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Russia's War on Ukraine; Apartments and School Hit by Missiles in Central Ukraine; Following Russian Missile Strike, First Responders Save Dozens of People; Launch of New Repayment Plan Website by the White House; Family of Gilgo Beach Murder Suspect Going Through "Catastrophe"; Increase in COVID Hospitalizations and Positive Tests, According to CDC; Kanye West's "X" Account Reinstated by Elon Musk; In Relation to "X" Sign, San Francisco Filed a Complaint to Twitter. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired July 31, 2023 - 10:30   ET

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

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[10:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEWS CENTRAL CO-ANCHOR: All right. We just got some new video in. I will be watching it for the first time right along with you. This is of a Russian missile attack on Ukrainian City of Kryvyi Rih, which is the hometown of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Let's watch.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Speaking in a foreign language).

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BERMAN: All right. That is terrifying. That's the moment you could see that these missiles hit a residential and university building. You can see in rubble. At least four people killed, 73 others injured in the attacks. Those number, really, could rise. There is a huge rescue effort under way at this very moment. We'll get an update when we can.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NEWS CENTRAL CO-ANCHOR: Just awful.

All right. The Biden administration has launched a website for its new income driven Student Loan Repayment Plan. It comes after the Supreme Court struck down President Biden's debt forgiveness program last month. And just a few months before borrowers are set to begin making payments again.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is live Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Look, can you give us a sense of when people can actually start applying for this?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Sara. Well, the applications are actually open now as this beta website launched just yesterday. Now, the Department of Education launched this beta website, which gives them a sense to address some issues that could arise over this process as the full launch of the website is set to occur in August. But those applications are open and people can begin submitting them now.

Now, this is just the latest step that the White House is taking to try to offer some relief to student loan borrowers. This plan is not as sweeping as President Biden's student loan forgiveness program which was blocked by the Supreme Court, but it does try to help people on an issue that matters, especially to young voters.

So, if you take a look at some of the details of this plan, this plan would be based on people's income and their family size. It only applies to federal student loans. Private loans are not a part of this. But there are some borrowers who could see their monthly payments wiped down to $0 a month. That includes individuals who are making roughly less than $33,000 a year, and families of four who are making less than roughly $67,000 a year.

Another key component of this plan is that interest would no longer accrue on these federal student loans if people continue to make their monthly payments. And in a year when this program is in full effect, some borrowers could see their payments cut in half. So, this is one of those proposals that they're rolling out as that October deadline approaches for when student loan payments will resume after that three year pause due to the pandemic.

SIDNER: So, since the Supreme Court struck down Biden's debt forgiveness plan, is the Biden administration expecting any legal challenges to this plan?

[10:35:00]

SAENZ: Well, officials I spoke with feel that they have pretty solid legal grounds when it comes to this income driven repayment plan. There have been similar programs that the Department of Education has implemented in the past. Congress has given them authority to base these plans based on income. And these plans that have been released in the past, all the way going back to 1994, none of them have faced a successful legal challenge. So, officials are pretty optimistic that this program will be in place for the long haul.

SIDNER: Arlette Saenz, thank you so much for that.

John.

BERMAN: Sara, the wife of the Gilgo Beach murder suspect is asking for space and privacy as she and her family come to terms with the crimes that he is accused of. He is charged with murder in the deaths of three women whose remains were found in 2010.

CNN's Brynn Gingras joins us now with the latest on this. So, what is the wife, at least, to her attorney?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John. Now, this is her divorce attorney from Rex Heuermann, that suspect that you're looking at right there of the Gilgo Beach murders accused. Charged now with three of those murders, and it's possible fourth will become -- be coming in, you know, the several days or weeks. And through her attorney, she is saying this to CNN, on behalf of me and my family and especially my elderly neighbors who have also had their lives turned upside down by the enormous police presence, in addition to the spectators and news crews, I am pleading with you all to give us space so that we may regain some normalcy in our neighborhood.

I also note that this attorney spoke to "TODAY Show". I want you to hear from him about her.

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ROBERT MACEDONIO, ASA ELLERUP'S ATTORNEY: It has been a very tumultuous time for them. Life has been thrown upside down in the past few weeks. She needs to protect herself and her children despite not knowing what's going to happen with him.

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GINGRAS: Now, it was just last week that she returned to that house where police, of course, were there for almost two weeks, sifting through every inch of that house. She went back to the house with her step -- with her son and her daughter. And they were collecting some items before they had to leave again. Of course, the press was out there in their front door. It has become quite of a spectacle, that house on that street.

Police now have left that area but, again, as you're seeing from this family, they are asking for privacy, John. I did check in with the sheriff's office who does tell me they still have not visited Rex Heuermann behind bars at this point, he is expected in court tomorrow.

BERMAN: Yes, talk to us about that court date tomorrow. What will go on or what's supposed to go on there?

GINGRAS: Yes. So, this is just a procedural hearing that's expected tomorrow afternoon. We are expecting him to appear in court. I'm told from the courts that this is just going to be, you know, the judge making sure that there's discovery that's turned over to the defense team. And we're not expecting any new charges as of yet.

But, of course, we're staying on top of this to see if we do hear about that fourth charge where he is the prime suspect in that fourth women whose body was found on Gilgo Beach. And of course, we're also keeping a close eye on other investigations that are happening in Nevada, Atlantic City, in South Carolina. So, there are still a lot happening in this investigation that we're keeping an eye on, John.

BERMAN: All right. We know you're all over it. Brynn Gingras, thanks so much.

Sara.

GINGRAS: Yes.

SIDNER: Still to come, is it a cold or COVID. Experts are predicting a summer surge of COVID case. We'll break down the latest numbers and tell you what other viruses are out there.

More than 50 people were killed in an attack on a political event in Pakistan. More on that deadly bombing when we come back.

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[10:40:00]

BERMAN: At least 54 people are dead after a suicide bomber attacked a crowd in Pakistan. It happened at an Islamist Party political convention. 12 of the victims were younger than 12, and more than 100 others were injured in the blast. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Protesters who support the military coup in Niger came out en masse in the country's capital, waving Russian flags and shouting, "Long live Putin." Now, the Kremlin has actually called for the release of Niger's democratically elected president. In recent years, Russia has attempted to capitalize on an anticolonial sentiment on the country to bolster Russian influence in Africa.

New video shows a harrowing rescue in China. A car is carried away in the floodwaters, you can see it right there. Eventually, a man -- right there, pops up, you can see a man in the water. He tries to stay afloat best as he can, and then the rescue. A rescuer is able to pull the man to safety. Now, the torrential rain from one of the largest typhoons in years caused major flooding in China, and forecasters are warning another hurricane level storm is on its way.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right. That summer cold you or someone in your family has may actually be COVID. Experts say, signs are pointing to a COVID summer surge. CNN Medical Correspondent Meg Tirrell is joining us now. Can you give us a sense of what the latest data is and what it shows us about whether or not COVID is -- cases are going up?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. What we are seeing in the CDC data is that a number of indicators they used to track COVID are showing a small bump. So, things like hospitalizations, emergency department visits, test positivity rates, and the amount of coronavirus in wastewater. All of those are up between about 10 percent and 20 percent over the last week of data this CDC is looking at.

[10:45:00]

But what's really important context to include here is that these increases are being seen off of extremely low levels, really, the lowest from many of these metrics that we have seen since the beginning of the pandemic. And specifically on the wastewater levels, that's a real leading indicator of cases because it shows up there before we see cases. And experts tell us there we're even starting to see perhaps a leveling off, a plateau which might suggest this bump we're seeing will not turn into a real surge, and certainly not along the magnitude of things we have seen in previous summers. SIDNER: What might be driving this -- these numbers that have gone up a bit?

TIRRELL: Yes. You know, so we're all out and about a lot more. There's a lot more travel going on. So, people are just interacting a lot more. Also because of the extreme heat. People are being forced inside, into the AC, and they're in close quarters, so that can lead to the spread of COVID. Also, you know, perhaps declining immunity, both from people not having gotten boosters recently, which makes sense. And also, because we haven't had as much COVID around so people don't have cases that then given them more immunity against future infections. So, all of those things together may be leading to this little bump we are seeing.

SIDNER: All right. Meg Tirrell, thank you so much.

John.

TIRRELL: Thank you.

BERMAN: So, after rebranding Twitter to X, Elon Musk making new changes, including reinstating the account of Kanye West who was suspended for inciting violence. We'll give you the new details.

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[10:50:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN. The world's new network.

BERMAN: Elon Musk is reinstating Kanye West's Twitter account or X account, or whatever you're supposed to call it now. It was suspended back in December after among other things West threatened to, "Go Death Con 3 on Jewish people."

Sara Fischer, CNN Media Analyst and Senior Media Reporter at Axios joins us now. Yet, the stuff that West said was pretty unambiguous. So, why is Musk saying it's OK to getting him back on?

SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST AND SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER, AXIOS: Well, that's one of the problems, right? We don't have a good explanation from him. And that's been one of the challenges of Twitter under Elon Musk's ownership. A lot of times, content moderation policies change, they change on the fly, they change in response to Elon Musk's attitude that day. But without inconsistent rules, it's really hard for partners of Twitter, including advertisers to feel that this platform is a brand safe place.

Now, of course you'll recall when he was first blocked from Twitter after antisemitic content was posted, Elon Musk said he tried but there was nothing he could do at this point. He has not yet commented on why he has changed his mind. But Twitter has told "The Wall Street Journal" that they will not allow any monetization of this account. Meaning, you can't run ads against it because it has violated some of its rules. BERMAN: That's interesting. So, they're opening the door to things -- if this is hate speech, you know, the hate speech, as long as you don't monetize it?

FISCHER: Yes, and that's actually not an uncommon position for a lot of tech platforms to take. A lot of times, it's more of a slap on the wrist measure. Your account can back but you can't necessarily monetize it. Similar to when YouTube brought Donald Trump's account back earlier this year, it's that they can't necessarily put ads around it. But the key thing here is, John, a lot of times platforms don't want to say explicitly how many months you're going to be banned or what those terms are going to be looking like because they don't want people to take advantage of the system and to gain the system.

The problem is it does feel as though Elon Musk is trying to bring the, sort of, inconsistent approach where for the people he likes, some rules apply. The people he don't -- he doesn't, other rules apply. And that level of inconsistency has become a very serious business headache for Twitter.

BERMAN: Another headache is there's this controversy now over the symbol, which is blinking over their building in San Francisco. What's going on there?

FISCHER: Yes. So, Elon Musk has decided to change the name of Twitter officially to X. he already rebranded Twitter's holding company X Corp. But he decided to take it a step further by erecting a giant flashing light X sign above Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco. Of course, folks in San Francisco had some issues with this. You can't just erect a major sign without getting the necessary permits involved. Doing something like that could have dangerous for pedestrians trying to cross the street.

And so, now, he's facing some blowback from city officials there. And that's important, John, because you'll note that Twitter is facing so many legal headaches in the City of San Francisco with paying its rent. But then even more broadly in paying out severance to employees that have been fired. So, this is a company that continues to be mired in a bunch of different issues. And a lot of them, John, just seemed to be self-inflicted.

BERMAN: Well, let's -- how are the X-games going as it were? You know, I had trouble on my phone finding Twitter because they changed the symbol, right, on my phone and I couldn't find the little bird. I know that it had changed, but it was a little bird until, like, 20 minutes ago. How is the whole change going for them?

FISCHER: I mean, it's been a rough rollout in part because typically when you do a major rebrand, it's something that's thoughtful. There's a huge marketing campaign. You put advertising dollars behind it to ensure that consumers understand the transition. This was just a chaotic, sort of, spur of the moment thing. And it's caught a lot of consumers off guard.

Now, that's a challenge for Twitter because they're trying to build an advertising-based business and where you need consumer attention. You need them to be engaged in the app every day. And so, I don't think that this transition has been going particularly smoothy -- smoothly. Folks on X are making fun of the X name.

But the big thing that I'm looking at for, John, is he said that he's rebranding Twitter to X because he wants to make it a fundamentally different product.

[10:55:00]

He wants to make it a super app where you can do payments and video and all of these big things. But will he be able to do that if he can't even get subscribers in the door and he can't bring advertisers back? I'm a little bit skeptical.

BERMAN: Yes, providing something that apparently no one's asking for. Sara Fischer, thank you so much for this. Really appreciate it.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right. A hearing just wrapped up for a Mar-a-Lago employee accused of trying to delete security video from the resort, allegedly on Former President Trump's order. CNN is live in Miami with the very latest on that case.

And the possibility of two more indictments is having no effect on his presidential campaign. Coming up, the new poll that shows Donald Trump crushing his GOP rivals.

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