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Trump Gives Russia A Deadline For Peace And Sends Weapons To Ukraine; Video Shows Machine Gun Fire Near Gaza Aid Site; U.S. Inflation Rises As Tariffs Drive Up Prices; Trump Touts Billions In Investments to Create AI Hub In Pennsylvania; Apple Invests $500 Million In Deal With U.S. Rare Earths Company; Torrential Rain Causes Flash Flooding In Northeastern U.S.; Ghislaine Maxwell In Focus With Spotlight Back On Epstein Case; National Leage Wins In Historic Home Run Swing-Off. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired July 16, 2025 - 01:00   ET

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

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[01:00:25]

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello and welcome to all of our watching from around the world. I'm Polo Sandoval live in New York. And ahead here on CNN Newsroom, U.S. President Donald Trump says that he is not looking to send long range missiles to Ukraine in its fight against Russia. And he stands firm that his 50-day ultimatum to Moscow is not too long.

New economic data pointing to a slight rise in U.S. inflation. But experts say even worse, pay pain might be on the horizon for consumers.

And companies are pledging billions of dollars infrastructure hoping to fulfill President Trump's goal of making the U.S. a superpower in artificial intelligence.

We begin with Ukraine's northeastern city of Kharkiv coming under a massive Russian attack overnight. The regional military chief says that they detected at least 17 explosions occurring in the span of just 20 minutes. We know of at least two people who were injured.

U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed on Tuesday that the new Patriot defense missiles that we've heard so much about that they are now on their way to Ukraine. He says he is not looking to give Kyiv long range missiles that could strike targets deeper into Russia. And he says Ukraine should not target Moscow.

Remember, according to a source, President Trump reportedly asked President Zelenskyy about Ukraine's ability to hit Moscow and St. Petersburg, a question first reported by the Financial Times. More on that in just a moment.

Meanwhile, President Trump is also defending his decision to give Russia another 50 days to make peace with Ukraine or face of 100 percent tariffs along with secondary sanctions on Russia's trading partners. Currently, the U.S. is doing virtually no trading with Russia, so any

new tariffs would not have much of a practical effect. Russia's foreign minister seems to brush off the economic threat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOEIGN MINISTER (through translator): 50 days. It used to be 24 hours. It used to be 100 days. We've been through all of this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: And there are fears that President Trump's 50-day window for a peace deal is essentially a green light for Russian President Vladimir Putin to increase attacks on Ukraine. CNN's Matthew Chance is in Moscow with those details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, despite what President Trump says about the length of that time being significant, it does provide a sort of quite a lengthy period in which the Kremlin can continue to pursue its military tactics in Ukraine without facing any immediate consequences or any further consequences.

It won't be till after that 50 day period is over, that it faces tariffs or secondary sanctions on countries that do trade in its oil.

And if you're in Kyiv right now facing a daily nightly barrier barrage of drone strikes and missile attacks, it must seem like an eternity. There are other reasons, too. Firstly, expressed by Russian politicians that in 50 days a lot can change on the ground in terms of the military, you know, situation. Russia could be in a much more advantageous position in 50 days from now than it is at the moment.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, when it comes to President Trump, 50 days is an extraordinary long period of time. And I think there's a sense in Russia that within that period, the U.S. President could change his mind again about the country. And as the Kremlin said, it took the suggestion of supplying kind offensive weapons very seriously from President Trump.

I mean, they will have been placated by the fact, you know, put at ease by the fact that President Trump has ruled out long range missiles and played down any sort of suggestion that they should be targeting here, Moscow and St. Petersburg, big major Russian cities with those missiles.

But, yes, I mean, it's certainly concerned. It's not a question of, you know, whether the Russians would be concerned of it, though. It's a question of whether that kind of suggestion from President Trump is going to have any impact on Russia's policy. Will it make Russia rethink its ability or its willingness to pursue its war?

And there's no suggestion we're getting from Russian officials at the moment that anything President Trump has said is going to deflect the Kremlin from its military objectives in Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[01:05:00]

SANDOVAL: Let's now bring in Mick Ryan is a retired major general in the Australian army and a senior fellow for Military Studies at the Lowy Institute. He's also the author of the book "The War for Ukraine Strategy and Adaptation Under Fire." The general joining us at this hour from Brisbane, Australia, thank you so much for making time for us.

MAJ. GEN. MICK RYAN (RET.), SENIOR FELLOW FOR MILITARY STUDIES, LOWY INSTITUTE: Thank you.

SANDOVAL: So these new weapons that we just heard Kristen talk about, General, that are coming from the U.S. headed to Ukraine or at least destined for Ukraine I should say. How could they potentially impact the war and what do you think will be the likely targets for the Ukrainians?

RYAN: Well, the big important weapons are the Patriot interceptors. The most compelling problem the Ukrainians have is intercepting Russian ballistic and cruise missiles with big warheads that do a lot of damage and they're harder to shoot down than Shahed drones. So that will have an impact.

Now getting them there as soon as possible is important because you're always running short of those kind of interceptors in these kind of situations.

SANDOVAL: Now in terms of the importance of these Patriot air defense missiles, I mean how vital are they for Ukraine? You mentioned some of these weapons are harder to for some of the counter strikes. But when you specifically talk about these Patriot air defense missiles, just can you expand a little bit more on the importance there?

RYAN: Yes, sure. I mean there's very few weapons that can intercept these very destructive Russian weapons. The Europeans have a system called IRIS-T, but it's not made in the same quantity. I'm not sure it is the same quality of Patriot. So really Patriot is in a class of its own.

Unfortunately there are a lot of demands for Patriot systems, not just from Ukraine but in the Middle East as well as in the Pacific where countries are worried about Russia's very large and expanding, sorry, China's large and very quickly expanding long range missile threat as well.

SANDOVAL: And general, I'm sure you heard the reports before we got to you of yet another launch of attacks from the Russians on the Ukrainians. So it's a reminder that almost every day seems to bring yet another strike.

So keep in mind this 50 day ultimatum that's been set by the White House. How much more damage can Russia inflict on Ukraine remembering what just happened overnight?

RYAN: Well, they can do a lot more damage unfortunately and worse still, they can kill a lot more Ukrainians. The Russians have really accelerated their attacks on Ukraine with drones and missiles over the last four months. We've seen these 700, 500 drone raids.

In some respects, Putin is doing it because he's not getting success on the ground in eastern Ukraine that he expected. But he may have miscalculated because it's this step up in aerial attacks which has led Trump to confront Putin and send this additional assistance, not something we expected even a couple of weeks ago.

SANDOVAL: And in light of this ultimatum that was issued by Donald Trump, how do you think Russians are likely going to react to this threat coming from President Trump directed at the Kremlin? You know, we all know that Russian state media previously has really portrayed the president as, in essence, somebody that might be friendly with Russia. But then now you hear this new threat being issued. So I'm curious what you think will be the general response among Russians?

RYAN: Well, I don't think the Russian government or Putin sees anyone as their friends, even though state media might have portrayed Trump as such. And they have been dealing with Trump now for several months. They've seen him be negative towards him and backtrack. So at the moment, they seem to be acting as if talk is cheap and they'll wait for the action to follow.

SANDOVAL: Retired General Mick Ryan, thank you so much for your expertise.

RYAN: Thank you.

SANDOVAL: Onto another crisis. Now, the U.N. says that there must be accountability for the shooting of Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza, demanding investigations into each and every killing. They say this comes as a new video has emerged of machine gun fire near an aid site over the weekend. Our Paula Hancocks with more. But first, a warning that some of the images that you're about to see are very disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: New social media footage has emerged showing machine gun fire near an aid distribution site in southern Gaza. Now, this refers to an incident that happened on Saturday where the Palestinian Ministry of Health says at least 30 people were killed while waiting for aid. Videos from the nearby Nasser Medical Complex also show rows of bodies covered in white shrouds.

[01:10:03]

Now this social media video shows Palestinians crawling for safety. As you can see bursts of gunfire hitting the ground just meters away. The source of the gunfire is not seen, but multiple eyewitnesses have said that it was the Israeli military that was firing upon those who were waiting for food. Now we have asked the Israeli military. They have said that details of

this video are under review. They did say on Saturday though that the Israeli gunfire did not result in any deaths or injuries. Now this particular site is about half a mile, some 800 meters away from one of the distribution sites of the controversial GHF, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. It is a U.S.-Israeli backed initiative.

THAMEEN AL-KHEETAN, SPOKESPERSON, U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICE: As of 13 July, we have recorded 875 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food. 674 of them were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites.

Now the data we have is based on our own information gathering through various reliable sources including medical, human rights and humanitarian organizations.

HANCOCKS: The U.N. and humanitarian aid groups are calling for the distribution of aid to once again be funneled through the UN Run groups on the ground, saying that aid distribution in Gaza has become a death trap. Paula Hancocks, CNN, Abu Dhabi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: And Israel has launched strikes against government forces in southern Syria. This is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that his military is protecting the Druze minority in the area. Syria's military entered a stronghold for the Druze community following deadly clashes between Druze forces and Bedouin tribes in the area, which sits in what Israel has unilaterally declared a demilitarized zone in southern Syria.

The weakened clashes killed dozens of people. The Syrian government lost 18 soldiers after intervening in the violence. The Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday that it struck Syrian military vehicles towards Suwayda.

Israel has accused Syria of violating a demilitarization policy of moving military equipment into the city. Syria has rejected Israel's declaration of a demilitarized zone.

While unrelenting inflation was a big issue in the race for the White House. And despite President Trump's vows to bring down prices. I don't know about you, but I keep saying they continue to go up. We're going to have the latest on the figures and also the impact on tariffs just ahead.

Plus, U.S. companies investing tens of billions of dollars into future AI infrastructure, all part of President Trump's plan to ensure the country stays ahead of China in the AI race. Those details on the other side of the break.

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[01:17:32]

SANDOVAL: Welcome back to CNN Newsroom. President Trump, he campaigned on a promise to bring down persistent inflation. But it's only going up. In fact, it hit its highest level in June. In four months you can see the numbers here. That brings the annual rate to 2.7 percent food and housing costs. They are helping drive up that figure along with rising gas prices. CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich, picks up that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Inflation moving in the wrong directions. And the numbers really paint the picture for us right here you see that inflation on annual basis rising to 2.7 percent. In May it was 2.4 percent on annual basis. So an increase there on the monthly basis up 0.3 percent, that is what we saw in line with May, but June numbers staying about the same there.

Now, the key sectors that have been leading the increases on inflation and in the month of June, food at home, that's the grocery store prices still coming in at 0.3 percent increase there, led in part by beef prices, which have seen a spike in recent months, shelter the biggest overall contributor to inflation in the month of June of 0.2 percent. And then gas prices, after falling in May by 2.6 percent, they rose in the month of June by 1 percent.

That's because of that conflict that we saw in the Middle East between Israel and Iran, with which raised gas prices in the month of June. But overall on the year, gas prices still down 8.3 percent. Also, we're looking at key goods and items that we know we import a lot of. Furniture, apparel up 0.4 percent, toys up 1.8 percent. Because 80 percent of the toys that we import into the United States coming from China, which has that 30 percent tariff.

And then watching a plan, appliances up 1.9 percent because there is a 50 percent tariff on aluminum and steel, key components that make appliances. These are items that we want to keep our eyes on over the next couple weeks and months to see if they increase even more. That'll be a sign that the tariffs are really starting to ingrain into the economy.

And that's where we'll start to see prices move even higher if these tariffs really pack a punch that economists are predicting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: And joining me now is Justin Wolfers. He's a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan. Justin, it's great to see you.

[01:20:02]

JUSTIN WOLFERS, PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AND ECONOMICS, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: A pleasure.

SANDOVAL: So, Justin, we just heard a short while ago from my colleague Vanessa, basically laying down those numbers and the potential impact that we could see from these tariffs. I wonder if you could pick up where she left off here about the potential impact, not just through the summer, but beyond when it comes to prices for consumers on some of the items that we just heard about, but also for inflation. Does that continue to rise, in your opinion?

WOLFERS: Very likely. There's no promise, any promises in economics, of course. Look, the first question might be, why haven't we seen more yet? And let me just explain to the viewers. The tariffs really started in April. It takes about a month for a ship to get all the way to the U.S. and all the stuff that was on ships didn't get tariffs.

And then it takes a few weeks to get through customs, and by now we're pretty much all the way through to June. So the very first tariff items are only just starting to appear in the back rooms of retailers. And if they stocked up, they may not even get to that for a little bit. So expect this to be somewhat slower.

But if we get the sort of tariffs that the President is threatening right now, which is, by the way, substantially larger than what we have right now, then that will definitely flow through higher costs, create higher prices, and inflation's when prices rise.

SANDOVAL: And I don't know about you, Justin, but I certainly have been feeling this feeling of deja vu the last couple of days with these headlines warning consumers of the potential impact. So clearly we've been here before. When you think about what we all went through in April.

In your opinion, though, how likely is the President going to actually stick with these tariffs this time compared to what we saw this past spring?

WOLFERS: Yes. So we really are seeing some reruns of Liberation Day, the big April economic scare back then that the president imposed tariffs that I think most economists would describe as incoherent, punitive, unhelpful, and likely to cause a recession.

What happened back then it's an important part of the story is that financial markets crated, and the president doesn't like it when that happens, so then he backed off. This led to the expression, TACO, Trump Always Chickens Out.

Well, what's happened this time is financial markets aren't responding very much. They're not responding because people on Wall Street are absolutely certain that Trump's going to chicken out again. But because they're not responding, markets aren't plummeting. And because markets aren't plummeting. I think there's actually a pretty good chance that he follows through and really does impose these tariffs.

SANDOVAL: And expanding on that last point that you just mentioned, why do you think Wall street has seemed to brush off Trump's tariff threats this time? Does it maybe speak to a point of investors seeing this tariff talk from the White House as just fodder?

WOLFERS: Look, there's two ways of describing both this and the last trump White House. One, every single day seems to be big headlines, big things that could be about to happen. And often they peter out and they don't. And so that's the evidence that Trump chickens out.

And so I think that's very much the story from the first term, that this was someone whose words are often larger than his actions. But by the same token, the other story you can tell, particularly about the second term, is this is someone who seems quite capable of taking genuinely unprecedented actions in all sorts of domains. That wasn't true in the first term.

But if you look at things like immigration, where the president has very strong views, he's followed through with a set of policies that I think an earlier generation would have thought unimaginable.

So if he's willing to follow his instincts in that domain, that leaves me very worried that he'd be willing to follow them in this one, too.

SANDOVAL: And what's your assessment of President Trump's 50 percent tariff threat against Brazil? This is another story, another thread that we're closely following here. As he has said, the tariffs against that country are connected with the prosecution of that country's former president.

So why use a potential trade war to essentially, or at least when you assess the situation here, to interfere, potentially interfere with another country's judicial proceedings. What could be his end goal?

WOLFERS: Yes. So this is a set of tariffs that I'm not going to look inside the guy's head and tell you what he's after, but I can tell you what the effects will be. These are tariffs that are incoherent, indefensible, painful, and will hurt the American people. This is the precise opposite of America First.

This is what I'm going to do, is impose a tax, a very high tax, on Americans who buy goods from Brazil in an attempt to influence Brazil's internal politics in a way that we Americans have no particular dog in the fight.

Why is it that we would want our tax dollars? Why do we want to tax ourselves in order to get a former insurrectionist off the hook? This makes no sense whatsoever. It's a particularly painful set of tariffs for a second reason.

A lot of what we import from Brazil is stuff that we could never do in the United States.

[01:25:00]

We import a huge amount of coffee from Brazil, for instance. And apart from small regions of Hawaii, there's nowhere in the U.S. where we could grow coffee. So this isn't going to bring any jobs home. All this is a pure tax on Americans.

SANDOVAL: Justin Wolfers, really appreciate this insight, a reminder of the real impact when it comes down to even a cup of coffee down the road. Justin Wolfers, thank you so much for your time and your expertise. Really, really appreciate you.

WOLFERS: A great pleasure.

SANDOVAL: And tech and energy companies, they have committed more than $90 billion to create an AI hub in the state of Pennsylvania. President Trump making that announcement on Tuesday, driving home the point that the U.S. wants to be, as he described it, the number one superpower in artificial intelligence. CNN's Alayna Treene was there as the announcement was made.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: President Donald Trump traveled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Tuesday to participate in a summit on artificial intelligence and energy innovation. It was run by a Pennsylvania senator, David McCormick, and the president was joined by some of its top cabinet members, as well as some of many different companies that were pledging to contribute $90 billion investing in the state's artificial intelligence and specifically data centers and energy to power the those data centers.

Now some of the cabinet members that joined the president include his Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessant, his Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, as well as his Energy secretary Chris Wright, among others. And some of the CEOs of these different companies, including Palantir, BlackRock, Amazon Web Services and among others were also present.

And then some of the companies that invested the most in this project include Blackstone, which pledged $25 billion on their own, Meta and Google, among others.

Now I think key thing to note here and really the bottom line of why this is so important to the president, why he traveled to Pennsylvania to participate in this, is because he cares deeply. A big priority for his second term is to make America one of the biggest superpowers in artificial intelligence. And really his goal is to win the arms weight race with China when it comes to AI. He said as much when he was speaking at the event. Take a listen.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We're here today because we believe that America's destiny is to dominate every industry and be the first in every technology. And that includes being the world's number one superpower in artificial intelligence.

TREENE: Now this roundtable comes on the heels of four different leading tech companies signing an agreement or contracts with the Defense Department totaling as much as $200 million. That includes open AI, Alphabet's, Google, Anthropic and Elon Musk's AI company, xAI. They all won a multimillion dollar contracts to work on expanding artificial intelligence within the federal government, but spec within the Defense Department. Alayna Treene, CNN, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: And Apple, for its part, it's investing half a billion dollars in a bid to expand its technology production in the United States. The iPhone maker is partnering with a U.S. based rare earths company to make magnets as well as repurpose materials domestically.

Apple has faced immense pressure from President Donald Trump to produce its popular smartphones in the United States. China has a virtual monopoly on rare earth elements which are critical for everything from your smartphone to televisions and even military jets.

Still ahead here on the CNN Newsroom, parts of the U.S. they are experiencing an extraordinarily rainy July. Here are some of the scenes. And this is triggering deadly flash flooding in some parts of the country. We'll look at what could be driving these massive storms.

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[01:34:09]

SANDOVAL: And welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Polo Sandoval in New York.

Torrential rain along the northeastern United States is now causing dangerous flash flooding. At least two people in New Jersey died on Monday after a vehicle that they were in was swept away by flood waters.

The rain tapered off a bit on Tuesday, but still caused some problems for areas which were already drenched.

CNN's meteorologist Derek Van Dam, explaining what could be behind this recent rash of powerful storms.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Another day, another flash flood disaster to discuss across the U.S., this time centered throughout the mid-Atlantic and portions of southern New England.

[01:34:47]

VAN DAM: There were numerous record daily rainfall totals that were set on Monday, including New York City, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as well as Baltimore.

Here's just a drop in the bucket of some of the flash flooding that impacted the East Coast. This is coming out of Somerset County, New Jersey. A very interesting aerial perspective of the flooding there.

Submerged vehicles, look at all the debris left behind as well Certainly impacting some of the businesses.

And if you thought it's been raining and causing a lot of flash flooding events, you are right. Very spot on.

And we did some digging. In fact, the National Weather Service has been extremely busy this year when it comes to issuing flash flood warnings. They're at a record pace. The most number of flash flood warnings issued ever year to date, over 3,000.

And remember the instances across Texas, the Hill Country, and now most recently throughout the mid-Atlantic and southern New England.

So what's at play here? Many factors on the ground, but also what is known as a Bermuda High. This is pumping in deep tropical moisture over the eastern parts of the country. This is known as precipitable water, right. So think about it as the gas in the fuel tank of your car. The more gas you have, the further you can drive.

If the atmosphere has more precipitable water to work with, the more heavy rain events it can produce. And of course, we know the damage that it can cause.

This is coming out of North Plainfield, New Jersey on Monday. That car decided to not turn around and it eventually just stalled out and caught fire.

There have been over a thousand reports of flooding across nearly 40 states since the beginning of the month alone. That shows you just how active it's been.

Now, climatologically speaking, this is the wettest time of the year from the end of April to September, the atmosphere is just primed and ready to produce the slow-moving summertime thunderstorms that are very effective rainfall producers.

But we know in this warming world that the there is a marked increase in the frequency and the intensity of heavy rain events. You can see it here across the northeast, increasing by nearly 60 percent over the past several decades.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: Alexander Kaufman is an independent reporter who has covered climate change, energy and also geopolitics for more than a decade. He also publishes on the content Web site Substack under the title "Field Notes with Alexander Kaufman" joining us from New York.

Alexander, it's good to -- good to have you on the program.

ALEXANDER KAUFMAN, INDEPENDENT REPORTER: Thank you for having me.

SANDOVAL: Yes. Of course. So let's dive straight into the global nature of the torrential flooding that we've seen the last couple of weeks. Obviously, the absolutely devastating and heartbreaking situation that played out in central Texas.

Shortly after that, we saw similar scenes in New Mexico, though less severe. And then this week here where you and I are in New York City and its surroundings.

But remind us what other parts of the world have been impacted recently by some of these floods.

KAUFMAN: It's been all over in virtually every continent. Right now, there are people missing in Catalonia, Spain and severe flooding in a lot of the tourist areas of Spain.

There was a massive monsoon flood that occurred on the border between Nepal and China that swept away a bridge and swept 20 people away who are still missing.

And even in South Africa, it was a few more weeks ago but you had a death toll that went up in the dozens also from flooding.

So this is something that is afflicting many countries worldwide and, you know, we are certainly feeling it very acutely here in the United States.

SANDOVAL: And then there's a question of what's behind this. Certainly the climate crisis is something that is still heavy on the minds of so many. In your view, what are some of the factors that are currently driving some of these record rainfall amounts that we're seeing all over the world?

KAUFMAN: It's difficult to attribute individual weather events to climate change, you know. That's a whole field called attribution science, which is emerging and growing ever more precise by the year.

But is not quite there yet that we can automatically connect an event immediately to climate change. That said these types of trends are perfectly in line with what climate forecasters expect to happen in a warming world.

What we're seeing right now, particularly in the northern hemisphere, are warmer oceans that are keeping, you know, precipitation, just dropping massive amounts of water at a faster pace but moving in the clouds much slower.

And as a result, just deluging places that are not designed to handle that amount of precipitation in that short a period of time.

SANDOVAL: It's something that we have heard from officials on the ground in Texas of the waters rising so quickly, so suddenly.

And then you consider the images that we've seen where you and I are here in New York, you see water gushing out of subway manholes onto platforms, roadways in New Jersey.

All of these images, from your point of view, what should they tell us about the infrastructure in these cities.

[01:39:46]

SANDOVAL: Now what we saw play out earlier this week in New York, it was a relatively short-lived weather event. So if we saw these kinds of situations play out with that fairly small but deadly storm, what could happen with a future superstorm Sandy? What should people in some of these cities be worried about?

KAUFMAN: I mean, look, a future superstorm Sandy isn't even the thing that we have to worry about in the near term. Look, the type of storm that we had last night felt in many ways like the sort of summer thunderstorm that I remember in my youth. But we didn't have this kind of response in our infrastructure to that flooding at the time.

The reality is that New York City's drainage system was designed to handle a storm with about 1.75 inches of rain every five years. What we got last night were two inches of rain over the course of one hour.

So it automatically eclipsed that, completely overwhelmed the system, and left us totally unprepared to deal with these kinds of disasters.

These are mounting billion-dollar disasters that occur in greater numbers by the year. There has already been a record number of catastrophe bonds that insurance companies have sold this year and we're only halfway through the year.

So, you know, there is a growing recognition in financial markets, in the scientific community. And you know, starting in infrastructure planning, that we are dealing with a much different beast in terms of the weather patterns that we're experiencing and things have to change.

The real question is just where's that money going to come from, who's going to pay for it, and who's going to be willing to deal with that disruption in the meantime, while we upgrade virtually everything?

SANDOVAL: Yes, each massive storm and each flooding event certainly a stark reminder that some of this infrastructure certainly needs to be revisited.

And as you point out, there's an intersection of Mother Nature and business, the economy as well, that also needs to be addressed.

Alexander Kaufman, again, an independent reporter, really appreciate your perspective. Thank you for joining us.

KAUFMAN: Thanks for having me.

SANDOVAL: And still ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM, a closer look at former Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell as the U.S. Justice department urges the Supreme Court to turn away her appeal.

[01:42:05]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANDOVAL: House Speaker Mike Johnson, he's joined a growing list of Trump loyalists that are pushing for more transparency on the Jeffrey Epstein files. But the U.S. president says that he doesn't understand the continued interest. He even calls it boring.

And this comes as the Justice Department is now urging the Supreme Court to deny an appeal from Epstein's former associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted on child sex trafficking charges. She claims Epstein's 2007 plea deal should have covered her as well.

But the DOJ says that that argument is incorrect and unlikely to succeed in any appeals court.

For more now, we turn to CNN's Randi Kaye.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) AUDREY STRAUSS, FORMER ACTING UNITED STATES ATTORNEY FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: Maxwell was among Epstein's closest associates and helped him exploit girls who were as young as 14-years-old.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ghislaine Maxwell, a friend and former lover of Jeffrey Epstein's. She dated the accused sex trafficker in the 1990s, and the two remained close.

Federal investigators accused Maxwell of serving as Epstein's madam, recruiting young girls for Epstein to abuse, and taking part in the abuse herself.

STRAUSS: She pretended to be a woman they could trust. All the while, she was setting them up to be sexually abused by Epstein and in some cases by Maxwell herself.

KAYE: Long before that, Maxwell had a privileged life in the English countryside where she grew up. She's the daughter of Czech-born newspaper tycoon, Robert Maxwell, who died in 1991 after falling off his luxury yacht near the Canary Islands.

Multiple people say Maxwell introduced Epstein to affluent social circles. Maxwell's own exclusive circle included then future President Donald Trump, seen together here in this photo from 2000. Alongside him, Melania, who he was dating at the time, and Jeffrey Epstein.

That's Maxwell in the background of this photograph of Prince Andrew with Virginia Roberts, who later became Virginia Giuffre. She had alleged she was trafficked by Epstein with the help of Maxwell and forced to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17.

The Prince emphatically denied all of it and settled Giuffre's lawsuit against him for an undisclosed amount. Giuffre died earlier this year by suicide.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Breaking news just into CNN, longtime Jeffrey Epstein confidante and friend, Ghislaine Maxwell has been arrested.

KAYE: In July of 2020, the year after Epstein took his life in jail, Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire. She was charged with six federal counts, including one count of sex trafficking children.

She pleaded not guilty, yet at her 2021 trial, four women alleged that Epstein sexually-abused them and that Maxwell not only helped facilitate, but also participated in some of the abuse between 1994 and 2004. The women were under 18 at the time.

Maxwell was found guilty of five of the six charges against her, including the most serious charge of sex trafficking a girl named Carolyn, when she said she was just 14 years old.

[01:49:47]

KAYE: Carolyn had told the court she participated in sexualized massages with Epstein and recruited other young girls for him. Carolyn recalled how Maxwell groped her naked body, telling her she had a great body for Epstein and his friends.

In court, the defense tried to portray Maxwell as a scapegoat.

BOBBI STERNHELM, GHISLAINE MAXWELL TRIAL ATTORNEY: Clever and cunning to the end, Jeffrey Epstein left Ghislaine Maxwell holding the whole bag.

KAYE: Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, but appealed her sex trafficking conviction.

For now, Maxwell will continue serving time here in Florida. She's behind bars at FCI Tallahassee, a low security federal correctional institution with a detention center. Her scheduled release date July 17th, 2037.

Randi Kaye, CNN, Palm Beach County, Florida.

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SANDOVAL: Still ahead, we're going to switch gears.

A dramatic finish for the MLB All-Star game ending in a historic home run swing-off.

CNN's Coy Wire standing by with those highlights.

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SANDOVAL: Well, there's already a lot of buzz around the nominations for the 77th primetime Emmy Awards. Leading the pack is the psychological sci-fi thriller "Severance" with 27 nominations.

CNN entertainment reporter Lisa France breaks down the frontrunners this year.

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LISA FRANCE, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: A show about a mysterious company and one about a Batman villain led the 77th Emmy nominations. Apple TV+'s hit drama "Severance" notched the most with 27 nominations. Followed by HBO Max's "The Penguin" which had 24.

Seth Rogen's hilarious insider view of Hollywood titled "The Studio", and everyone's favorite rich people behaving really, really badly series "The White Lotus" tied for third with 23 nominations each.

Now, while the usual suspects including "The Bear" and "Abbott Elementary", also notched noms, there were some newbies who made the cut including the medical drama "The Pitt" which has been a major hit, and "Nobody Wants This" a rom-com which tells the unlikely love story of a rabbi and an agnostic sex podcaster.

While the Emmys is television's biggest night, there's a lot of conversation this year about two major movie stars that were nominated. Kathy Bates is the oldest woman in the Outstanding Lead Actress in a

Drama category at 77 years old. Her nomination was for her series "Matlock".

But another major movie star and nominee has beat her in the age department. At 83, Harrison Ford has scored his first Emmy nomination ever. He was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his role in "Apples Shrinking".

The 77th Emmy Awards will air live September 14th on CBS.

Lisa France, CNN -- Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: That is a lot of good television.

Well, meanwhile, Major League Baseball's All-Star Game, that finished in a dramatic fashion Tuesday night in Atlanta, the National League winning in a historic home run swing-off.

CNN sports' Coy Wire was there.

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COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Atlanta, Georgia pulling off an incredible week of Midsummer Classic festivities culminating with the All-Star Game.

And what a better way to welcome fans from around the world than with the ATL's own, Ludacris and Jermaine Dupri performing "Welcome to Atlanta" during the player intros full-on party in the south.

[01:54:50]

The National League were up big in the sixth. The Mets' power-hitting Polar Bear Pete Alonso smacks a three-run homer. Extending their lead to five. A lovely souvenir for the fans. It looked like a runaway.

But the American League rips off six unanswered runs and in the ninth, the Kwan and only Guardians' Steven Kwan hits a shot that scores a runner and ties the game.

So it went to a first ever swing-off in the All-Star Game. And with that, the Phillies' Kyle Schwarber, a.k.a. Schwar Bombs plays hero, hitting three home runs on just three swings.

The National League wins the 95th Midsummer Classic in a first ever swing-off. Schwarber, your 2025 All-Star Game MVP. The AL had won 22 of the last 27. This highly competitive clash dating back to 1933 now separated by just three wins after all those years.

A memorable and commendable All-Star Game, the stars were shining, many blinging with their big chains. And lucky me, I found one too, this one filled with a commemorative beverage.

And this is my last hit of the night. So cheers to you. Hope you have a wonderful one wherever you are.

I'm Coy Wire, CNN -- Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: Meanwhile, one of the United States most unique culinary experiences can be found at the Iowa State Fair. It's known for deep fried food served on sticks and other delicacies -- and yes, deep fried food and delicacies can coexist in the same sentences.

Well, foodies meanwhile, they are, as we understand it, already very excited to vote for what they describe as the best new fair food when the event begins next month.

And on Tuesday, officials actually unveiled the finalists. The first is a scotch roux, I'm told. It's an ice cream shake. Scotch roux is also a dessert bar famous in the midwestern United States. The shake is made with peanut butter and butterscotch ice cream, fudge swirls, and several toppings.

Visitors can also vote for the trio of oak, smoked ham balls, appropriately called three little pigs. You see, two of them are sweets. One of them is flavored with cherry soda and some cherries. And also the final contestant, an egg roll packed with chicken, bacon, white cheddar and drizzle white ranch dressing. I call that the major food groups.

These and hundreds of other treats they will be featured at the Iowa State Fair starting on August 7th.

I want to thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Polo Sandoval in New York.

CNN continues with my colleague Rosemary Church coming up next.

[01:57:22]

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