Return to Transcripts main page
CNN This Morning
Missing Alabama Woman Mystery; Deadline for Trump; New Black History Standards in Florida; 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup Kicks Off. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired July 20, 2023 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:30:00]
ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That he plans to ask a judge to force the state of Texas to remove them.
Abby.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Incredible reporting from you down there. Rosa Flores, in Eagle Pass, Texas, thank you.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, this morning there are new questions about the disappearance and reappearance of an Alabama woman after she made this 911 call.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, I am on Interstate 459, and there is a kid just walking by themselves.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: But it's what she did right before she went missing that has officials asking a lot of questions. We'll dig in, coming back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTINGLY: On the day a woman in Alabama went missing, she looked up the movie "Taken" and one-way bus tickets from Birmingham to Nashville online. Carlee Russell vanished one week ago after calling 911 to report a toddler on the side of the road. But she turned up at her home in Hoover, Alabama, just two days later.
CNN's Ryan Young reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Carlee Russell's disappearance sent shock waves through the state of Alabama for 49 hours as a search for the missing woman worried many, local police, federal law enforcement, family and community members all trying to find the 25-year-old after this 911 call last Thursday.
CARLEE RUSSELL: I am on Interstate 459, and there is a kid just walking by themselves.
YOUNG: That call coming from Interstate 459 South. Russell telling a dispatcher a toddler was walking alone on the side of the road. Police would arrive to find Carlee's car, wig, purse, and phone, but no sign of her or the toddler.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 42 call the RV back, she's not at their vehicle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: COA, red in color, to Nicole Russell out of Birmingham. 10-4, we're not getting the female to answer. We're trying to call her back. She's not answering.
[06:35:02]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 42, just be advised her vehicle is unlocked, running, all her personal belongings except for her phone.
YOUNG: Police say on Saturday night Russell showed up at her parents' home. Listen to what she told detectives.
CHIEF NICK DERZIS, HOOVER POLICE DEPARTMENT: When she got out of her vehicle to check on the child, a man came out of the trees and mumbled that he was checking on the baby. She claimed that the man then picked her up and she screamed.
The next thing she remembers is being in the trailer of an 18-wheeler.
YOUNG: Hoover detectives also describe what surveillance video at her job showed before Russell called 911 that Thursday.
DERZIS: Surveillance video from her place of employment shows Carlee concealed a dark colored bathrobe, a roll of toilet paper and other items belonging to the business.
YOUNG: Detectives say the 25-year-old also stopped at a Target, where she bought snacks that weren't found in her car when officers arrived, and say her internet search history over the last month are, quote, relevant to this case.
DERZIS: On July 11th, at 7:30 a.m., the term, do you have to pay for an Amber Alert was searched. On July 13th, at 1:03 a.m., the day of her disappearance, a search for the movie "Taken," a film about abduction, was conducted.
YOUNG: Hoover detectives say they hope to speak to Russell again but so far that hasn't happened since she returned home Saturday.
DERZIS: We're still working this case. And we'll be working this case until we uncover every piece of evidence that helps us account for the 49 hours that Carlee Russell was missing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
YOUNG: Phil, Abby, still so many questions about this case. When you think about it, she talked about a man with orange hair. And the idea that she never saw a woman who might have been playing with her hair. Detectives want to talk to her again.
But you think about this and the uproar that it's created on the internet. So many questions. Detectives want to talk to her again, like I said. But, man, this is such a story and the details are probably not done just yet.
Guys.
MATTINGLY: Yes, bizarre twists and turns and it seems like many more to come.
Ryan Young, thanks, man.
YOUNG: Absolutely.
PHILLIP: A vote on Donald Trump's possible third indictment could happen as soon as today. How the former president is bracing for it and using it to his advantage.
And -
MATTINGLY: And -
PHILLIP: And some -
MATTINGLY: You just want to talk about the lottery, don't you?
Someone in California -
PHILLIP: I want to win the lottery, not talk about it.
MATTINGLY: Will -- will wake up $1 billion richer this morning. One winning ticket matched all six numbers of last night's Powerball. The jackpot was worth a billion dollars and change with a lump sum payout of, you know, just about $558 million. So, if you are watching, in California, right now, check your ticket. And if you won, send it to Abby Phillip.
PHILLIP: Come on, Phil, I know you want to win the lottery.
MATTINGLY: I mean I'm pro lottery.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:41:27]
PHILLIP: Today is the deadline for Donald Trump to respond to the special counsel's letter, which confirms that the former president is the target of the January 6th investigation. Trump is being given a chance to testify before the grand jury, which is expected to be back in court today.
CNN is also learning that Trump and his team are scrambling now to figure out what evidence Jack Smith has and which witnesses he's spoken with. One of Trump's 2024 GOP rivals, Chris Christie, was asked about this on CNN. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I never sent a target letter if I was not completely sure that I had put enough in front of the grand jury for them to return an indictment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And back with us is CNN's senior legal analyst, Elie Honig, and also with us is CNN's senior political analyst John Avlon.
So, John, this is, obviously, a moment of extreme legal peril for Donald Trump. But, at the same time, he is pursuing the same political strategy that he has all along, fundraising off of his potential indictment I should say.
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.
PHILLIP: And using this to squeeze his opponents in the 2024 race.
AVLON: Yes. And in the primary, in the short run, he may be successful at fundraising off of this. He may be successful at getting some folks to rally around the base. But I would posit that that doesn't matter at the end of the day. That doing this analysis through the short-term horse race politics, yes, you need to take that, but it distracts from the larger issue.
You know, Donald Trump running this time has some added inducement, which is trying to stay out of prison essentially. That's a factor in a presidential campaign of this nature. The second thing is, this is historic. It is unprecedented. Not because of the potential indictment, the indictments and the current potential indictment, it is because of what he did that we all saw trying to overturn an election as a sitting president.
And, remember, you know, the whole argument in the second impeachment, why that shouldn't go through Republicans said, was he will be subject to the law as an ordinary citizen. That's what's happening now. That's the accountability. That's what's historic. That's what we should keep our eye on the ball on.
MATTINGLY: You know, one of the interesting things after -- we talked about this yesterday, the days after January 6th, was when you talked to Republican lawmakers, when you listened to what they said publicly, but also what they said behind the scenes. It was a very different moment than we're in right now. And I actually want to play what we heard from Speaker Kevin McCarthy yesterday about the potential indictment.
Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): I don't see how he could be found criminally responsible. He was not charged -
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why?
MCCARTHY: Well, what criminal activity did he do? He told people to be peaceful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: And this was then leader Kevin McCarthy on January 10th of 2021.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCARTHY: The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: That's what you call crucial context. That's why those two sides need to be seen together.
MATTINGLY: But why?
AVLON: Because his statements yesterday, I don't see how he could possibly been held to legal account, fly in the face of what he said and did in the immediately aftermath of the attack, which is saying, this is on Donald Trump's doorstep. He caused this. He inspired this.
And I think the problem is the political calculations for Republicans beginning when Kevin McCarthy went down and kissed the ring at Mar-a- Lago weeks after the January 6th attack have shifted to a kind of broad denialism that's not only denying about legal accountability, but denying and reversing what they said and did because of what they experienced when he tried to overturn an election on the basis of lies.
PHILLIP: And he's -
[06:45:02]
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENOR LEGAL ANALYST: You know and it's interesting to hear what Kevin McCarthy says there as a potential defense. He says, well, Trump said I want you to be peaceful. He did say that in the rally. But the way that it looks like DOJ's engineering these charges makes that irrelevant because it looks like the focus, as we just discussed, is on the conspiracy, is on the whole effort to overturn the election, even weeks and days before January 6th.
PHILLIP: So, I -- so - so Kevin McCarthy, he's not alone in making this argument that maybe it was wrong but it's not illegal. We've heard that from Vivek Ramaswamy, from Ron DeSantis. Does that make any sense to you?
HONIG: Yes, I think, legally - I mean if the charge here was inciting a riot, which it doesn't look like it's going to be, then the fact that Donald Trump, in his speech at the rally, yes, he said we're going to go down to the Capitol, you're going to show strength, but he also did say, be peaceful and patriotic. And that's why that's such a difficult charge. And that's why I think DOJ was not interested in that. They're looking at the fraud, at the conspiracy.
MATTINGLY: Elie, I want to ask you, there was a hearing related to Hunter Biden and what's been going on in terms of the charges that were brought against him, charges that weren't brought against him with potential whistleblowers, including this, one of the whistleblowers saying this.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSEPH ZIEGLER, IRS SPECIAL AGENT: It appeared to me, based on what I experienced, that the U.S. attorney in Delaware, in our investigation, was constantly hamstrung, limited and marginalized by DOJ officials, as well as other U.S. attorneys.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HONIG: So, these whistleblowers, I think, need to be taken seriously. They are IRS agents. They are legitimate law enforcement officers. And there's not reason to question their credibility.
To me, it's not a problem if the IRS wanted to charge Hunter Biden more seriously and prosecutors wanted less. That happens all the time.
It is a problem if this investigation is cut off, was told, you cannot go down certain roads. And that's where I think that the focus needs to be.
MATTINGLY: Yes, there's a moments that the prosecutor's going to have to speak. Weiss is going to have to testify.
HONIG: Yes.
MATTINGLY: I think there's no question about it.
All right, John Avlon, Elie Honig, thanks, guys.
PHILLIP: Thanks, guys.
And the Florida Board of Education has just approved new standards of how black history is taught in schools. One instruction has to do with how enslaved people may have benefitted from slavery. We have the details coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:50:37]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please table this ruling, revise it to make sure that my history, our history, is being told factually and completely. And, please, do not -- do not, for the love of God, tell kids that slavery was beneficial because I can guarantee you it most certainly was not. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Education and civil rights advocates are slamming new black history teaching standards in Florida. Under the new rules, middle school teachers must now include lessons, quote, how slaves developed skills, which in some instances could be applied for their personal benefit.
CNN's Athena Jones is here on this absolutely bonkers story.
These changes are incredibly controversial, obviously, but they're also not correct.
ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, it's inaccurate, it's ahistorical. Critics are calling this a big step backwards and saying it's a disservice to Florida student because they're not going to learn the full truth and the full accurate truth of American history. And this is, of course, the latest development in ongoing debates over how to teach kids about black history.
You mentioned one of the most shocking examples for middle school students saying that slavery was beneficial. It's an odd thing to say about a group whose labor went uncompensated for generation upon generation.
Here are some of the other examples we have, we can put them up on the screen, of things that are involved in this curriculum. One of them is the teaching of the Ocoee Massacre. Teachers are required to mention acts of violence perpetrated by African Americans. Similar standards are applied to other massacres, the Tulsa Massacre, the Atlanta Race Riot, Rosewood Massacre. And I want to be clear, these are all cases of violent armed mobs of white people attacking black Americans, and yet these standards say you have to talk about acts of violence perpetrated by blacks.
They're also not required to teach African American history past reconstruction to elementary and middle school students. And they omit the fact that Florida, in 1957, the legislature passed a resolution opposing the Brown v. Board, landmark decision by the Supreme Court that ended legal segregation in public education.
So, these are standards that critics say just aren't going to be teaching children of -- the children of Florida, one of the largest states, the third largest state, the proper history. And it won't prepare them well for the future.
MATTINGLY: All right, what are Florida officials saying to justify this? Good luck, but -
JONES: They say this meets - they say this meets their goals -- all the goals that they've set out for when it comes to teaching history. But the Florida Education Association, which says it's the largest union in the southeast, it represents some 150,000 members, they say, how can our students ever be equipped for the future if they don't have a full, honest picture of where we've come from. Governor DeSantis is pursuing a political agenda guaranteed to set good people against one another. And in the process, he's cheating our kids. They deserve the full truth of American history, the good and the bad.
And the union went on to say that this confirms their worst fears. You know, last year Governor DeSantis passed - or signed into law the Stop Woke Act. The whole idea being that it banned instruction in telling children that they were either privileged or oppressed on the basis of race or sex or national origin.
So, this is not over.
PHILLIP: Yes.
JONES: There is clearly a lot of people up in arms about this.
PHILLIP: Very, very disturbing when it comes to actually teaching accurate history in the schools.
Thank you, Athena Jones.
And the 2023 FIFA World Cup -- Women's World Cup has just kicked off this morning. Hear from the women's national team as they try to do something that no other team, men or women, has done before.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEGAN RAPINO, USWNT FORWARD: The nerves are still kind of there, and the excitement. There's nothing quite like that. And it only comes every - every four years. So, it's a nice little treat every time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:57:24]
MATTINGLY: The FIFA Women's World Cup has kicked off in New Zealand. And it's a new beginning for women's soccer with 32 nations competing and the prize money up 300 percent from 2019. The home team took on Norway this morning and came away with a historic win.
CNN's Amanda Davis has a preview of what else is to come.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEX MORGAN, USWNT FORWARD: As much as the rest of the world is looking at it, like a potential three-peat, we're looking at it as this tournament that we have in front of us in 2023, New Zealand and Australia.
AMANDA DAVIS, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR (voice over): The U.S. Women's National Team are no strangers to leading the way. But on the line over the next month, something that no side, men or women, has ever done before, winning a third straight World Cup.
EMILY SONNETT, USWNT DEFENDER: You can't really say three because it's such a new group. It's a new World Cup. And attacking that as a new group.
DAVIS: Emily Sonnett was there four years ago for victory in France alongside veteran superstars Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, preparing for their fourth world cups this time around. But 14 players will be making their debut on the world's biggest stage. And the message from the top is clear, we win together, we lose together, we stick together.
CRYSTAL DUNN, USWNT DEFENDER: We did have a, you know, big change in a lot of players. We've had injuries. We've had a lot of things that we've had to adapt to. And I think that is something that is ultimately going to make us come together and be even stronger because we know that everyone has to pull their weight.
NAOMI GIRMA, USWNT DEFENDER: I think it's just keep the belief, knowing that we deserve to be at this level, you know, representing the U.S. in the World Cup. And we've impacted the game in different levels and different games, different tournament. So I think now, going into World Cup, it's keeping that belief and just knowing that we're good enough and we're able to make an impact.
DAVIS: They started the 2019 tournament with a whopping 13-0 win over Thailand, and are aiming to make another statement in the July 21st opener against Vietnam.
JULIE ERTZ, USWNT MIDFIELDER: They're going to get our best. Our team is focused on one game at a time. Not looking past anything. Giving the utmost respect to whoever our opponent is. That we're going to give our best on any day that we have to play. And I think that's our sole focus of the team.
DAVIS: The U.S. Women's national team have been synonymous with dominance. They've won four of the eight women's World Cups ever played.
[07:00:00]
That drive to be the best is engrained in the team's culture. And there's no plan to change that now.
