that the relationship between John and Elizabeth Edwards was over before their relationship started, including the fact that he had affairs with other women.

Now, he lied to her and said, look, I'm currently in a couple of situations. He said that because he didn't want her to get too close. But we do find out that John Edwards, as we now know, isn't as great of a man as he says he was. But we'll find that Rielle Hunter wasn't the only woman who, she says, fell in love with John Edwards and she wasn't the only woman in this world to have sinned and fallen in love with someone she shouldn't have.

But that's what we're going to learn. It wasn't just her alone. It takes two to tango and, as far as the marriage between John and Elizabeth Edwards, that, look, as I say, you never know what happens between two married couples behind closed doors.

We don't know the extent of their relationship and Elizabeth Edwards isn't here to defend herself on that anymore.

BALDWIN: The book is called "What Really Happened -- John Edwards, Our Daughter, and Me." Raelyn Johnson, thank you.

JOHNSON: Sure.

BALDWIN: When he talks, people listen. Just a short time ago, Ben Bernanke wasn't exactly a ray of sunshine, if you will. What he says, the economy's not getting better any time soon.

Erin Burnett's got some thoughts. We're going to marinate on that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Let's just eavesdrop for a moment. This is the House oversight committee. They are talking back and forth before they hold this contempt vote on Attorney General Eric Holder. Take a listen.

REPRESENTIVE ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D), DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: There was a beginning to this story, not just where we are now, beginning or near the end.

We will never get to the bottom of it by pretending that this is about "Fast and Furious" and not about its former name, "Wide Receiver," and how the decision was made in the first place.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would the gentlewoman yield?

NORTON: I have to yield.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe it's ...

BALDWIN: Let's go to Wolf Blitzer who, I'm sure, has been listening to this, as well.

Wolf, I'm sure you're on this here for "The Situation Room." Here you have today this back and forth between Democrats and Republicans, very publicly, over the contempt status of our attorney general.

And all the while, you have the president for the very first time in his four years, issuing this executive privilege. What do you make of all this? WOLF BLITZER, HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": I've gone through these executive privilege debates on many occasions over the years. Democratic presidents do it. Republican presidents do it.

There's always this turf battle between the executive branch of the U.S. government and the legislative branch of the U.S. government and, occasionally, the judicial branch, namely the Supreme Court, has to intervene when you have these battles.

These are co-equal branches of the U.S. government. It's not the first time and won't be the last time. We're going to go in- depth. Jeffrey Toobin, our senior legal analyst, will be joining us. We'll get his full analysis of what's going on.

We have some historic precedents, certainly, to mull over, as well.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz who's the chair of the Democratic National Committee, the congresswoman from South Florida, she's here in "The Situation Room." We'll be talking with her life.

So there's a lot of news going on.

Also, I conducted an interview with the deputy prime minister of Israel, Shaul Mofaz, and he spoke very bluntly on the situation with Iran and its nuclear program, on Syria, what's going on with Bashar al-Assad, and also on the very tense relationship potentially that could emerge between Israel and its largest, most important Arab neighbor, namely Egypt, a country with which is in a peace treat, in effect, since 1979.

So we have all that and a lot more coming up right here in "The Situation Room."

BALDWIN: Wolf, we'll see you at the top of the hour. Thank you, sir.

I do want to go back to Ben Bernanke. Not exactly Mr. Sunshine today. The Fed chairman saying the rate of unemployment will remain at 8 percent through the end of the year. We heard from him live just about 90 minutes ago. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN BERNANKE, CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL RESERVE: Based on their projections for economic growth, FOC participants foresee slower progress in reducing unemployment than they did in April.

Committee participants projections for the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of this year have a central tendency of 8.0 to 8.2 percent, declining to 7.0 percent to 7.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014, levels that would remain above participants estimates of the longer-run, normal rates of unemployment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's go to Erin Burnett, host of "Erin Burnett OutFront."

He painted a pretty dark, dismal -- fill-in the adjective -- picture, talking today about slower growth and higher unemployment, but yet, here is my question for you because some may say, hang on, Ben Bernanke. If it's really that bad, there are steps you could have taken today and you didn't take them, right?

ERIN BURNETT, HOST, "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT": Yes, that's right, Brooke. There are still more bullets left in the fed's arsenal, as we'd like to say. There are still more things that they can do.

But I think one way to look at this is to say, look, he did say growth is coming back very gradually. We parse every word of these statements. The last time that the Fed came out with its statement, it was only gradually.

So, as you say, every adjective that he could have indicated a little bit of concern, he put in there, but he did not do anything further. They extended this so-called "Operation Twist," but a big bang if sort of another round of what we call quantitative easing, he didn't go that far.

And I think that's a good thing in the sense that, A, he wants to leave it in case he really needs it, but also that even though things are getting worse, he doesn't think that we're at that dire of a strait.

So in a sense, it's kind of a vote of confidence that things aren't that bad.

BALDWIN: That's the micro. I want to sort of look out macro sort of 20,000-foot view above because here we are looking at Ben Bernanke holding a news conference. We carried part of it live. How quickly we forget, right, that this is brand new, this openness at the Fed. Did we learn anything else from what he said today?

BURNETT: You know, it's interesting. It only started just over a year ago when he started talking in this whole bid to have the fed to be more transparent.

We learned, as you said, Brooke, that he is concerned about the economy. The sound bite that you played which I thought was really the perfect one to choose, that he's saying that unemployment could be between 7 percent to 7.7 percent all the way to the end of 2014.

That means we are still multiple years away from getting unemployment to, at the best case scenario, 7 percent. This economy, really, if it's at full employment, everyone who has a job and the job they want really would put that unemployment rate, a lot of economists say, somewhere between 4 percent to 5 percent or 3.5 percent to 4 percent 5 percent.

So that means it will be years before we get back there and that really is the take-away, that this financial crisis was deep and severe and, even if we're succeeding in climbing out of it, it's going to be a long and painful process. There is no magic wand, here you go, here's a solution.

BALDWIN: Thirty seconds, are we going to be using the "R" word again, Erin Burnett?

BURNETT: This is tough. You know, Brooke, so many people it feels like we are in a recession when you look at that rate of people who want better jobs than the ones they have even.

But I think it's really going to come down to Europe. It's going to come down to Europe. If Europe doesn't get it together, yes, you will have another recession.

BALDWIN: Erin Burnett, thank you. We'll look for you tonight at 7:00 Eastern, "Erin Burnett OutFront." Thanks a lot.

An American with a ridiculous -- we'll just go with that -- ridiculous amount of ammunition in his truck says, oops, he took a wrong turn. Now, he's sitting in a maximum security prison in Mexico, but there are new calls to get him out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: I know we've all made wrong turns before, but few of us have landed in a Mexican maximum security prison. For doing that, there are new calls here from the El Paso, Texas, city councilman to free Javin Bogan, an American truck driver who says he made a wrong turn and accidentally ended up in Mexico.

Authorities down there stopped him before he could actually get back into the United States and you are looking at what he was carrying, some 268,000 rounds of ammunition, bullets.

Mexican police say he's an arms smuggler and they have held him now for two months. Fernando Del Rincon is following the story for us from CNN en Espanol. Welcome. Nice to meet you.

FERNANDO DEL RINCON, CNN EN ESPANOL CORRESPONDENT: Nice to meet you.

BALDWIN: Let's just begin with the councilman in El Paso, stepping in.

DEL RINCON: Yes.

BALDWIN: They want him home.

DEL RINCON: Yes. They want to help him. Actually, there was -- they have been considering asking the Mexican federal government to release this trucker because of this wrong U-turn.

But actually they have been voting about -- because in terms of the laws in Mexico, this is actually a felony. I mean, it's ...

BALDWIN: He could go to prison for like 30 years, if this is the case.

DEL RINCON: Yes. And you just think of it the other way around. If it happens from Mexico to the U.S., it would be the same thing.

But now they're reviewing documents, actually, the federal authorities in Mexico, are reviewing documents to prove that it was actually illegal cargo that the trucker was driving through the states.

And they're going to have to base on that information to prove that he was actually legal and a bad U-turn.

BALDWIN: Yes, because his bosses have come forward. They said, hey, he meant to go to Phoenix, took a wrong turn. It's big mix-up, a spaghetti bowl down there. It's easy to make the mistake and head into Mexico. The inspection lane is the lane he wasn't in and, woops, now, he's in maximum security prison, right?

DEL RINCON: Yes. He is in Vera Cruz, Mexico.

BALDWIN: Which is 200 miles from Mexico City.

DEL RINCON: Yes. Around that.

BALDWIN: What about the ammunition itself? Initially, they said it was hidden in the floorboards, which sounded bad for his case. But that's not the case, now, correct?

DEL RINCON: No. That's not the case. They have been able to prove that the cargo was, I mean, just so you know, it was just exposed like regular cargo in any other truck. So that's one of the points.

The other point is that they're saying this is not the first time that this happened. Actually, the lawyer who is defending him is saying that -- he's blaming the U.S. customs agents because he asked for help at some point when he got stuck in traffic. He asked -- that's what they say -- he asked for help to make that U-turn and that never happened until he was on Mexican soil.

So that's the case right now. Now, the Mexican authorities have to evaluate all these documents that are presented to them to find out if it's true that it was a bad U-turn.

If it's not -- it comes -- bottom line, they have to prove that the cargo was legally being transported here in the United States and that might give them the chance to actually get the guy free.

BALDWIN: H's been in this prison since what was it, April?

DEL RINCON: Yes, it was in April, April 17th, if I'm not wrong.

BALDWIN: That's right. Has he been able to talk to his family?

DEL RINCON: No. Actually, his mom has been claiming for a -- at the beginning, it was humanitarian reasons to release him because of just a mistake, but he hasn't been able to. It's a maximum security prison over there in Mexico, so they won't allow him to talk to his family. BALDWIN: So what exactly is next? In 30 seconds or less here, Fernando, what is next?

DEL RINCON: We need to wait for the Mexican authorities to respond after they review all these documents that they were just presented. If they can prove that it was legal cargo here in the States and it was actually a mistake, he might -- he might, I'm saying, be released.

BALDWIN: OK, Fernando Del Rincon, thank you.

DEL RINCON: Thank you so much, Brooke. Nice to meet you.

BALDWIN: Nice to meet you.

And that is it for me here. I'm Brooke Baldwin at the CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta. We're going to send you off to Washington, D.C., now and my friend, Wolf Blitzer. "The Situation Room" begins right now.