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Protesters Demand Families Be Reunited; Thailand Cave Search; Mexico Elections; Tariffs Hurting Trump's Base; Iran Protests; 2018 World Cup. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired July 01, 2018 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ANNA COREN, CNN HOST: Wilting heat can't keep protestors off the streets as thousands of people across the U.S. march against Trump's immigration policy.
Plus rescuers are picking up the pace in Thailand as they zero in on where the missing football team might be trapped.
And France and Uruguay send the World Cup's two biggest stars packing. We're live in Russia with the latest.
Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world, I'm Anna Coren in Hong Kong. CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.
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COREN: Thousands of Americans are calling for an end to the government's zero tolerance immigration policy. Well, that's because the Trump administration's hardline approach has led to the separation of more than 2,000 migrant children from their parents after they illegally crossed the U.S. border.
On Saturday, public rage against the practice reached a fever pitch. Protesters held massive rallies in cities across the country. The biggest was in the Capitol, Washington, where children marched alongside their parents holding signs and chanting, "Families belong together."
They're calling for families torn apart by the Trump administration's hardline policy in these past few weeks to be reunited immediately. People from all walks of life raised their voices, including celebrities and children of undocumented immigrants, who face the fear of losing their parents to deportation every day.
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LEAH, DAUGHTER OF UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS: It makes me sad to know that children can't be with their parents. I don't understand why they are being so mean to us children.
Don't they know how much we love our families? Don't they have a family too?
ALICIA KEYS, SINGER: My 7-year-old son is here with me today. His name is Egypt.
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KEYS: And I couldn't even imagine not being able to find him. I couldn't even imagine being separated from him or scared about how he's being treated so this is all of our fight.
AMERICA FERRERA, ACTOR: I am here not only as a brand-new mother, as the child, the proud child of Honduran immigrants --
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FERRERA: -- and not only as an American who sees it as her duty to be here defending justice, I am here as a human being --
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FERRERA: -- with a beating heart who can feel pain, who understands compassion and who can easily imagine what it must feel like to struggle the way families are struggling right now.
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COREN: Some emotional words there.
Well, in downtown Los Angeles, protesters gathered outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building. That's the organization responsible for rounding up undocumented immigrants and catching people who cross the border illegally. A rising chorus is demanding that agency be abolished.
Well, meanwhile, several celebrities led their voices to the Los Angeles protest. Singer-songwriter John Legend sang a new song called "Preach."
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COREN: And Democratic senator Kamala Harris spoke out against the detention centers that house migrant children.
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SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, (D), CALIFORNIA: We are better than this.
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HARRIS: We are better than having these detention facilities that are prisons where we house mothers who have been ripped from their breastfeeding children behind barbed wires. We are better than this.
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HARRIS: When we have children being housed in cages crying for their mommies and daddies, we know we are better than this.
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COREN: And in Chicago, protestors encouraged each other to fight back against policies they think are --
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COREN: -- unjust. Senator Dick Durbin told CNN's Ryan Young that the best way for Americans to do this is to exercise their democratic rights.
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SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: I'm asking people across the United States, voters, participate. Be part of this election. Don't stay home and curse the television. Sorry. But come on out. Use your citizen's right to vote. That's the most important thing.
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COREN: Besides blaming the Trump administration, demonstrators lay some of the blame for the separation of migrant families at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency or ICE as it's known.
This was the scene in McAllen, Texas, a town right on the U.S. border, where one of the agency processing centers sits. Protesters saying migrants there are being treated worse than animals.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, for one, they're not animals because anybody who loves animals wouldn't even treat them the way the humans are being treated now. So for the president, make a difference.
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COREN: In Boston, Massachusetts, Senator Elizabeth Warren told the crowds there that the agency need to be completely remade.
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SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: The president's deeply immoral actions have made it obvious we need to rebuild our immigration system from top to bottom, starting by replacing ICE with something that reflects our morality and values.
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COREN: And in Portland, Oregon, at least five people were injured during confrontations with police. Demonstrators and federal officers have been clashing there all week, so much so that the ICE agency temporarily had to shut down its office there.
U.S. President Trump is at his golf resort in New Jersey this weekend. Protesters were there, too, just a few miles from him. The White House is keeping quiet about the immigration rallies across the U.S.
That might be because of other things on the president's agenda, one of those priorities choosing someone to fill a new opening on the U.S. Supreme Court. CNN's Boris Sanchez has the latest.
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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The White House not putting out an official on-the-record response Saturday to our questions about the nationwide protest against the president's immigration policy.
President Trump himself did weigh in on immigration via Twitter early on Saturday morning, bashing Democrats, writing that they wanted to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, suggesting at one point that they are an open borders party and drawing a line between the restructuring of ICE, that some Democrats, like New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand are calling for, and the abolishment of all police, quite a leap for the president to make.
No response to questions about the protesters that were near his property in Bedminster, New Jersey. According to organizers, some 300 or 400 protesters gathered at a library some 3 miles from his property. Unclear if the president was aware that they were there, trying to send a message to him.
We do know the president has kept busy this weekend. Initially, he told reporters on Friday that he would spend the weekend interviewing one or two possible nominees for the Supreme Court, following the announcement from Justice Anthony Kennedy earlier this week that he would be retiring.
The White House on Saturday night put out a statement, saying that the president was continuing conversations with allies and with White House counsel Don McGahn over that possible replacement but would not confirm that any of those meetings took place.
We should note that President Trump on Friday told reporters that he had dwindled (sic) down an initial list of 25 names to just five, though he would be interviewing with six or seven candidates -- Boris Sanchez, CNN, traveling with the president in Bedminster, New Jersey.
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COREN: Let's bring in political analyst Scott Lucas, who teaches international politics at the University of Birmingham in England. And he's the founder and editor of "EA WorldView."
Scott, great to have you with us. Let's start with those incredible and emotional scenes across the United States, tens of thousands of people, taking to the streets to protest Donald Trump's zero tolerance immigration policy, especially separating those more than 2,000 children from their parents. There's been silence from the president, which isn't surprising.
But is it likely to have any impact on the administration?
SCOTT LUCAS, UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM: Oh, yes. First, you have the rallies. This isn't tens of thousands, this is hundreds of thousands so this is not just a one-off. You will see this as a continuing expression of concern, not only over the immigration policy, the detention of children, the separation from parents but even wider than that and that is the attitude of the president and his administration towards people of --
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LUCAS: -- other races, which we have seen vividly in the past year. Their attitude towards people of other religions, such as Muslims. Their attitudes toward, for example, women or even just the type of language that they use.
So Donald Trump wasn't silent yesterday. Donald Trump was extremely rattled by this. So it was on Twitter where he put out a series of, let's be clear here, false tweets, saying things like, for example, all his critics want open borders. Untrue. Saying for example that his administration's zero policy, forget about the children, they have liberated towns from the MS-13 gang. Untrue. Saying that he had no opinion on the votes on immigration in Congress this past week. Untrue.
In other words, the Trump strategy is clear here, that if the White House gives you no official comment because it wants all those people just to go away, Trump is going to try to shift this to the idea of, as he has said in the past, that undocumented immigrants are animals, that we need no legal process for them and that, therefore, those people who have rallied yesterday, and will rally tomorrow and next week and next month, they're illegitimate. They have no cause to march against him and his administration.
COREN: You mentioned that tweet that he made, he really deflected from the real issue which is, of course, his hardline immigration policy and was saying that -- he obviously defended the performance of ICE and attacked Democrats as pushing a radical Left agenda to a abolish ICE.
I mean, it's not surprising that he deflects -- this is what he'd do, this is what he does.
But really is it going to appeal to his base?
Yes.
But to everybody else, I guess it's just more noise from the president.
LUCAS: There's three elements here. Let's keep this in mind because it is a day-to-day contest. And we -- in fact, it's been going on since Trump became president. One is you appeal to that supposed base. If you said maybe 30, 35 percent of Americans who support the president, his administration, no matter what they do.
Two, it's to keep others confused. In other words, you put out a lie in the morning -- and they've done this over many issues, including the economy this past week -- you put out the lie over the morning and then, while the rest of us are trying to say, no, this is actually what happened, later on in the day they'll step back from it and say, oh, maybe we misspoke or Trump will simply move on to something else. And you're not sure whether up is down or black is white.
And then, thirdly, they'll try to divert your attention away from the starting point issue. And let us remember here, the starting point issue here is that this administration deliberately, deliberately took children from parents. They deliberately took them into hurriedly constructed centers, cages.
And more than 2,000 of those children are still there and are likely to be there for months because the priority of Donald Trump is not to reunite families, it is not to apologize. You won't hear a word of sorry for what happened.
It will be blame the media, blame the Democrats, support me, your president. Whether it works is not just a question of an election in November; it is a question of what happens week on week about immigration and the other issues in the United States.
COREN: Well, let's talk about the reunification of those families because obviously the president, he underestimated the rage. He then buckled to that pressure last month and signed an executive order to now keep those families together in detention centers, albeit indefinitely.
But reuniting those children, it seems like a logistical nightmare and something the White House did not plan for.
LUCAS: Anna, first of all, let me be clear here. Donald Trump didn't buckle when he signed that document, which, you know, supposedly is an order. There's been the reduction in the number of children held in detention in the past week since the order was issued.
It's six. In other words, there have been very few efforts that have been successful, if pursued, to reunite people. In part, that's because of the lack of records. In part, that's because of the chaos. In part, it's because some parents have been deported while children were left behind.
But I repeat, in part, let us be clear, it is because Donald Trump and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and his White House advisor, Stephen Miller, don't want the families reunited. That's not their priority because the idea was, you break up the families and it is a deterrent to others who try to cross the border, even if they want to claim asylum.
Now perhaps they will try to defy the courts and put these children together with parents in detention centers. But it will take weeks or months to construct those detention centers.
So, in other words, they're not buckling. They're actually doubling down on their bet.
COREN: It's absolutely horrifying what is going on. Scott Lucas, thank you very much for putting that all into perspective for us.
Well, coming up, looking for life in the darkness. Why Thai rescuers think a missing youth football team could still be alive. That's ahead.
Plus, Mexico goes to the polls amid its deadliest year on record.
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COREN: Why politicians and journalists are in the crosshairs.
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COREN: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM.
Here in Hong Kong, the city is marking the 21st anniversary of its return to China from Britain. Hong Kong's chief executive, Carrie Lam, attended a flag raising ceremony earlier. Lam, who pledged a year ago to be accountable to both Beijing and Hong Kong, says that, under her leadership, the one country, two systems formula remains intact.
But some pro-democracy activists don't see it that way. They are protesting the anniversary and believe Beijing has been encroaching on Hong Kong's autonomy.
More than a week on, Thailand is not giving up the search for a missing youth football team. Officials said on Saturday that divers are closing in on a spot where the team may have taken shelter. It's believed the 12 boys and their coach --
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COREN: -- were trapped in a flooded cave system last weekend. Their plight has sparked an international rescue effort. But heavy rains hampered the search.
Some of the waters now receded and rescuers are pushing on. CNN's Nikhil Kumar is covering the story from India. He joins us from New Delhi.
Nikhil, we heard from the governor of Chiang Rai earlier today and he said that there's a multi-pronged attack for rescuing this team. Tell us more.
NIKHIL KUMAR, CNN NEW DELHI BUREAU CHIEF: So there is, Anna. They're looking at a number of ways of trying to get into this cave network. It's quite vast. Ten kilometers in Northern Thailand to find the boys aged 11 to 16 and the coach who is 25.
They've looked at the possibility of entering by the mouth of the cave and exiting from there. The problem there is that the floodwaters that have accumulated over the last few days, there was a lot of rain that has receded but the cave themselves, there's a lot of leftover water and mud and that's complicated that.
They're looking at entering a different way, surveying chimneys that they hope might allow them to get inside the network. That hasn't proved very successful so far. They're looking at drilling draining channels to drain the water out and make it easier for the rescue teams to operate that way.
They've also looked at the possibility of actually drilling directly into the wall of the cave to get inside. That's very complicated. This is very, very thick, heavy rock. A number of options being looked at. As you said, yesterday a team of divers making progress thanks to the slight letup in the rain to this elevated area, where they hope the kids and their coach might be -- Anna.
COREN: And, Nikhil, the dangers and the risks to those divers who were trying to navigate this labyrinth of a cave system, tell us a bit more about that.
KUMAR: Many risks, Anna, absolutely. So the fact that there is all this floodwater that is mixed up with mud, it's quite muddy, quite dark in there. There are concerns about oxygen. The diving teams that you referred to earlier that are making their progress to this elevated area, they are working their way there with oxygen tanks installed at 25-meter intervals. This is to protect them.
Extra oxygen tanks are being brought in. Vests have been brought in. And the team itself, the rescue team itself, the whole effort has gradually, over the week -- in fact, it's been over a week now; the team went missing the previous Saturday -- has gradually, over all of these days, become larger and larger.
So now we have more than a thousand rescue personnel there, teams from Thailand, the U.S. military, British cave experts, teams from China and from Australia. Everyone involved in trying to locate these 12 boys, their coach, find them and hopefully evacuate them.
Yesterday, they conducted evacuation drills to be ready in the event that they do find them, how to get them out. So they're pressing on to try and find them and to hopefully get them out -- Anna.
COREN: We know this has obviously captured the nation's attention, their hearts and their prayers. But we also saw some images today from those divers and on the oxygen tanks, messages like, "please find them soon" and "bring the Wild Boar team home," that being the football team.
Incredible, incredible images and just remarkable that they are still continuing eight days on. Nikhil Kumar, thank you for the update.
Meanwhile, in Mexico, yet another journalist has been killed as the country prepares to head to the polls. Jose Guadalupe Chan was shot dead Friday night in the southern part of the country. He is the seventh journalist killed in Mexico so far this year.
His death came just two days before voters there elect a new president and some 3,400 state and local officials. That's just the latest violence in a deadly year for Mexico. 2017 was a record-breaking year for homicide. This year is on track to far exceed it.
More than 100 candidates, all politicians, have been killed since the election campaign started, by one count. Our Rafael Romo has the details.
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RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SR. LATIN AFFAIRS EDITOR (voice-over): Crime, corruption --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Speaking Spanish).
ROMO (voice-over): -- gang violence. Trails of blood staining Mexico as the country votes in its largest election ever.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It's worrying. So much violence. So many dead. So many people dying that had nothing to do with the violence. We all worry about that.
ROMO (voice-over): Organized crime in Mexico has become more deadly over the last few years. 2017 saw more than 29,000 homicides, the most killings recorded since officials began tracking the data.
And 2018 is on track to set another grim milestone; more than 20,506 have been killed since the start of the year. Others have simply gone missing. It's a gruesome trend, sending some to take their chances at the border.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It's more dangerous where --
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): -- I live. It's more dangerous there than in comparison to what could happen here at the border.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Well, in all truth, I am scared. I have come with my family to see what happens. In the end, we're going to give it a try.
ROMO (voice-over): Locals say widespread corruption has created a vacuum for cartels and organized crime to proliferate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): A lot of businesses are closing down because there is no security. The owners are scared they will be kidnapped or murdered over the payment of extortions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Many companies have had losses this year. Talking to our colleagues, robberies with grocery store owners, with people in the food industry, take place from three to four times a week, depending on the company.
ROMO (voice-over): Sunday closes a brutal campaign season, according to risk analysis group Entelect: 132 candidates or politicians have been murdered since last September, ahead of an election where thousands of seats are at stake. Mexico's security crisis is a central issue, with the most high-profile voices calling for more accountability.
GAEL GARCIA BERNAL, ACTOR: The stakes are pretty high. This is a moment -- this is a moment to overturn things. And I don't want to go into my 40s thinking that I'm going to have systematic violence, systematic impunity in my country.
ROMO (voice-over): Rafael Romo, CNN.
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COREN: There are four main candidates for president. Former Mexico city mayor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador; another, Ricardo Anaya from the National Action Party. There's Jose Antonio Meade from the ruling PRI party and independent Jaime Rodriguez
The winner will serve a single six-year term. Final results are expected late Sunday night or early Monday.
Coming up, President Trump's controversial immigration policy has divided the country. We'll go to the U.S.-Mexico border to see how some of the president's supporters feel about it.
Plus, we'll take you to the American heartland, where some Trump voters are paying a high price for the president's aggressive trade policies. Some say there is a limit to how much they can take.
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COREN: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world, you are watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Anna Coren. The headlines this hour.
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COREN: Back to our top story this hour, the immigration debate in the United States. A hardline stance on immigration has been a big rallying point for Trump supporters since day one of his campaign. CNN's Ed Lavandera went to the U.S.-Mexico border to find out if supporters are still standing by President Trump on this issue.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SERGIO SANCHEZ, RADIO HOST: Welcome to the wall.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With that kind of introduction, It's no surprise immigration is the hot topic for Sergio Sanchez's radio show in the South Texas Rio Grande Valley.
S. SANCHEZ: Broadcast from (INAUDIBLE). North of the river and --
LAVANDERA (voice-over): He's a staunch Trump Republican and credits the president with taking a tough approach to border security.
S. SANCHEZ: With President Trump we have someone who is making a serious attempt to enforce rule of law and enforce border law and enforce our sovereign border with Mexico and get a hold of the situation.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Cristina Garfield has lived along the border all her life. She comes from a family of Democrats. But she, like Trump, sees a threat in the flow of illegal immigration.
CRISTINA GARFIELD, TRUMP SUPPORTER: My biggest concern with the people that are coming over our borders is safety. Safety is a huge deal down here.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Trump is far from popular here in Hidalgo County, Texas, where much of the zero tolerance policy attention has been focused. He only won 28 percent of the vote.
But there is an undercurrent of conservative Latino voters, who kind of defy conventional political wisdom. They're unfazed by Trump's rhetoric that undocumented immigrants are, using Trump's words here, "invading" the country.
GARFIELD: He doesn't sugarcoat anything. I think the people of the United States appreciate that also. I don't think it's a bad thing.
LAVANDERA: When you hear people talk about the way he talks about this issue, that it comes off as racist to them, what do you say to that?
SANCHEZ: Yes, well that's their problem. They hear what they want to hear and they say what they want to say. Hey, it's a free country. They can believe in that.
LAVANDERA: Joacim Hernandez (ph) is president of the county's Young Republicans chapter. He walks us through the produce distribution warehouse where he works as the human resources director. He says the president needs to compromise on immigration.
JOACIM HERNANDEZ, YOUNG REPUBLICANS: When you hear about families being separated, the zero tolerance policy, you think, you know, we're the family of -- we're the party of the family of faith and freedom. And you think about families being separated and it doesn't look very civil.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): But Hernandez is also exhausted by Trump's divisiveness.
HERNANDEZ: There are some things that he says, that sometimes you got to cringe and be like, ah, how am I going to defend that?
LAVANDERA: You're tired of sticking up for him?
HERNANDEZ: I don't get anything for having to stick up for him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Or Mr. Donald J. Trump and --
LAVANDERA (voice-over): There are plenty of Trump supporters willing to fight that fight, even in South Texas, where there aren't many around -- Ed Lavandera, CNN, McAllen, Texas.
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COREN: President Trump's political base may not be as unshakeable as it sometimes appears. Some farmers in --
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COREN: -- Iowa who supported him in 2016 now say his trade policies are causing them very serious financial harm. This could spell trouble for the president's party in November's midterm elections. CNN's Nick Watt has our report.
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NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dark clouds over an Iowan soybean field, there just might be a metaphor in that.
BRIAN SAMPSON, SOYBEAN FARMER: I'm worried some. I'm concerned.
WATT: What about Iowan hog farmers.
AL MULFEKUHLE, HOG FARMER: It's anxious times. Yes, no doubt about it.
WATT: Because in April, China slapped an extra 25 percent tariff on imports of American pork.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The pigs you're fairly talking $200 million to $300 million impact already.
WATT: That's just Iowa. Now China threatens something similar on soybeans.
The two largest economies on earth locked in a trade war largely over intellectual property in the tech industry.
SAMPSON: We get punished, we as agriculture, so to speak, that was a good one.
WATT: Iowa gets hit hard, one of the country's top soybean producers and the top pork producer.
(On camera): Did you vote for President Trump?
SAMPSON: Yes, I did.
WATT: You voted for President Trump?
MULFEKUHLE: Yes, I did.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have to come to Iowa.
WATT (voice-over): But his tariff-laden trade policies might now hit his base hard. Chinese motives are veiled, but Mexico now blatantly targeting tariffs at states like Iowa that voted Trump, slapping 10 percent on pork.
Iowan Congressman Roy Blunt now among the most vulnerable incumbent Republicans in the midterms.
MULFEKUHLE: We'll get more vocal as it gets more painful. But we're going to try to be patriotic. WATT: So is there a point when Iowan farmers abandon Trump?
SAMPSON: Yes, there is a point.
WATT (on camera): There is a point?
SAMPSON: Yes. Yes.
WATT: And where is that point?
SAMPSON: Gosh, I wish I knew. I wish I knew. We might be there.
WATT (voice-over): The president has pledged to help farmers. The details remain unclear.
MULFEKUHLE: A lot of the stuff he's done is good. Right now if the trade negotiations go on, ask me in six months because it is painful right now.
WATT: Right now, Al Mulfekuhle stands to lose over half a million dollars this year alone -- Nick Watt, CNN, Iowa.
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COREN: A few hours ago, Canada officially fired the latest shot in the global conflict over American trade tariffs, the imposed penalties on American imports totaling $12 billion. Canada's foreign affairs minister says U.S. goods being hit with the tariffs include everything from maple syrup to orange juice and whisky.
Canada's duties are four times larger than new European duties. They are retaliation for President Trump's tariffs on exported Canadian steel and aluminum. Canada says the U.S. move is illegal and will harm Canadian industries.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHRYSTIA FREELAND, CANADIAN FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER: And we will not back down. I cannot emphasize enough the regret with which we take these counter measures. We are acting very much in sorrow, not in anger. But the U.S. tariffs leave Canada no choice.
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COREN: The world's largest naval war games are happening near the Hawaiian islands. The Pentagon's Rim of the Pacific exercises, known as RIMPAC, bring together dozens of ships and submarines, 200 aircraft and 25,000 troops from 25 nations.
U.S. military leaders say the games are about building relationships. China is noticeably absent. Beijing was disinvited because of the militarization of islands in the South China Sea. China is holding its own competing naval drills.
Coming up, extreme heat hits parts of the United States, affecting about a third of the population. The latest forecast just ahead.
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COREN: It began as a peaceful protest in Iran and then this.
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COREN (voice-over): At least one person was reported killed in the southern part of the country when demonstrators clashed with police. That's according to social media posts.
You can hear what sounds like gunfire there. We should note, CNN cannot verify the authenticity of this video. Police fired teargas to contain the crowd. Protesters then threw stones and other objects.
The protests began over a shortage of clean water in the area, especially troubling in the hot Iranian summer. Temperatures there can reach at least 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
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COREN: Temperatures were also rising at the immigration rally in Washington. Large crowds gathered to demand families be reunited after they were separated as a result of Donald Trump's zero tolerance policy at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Two people were taken to hospital for heat-related emergencies and dozens were being treated at cooling tents. Fire trucks sprayed mist to cool protesters down.
It has been a warm time in the western part of the United States but it's miserably hot in much of the eastern U.S.
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COREN: Coming up, Ronaldo and Messi are out. But there's still plenty of stars left in the World Cup. The teenage prodigy leading the charge for France, that's ahead.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. No. No. No.
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COREN (voice-over): Oh, no. Well, it's back to the drawing board for a Japanese startup. Interstellar Technologies is developing low-cost rockets but this prototype on Saturday barely got off the launch pad.
The MOMO-2 was supposed to go 100 kilometers straight up. Instead, it got just 30 meters before the engine quit and gravity took over. It was an embarrassing setback. The company's first test rocket, the MOMO-1, reached an altitude of 20 kilometers last July before plunging into the ocean.
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COREN: Two of football's biggest stars are being ousted at the World Cup. Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi were both outed in the time stage. For a look at those matches and what this means for the tournament, here's CNN's Patrick Snell.
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PATRICK SNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was an absolutely enthralling Saturday at the World Cup in Russia, where both France and Uruguay have become the first two nations to book their places in the tournament's quarterfinals.
And ponder on this for just a moment or two: Saturday, June the 30th, will now go down as the day both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo went out of the World Cup on the very same day, with neither still having ever scored in any of the tournament's knockout games.
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SNELL (voice-over): Ronaldo and Portugal were facing Uruguay and the Uruguayans got off to a great start when Luis Suarez finds Cavani with the cross, obliging with the perfect finish, possibly a combination of shoulder and face, too.
After Portugal had leveled, Edinson Cavani, again, providing the sublime moment of the game, a breathtaking curl finish, superb skills, just past the hour mark: 2-1, Uruguay. Heartbreak for Portugal and their star talisman as well, Cristiano Ronaldo -- look at this -- visibly moved by the outcome.
And it's a wonder at 33, has he now possibly played for the last time at the World Cup?
We shall see. All right. Earlier in the day, we witnessed pure theater. A 7-goal thriller of a game between two-time world champions Argentina and France. Much had been made about Argentine disunity and whether the squad lost faith in the manager, Jorge Sampaoli. Argentina's stunning equalizer though appeared to indicate otherwise.
At that point and especially when Lionel Messi's shot is deflected in by teammate Gabriel Mercado for 2-1 La Albiceleste. It looked like Argentina could be in for the big win but the Blue dug deep to turn this match on its head. The young Stuttgart defender Benjamin Pavard with a brilliant goal for the French. What a moment he'll never forget.
Then it really was the Kylian Mbappe show. He wouldn't turn 20 until December, showing composure way beyond his years, becoming the first team to score two goals at a World Cup since the great Pele six decades ago.
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SNELL: All right. Here is a look at the draw then. France and Uruguay, the first teams through. They'll play for a place in the semis on Friday. Sunday will see two more teams punching their ticket to the next round, when Spain face the host nation, Russia. Croatia kicking off against Denmark.
And that is your FIFA World Cup update. I'm Patrick Snell.
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COREN: For more on those upcoming matches, CNN's Alex Thomas joins us from Moscow.
Alex, before we get to today's games, let's talk about the heartache for Portugal and Argentina with Messi and Ronaldo out.
What does it mean for their international careers?
ALEX THOMAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anna, it's been a World Cup full of surprises, very entertaining.
Who'd have thought we'd be standing here before the third full week of World Cup action with no Germany, no Argentina and Lionel Messi and no Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo?
It is a slight surprise, although perhaps just confirmation again that this is a team sport, no matter how brilliant the individuals involved. You need to have the whole side playing well and there's no doubt that France, who beat Argentina, and Uruguay, who put out Portugal, were the better sides on Saturday.
No recriminations, no real controversy. What's really interesting is, are we going to see Messi or Ronaldo at a World Cup again?
Ronaldo will be almost 38 by the time Qatar 2022 comes around. It's going to be played much later in the year than is normal and Messi will be 35. I think we might well see them back at a World Cup because they just love football so much and want to prolong their careers.
However, this is the last World Cup we've seen Messi and Ronaldo at the peak of their powers. So definitely there's a feeling of the changing of their guard and Kylian Mbappe, the young French teenager who set up the penalty for France's opening goal and scored twice himself, suddenly is the new name on everybody's lips, making the biggest impact by any teenager at a World Cup, arguably, since the great Pele back in 1958, when he scored six goals, including two goals in the World Cup final itself -- Anna.
COREN: Can't believe he's only 19.
Alex, tell us, what can we expect from today's games when host Russia take on Spain, where you are --
[04:55:00]
COREN: -- in Moscow, and Croatia line up against Denmark.
THOMAS: Yes, two more round of 16 games later on Sunday, involving all European sides. Starting match between Spain and Russia, as you said, at the Luzhniki Stadium here in Moscow. We'll be heading off to that a little bit later on.
The Luzhniki has been sold out for all its games. There will be huge support for the home team who are still the highest scorers in this tournament, bar Belgium and England.
But they were rather shown up by Uruguay in their final group game, losing that 3-0. So Spain will be confident of exploiting their weaknesses as Russia's first knockout game since 1986, when they were still the Soviet Union. Spain, who crashed out in the group stages four years ago, last time they played a knockout game was 2010 in the final.
And of course, they won the World Cup for the first time in their history. As for the long, well (ph), Croatia expects to beat Denmark. That's a later kickoff tonight. That's a kickoff 9:00 local time at the Nizhny Novgorod between Croatia and Denmark -- Anna.
COREN: All right, Alex, many thanks for the update. Speak to you a bit later.
Many people say, I may not know art but I know what I like. Well, many people don't seem to like what happened in our next story.
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COREN (voice-over): This is the 16th century face of St. George, valiantly charging at the dragon. But while he could slay dragons, there was one battle not even St. George could win, the fight against aging.
However, this was not the makeover he probably had in mind and we have no words. The restoration was even condemned by the local mayor and it drew inevitable comparisons, I should say, this the infamous "Ecce Homo" fresco of Jesus on the plus side. The botched fresco is now a popular tourist attraction.
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COREN: That is criminal.
Well, the day's top stories are just ahead. CNN NEWSROOM continues after the break.
