Iraqi Forces Close In On ISIS
COOPER: Former President Obama is been on vacation a lot since the current president took office. He's going white water rafting in Bali this week, and still unclear if choppy waters back in Washington. President Trump is continuing his line of attacks on the former president blaming Mr. Obama for Russia's meddling, accusing him of everything from negligence to collusion. So far, Pres. Obama has not been taking the bait. Athena Jones tonight has more.</s>ATHENA JONES, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Online and on the air --</s>TRUMP: I just heard today for the first time that Obama knew about Russia a long time before the election. And he did nothing about it.</s>BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: How are you?</s>JONES (voice-over): President Trump making it abundantly clear that more than five months after replacing Pres. Obama, his predecessor remains top of mind.</s>TRUMP: We've been talking about this for a long time.</s>JONES (voice-over): Not content with simply undoing parts of Obama's legacy, like pulling the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal and the Paris Climate Accord, Trump is increasingly using Obama as a political foil, blaming him for not doing enough to stop Russian meddling in last year's election despite calling such meddling a phony story for months.</s>TRUMP: The CIA gave him information on Russia a long time before they even, you know, before the election. And I hardly see it.</s>JONES (voice-over): President Trump even accusing Pres. Obama of criminal acts. From collusion and obstruction, to spying on him in Trump Tower, a baseless claim he made in March that was widely refuted. That was also when Trump called Obama a bad or sick guy, a level of public nastiness not seen in modern presidential history.</s>PROF. TIMOTHY NAFTALI, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: These personalized attacks are unusual and unfortunate and sets a very bad president.</s>JONES (voice-over): Trump has a long history of antagonizing Obama, as one of the loudest proponents of the false conspiracy theory that America's first black president wasn't born in America.</s>TRUMP: Why doesn't he show his birth certificate?</s>JONES (voice-over): A campaign that eventually led Obama to release his birth certificate to the press. He later had some fun with the issue at Trump's expense.</s>BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: No one is happier, no one is prouder, to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?</s>JONES (voice-over): And while 44 has mostly pulled his punches since 45 took office, he made his opinion known on the campaign trail last year.</s>OBAMA: Donald Trump is uniquely unqualified to be president. No, I'm not joking. You laugh. I'm not joking.</s>JONES (voice-over): And he infuriated Trump when he told former aide David Axelrod --</s>OBAMA: I'm confident that if I -- if I'd run again, I think I could have mobilized a majority of the American people. If you succeed, then the country succeeds.</s>JONES (voice-over): After November's election, the pair made nice in an Oval Office meeting that they have not spoken since inauguration day.</s>TRUMP: He was very nice to any with words, but -- and when I was with him, but after that, there has been no relationship.</s>JONES (voice-over): Athena Jones, CNN, Washington.</s>COOPER: Up next, we take you inside the fight for the Iraqi city of Mosul. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is there as Iraqi forces close in on the last remaining ISIS fighters.</s>COOPER: Five weeks ago, Pres. Trump promised to hold a press conference to detail his strategy against ISIS in the next two weeks. That deadline came and went. Meanwhile, Iraqi forces are closing in on the terror group in the city of Mosul. Tonight, we take you deep inside the war-torn city. We'll look at the battle and destruction street by street, block by block. Our Nick Paton Walsh is there on the front lines. And we want to warn you, some of what you see you may find disturbing.</s>NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The end is near for ISIS. You can just feel it. And the normal life just bringing back out of these pancake buildings, yet turn one corner in Mosul toward its old city and the nihilism at the very final chapter in this war emerges. Liberation leaves little for life behind. Bodies still where they fell in the scorching heat. Senior commanders take us in, in the calm before their final storm to wipe ISIS off the map. How many more days do you think ISIS have in Mosul and in Iraq?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some days.</s>WALSH: Three, two? Brigadier General Alzadi (ph) beckons us on to see that prize. These are the last rooftops ISIS own in Mosul. Barely hundreds of meters to go now in the distant left, the riverbank marking where ISIS's world ends and in the dust, the ruins of the sacred Al-Omari mosque, ISIS blew it up rather than let it to be captured. A terrifying moment for the civilians held underground as human shields here. Well, that mosque has always been a distant target for Iraqi security forces, but now they literally are able to see it from neighboring rooftops. U.S. trained Major Salam took us into Mosul eight months ago, now he's here to see the end. We're in the beginning and now we're at the end of it.</s>MAJOR SALAM, IRAQI ARMY: Yes.</s>WALSH: And so what are we seeing on the screen?</s>SALAM: This</s>WALSH: Yes.</s>SALAM: -- that they're trying to reckon enemy, where they're located and try to find to know where is the civilian also. Nobody hear, exactly, how many civilian there are. They're located in so many different houses, many families in one house.</s>WALSH: Are you getting enough help from the Americans now? Because when we first met eight months ago you won't --</s>SALAM: More than enough. I am so happy for all the support from the Israeli (ph) side, from American side.</s>WALSH: There is the occasion stench of death here from the bodies of ISIS fighters like this one below me here left behind. And also at times an eerie silence when the gunfire subsides. But it's in these dense streets that you can really feel how hard the fight against ISIS has been in this final moments, but also, too, how few meters they are away from kicking the terrorist group out of Mosul, but also out of Iraq entirely. Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Mosul, Iraq.</s>COOPER: On the topic of Iraq, its citizens will not be affected when Pres. Trump's travel ban goes back into effect, which could happen as early tomorrow after the Supreme Court ruled to partially reinstate it. Iraq was removed from the original list of majority Muslim nations in the second version of the ban. However, those from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, who lack a bona fide relationship with an American, could be barred from entering the U.S. starting tomorrow. And that could mean to some difficulties initially at American airports as custom officials try to figure out who has a legitimate claim to entry and who does not. We'll be covering it all. That's it for us. Thanks for watching. See you again tomorrow night. Time to hand things over to Don Lemon.