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Justice Department Says Reflecting Pool Work Was Flawed, Drops Vandalism Case; Trump Warns Of New Attacks On Iran; Authorities Release Ransom Notes In The Nancy Guthrie Disappearance Case; Why More Frequent, Destructive Wildfires Is Now The New Normal; New York Sues Kalshi For Running Illegal Gambling Operation; Teen Murdered 26 Years Ago Identified Using Combined DNA Methods. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired August 01, 2026 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:56]

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me this Saturday. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

All right. We begin this hour with President Donald Trump rejecting the Justice Department's finding that hasty and botched work, according to federal prosecutors, caused the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool problems a short time ago.

Trump said in a social media post, "I disagree 100 percent with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, on the reflecting pool. I don't know what she was thinking. To me, it was a pure case of vandalism that included the grass, which had a big 86 47 emblazoned in giant letters on it and other elements of the surrounding area. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by vandals."

In a 20-page motion filed yesterday, the Justice Department concluded the problems with the $14 million renovation was not caused by vandals, but instead saying the work on the pool was, quote, "rushed and flawed." And it says it is dropping the criminal case against former Olympic athlete David Hearn, who was accused of vandalizing the pool.

D.C.'s U.S. attorney Jeanine Pirro's office blamed other federal agencies as well, including the Interior Department, for the bungled renovation and Hearn's vandalism case. She says prosecutors were not able to fully view the extent of the damage until after the pool was drained, and that visual inspection showed damage throughout the reflecting pool even in the middle, where vandals were less likely to be able to reach.

The unusually descriptive filing goes on to say Pirro's office requested additional documents, which, quoting now, "indicated a rushed and flawed installation process with repeated failures of the lining during the installation process and extensive peeling of the lining throughout the reflecting pool," end quote, as reasons for the widespread damage. Given all this new information, prosecutors say they would not have sought a grand jury indictment. CNN has reached out to the White House and the Interior Department for

comment. We also contacted the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, and an employee said they hadn't heard anything about the new filing, adding, no comment.

All right. Joining me now to discuss further is former federal prosecutor Michael Zeldin.

OK, Michael, you called it when we talked weeks ago. You said it didn't appear the evidence would support the claim. But are you shocked that this Justice Department has dropped the charges and virtually redirected this case by saying the lining is botched because of the contractors?

MICHAEL ZELDIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, yes and no. What was flawed and botched, of course, was the indictment. They brought this indictment before the investigation was concluded. I don't know who in the U.S. attorney's office was in charge of the investigation, but no one should bring an indictment against an innocent person, as it turns out, without a complete investigation. So they didn't do that. So shame on them for that.

And to say that they didn't realize, as they wrote in the document, they didn't realize that there was damage throughout the reflecting pool that was widely reported. There were visuals of the peeling liner throughout the whole period that they were investigating this case. So shame on them, really. And I am not surprised whatsoever that they would drop this case because they would have lost it in front of a jury in the District of Columbia or virtually any other jurisdiction in the United States.

So they chose the better course, which was to dismiss, rather than force this young man to go to trial and have his case won before a jury.

WHITFIELD: However, I mean, this admission, you know, comes after prosecutors had the goods, so to speak, right, to present to a grand jury in order to get an indictment. So it really is rather confusing in terms of the sequence of events here.

[15:05:05]

ZELDIN: Hundred percent. They said they had witnesses who saw him violently tearing up the ladder from the bottom of the pool, which we discussed, was not physically possible. I don't know what those witnesses, why they said what they said and what was presented to the grand jury, but in this case, the evidence was quite clear that this fellow Hearn did not do what he was alleged to have done.

And when they finally got -- when DOJ finally got the Department of Interior documents to see how extensive the damage was throughout this pool and how badly the job was done to begin with, they had no choice but to drop this case.

WHITFIELD: OK, so you think the D.C. bar should now be investigating, you know, whether anything unethical happened here to even get to this point?

ZELDIN: Yes, I do. I think that this prosecution was so politically driven. That's why it was indicted so quickly without gaining the evidence. There was no need to indict within the few days that they had since the time of the arrest and the indictment. They could have taken their time to get all the evidence as they always do. And so when prosecutors behave in response to political pressure, which is why I think they did here, then I think that the bar should take a look at that.

WHITFIELD: OK. So if anyone forgot, just listen to and watch how President Trump and the U.S. attorney, Jeanine Pirro, kind of sized things up, how emphatic they were that the damage in that pool was done by vandals. Listen and watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Somebody went in with a knife and cut it. They cut it up good.

I think 290, 300 foot slit right through it. Probably a box cutter or a knife of some kind. At the right time, you'll see it. You'll see it in court.

JEANINE PIRRO, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: He damaged this pool. When I have filed a charge, I'll be happy to show you a picture. All right.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Deranged individuals, many of them longtime donors to the Democrat Party, to Barack Obama.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: OK. And now we know the Truth Social, you know, post from the president. It puts he and Pirro at odds, you know, but in the end, this has cost the former Olympian David Hearn a lot of anguish, right? I mean, it cost him money. He had to get an attorney. His reputation was on the line. You know, he's been in the centerpiece of all kinds of, you know, horrible conversations.

And can he do anything now to sue the government or, you know, receive any kind of restitution for what he was put through?

ZELDIN: I don't think he has a legal basis to sue for damages. It would be nice if he were able to do so, but I don't think under these circumstances he will be able to. I'm sure they will explore whether there are opportunities for him to do it. But I think what's most telling is those clips that you showed, which were purposeful lies, and the people who said them, the president and Miss Pirro, knew that they were not true or should have known that they were not true, and then turn around and indict somebody on the basis of it.

That's what I think is succumbing to political pressure. That's why I think this case needs to be looked at by the D.C. bar. I'm glad that they dismissed it. You just can't get off the hook for their botched and flawed indictment without somebody taking a look at why they did what they did.

WHITFIELD: Yes. All right, Michael Zeldin, glad you could be with us. Thank you so much.

ZELDIN: Thanks, Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. Now to President Trump's warning of new American airstrikes against Iran, U.S. officials tell CNN that they could come as soon as this weekend.

CNN's Julia Benbrook is joining us live from Basking Ridge, New Jersey, near where the president is this weekend in Bedminster at his estate there.

Julia, what more do we know?

JULIA BENBROOK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are learning that the United States is planning for a fresh round of strikes against Iran, which could come as soon as this weekend. Now, the scope of these strikes and the potential targets the United States may go after are still unclear. And officials familiar with the planning who spoke with CNN emphasized that this could all be called off at any point.

Those officials did say that there was some planning around the option of targeting Iran's energy sites. The Trump administration has been wary of going after Iran's energy infrastructure, in part due to concerns that Tehran could retaliate by targeting Gulf infrastructure and shock global energy markets, which have already been under great strain during this conflict.

Just yesterday, President Donald Trump was speaking at one of his Cabinet meetings, this one held at Camp David, and he spoke about previewed the potential for this new wave of strikes. Take a listen.

[15:10:03]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We'll be hitting them. We'll be hitting them very hard. At some point they're going to say, we just can't take it anymore. We just want to win. We don't want to have them, it's very simple, they cannot have a nuclear weapon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BENBROOK: So they cannot have a nuclear weapon. That is something we have heard him say consistently and repeatedly throughout this process. But it's important to note that he has gone back and forth as he has threatened further escalation from those threats to also expressing hope for a diplomatic breakthrough. It does seem, at least at this point, that that is not where there is a lot of hope for him. When he was giving those remarks, he did say that he was losing faith in Iran's leadership, that they were just making him angry.

Now, the White House has told us in a statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, we asked about the potential for strikes this weekend, and here's what she said in part. "President Trump is not going to stand by and allow this terrorist behavior to occur. Iran will continue to pay until they come to the table in what President Trump deems a meaningful way."

So as he considers his options here, recent polling has shown that Americans are not happy with the steps that Trump has taken in Iran so far. Polling has shown this consistently. And a CNN poll showed that just 28 percent approve of how he has handled things in Iran. So, again, officials have told CNN that the United States is planning for fresh strikes against Iran. Trump is spending his weekend here in New Jersey as he considers those next steps.

WHITFIELD: All right, Julia Benbrook, thanks so much.

All right. Still to come, six months after Nancy Guthrie disappeared, authorities released the full contents of two ransom notes from the kidnapers. What Savannah Guthrie is now saying. And later, a cold case solved after more than 25 years. How DNA technology used to track suspects helped identify this victim and others like her.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:16:47]

WHITFIELD: All right. We have breaking news in the desperate search for Nancy Guthrie six months to the day since she vanished. The Pima County sheriff is giving a rare update on the search. He says investigators have been flooded with tens of thousands of tips and promises that this continues to be a very active case. He also explained the massive step investigators took yesterday by releasing the full contents of two ransom notes sent to the family.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF CHRIS NANOS, PIMA COUNTY, ARIZONA: We think somebody knows something. We hope that by releasing some of this information, it will jog somebody, to think about what -- a lot of people have called us with information. But we also know a lot of people are hesitant, hesitant to do so. And so I hope that by constantly reminding the public we're here, we're not going anywhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: And earlier this morning "Today Show" host Savannah Guthrie issued her own raw and painful plea for information. In a heartbreaking Instagram post, Savannah wrote, "We are begging for help. We are desperate. We need someone to come forward. Someone knows something. Someone suspects something. Someone recognizes the writing in the ransom demand notes. There is a way to end this situation and do the right thing."

CNN's Ed Lavandera has more on the disturbing details inside the newly released notes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: First note that was sent to the Guthrie family through various media outlets started off by saying, "We have your mother," and then laid out a schedule of ransom demands and then saying that she would be killed if these payments weren't made within seven days. The writer goes on to tell the Guthrie family not to play games. Your mother is aware, essentially, that her life is on the line here, and that her life is in the hands of the Guthrie family.

Now, that note was sent on February 2nd, the day after Nancy Guthrie was taken from her home in Tucson. If you remember on the timeline here, it was two days later that Savannah Guthrie and her brother and sister put out the first Instagram video where they essentially addressed the author of this note directly, saying that we are ready to talk and asked in that note -- in that video for a proof of life of their mother.

Then several days later, they get a second note. And in that note, the writer says that we did not fully grasp the seriousness of her physical condition. We never intended to hurt her. That was not our intention. She perished shortly after she was taken and that she is buried in nature now. That note was sent just on February 6th. And then it was on February 7th that Savannah Guthrie and her brother and sister put out another Instagram video saying, "We received your message and we understand."

Now it has been more than six months since Nancy Guthrie was taken from her home. And Pima County authorities, as well as the FBI, say that the reason they're putting out the text of these notes, which have been kept kind of very tight to investigative circles over these last few months, is that they are hoping that the public will read them, maybe notice a pattern in verbal syntax, the writing style, the way this person is communicating to determine whether or not that might be able to help them or help someone identify who the culprits are in this crime.

[15:20:12]

But of course, we don't know if this was written by someone or multiple people, or if this might have been written by artificial intelligence, and it would be very hard to kind of detect those patterns. But because of that, authorities at this point are saying that they're hoping that the public will take a closer look at all of this and see if they notice any patterns in the hopes that it will lead them to who Nancy Guthrie's abductors might be.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Ed Lavandera, thank you so much for that report.

All right. Joining us right now for more on this is retired FBI special agent Richard Kolko.

Richard, great to see you. So I wonder what stands out to you in these ransom notes. Are there particular phrases or words that in your view are kind of identifiable enough to make someone want to reach out and say that sounds -- that author of that sounds a little familiar to me?

RICHARD KOLKO, RETIRED FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: Absolutely. And that's a proven tactic. We've seen that in the past. Those of your viewers that can remember the Unabomber way back when. Ted Kaczynski in the '90s had written his large manifesto, took a while but the FBI got the newspaper to print the manifesto, and his brother identified his writings, called the FBI, and that led to his arrest.

So maybe something similar could happen here. What confuses me a little bit, though, is I think this might be A.I. enhanced, so that might make it a little more complex.

WHITFIELD: OK. And that was my follow-up. That's --

KOLKO: But maybe, maybe investigators can go --

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: Yes, I was wondering because, I mean, that is a tool that people use now, you know, writing thank you letters. So, you know, in a case like this, too. So then how much more difficult does it make it to trace if it was indeed, you know, you created with the help of artificial intelligence?

KOLKO: Well, certainly investigators will reach out to some of the A.I. makers, developers, and see if they can help track some of this down. I mean, the letter almost sounded kind of friendly for a kidnaper, a little unusual, and frankly, I don't get the second letter. The I'm sorry, she's dead. That's -- that doesn't quite fit in with what you would think of for a kidnaper. So you can expect that criminologists and the behavioral analysis unit folks to really pore through that and try and come up with some reason that this person may have submitted that second note.

WHITFIELD: Right. That second note, so it revealed kind of compassion in your view and that that would be odd?

KOLKO: That's a great word, compassion. And anybody who's going to go beat on a door and drag a woman out of her house in the middle of the night, not the kind of person that really is going to show compassion. So I'm not real believing of the tone of that letter. I'm a little confused about that. I believe someday we'll have an answer to why that was written or submitted. And obviously the most important thing is, is it valid?

WHITFIELD: Mm-hmm. Do you feel like these letters or copies of these letters should have been released sooner? Might it have made any kind of difference in this investigation?

KOLKO: Well, that's -- we don't see that a lot of times in the media, what's actually going on. There's so much going on in the background in these command posts, in these field offices, in the sheriff's department. The subpoenas just came back. They've got to go through, you know, gas receipts of maybe who bought gas within 100 miles. There's thoughts that that video at the door was two different nights. So they've got to do a lot of work on cell phone analysis. All of that work is happening as we speak. We don't see it day to day.

Plus, if you just look at the news, as I know you do, we've been flooded with news from so many other areas that this kind of got moved to the back bench a little bit. But Savannah, because of her ability as a news person, was able to bring this back to the first page. I'm fully supportive of anything, any tool she has to bring it back to the headlines and hopefully get that phone tip and get that information into law enforcement.

WHITFIELD: Absolutely. All right. Richard Kolko, thanks so much for your time. Appreciate it.

KOLKO: Of course. Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right. Still to come, from deadly fires in Europe to massive blazes in Canada and the United States, recent disasters are putting climate threats into focus. How rising temperatures, extreme heat and shrinking snowpack are making wildfire seasons longer and more dangerous.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:28:46]

WHITFIELD: All right. This weekend, the Western part of this country is getting a double dose of dangerous weather conditions. A scorching, unusually intense heat dome is sending temperatures soaring today from California to Montana, leaving 55 million people under heat alerts. Plus a rare level three of three threat for extreme fire danger is in place for parts of the northwest where wildfire season is already off to a record pace.

Multiple fires are already burning, plus high winds and drought conditions could cause those fires and any new ones to quickly spread.

And with wildfires raging across Spain, France, Italy and Canada, CNN's Alex Clark explains how climate change is fueling a new generation of extreme, uncontrollable mega-fires.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEX CLARK, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: It's a deadly trend. France, Italy, Spain, Scotland, Canada. All nations dealing with major wildfires right now. The fires so far this year in Canada alone have burned an area nearly twice the size of New Jersey.

JOHN VAILLANT, AUTHOR, "FIRE WEATHER": You have a third of a million people displaced right now just in France and Spain.

CLARK: Experts say this is the new normal. Wildfires are both more frequent and destructive than before.

[15:30:04]

Here's why. First off, here's what the experts are seeing. Each block I have here represents a month, and the ones I've painted with fire represent what used to be Canada's typical wildfire season from May through September. But now we're having fires from February or March running all the way into November.

This is what California's wildfire season used to look like.

VAILLANT: Southern California, which might have had a fire season that ran from, you know, May to October, now has a year round fire season. Fire can ignite at any time there.

CLARK: That's journalist and author John Vaillant. He says there are a few factors behind the prolonged wildfire season. First, big shocker, climate change is making the Earth's atmosphere warmer, turning once safe areas into a tinderbox. This year, brutal heat domes swept Europe and the U.S.. These are high pressure areas that trap heat and squelch clouds and precipitation, exacerbating the already dry landscape.

But scientists aren't just alarmed by what's happening in the summer. A warmer climate means less snowpack accumulates over the winter. Snowpack is the winter snow that melts in the spring and hydrates the trees. Less snowpack means a drier forest with more fuel just ready to combust year round.

VAILLANT: It will explode much more quickly, move much more quickly, and be much harder to stop.

CLARK: Another issue, nighttime temperatures are warmer than they used to be. When temperatures drop, a process called humidity recovery naturally dampens the force, causing the flames to slow down so firefighters can safely build containment lines, manmade barriers that slow the fire spread. But now wildfires are able to keep up their intensity around the clock, turning into active 24/7 battles with no reprieve.

There's also been a societal shift in how people interact with the land.

VAILLANT: Think of urbanization. Thousands, millions of people around the world are leaving the land and moving into cities, leaving what used to be carefully tended farmland or forest to just grow wild.

BRANDON MILLER, CNN SENIOR METEOROLOGIST: We have built these cities and built them out to the point where they're starting to infringe upon wild lands and forests. If you but that city right up against the forest, and you don't have any natural break between the two, you're going to have that fire overrun into urban landscapes.

CLARK: My colleague Allison Chinchar has explained how these factors are compounding to create the perfect conditions for wildfires to start.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Under extremely dry conditions, a single ember can spark a massive wildfire, especially when strong winds carry embers far downwind. As the fire grows, it heats the air around it, creating strong updrafts that can lift burning leaves, twigs and bark high into the sky. You can already see the flames picking up, which means this is getting out of hand fast. CLARK: And from there, they're growing faster and more ferociously.

MILLER: These fires can spread rapidly, sometimes spreading at a football field every one to two seconds, which is, if you think about it, just crazy that that fire could spread that far.

CLARK: And get this, some of today's mega-fires are burning so hot, they are actually creating a new type of storm cloud. The pyrocumulonimbus or pyroCb.

VAILLANT: It is literally a firestorm that starts to basically create its own rules on that landscape. It can generate hurricane force winds. Nothing can stop it. And lightning works to the fire's advantage because it starts all these new advanced fires creating, activating new fuel as the fire moves toward it.

CLARK: Historically, scientists only saw clouds of this magnitude during massive volcanic eruptions.

VAILLANT: Then you have this jet of heat and energy soaring into the air, carrying embers with it. But as the wind gets stronger, the pieces can be bigger. Now you'll have a whole roof on fire flying through the air. So we're in a new era for fire, and it's not one that humans really have the capability to respond to in meaningful ways besides running away.

CLARK: The most extreme firestorms can also create what's called fire tornadoes, rotating columns of intense heat and wind.

VAILLANT: A fire tornado is a really rare entity. The first one ever recorded was in Canberra in southern Australia in 2003. The first one ever recorded by science. The second one was read in California in 2018. I walked the ground right after the fire. The only thing I can compare it to are photos of Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

CLARK: France just recorded its very first pyrocumulonimbus cloud.

VAILLANT: It's probably not a full blown tornado, but the conditions and the terrain of southern Spain and France are conducive to the potential for a fire tornado. And those events kill people.

[15:35:08]

CLARK: So a longer, more ferocious fire season is the new normal. What can be done about it?

VAILLANT: As long as we burn fossil fuels without limits, wildfire will burn landscapes, cities and towns without limits. So this is not the future. This is our new reality. But it's going to keep intensifying.

MILLER: It's very easy to take that view of like, there's nothing I can do. This is inevitable. So the sooner we can act to change the way we are impacting the planet, I certainly think there is something we can do. The most important thing we can do is prepare. Prepare our forests, prepare our homes, clearing brush, and the types of plants and shrubbery that you have can make your home more or less, you know, adaptive to a fire landscape.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right. Alex Clark, thank you so much for that report.

All right. Still to come, prediction markets in the courts. Why some states may be able to regulate them as gambling while others cannot.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:40:59]

WHITFIELD: The New York attorney's general office is suing Kalshi, one of the largest prediction markets, alleging that it's running an illegal gambling operation. Attorney General Letitia James says Kalshi failed to obtain a state gambling license and pay related taxes. Kalshi is part of a booming multibillion-dollar industry, which allows people to bet on things like sports, politics and pop culture.

CNN has a partnership with Kalshi and uses its data to cover major events, but CNN editorial employees are not allowed to use prediction markets.

CNN's senior reporter Marshall Cohen is joining me right now with more details on this.

Marshall, all right. Well, what can you tell us about New York's new lawsuit against Kalshi?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: It's a big one, Fred. The New York attorney general announcing yesterday that they want to shut down Kalshi. And they also want $36 billion in damages for some of the reasons that you just explained. They believe that Kalshi is gambling and that it's been operating without a license in the state and that that is against the law. Obviously something that Kalshi denies.

Let me read for you a quote from Letitia James, the Democratic attorney general of New York, who filed this lawsuit. She said yesterday, quote, "New York's gambling laws protect children from underage betting and help combat gambling addiction. No matter what they call themselves prediction markets like Kalshi are gambling platforms, plain and simple." That's her view.

But obviously Kalshi strongly disagrees with that. And they insist that they're not gambling, they are trading and they are offering financial tools that are federally regulated by an agency called the CFTC. Here's what they said in response to the lawsuit. Quote, "It's sad to see this type of political theater from the leadership in our own state. States can't just shut down a federally licensed exchange. This will just hurt New Yorkers who would be driven offshore."

And Fred, it is important to note that after this lawsuit was filed, the Trump administration tried to shut down this case. Actually, right before the suit was filed, they rushed to court, the CFTC, to try to stop New York from moving forward with its litigation -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: And then, Marshall, how does this fit into the bigger nationwide battle over prediction markets?

COHEN: There's a colossal fight unfolding right now across the entire country over this exact question. Is this gambling and regulated by the states, or is this trading and investing and a financial market that is regulated by the federal government? There are dozens of lawsuits across the country, and many states are trying to do exactly what New York is by filing a lawsuit and trying to shut it down.

Look at this map. So far, those efforts have prevailed in three states. Michigan, Nevada and Washington state, which is pretty notable, although I should point out that Kalshi has also secured several victories in other courts and other states. Just last week, they were able to prevent Minnesota from enforcing its first-in-the- nation ban on prediction markets, a statewide ban. They also prevailed in New Jersey, and they have also been able to beat back criminal charges that were filed earlier this year in Arizona for allegedly operating a criminally -- a criminal casino, an unlawful casino.

So a nationwide battle, Fred. Much more to come on this. It will probably go to the Supreme Court.

WHITFIELD: All right. Let us know. Marshall Cohen, thanks so much.

All right. Still to come, how DNA evidence and genealogy research helped identify a cold case victim after nearly 26 years and gave her family long-awaited closure.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:49:27]

WHITFIELD: All right. For nearly 26 years, no one knew the identity of a young murder victim near Boston, even though her killer was behind bars for a crime. Tiffany Bradley was finally identified this summer using investigative genetic genealogy. That's a combination of DNA analysis and legwork that is typically used to find suspects in a crime. Investigators say it took years to build a genetic profile because of the degraded condition of her DNA. Tiffany Bradley's family called it a miracle.

[15:50:01]

And with us now is Margaret Press. She's the co-founder of the DNA Doe Project and is a leader at the DNA Justice Organization.

Thanks so much for being with us.

MARGARET PRESS, CO-FOUNDER, DNA DOE PROJECT: Thanks, Fredricka. It's really a pleasure to be here.

WHITFIELD: So how --

PRESS: So I can tell you a little bit about investigative --

WHITFIELD: Yes, tell us this --

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: Sorry, go ahead.

WHITFIELD: OK. Sorry. Just, you know, how did this investigative genealogy, genetic genealogy become dual purpose, so to speak?

PRESS: Well, it actually started out simultaneously, dual purpose, if you will. So it actually began by using the same approach of DNA matching and family tree building that people have been doing for many, many years. In 2017, the DNA Doe Project that I co-founded, the non-profit DNA Doe Project, started using it for unidentified human remains cases. And then simultaneously, Barbara Rae-Venter was working with the FBI on the identification of the Golden State killer.

WHITFIELD: I see. And then there was the application of that method to this case of Tiffany Bradley. But for 26 years, she was actually identified as Chelsea Jane Doe. Tell us about this mystery and how you came to learn the identity of the remains that you did have.

PRESS: So this was not our case at all. So I really have no information on Chelsea Jane Doe, but she's very similar to the many John and Jane Does that we work with in the DNA Doe Project. So the -- the method used for unidentified remains has been from the very beginning, from 2017, when we started out with our John and Jane Does.

WHITFIELD: OK. And so how does it work? I mean, how does this kind of collaboration of labs and technology help reveal the identity of someone even decades later?

PRESS: Many of our cases are decades later, in fact even we had one that was a century old actually. The trick is to get good DNA from the remains. And that depends more on the conditions of the remains, the soil, whether subjected to water or heat. That's more important actually than the age of the remains. Once we obtain good DNA from the labs that we work with, those results, those files are then uploaded to three very small databases that we're allowed to use.

From there, we work on looking at the DNA relatives and build trees for them. And from those trees, we're able to build down to the date that the remains were found and make an identification lead that way.

WHITFIELD: What's your hope on how this will be used to help solve a number of cold cases?

PRESS: It's already been used in the short time. We've only been around since late 2017, when we started. So less than a decade. This incredible, powerful new investigative tool has already been used in over a thousand cases of John and Jane Does and violent perpetrators. So our hope is that with more funding for the lab work, there's no reason not to continue to make those identifications in many, many more.

We figure there's probably over 50,000 sets of unidentified human remains still in the country right now. Not all of them are in the UHR databases have been recorded. But that's the estimate from the National Institute of Justice. WHITFIELD: Well, that is very significant. Margaret Press, thanks so

much for being with us this weekend.

PRESS: You're most welcome.

WHITFIELD: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:58:48]

WHITFIELD: All right. Sunday on "THE WHOLE STORY," Donie O'Sullivan dives into the world of the progressive left. Could they potentially hurt Democrats in the general election? Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES CARVILLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: All right. Let's take in Michigan. Now Al-Sayed is highly competent. But he's way left. I see challenges from the, quote, "progressive left," unquote. And these people are too hard headed to know that they're not popular. People don't like them. And -- but if you get a skewered turnout in a primary, you might end up losing a race that you should have never lost in the first place.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: When you say progressive left, you sort of -- there's a tone of contempt there.

There's -- yes. Yes. You were very wise. I hope the camera was able to pick up the contempt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Donie says they were chatting it up over a nice serving of beignets there.

All right. "THE WHOLE STORY WITH ANDERSON COOPER" airs tomorrow night at 8:00 on CNN and the next day on the CNN app.

Thanks so much for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. "THE ARENA SATURDAY" starts right now.