defending his decision to visit saudi arabia as he travels to the middle east next week against criticism and controversy surrounding the trip. the president set to meet with saudi crown prince mohammed bin salman. biden vowed to make saudi arabia a pariah. now as president he says his visit to the country is critical to u.s. security. that s right. washington post op-ed the president writes it s my job to keep our country strong and secure. we have to counter russia s aggression, put ourselves in the best possible position to outcompete china, and work for greater stability in a consequential region of the world. to do these things we have to engage directly with countries that can impact those outcomes. the president s trip has come under criticism because of saudi arabia s role in the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi. the saudi crown prince was said to be responsible for ordering khashoggi s murder. let s get some perspective on president biden s trip. a historia
the ground ahead and missile strikes across ukraine leaving destruction and injured. we ll have a live report from kyiv. the funeral for japan s shinzo abe will be held next week. a wake is scheduled for monday with his memorial service set for the next day. a hearse carrying the former prime minister s body arrived at his tokyo home a few hours ago. hundreds of mourners lined the streets outside. just one day earlier abe was giving a campaign speech in western japan when he was shot at close range with a homemade gun by a man. police found several crude guns made from metal pipes and other materials. under japan s strict gun laws, it s very difficult for citizens to own guns. the dockers tried to say about abe but say his blood loss was just too great. he was the longest-serving figure and a world known figure on stage. blake is covering this for us. reporter: earlier the body of shinzo abe accompanied by his wife arrived back here at his home in tokyo located just down
appear voluntarily and answer a whole variety of questions. he did not contradict the testimony of other witnesses, and i think we did learn a few things, which we will be rolling out in hearings to come. during pivotal moments, cipollone was in the know and very much in the room, including the oval office on january 3rd shooting down trump s plan to replace the acting attorney general with an election denying doj lawyer. and two sources say he was with trump during the riot itself watching it unfold on television. with me now is former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york elie honig who is also a cnn senior legal analyst. elie, let s be honest here. neither of us were in the room for all eight hours, which would have been great for news, but less good for actual having a life. that said, we have gotten bits and pieces from our reporting from our team at cnn about what pat cipollone was asked about when he may have said. what s your biggest takeaway
school shooting, and it s drawing scrutiny from local officials. the mayor of uvalde is trying to poke holes in a portion of that report that states that a police officer could have taken out the shooter before he entered the school, but apparently didn t get clearance to open fire on the suspect in time. cnn spoke with grieving families from the mass shooting who are frustrated, angry, and they re mostly feeling this way because the information has been so inconsistent and they are equally angry with the police action taken on that terrible day. it was just like putting salt on an open wound. reporter: every drip of new information adding to the pain for the families of the victims. it s just really hard because it s hard to grieve when there s no closure. reporter: more than 50 family members gathered together in uvalde to meet with cnn. the son, brother and sister of
teacher garcia and the father of 10-year-old jackie spoke on camera six weeks after their loved ones, 19 children and two teachers, were killed. they still need answers. when you say there s no closure, what are you looking for? i want people to be held accountable. reporter: a new report said an armed uvalde police officer had an opportunity to shoot the gunman before he went inside the school potentially stopping the tragedy before it began. today the uvalde mayor disputed that claim. the investigation is now the subject of intense scrutiny with conflicting reports emerging and political in-fighting between local leaders and top state officials. it s more confusion, more frustration for these families. when you hear about some of the new information that s now come out, what are you thinking? they are trained to stop an