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Special Counsel Contacts GA Gov. Regarding Trump; VP Harris Blasts Florida For Claims About Slavery; Curriculum Updates Required By Florida's "Stop Woke Act"; Manchin Reportedly Considering 3rd Party White House Run; House Passes Bill Aimed At Improving Air Travel; Provision Calling For Pilots To Be Trained On Simulators Failed To Gain House Support; NOAA: June was Earth's Hottest on Record; Lawsuit: Mississippi Cops Tortured, Sexually Assaulted Two Men; US Women Beat Vietnam in World Cup Opener. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired July 22, 2023 - 19:00   ET

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

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[19:00:28]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington. Good evening.

We begin tonight as the special counsel's office reaches out to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. It's just the latest step in the ongoing investigation into Donald Trump and his efforts to interfere in the 2020 election. The former president has already received a target letter that he says almost always means an arrest or indictment is coming.

CNN's Marshall Cohen joins us with the latest details of the investigation. Marshall?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER: Hey, Jim. New reporting today that Special Counsel Jack Smith has contacted Georgia Governor Brian Kemp as part of his investigation into the 2020 election aftermath. Our colleague Kaitlan Collins confirmed that Smith's team was in touch with Governor Kemp this week.

Now, Kemp's office is not saying much, and the timing of a possible FBI interview or grand jury appearance is not clear right now. But Governor Kemp is a key figure in this investigation. That's because in 2020, Donald Trump privately and publicly pressured Kemp to overturn the election.

In Georgia, Trump wanted Kemp to interfere with the vote counting, block certification of the results, and convene a special session of the legislature to appoint fake Republican electors. Now, beyond Governor Kemp, the special counsel is also in the process of scheduling interviews with additional witnesses. That includes a potential interview with a former Trump lawyer and an interview with a longtime ally of Rudy Giuliani.

All of this comes as possible indictments are looming. Smith sent a target letter to Trump last week signaling that he might be charged with federal crimes for trying to overturn the 2020 election. The grand jury sitting here in Washington, D.C. is expected to meet in the coming days.

Then, separate from that, there's the Mar-a-Lago, where Trump is already facing 37 felony charges for allegedly mishandling classified documents and obstructing the investigation. Trump denies wrongdoing, and he pleaded not guilty.

Just yesterday, a federal judge in Florida set a new trial date for May 2024. Now, Jim, that's pretty late in the Republican primary schedule. By then, Trump might already be the presumptive GOP nominee. Special Counsel Jack Smith wanted that trial to take place this December, leading to probably a verdict that would come before the Iowa caucuses. But that's not going to happen.

The trial is now set for May, though, of course, further delays are always possible. And Donald Trump's team is pretty optimistic that they can kick this thing past the 2024 election. With just one or two more delays, they might be able to do it. Jim?

ACOSTA: Marshall Cohen, thanks for that.

In the meantime, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is calling Vice President Kamala Harris's criticism of the state's new guidelines on black history education, quote, "totally outrageous". Harris made a last minute trip to Jacksonville last night, where she voiced outrage over a portion of new state education guidelines in Florida, requiring teachers to instruct students on how slaves may have received a, quote, "personal benefit" from being taught certain skills while enslaved.

DeSantis says Florida's new standards are the most robust probably anywhere in the country, he says. Kevin Liptak joins me now from the White House. Kevin, what's going on here?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, certainly Ron DeSantis has made these cultural and social issues the centerpiece of his campaign, and Vice President Harris, interestingly, is wading directly into the issue as well. And that's something of a new phenomenon for the Biden team, who has mostly remained out of these issues so far.

Clearly, Vice President Harris feeling like she could not remain silent on this issue. And she did add this stop in Florida at the very last minute. She flew down there yesterday to speak on these new guidelines that critics say sanitize African American history. She didn't call out Ron DeSantis by name, but she did call out what she said were so-called leaders saying they were willfully misleading students.

Listen to a little bit of what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These extremist so-called leaders should model what we know to be the correct and right approach if we really are invested in the wellbeing of our children. Instead, they dare to push propaganda to our children. This is the United States of America. We're not supposed to do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[19:05:04]

LIPTAK: Now, Biden's team really does view this as a galvanizing issue for their voters, particularly for young voters, voters of color, that coalition that they're working to enthuse ahead of this election. And they do think Kamala Harris is an excellent voice to make these arguments to those voters going forward.

Now, Governor DeSantis did respond to the Vice President trip. He said that she was being misleading in how she described it, and he tried to expand on this idea of enslaved people benefiting from slavery. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She's going to come down to the state of Florida and try to chirp and try to try to demagogue. All she's doing is ignoring the responsibilities that the administration has to secure our border. I think that they're probably going to show some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: Now, these social, cultural issues are not going anywhere, Jim. And we just learned in the last hour that next week, President Biden does plan to name a new national monument honoring Emmett Till. Of course, he was the black teenager who was brutally murdered in 1955. Clearly, President Biden wants to ensure these darker parts of American history aren't erased from view. Jim?

ACOSTA: All right. Kevin Liptak at the White House for us, thanks very much.

Joining me now to talk about it, Cedric Richmond is a former Louisiana congressman and campaign coach here for Biden-Harris 2024. Congressman, thanks very much for being with us. Good evening.

Florida's new education standards say students will be taught, among other things, how slaves learn skills that could ultimately be used for their benefit. Now, we have to say in no uncertain terms, slavery was evil. There were no benefits from it, full stop. But let's talk about this.

You just heard Florida Governor Ron DeSantis say a few moments ago, trying to explain what's going on in Florida and to, I guess, go back at the Vice President that somehow people who were enslaved and working as blacksmiths might be able to use those skills after they weren't slaves anymore. I'm trying to make some sense of this. What's your response to what Florida Governor DeSantis had to say about this?

CEDRIC RICHMOND, CAMPAIGN CO-CHAIR, BIDEN-HARRIS 2024: Clearly, factually, he's wrong. Slavery was an abomination. It was utterly evil, and it had zero redeeming qualities. But I think that it further illustrates how far this Republican Party and these candidates are going to the right and to cater and pander to extremists in order to get support.

And I think that Governor DeSantis, his campaign has been floundering. He's been looking for attention, and I think that he is now embarking on going as far to the right as he possibly can just to see if he can be the extremist candidate.

ACOSTA: And Governor DeSantis went after the Vice President in a tweet as well, saying, quote, "Democrats like Kamala Harris have to lie about Florida's educational standards to cover for their agenda of indoctrinating students and pushing sexual topics onto children. Florida stands in their way and will continue to expose their agenda and their lies". What's your response to that?

RICHMOND: It's the same. And I think that Governor DeSantis is going to continue to run to the extremists because he doesn't have a record to stand on, and he will continue to push the culture wars, if not just flat out racism, in order to get a base and catch a foothold in the Republican primary. And I think that that is -- I hope that Americans can see right past it.

And I don't think that you can say that there were redeeming qualities to enslavement. I don't think that you can bash the Vice President of the United States for defending such an atrocity.

ACOSTA: And in 2022, DeSantis signed into law what was dubbed the Stop Woke Act in Florida. That law seeks to prohibit the instruction about certain events that might cause some students to feel uncomfortable. I mean, as you know, DeSantis is certainly trying to stoke these issues for personal and political gain. You're on team Biden. How do you counter this?

RICHMOND: I just think it's unfortunate. And let's just take a moment. I'm down in New Orleans with a home of Ruby Bridges and others, and you mean to tell me Ruby Bridges and the other three phenomenal young women that day who segregated schools can go through it at age four, but we can't teach high school students about it now because it makes them uncomfortable.

And so I just think that it is such ridiculous line of thought, but I just want to be very clear in what he's doing so Americans don't get confused or follow a red herring.

[19:10:04]

This is racism at its best. This is the governor pandering to those far-right extremists, and it has no place in American government, has no place in American history. And it's just really pathetic.

ACOSTA: Do you think we should have seen the White House speak out more forcefully on these issues sooner? Have the Vice President go after DeSantis on some of these issues sooner? After all, DeSantis did sign that Stop Woke Act piece of legislation and law a year ago. Does the President need to weigh in? RICHMOND: Ron DeSantis wants attention. That's what he's trying to get. We have a President and Vice President who are busy creating 13 million jobs, busy putting people who will love justice and do mercy on the Supreme Court, bringing down inflation continuously, and fighting the problems that American families are having.

They don't have time to go chase Ron DeSantis down every evil rabbit hole that he's going to go down. And I volunteer for that. That's not a big deal, and I'll take that assignment every day. But you have a President that has united the west against Russian aggression, who supported Ukraine. So the President and Vice President are busy doing very important things, and punching down on the likes of a disappointing governor is probably beneath them.

And there are many in the party who are ready and willing to take on this fight. But I do think that the Vice President yesterday was very forceful and right to condemn his words and his double down was worse than the first part.

ACOSTA: Do you think we'll see Vice President Harris being a bit more forward leading and deliver these kinds of fiery speeches, going after the Republicans moving forward here? I mean, that is sometimes the role of the Vice President in a reelection campaign to serve as the attack dog to go on the attack. Do you think we'll see more of this from Kamala Harris?

RICHMOND: Well, I think she'll continue to prosecute the case. And if you look at what the Vice President did for the midterms, she ran around the country. She united legislators. She united the community. She united women over the fight for reproductive rights and what this court did to roll back women's rights.

And I think that this is just another example of how she will meet people where they are, but more importantly, defend American people. And so this is right up her alley, and I would expect her to stay on it.

ACOSTA: And, Congressman, just finally, I just want to ask you about this potential for a third-party candidacy. Any message to your fellow Democrat, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who appears to be flirting with this idea of running as a third party candidate? Has anybody on the Biden team tried to pass along the message to Senator Manchin that he might help reelect or put Donald Trump back in the White House?

RICHMOND: Well, we respect Senator Manchin, and he's been a good partner. He's the first couple of years of the presidency, he voted with the President over 80 percent of the time. He helped us put a record number of judges on the bench. But I will say this. We take Senator Manchin at his word that he's not looking to run.

But the one thing I will remind the American people is that in 2016, the third party candidate, Jill Stein, made the difference in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. And that's what gave us Donald Trump. And if you look at what Donald Trump gave us, besides the chaos and the bullying, he gave us Amy Coney Barrett. He gave us Justice Kavanaugh, Justice Gorsuch, which rolled back reproductive rights for women, which just rolled back a formative action.

So the stakes are too high to make a mistake in this election and to get distracted by possible third-party candidates. So I think people are going to go back and look at what's at stake. They're going to look at what happened in the Hillary Clinton race with the third party candidates and the Russians pushing those candidates. And I think that people are going to look at Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's record and say that they deserve to be reelected because they kept their head down, met the challenges, kept promises, and they made the country a better place.

ACOSTA: All right. Former Congressman Cedric Richmond, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Congressman, really appreciate it.

RICHMOND: Thank you for having me, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right, and some good news. As the summer travel season hits its peak, lawmakers passing legislation aimed at dealing with the shortage of pilots and air traffic controllers. Famed Captain Sully Sullenberger is here to react. He'll be with us in just a few moments.

Plus, it's hot across much of the country right now. It's expected to get much hotter. We'll ask a climate expert about his concerns over how much worse it could it.

And later, the U.S. team off to a strong start at the Women's World Cup. We'll discuss all of that and the spotlight that they're putting on equality in sports. That's coming up as well. You're live in the CNN Newsroom.

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[19:19:17]

ACOSTA: And if you try to board a plane lately, this next bit of information may sound like good news. The House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed legislation aimed at improving air travel. Among the things it would do, hire more air traffic controllers, create programs to recruit and retain aviation workers, and raise the retirement age for commercial airline pilots from 65 to 67. The House bill still needs Senate approval.

Let's talk about this with former pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, is a former ambassador to the International Civil Aviation Organization and a retired U.S. Airways captain. Sully, always great to talk to you. Ambassador, thanks so much.

Let's start with raising the retirement age for commercial pilots from 65 to 67. Good idea, you think?

CAPT. CHESLEY "SULLY" SULLENBERGER, `MIRACLE ON THE HUDSON` PILOT: It's a Band Aid at best. What we really need to do is find better and more financially available pathways to encourage more people to join aviation and not just as pilots, flight attendants, maintenance technicians, and others, but in every area of the flying business.

[19:20:16]

ACOSTA: Yes. Let's look at some of the sticking points. Changes in pilot training, the raising of that mandatory retirement age for pilots work in senior protections. The pilot training failed to pass in the House. It would have called for more training in simulators. Have you spoken out against this type of training? What don't you like about it?

SULLENBERGER: Well, let me clarify that I do like simulator training. It's very valuable. There are some things you can practice in a simulator, you just can't practice in an airplane. But it should not be a substitute for actual flying in a real airplane. So let me be clear.

There is no substitute for actual flying time in a real airplane in the real world. While simulators are valuable and they can be used very effectively, we shouldn't be replacing flying time with more simulator time alone.

ACOSTA: And Ambassador, air travel this summer has been like playing the lottery, in some cases. Sometimes the plane will be at your gate, sometimes not, sometimes the pilot will be on board your flight. Sometimes you're waiting at the gate for a long time for the crew to show up. This House bill aims to help increase the number of pilots. Do you think it's going to result in that?

SULLENBERGER: It's going to take some time. You know, it needs to be a well-defined pathway to provide pilots with the knowledge, skill, and critically experienced judgment they may have -- they have to have, and that's going to take some time.

I think what we need to do as passengers in the meantime and I fly as a passenger all the time now, traveling around the country and the world is to plan your trips really well. When you're able to take the first flight of the morning, it's less likely to be delayed. You're not likely to have to wait for an airplane to arrive before you depart.

When you fly early in the morning, often the weather is better, particularly in summer, you'll avoid the thunderstorms that typically start later in the day. Fly nonstop if you can, to avoid missing a connection. So those kinds of things that each of us can do when we book our flights will help our travel be a lot better experience.

ACOSTA: Yes, there's certainly a lot more we can do, including just being more patient, because the crews, the flight attendants, the gate agents, they have it tough. They've got a tough job, especially with everybody traveling now after COVID. But what do you want to see happen?

SULLENBERGER: Well, I think you're right. The first thing we should all pack is our patience and our humanity to realize there are going to be challenges. And to roll with the punches, be prepared. You know, one of the things you can do is put the airline app on your phone so you may get a notification from the airline before any announcement is made in the airport that your flight has been delayed, the gate has been changed, or something else going on. Better information is always a big help.

ACOSTA: And are the airlines doing enough, or are we just letting them get away with bad customer service in a lot of cases? That's what a lot of passengers suspect.

SULLENBERGER: You know, the airlines are doing a pretty good job. There's always room for improvement. I think the airlines, especially after the meltdown that we saw after the holidays, have hired more staff. They're not scheduling as aggressively.

They're building in some excess capacity in terms of flight crews, in terms of ground staff, and in terms of airplane availability. That's going to go a long way to help smooth out the hiccups in travel this year.

ACOSTA: All right, Ambassador Sullenberger, always great to talk to you. Thanks so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

SULLENBERGER: Good to speak with you.

ACOSTA: All right. It's stunning to think about. Last month was the planet's hottest June on record by a huge margin, and 2024 is expected to be even worse as the U.S. and countries around the world see their hottest summers on record. We'll ask a climate expert what's behind it and what we can do about it, that's next. You're live in the CNN Newsroom.

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[19:28:19]

ACOSTA: This just into CNN, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he's being fitted with a pacemaker tonight. He made the announcement in a video posted on social media just a short time ago. Netanyahu says he feels fine, expects to be out of the hospital tomorrow afternoon.

Israel says the deputy prime minister will run the government while Netanyahu is under sedation. Netanyahu was in the hospital last week after apparently suffering from dehydration following a day in the hot sun.

Here in the U.S., a summer swelter. As we all know, at least 80 million Americans have been under heat alerts today stretching from the west coast all the way to Florida's east coast. And as you can see there will be little relief in these cities over the next few days, all will see temperatures well above normal and all about 30 cities could see record high temperatures this weekend. More than two dozen records were set or tied yesterday.

I want to bring in a leading climate expert. Michael E. Mann is the author of the upcoming book, "Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons From Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive The Climate Crisis". He's also Presidential Distinguished Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. And thank you very much for joining us, Professor. Great to talk to you. Last month was the planet's hottest June on record and by a wide margin over the previous record set in 2019. I guess guys like me keep asking the same question, is this the new normal, what do you think?

MICHAEL E. MANN, AUTHOR, "OUR FRAGILE MOMENT": Yes, it's good to be with you, Jim. And, unfortunately, it's worse than a new normal, right? Because a new normal sort of sounds like we've got a new situation, we just have to, you know, figure out how to deal with it.

But this gets worse and worse. As long as we continue to burn fossil fuels and generate carbon pollution and the planet continues to heat up. We are going to see more of these unprecedented extreme weather events, and by the way, you mentioned June was the warmest June on month. It is now almost certain that July will be the warmest month that this planet has seen in recorded history.

[19:30:08]

July is typically the warmest month of the year and this is going to be the warmest July. Part of that is there's an El Nino event that's brewing, that adds a little bit of extra heat, but most of that is because of the warming due to increased carbon pollution.

ACOSTA: And NASA scientists predict 2024 will probably be hotter than this year. The trajectory is not good. We're going in the wrong direction. Your sense as to whether or not this can be turned around?

MANN: Yes. So 2024 may be a little warmer. The El Nino -- you know, we've only seen part of the El Nino event. In 2024, we'll see more of an El Nino event, so it might be a little warmer.

But here's the thing, we are actually right now, on almost exactly the trajectory that climate scientists, climate modelers predicted we would be on decades ago if we didn't act, if we continued to burn fossil fuels.

And so, you know, there are no real surprises when it comes to the overall warmth of the planet. It is pretty much what we predicted it would be in this scenario.

What is a bit surprising, are these extreme weather events. These floods and wildfires, heat domes, and there is some evidence that there are processes that are important in the real world, it has to do with the behavior of the jet stream and how these weather systems get stuck in place, this heat domes get stuck in place.

The models don't completely capture that behavior and so to some extent, those impacts are exceeding the predictions and it is a reminder that you know, this, again, it's worse than the new normal, this will continue to get worse if we don't reduce carbon emissions and do it quickly.

ACOSTA: Yes, and last week, and we were talking about these very strangely hot water temperatures around the Florida Keys and that is just a scary indicator, it seems. And I guess with the heat that we're seeing this year, we're going to see some cascading effects, stronger hurricanes. There is always a discussion about the water in the Gulf getting too hot.

What is your sense of it? Might we be looking at those kinds of ingredients being in the mix for a really bad end of this hurricane season?

MANN: Yes. I mean, you know, those are hot tub temperatures that we're seeing down, you know, off the coast of southern Florida, unlike anything we've seen before. We call those marine heatwaves. And of course, like, you know, the sorts of heatwaves that we're used to, they become more intense, they become more frequent as the planet warms up.

Now, the Atlantic is really unusual. Much of the planet is warm. We've got an El Nino event, it's the northern hemisphere summer, and we've got the effect of global warming, all of that coming together.

There's one other feature and it might be related to El Nino, but there's been very little Saharan dust that's been blown out onto the Atlantic, those trade winds have been weaker than normal that might be related to El Nino. And so there's been so little dust, that that does normally reflect some of the sunlight back to space. And since it's not there, that means that the eastern Atlantic, the eastern tropical Atlantic is quite a bit warmer than it normally would be.

That means those hurricanes encounter warm ocean temperatures earlier in their trajectory. Though the western Atlantic is typically much warmer, but because the eastern Atlantic is so warm right now, those storms can begin to intensify earlier, and that, you know, creates a scenario where they can become much stronger by the time they make it to the Caribbean to the US East Coast. That's something that we want to look out for as we get into the heart of the hurricane season.

ACOSTA: And just very quickly, I mean, one of the things that caught the East Coast by surprise, was all of that smoke from the wildfires in Canada. Is that something that we're going to have to get used to? More of those kinds of days on these -- Californians are like, hey, wait a minute, you know, we're used to this stuff out in California, but not so much on the East Coast.

MANN: Yes. I mean, I live in Philadelphia most of the time and there was at least one day this summer where we had the worst air quality, I think, in the world, worse than Beijing, worse than anywhere else.

It is something that I saw down in Sydney during the black summer of 2020 when I was there on sabbatical, and they had these record wildfires, and you can see and smell the smoke. It's very odd to have that same experience here in Eastern North America, but that's what we've seen, and it is a reminder, you know, to expect the unexpected.

Think about this way, it's not a cliff we're going to go off of. It is more like a minefield that we're walking out onto, and the farther we walk out onto that carbon warming minefield, the more of these unprecedented events and surprises that we're going to encounter. The only smart thing is to stop that forward lurch onto the minefield and that's what we need to do. We need to bring down this carbon emissions 50 percent by 2030, down to zero by the middle of this century if we want to avert a truly catastrophic three-degree Fahrenheit warming of the planet.

[19:35:05]

ACOSTA: All right, Professor Michael Mann, thank you very much. We'll talk to you again about this. It is an extremely important topic. We do it a lot here on this program. We'll do it again. Thanks so much. Great to talk to you.

MANN: Thank you, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right, coming up, alarming accusations of brutality against two police departments in Mississippi. What we're learning about claims cops tortured two men in their home state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALIK SHABAZZ, LEAD ATTORNEY FOR MICHAEL JENKINS AND EDDIE PARKER: I have never, nor has any of the experienced attorneys that I work with have ever encountered such a malicious and sadistic and egregious case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:39:45]

ACOSTA: In Mississippi, two police departments in Rankin County are implicated in a horrifying scandal. A federal lawsuit claims two Black men were waterboarded, tased, and sexually assaulted before one of them was shot in the face.

CNN's Ryan Young reports.

[19:40:01]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EDDIE PARKER, ALLEGES TO HAVE BEEN BRUTALLY BEATEN BY DEPUTIES: It's hard to stay right here, knowing, you know what happened right here. Justice is what it all, you know, what it all boils down to. I'm just like them, you know whether they are in uniform or not.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For six months, Eddie Parker has been living in a house of horrors where he says he was brutally beaten by deputies, sworn to protect this room Mississippi community.

PARKER: I crawled here to this spot and then they, started beating me here and tasing me and you can see, you know, blood spots and all and my blood spots there. YOUNG (voice over): On January 24th, Parker and his friend, Michael Jenkins say that six White Rankin County deputies entered the home and tortured them for nearly two hours.

A heavily redacted incident report says deputies were investigating "reports of narcotic activity" at the house. They said they saw a gun, though there was no proof either man had a weapon.

In a federal civil rights lawsuit, the men alleged deputies entered without a warrant, handcuffed them and subjected them to nearly two hours of torture and racist abuse.

Jenkins was shot in the mouth during the incident. Mary Jenkins Michael's mother says her son will never be the same.

MARY JENKINS, MICHAEL JENKIN'S MOTHER: I pray with him and I ask Mike, I say, if there is any life in you, Michael, if there is anything and you, please squeeze my hand. Please let me know you're still in this body and he did.

YOUNG (voice over): Jenkins' injuries make it difficult for him to speak.

MICHAEL JENKINS, ALLEGED TO HAVE BEEN TORTURED BY DEPUTIES: It hurts, and I'm embarrassed.

YOUNG (on camera): Has anyone from the department ever reached out to you and apologized? Have they ever asked for anything at all?

MARY JENKINS: No.

YOUNG (voice over): The two men are suing a half a dozen Rankin County Sheriff's deputies. Three named and three only identified as John Doe's.

Rankin County sheriff, Bryan Bailey was also named in the suit and he said earlier this month deputies involved in incident were no longer with the department. Although, he did not confirm the number of deputies or their names.

A Richmond Police Department officer resigned after he was implicated in the incident while off duty.

Have you guys ever seen a case like this before?

SHABAZZ: I've never, nor has any of the experienced attorneys that I work with have ever encountered such a malicious and sadistic and egregious case.

YOUNG (voice over): In the lawsuit, Jenkins and Parker say deputies handcuffed, kicked, waterboarded, and repeatedly tased them. It also claims they were sexually assaulted and that a deputy placed the gun in Jenkins' mouth and pulled the trigger.

It goes on to allege the deputies turned off their body cameras during the incident. SHABAZZ: This was an almost a two-hour controlled torture and interrogation session by racist officers. They came in asking both men were they dating White women? And throughout the course of the torture session, they constantly, all of them were using the word [bleep], constantly calling them [bleep] and at times, monkeys.

YOUNG (voice over): The attorneys say had their clients not survived, this case may have been more difficult to bring to light.

TRENT WALKER, ATTORNEY FOR MICHAL JENKINS AND EDDIE PARKER: Whatever they wrote in their official report would be the official word. In Rankin County, they are used to the word of law enforcement being the final word.

MARY JENKINS: They all need to be in jail. The one that actually did and the one that stood by and watched, you're just as bad as the other ones.

YOUNG (on camera): Leadership here at the Rankin County Sheriff's Department tell me they are now having a compliance officer not only check tasers, but body cameras to make sure deputies are using them all the time.

But we talked to community members who tell me they are concerned about how this unit and this department has not been talking to them.

PAUL HOLLEY, RANKIN COUNTY UNDERSHERIFF: The men and women here now are good people that focused on going out there and doing the right thing to keep the citizens of Rankin County safe. We're going to continue to cooperate with any level of investigation.

YOUNG (voice over): Investigations into the department on the state and federal level are ongoing.

Mary Jenkins says her son fought to live after a bullet shattered his jaw and almost severed his tongue. Now, she plans to keep fighting for justice.

MARY JENKINS: I think that God blessed Michael to make it that night because he knew something had to be done about Rankin County.

YOUNG (voice over): Ryan Young, CNN, Rankin County, Mississippi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: And CNN attempted to speak to the sheriff, Bryan Bailey to address the specific allegations against his former deputies, but was told he was unavailable. CNN has previously attempted to contact the officers named in the civil lawsuit and the officer who resigned from the Richmond Police Department, but we were unable to reach them for comment. We will stay on top of the story.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [19:49:13]

ACOSTA: The US women's national soccer team marked its first win in their opening game of the Women's World Cup underway right now in Australia and New Zealand. The US team beat Vietnam, three-nothing, as the Americans chase their third world championship -- World Cup Championship in a row.

And the US as a new women's superstar in the making. Forward, Sophia Smith really standing out, scoring the team's first two goals in a World Cup debut. The US team plays in the Netherlands on Wednesday.

As the Women's World Cup begins, the gender pay gap is alive and kicking. A new CNN analysis finds that female soccer players on average will earn about 25 cents for every dollar men earned at their World Cup last year.

And joining us now to talk about this as journalist, Macaela MacKenzie, she covers women's equality in sports and she is also the author of the new book, "Money, Power, Respect: How Women in Sports are Shaping the Future of Feminism."

[19:0:08]

Macaela, great to talk to you. Thanks for coming on. Important topic.

The Women's World Cup is just starting, but female players found out they may not be paid the $30,000.00 that they were each promised. What do you know about this? What can you tell us?

MACAELA MACKENZIE, JOURNALIST: Yes, so this is really significant, Jim. And it really underscores some of the nuances in the fight for equal pay.

So you know, on the surface level, we have these kind of easy to understand numbers. There's a $330 million pay gap in prize money on offer by FIFA to players of the Women's World Cup versus the Men's World Cup. So as you said, that's 25 cents on the dollar, which is this abysmal pay gap especially compared to the global gender pay gap, which is about 77 cents on the dollar.

But going deeper is how this money is distributed to players.

So FIFA had initially said that this prize money would be for the first time paid directly to the players instead of the actual federations who would then distribute the money however they saw fit. That meant that every player who showed up at the Women's World Cup this year would make at least $30,000.00, which is a really significant amount of money for a lot of these women. It might be the most money that they ever make professionally in countries especially where they don't have a professional league to play soccer year round.

FIFA has now backtracked on that and said that they will return to their original plan of paying the federations directly. That's problematic for a few reasons. Namely, that nearly a third of federations around the world don't pay their women's players and those who do may not distribute that prize money equally.

So this was one of the really significant things that we saw in the agreement signed by US Soccer in its men's and women's players last year, not only did that guarantee equal pay, and many equal benefits between both the men's and women's players, but they also became the first Federation to guarantee an equal distribution of any prize money earned by either team.

Most players around the world, you know, don't have that contractual guarantee.

ACOSTA: Right. Yes. I mean, in the women's national team for the US, they've won what -- four World Cups? I mean, the guys not so much. I mean, one would think, okay, shouldn't performance dictate some of this?

But let's talk about your new book. You looked at women's fight for equality in the sports world on things like equal pay and penalization for being a mother.

MACKENZIE Yes, I did, which is sort of an interesting time to be looking at it as I have just became a mother myself. But yes --

ACOSTA: Moms are penalized.

MACKENZIE I mean, I think we see some of the most -- sorry?

ACOSTA: I said moms are penalized.

MACKENZIE Yes, absolutely. Yes. I mean, I think we see some of the biggest pay gaps when women become mothers in professional sports.

You know, this is an industry that is notorious for cutting short the careers of people in birthing bodies. We just don't see that, you know, for professional athletes who become dads.

You know, some of the biggest professional athletes in the game, have been fathers for years and that is, you know, really sort of a footnote in their career, whereas for women, you know, it's much different and that is something that we're seeing the US women's national team highlight as well.

We've got three moms on the roster this year, which is a record tie for most moms on the roster, and that is really exciting. You know, we're seeing women perform with more longevity.

ACOSTA: That's amazing. And you write about how women in sports are fighting back.

MACKENZIE Yes, absolutely. You know, I think sports have this really real way of telling us, you know, not only who belongs, but how much they're worth.

So, you know, they're not just this area that kind of reflect our cultural attitudes, but they also very actively shape them and that is something that I wanted to explore in my book, you know, not only highlighting the women who are doing this work, this amazing advocacy that's building these movements, like we see around the World Cup, but also really highlighting sports as an arena where we can make change that trickles out to other industries.

ACOSTA: All right, well, moms who win World Cups should not be penalized. They should be celebrated. I mean, that's pretty simple right there. It's tough enough to win a World Cup these days.

Macaela MacKenzie, great book. A really important subject. Thanks so much for coming on. We really appreciate it.

MACKENZIE Thanks for having me, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right, and go team USA.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:58:49]

ACOSTA: How did investigators solve the decade-long Gilgo Beach murder mystery? See how new technology and a slice of pizza lead to the killer on a new episode of "The Whole Story" with Anderson Cooper. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So what they need from Rex Heuermann is DNA.

A surveillance team is sent to midtown Manhattan, the area where he works, and they're basically watching the building. When he comes out and he goes to a pizza place and they see him go through three slices of pizza and he takes the box and shoves it into the green trashcan.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So that was a treasure trove of DNA in there with that pizza box.

MILLER: So from a chain of custody standpoint, they've seen him eating it, carrying it. They've seen him discard it and they pull that box out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were able to test it with his DNA to match the DNA at the crime scenes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One hair matched the DNA profile that of the defendant, Rex Heuermann.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Don't miss "The Whole Story" with Anderson Cooper tomorrow night at eight right here on CNN.

And we end tonight with a new glimpse of a young heir to the British throne. Have you seen this? Prince George turned 10 years old today. He is the oldest child of the Prince and Princess of Wales, that makes him second in line to the British throne.

In the past, Prince George's mother, Kate Middleton has released photos for her children's birthdays like this one. He is growing up quickly. I did not see that one coming.

All right, thanks so much for joining me. Reporting from Washington, I am Jim Acosta. See you again tomorrow night starting at five o'clock Eastern, so be there for that.

In the meantime, the CNN Original Series, "See It Out" is up next. Have a goodnight, everybody.

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