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CNN This Morning

Cows to Play a Part in Emissions Solution; Student Loan Forgiveness Struck Down; Questions around Same-Sex Wedding Website Ruling. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired July 03, 2023 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:33:37]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back.

Cows and livestock are major contributors to carbon emissions, but now some scientists are saying, not so fast, and arguing cows, in fact, can actually be part of the solution.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock farming accounts for more than 14 percent of man-made emissions. Researchers, however, say if farmers change the way their cows graze, it could make a drastic difference.

CNN's chief climate correspondent Bill Weir is here.

And, Bill, what needs to happen?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Well, these guys would say, farmers need to get -- fall back in love with mother nature and be closer to her than their fertilizer salesman. This is basically a style of farming that was common across humanity up until World War II, but it's really about letting nature do the work and taking influence from some very powerful models.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WEIR (voice over): In the beginning was the buffalo. Tens of millions of them, wandering the land, munching wild grasses, and using poop and hooves to create rich, fertile soil up to 15-feet deep.

WEIR (on camera): Look at this!

PETER BYCK, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR, FILMMAKER: Yes.

WEIR (voice over): But since Americans replaced buffalo with cows, generations of fertilizers and pesticides, tilling and over-grazing have turned much of that nutrient-rich soil into lifeless dirt. But not on farms where they graze cows just like wild buffalo.

[08:35:00]

BYCK: Well, so adaptive multi-paddock grazing, amp grazing, is a way that mimics the way bison have moved across the Great Plains. And so it's really about the animals hit an area really hard and then they leave it for a long time.

WEIR: Peter Byck is a professor at Arizona State University. And he believes that if enough beef and dairy operations copy this simple hack, cattle could actually become an ally in the fight against climate change.

BYCK: I anticipate we'll get a lot of pushback because people are not thinking that cows can be a part of the solution.

WEIR (on camera): Not only are you going against the grain of environmentalists who think meat is evil for lots of reasons -

BYCK: Yes. Yes.

WEIR: You took money from McDonald's for this.

BYCK: Yes. I asked for money from McDonald's for this. I - I wanted to go to big companies because if they don't change, we don't get there.

WEIR (voice over): For his docuseries, "Roots So Deep You Can See the Devil Down There," Byck assembled a team of scientists.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're really interested in insects that live in poop.

WEIR: Experts in bugs, birds --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, bob white!

WEIR: Cows, soils, and carbon. They spent years comparing five sets of neighboring farms in the southeast. On one side, traditional grazers who let cows roam one big field for months at a time and often cut fertilized grass for hay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoo! Come on!

WEIR: On the other side, amp grazers who never mow or fertilize.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You open a gate. They go through. It takes five minutes. Cooper will roll up a wire.

WEIR: And with a single line of electrical fence, move their cows from one patch of high grass to the next.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that's building fence. This is how easy it is, Peter.

WEIR: While their science is yet to be published and peer reviewed, Byck says early data has found amp farms pulling down up to four times the carbon, while holding 25 percent more microbes, three times the bird life, and twice as much rain per hour.

BYCK: If it's a thousand-acre farm, it's 54 million gallons of water that's now washing your soil away versus soaking into your land. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow, look at this grass!

WEIR: But this is also a human experiment, to see whether data and respectful discussion can change hearts and minds.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was grazed about 40 days ago and this hadn't been fertilized in 12 years.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Awesome.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And when we got out of spending money on fertilizer, it was huge. Huge. And I didn't think it would ever happen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is such a stress relief. We just don't worry about a lot of it anymore.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you don't even fertilize when you plant your rye grass.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing. It sounds crazy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But it works.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But just letting mother nature do the work.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Take it. Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would it be an interesting thing if you didn't have to pay for fertilizer?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wouldn't that be wonderful.

WEIR: Curtis Spangler is one of the conventional farmers in "Roots So Deep," and he says his mind was changed when he realized he now has a way to double his herd and quit his second off-farm job.

CURTIS SPANGLER, TENNESSEE FARMER: And right now we're having to dump thousands of dollars into nitrogen every year that really, if we just change a couple things, might be able to save that money to put it toward other resources.

WEIR (on camera): Is that something you're committed to doing now as a result of this project?

SPANGLER: Oh, yes. We're - yes. We're really looking and seeing the benefits of it and how we can work it.

WEIR (voice over): So, as we hit the height of grilling season, a little food for thought.

BYCK: There is ways to produce meat that is not good for the planet. And there's ways to produce meat that's really good for the planet. And that's the nuance that's been missing.

(END VIDEOTAPE) WEIR: My little boy has a farm puzzle, you know, with the one pig and the one cow and the one chicken and this idyllic scene. And we don't realize that that is so far from what we have now. It's either big farms that are massive or they go out of business.

CORNISH: Or we do, but we've embraced mass production, right?

WEIR: Exactly.

CORNISH: I mean does this affect kind of our ability to kind of provide the nation agriculturally?

WEIR: They would say it absolutely does. That grass could replace feed lots if -- as a - as a disrupter, a cheaper alternative. But going against the -- these ideas is a massive, big ag industry. Fertilizers, big machinery, all of that, because all of the solutions are natural.

MATTINGLY: Do they have a plan to scale?

WEIR: Well, this is early. This is just like, let's see if we can convince farmers across the fence to talk to each other.

MATTINGLY: OK.

WEIR: That's what's so heart-warming about this - this series. You've got two of the pairs actually are two founding members of the country band Alabama.

MATTINGLY: Really?

WEIR: Randy Owen is a traditional grazer, Teddy Gentry's been an amp farmer his whole life.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

WEIR: And comparing -- and they don't talk to each other about it. You know, these are proud folks who work the land and don't really discuss their -- but this is really an interesting look at breaking common ground could be a solution for everybody. Healthier cows, land, birds, people, farmers, bottom lines.

CORNISH: I love learning about the culture of this.

Bill Weir, thank you.

WEIR: My pleasure.

MATTINGLY: All right, the Supreme Court ruling in favor of a Christian web designer who refused to create sites for same-sex weddings.

[08:40:02]

But the man cited in the case says he never actually requested a website, and he's straight, married to a woman. We'll get legal insight into how exactly that could happen, coming up next.

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MATTINGLY: The Supreme Court's ruling to strike down President Biden's student loan forgiveness plan isn't just a blow to borrowers. Financial experts say it could have a significant impact on the nation's economy. In a ruling handed down Friday, the justices decided 6-3 against the president's plan. Now, it would have forgiven up to $20,000 in student loan debt for millions, up to 40 million, borrowers.

CNN business correspondent Rahel Solomon is here.

And, Rahel, this is actually -- I'm stoked you're doing this because there is a macro effect to this decision. It's not just about the politics or individual loans. There is an economic effect. What is it?

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: No, there is a macro impact, there is a micro impact to real people. So, let's start with macro. The impact to the larger U.S. economy.

So, the sense is that this will likely not create a significant impact, but it will create an impact. Greg Bellier (ph), he's a strategist who essentially looks at the intersection of Wall Street and main street, and he put it at about a $70 billion hit, right, annually, to the U.S. economy.

[08:45:07]

He said it is obviously a headwind.

Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody's, he put it differently. He looked at GDP and said, it's about the equivalent of shaving off a quarter of 1 percent. So, not necessarily significant. That said, if it's - if it's your budget, probably feels a bit different, right? Wells Fargo put it this way, it's a big deal for affected households. Not so much less so for broader consumer spending. The average student loan payment, about $210 to $314 according to Wells Fargo. So, the impact to larger consumer spending, perhaps not as significant.

But here's what I can tell you people are watching very closely, the timing. The timing of this. So, when tens of millions of Americans have to repay these payments, these student loans, after three years of not having had to pay them, it will coincide with what appears to be a slowdown in consumer spending. That has already taken shape. I mean, remember last week, Brian Moynihan of Bank of America spoke to Poppy and Bank of America has access to millions of checking accounts, credit card accounts, because of their retail business. He said that they are already starting to see in data, as recently as June, that people are starting to pull back. So, it is the timing of when we're already starting to see a slowdown and then suddenly you have tens of millions of Americans who now have another bill on top of that. Will it have an impact? Absolutely. The larger macro, that's still debatable. But the sense is that it -

CORNISH: Yes, though, isn't that the goal, right? The Fed has wanted to cool spending.

SOLOMON: Well, whose goal?

MATTINGLY: Right.

SOLOMON: Whose goal? I mean that is the Fed's goal, absolutely, Audie.

CORNISH: Yes.

SOLOMON: Will the administration be crazy about consumer spending and the economy starting to lose steam in November? Not sure. Also, that's right before holiday shopping season. So there's a lot to consider here. But certainly for all of these people who suddenly have to make these payments again after three years, it's something that you're going to have to account for, literally.

CORNISH: Yes, if you were 21 when this went into place, that means you've never paid student loans. You all of a sudden have to figure out how to do it.

SOLOMON: Yes. There are a lot of people who will now have to pay student loans back for the first time, or they may have a completely different servicer. So there's - there's a lot at stake here.

CORNISH: Yes.

MATTINGLY: And spent several months expecting that a significant portion of their loans were going to be wiped away, and now --

SOLOMON: That part.

CORNISH: Now, now not so much.

SOLOMON: Yes.

CORNISH: So, there's another case we want to talk about because there are questions about the origin of the Supreme Court's ruling that sided with Colorado web designer Lorie Smith. So, the high court ruling, 6-3 on Friday, said that Smith can refuse to serve LGBTQ customers. And the man who Smith says contacted her for her services insists he never did, that the request was cited by her attorneys when the state of Colorado questioned whether she had grounds to sue. And what's more, the man who goes by Stewart says that he was not in a same-sex marriage. Telling CNN, I have never asked anybody to design a website for me, so it's all very strange. I certainly didn't contact her. And whatever the information in that request is, is fake.

Joining us now also is CNN's senior legal analyst Elie Honig. Rahel is staying with us.

So, I feel like on the way to a Supreme Court ruling, someone would have fact checked whether the names and places are who they say they are, et cetera. Tell us what happened here.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, one would think that the opposing party would do that. That the state of Colorado would do that. This is why the Supreme Court does not or did not, I should say, until last week, take hypotheticals, because the facts always matter. Even in the Supreme Court, with is all about the law, legalistic determinations, you have to know what the underlying facts are.

And this is a core idea of jurisprudence. We don't take cases unless we have a full, factual record before us. What the Supreme Court did here is they found a way around that because they clearly wanted to take this case. They said, well, what we have is this web designer saying, yes, she's going to go into business and not going to make websites -- doesn't want to make websites for same-sex couples. And the state of Colorado saying, and we are going to enforce this law, therefore we have a sort of inevitable conflict.

But here's the problem. Could end up your facts are wrong. Could end up your facts are distorted. Your --

CORNISH: But it doesn't actually disturb the results of the case in the end?

HONIG: It's not going to cause a change in this case because they found this sort of backdoor to take the case. And it's so important because the Supreme Court is telling us we're going to be much more aggressive, we're going to be reaching down and taking more cases now.

CORNISH: Elie Honig, thank you.

Rahel Solomon, thank you for being here.

SOLOMON: Thank you, guys.

MATTINGLY: All right, well, Taylor Swift, the only thing Audie's wanted to talk about all day, living up to her name, swiftly running off the stage -- see what we did there with the writing -- off the stage at her show in Cincinnati. We'll tell you why. That's coming up next.

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[08:53:39]

MATTINGLY: All right, just revealed this morning, Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi will earn between $50 million and $60 million a year when he joins Inter Miami according to the club's part owner. The lower of those figures would make Messi the highest paid player in Major League Soccer by more than $40 million. That's some good delta right there. Messi also has the guarantee of being part of the club's ownership once he retires and, I think this is most important, gets a cut from the MLS broadcasting deal with Apple TV. Messi's long-time rival, Cristiano Ronaldo, has a $75 million salary -- playing salary playing for the Saudi Pro League.

CORNISH: Now for your "Morning Moment." Taylor Swift reacting swiftly after -- you see what we did there -

MATTINGLY: Yes.

CORNISH: After an apparent stage malfunction during her Eras Tour stop in Cincinnati. Here is a look.

(VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Well, the singer stood in place for a few extra seconds, even stomping her foot to try and activate a trapdoor. Finally running off the stage to complete her outfit change. Her fans have dubbed some of these mishaps, including the time she accidentally swallowed a bug, part of the errors tour. Taylor responded to this video on social media saying, quote, still swift AF, boy, which I feel totally normal and natural reading.

[08:55:03]

CORNISH: I mean (ph) - look, not all heroes wear capes.

MATTINGLY: Are you - are you a huge - you're a huge Swiftie fan.

CORNISH: I'm -- she's putting on four-hour shows. So, there's got to be a thing here or there.

MATTINGLY: I'm not - that was not me challenging her.

CORNISH: No, I'm not saying, I'm just sticking up for the Swifties.

MATTINGLY: Why are you sticking -- no one's attacking them. There's no reason -

CORNISH: I mean, there's always someone.

MATTINGLY: OK, but like not anybody who doesn't want to be attacked.

CORNISH: Have you listened to "Reputation?" The woman's got enemies.

MATTINGLY: Elie, your thoughts on Taylor Swift's enemies?

HONIG: First of all --

CORNISH: Yes, Elie, what does this mean for Trump?

HONIG: Well, first - first of all, I'm a "1989" guy when it comes to Taylor Swift.

CORNISH: Love it. Love it.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

HONIG: Second of all, let's - to be serious, she is fast. Like, she has good wheels there. She's moving.

CORNISH: I think it's - I think it's leg length, like stride.

HONIG: And she's - I think she's wearing gigantic shoes, too.

CORNISH: Yes. Yes.

HONIG: So give her credit. She's a Philadelphia Eagles fan, by the way. We need a kick returner.

MATTINGLY: I feel like she only did that because she had a show (INAUDIBLE).

CORNISH: She is committed to the show and I appreciate it.

MATTINGLY: Elie, my guys, thank you.

CORNISH: Thank you.

HONIG: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Audie, you want to hang out again tomorrow?

CORNISH: Yes, thank you. I'd love to come back.

MATTINGLY: Let's do it. Why the hell not.

Thank you, guys. Have a wonderful day.

"CNN THIS MORNING" starts right after this break.

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