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CNN This Morning

Investigation into Suspected Serial Killer Expands; Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Testifies on Capitol Hill; Cari Champion is Interviewed about the Women's World Cup; Odds of Winning the Lottery. Aired 8:30- 9a ET

Aired July 20, 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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[08:30:04]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: New developments in the case of Rex Heuermann, the suspected serial killer accused of murdering at least three women whose remains were found along a short stretch on Long Island's Gilgo Beach back in 2010. CNN Hs learned that his wife is now file for divorce, and the Suffolk County sheriff tells us that Heuermann has been extremely quiet while in jail.

Meantime, from Nevada to South Carolina, investigators are now looking back at unsolved cases for any sign that Heuermann may have been involved. And in New York authorities are reinterviewing women who had Heuermann contact them to solicit sex years ago.

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SHERIFF ERROL D. TOULON JR., SUFFOLK COUNTY, NEW YORK: So, we were able to match up the phone numbers that are attributed to him to these females. We were able to actually realize that he had reached out to two individuals.

The phone calls are just like any other John that just wanted to get together. And for some reason they did not want to meet with him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And joining us now is CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller.

John, this is a case right out of, you know, the books and the movies in some ways. And what is also extraordinary about this case is the number of victims and now the scope of where the investigators are looking. Does it surprise you that they're now expanding to even other states?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: They have all kinds of advantages they didn't have. Number one, they don't have to operate under the veil of secrecy where they're doing things that might tip-off the suspect. So, Las Vegas, he's got a timeshare. I spoke to Las Vegas Metro yesterday. They're going back through their open cases, missing persons, to see, does anyone fit the victimology or the offender characteristics of the crime scene of this case. As we know, Las Vegas is a city that is not strange to the sex worker business or transients who come and go. So, they are looking.

But there is hunting cabins he had access to in upstate New York. Those counties will be looking at those cases. There's a brother down south who had the pickup truck that was central to identifying him in this case. They'll be looking down there.

But they'll also be looking right here.

PHILLIP: Yes.

MILLER: Which is, now they've got those phones. They're going through those calls. They've got his computer activity. Who did he contact? Are they going to find a witness who said, I had a close call but I got away? These are people who generally don't call the police in many cases. So, they have a lot to do.

PHILLIP: Yes, sounds like it.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Is that based on the efforts that they're doing -- outside of what they already know, is that based on a theory? Is that based on like the profile that he cuts? Or do you think that they know that there are other victims tied to him in these myriad of places?

MILLER: I think they're looking at the basic profile, if you will, of offenders like this who are involved in multiple murders, who are organized offenders, who plan ahead of time, who execute carefully, who intend to get away with it for a long time, if not forever. And they're seeing, you have the Gilgo cases, three that are charged, a fourth that's likely to go into that mix, and then more bodies that were buried there that they have to determine, are these within that, too.

But, Phil, what they're looking at is, generally an offender like this doesn't just grind to a halt and say, those urges are gone, I'm going to stop killing people.

MATTINGLY: Right.

MILLER: They may change their MO. They may change the geography. And that's why they're expanding in all these directions because it's something they have to do, need to do, but also should do.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

PHILLIP: I want to turn to a different story we've been talking a lot about this morning. This is about Carlee Russell. She's a woman in Alabama who made these 911 calls. She said she saw a toddler wandering around the street and then disappeared for 49 hours. Now there are really serious questions about her side of the story and questions about what she was doing in the lead-up to her disappearance.

MILLER: So, this is story that brought, you know, Hoover, a small town, together. A 25-year-old nursing student vanishes. It starts with a 911 call saying I see a baby in a diaper walking on the side of the highway. And then, you know, she disconnects from 911, calls a family member, screams, and the call goes dead. So, you know, they thought this was a kidnapping.

As they've investigated further, the layers they've pulled back are, you know, when they find her car on the side of the highway, her purse is there, her phone is there, her Apple watch is there. She ends up being traced to a Target store after that where she buys some snack foods. Her internet searches show she searched for the movie "Taken," about a woman who's abduct. That she searched about bus tickets to other cities from there. That - that, you know, she was -- finally shows up at home with $107 in her sock. OK. So, there's a lot about her story that isn't holding together.

PHILLIP: Yes, and, look, one of the things people really paid attention to in this case is that, you know, black and brown women going missing is a real issue.

[08:35:08]

And I think still a lot of questions now about what really happened here and, you know, whether we'll hear more about her side of the story as well.

MILLER: Well, her parents are standing by her. She has put a pause on talking to the police. So, this has a little while to go also.

MATTINGLY: No question.

John Miller, thank you.

Well, minutes from now, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will testify in front of Congress. Democrats have been calling to disinvite him after his claims that Covid-19 was, quote, ethnically targeted. That's next.

PHILLIP: And before we go to break, today is the anniversary of one of mankind's giant leaps. Fifty-four years ago Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface, marking the end of America's nearly decade- long quest to put a man on the moon. Armstrong and his partner, Buzz Aldrin, became the first of 12 people to walk on the moon. But that number could soon change with NASA's next planned moon mission set for late 2024.

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MATTINGLY: Just moments from now, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to appear as a witness at a subcommittee hearing focused on President Biden's alleged censoring of Americans. The Democrats have called on the House Judiciary Committee chairman, Jim Jordan, to rescind Kennedy's investigation after Kennedy's claims that Covid-19 ethnically targeted certain groups came to light over the weekend. With me now to discuss are CNN's political analyst John Avlon and CNN political commentator Scott Jennings.

I - I - JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: How to begin.

PHILLIP: What - what could we even say?

MATTINGLY: Just dove right in on this one.

PHILLIP: What could we even say about this one?

MATTINGLY: I was trying to (INAUDIBLE).

What I think is interesting about this, and this is less that Robert F. Kennedy is -- the conspiracy, which is completely absurd and you can't even really get into it, but more that he is polling at 17 to 20 percent as a Democratic presidential candidate.

[08:40:15]

And a cynical person would say, if you're a Republican, let's continue to elevate him on a very regular basis, and that would include having him testify on Capitol Hill.

Republican Scott Jennings, your thoughts?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Well, it is -- it is sort of governing by trolling. I mean, you know, just this screwing with Joe Biden by having him up there.

On the other hand, it's also platforming who -- someone who has not just recently become a cook and a crank and a conspiracy theorist, but he's been one his whole adult life essentially.

MATTINGLY: But I think that's what he -

JENNINGS: I'm old enough to remember when he invented the conspiracy theory that George W. Bush rewired the voting machines in Ohio in 2004. Republicans have known he's been a weirdo for a long time. But now, because it's hurtful to Biden, we're platforming it. So, I think it's kind of a waste of time. It's kind of a troll. And particularly when you look at sort of what he said over the weekend, you know, do we not have anything better to do with our time? By the way, the topic they're discussing, Republicans, I think, are interested in this topic for a good reason. There's probably a thousand other people you could stick up there.

PHILLIP: Yes.

MATTINGLY: That's the interesting thing is, you could look through the emails in the lawsuit -- or the judge's decision related to the administration and have them come -

JENNINGS: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Like there are significant issues throughout the course of that that you could dig in on that don't include somebody like this and platforming.

PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, and Scott makes an important point. I mean the lies are dangerous, I mean, on childhood vaccines.

AVLON: Yes.

PHILLIP: But the numbers are pretty clear. The fundraising numbers. Robert F. Kennedy raised a lot of money. And according to analyses out there of the donors, they're Trump donors, they're DeSantis donors.

There is this sense that, first of all, the anti-vaxxer stuff is very potent on the right, but also that RFK, because of his last name, the Kennedy name, can be an annoyance at the very least to Joe Biden.

AVLON: So, let's take those things one, two, three.

As Phil introduced, you know, a cynical person might say that Republicans are promoting this candidacy. Well, the data of the donations would suggest that that is indeed the fact. The trolling, sort of, you know, you know, hearing today also would indicate that fact.

Now, look, polling also shows that there is a large number of Democrats who are dissatisfied with the idea of Joe Biden running for reelection. And so clearly Robert F. Kennedy, on the bank - you know, banking off the strength of that name, his father's historic name, can get a lot of that energy.

The problem is that he has been a proponent, after he was a responsible environmentalist. You've got to give him credit for that and -- for a period of his life. This is what's known in extremism work as horseshoe theory, where the far right and the far left end up circling back on each other. And that's the truth with this anti- vaxxer stuff. He was an early proponent of it. It got adopted by the right. Now there's a degree of common cause. But it doesn't make anybody smarter, doesn't make anybody safer.

PHILLIP: Well, the horseshoe theory, I'm -- I'm stealing that one.

AVLON: You're welcome.

PHILLIP: But, I learned something new.

Scott --

MATTINGLY: We always learn something new.

PHILLIP: I know, always, from Avlon.

Scott, you were talking about Republicans on Capitol Hill governing, you know, by trolling. There is a lot of that, it seems, going on these days. Earlier in the program we were talking about even the hearing on the Hunter Biden case. And putting aside the accusations from the whistleblowers, there was also the Marjorie Taylor Greene of it all, holding up explicit photos in the hearing room.

If you're Kevin McCarthy, is that helpful?

JENNINGS: I'm not certain the explicit photos are helpful. I do think the testimony of the whistleblowers is, if you listen - I watched quite a bit of it, read about it, looked through it. I mean what they had to say was really important. It was damning in fact. And so I don't think it's getting, frankly, the coverage that it deserves. And the exploration of it is important stuff.

Hunter Biden aside, ultimately the connective tissue here is, does Joe Biden have anything to do with what Hunter Biden was doing? And that's what we're trying to get at.

AVLON: And - but this is the self-defeating irony of all of this, right? You know, the whistleblowers are credible. IRS agents, their claims should be taken seriously. You know, the - you know, Weiss should testify to answer. He's said they're incorrect in what they characterized.

But the Republicans end up demeaning their own investigations with the circus of it all, with the trollingness (ph) of it all. With, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene, you know, having, you know, naked photos on the Congress floor. So, they actually diminish whatever seriousness there may or may not be in this with - by bringing in the circus and the troll army.

JENNINGS: Yes. Well, she - I mean her mission is to get attention for herself. The larger Republican mission would be to get attention for the issue of what these whistleblowers have to say. She probably did step on that. But, overall, I think having -

MATTINGLY: You think?

JENNINGS: I think - I think having them testify -

PHILLIP: And - and, look, can Kevin McCarthy -

JENNINGS: Well, at least - at least they blurt out the naughty bits (ph) of it.

PHILLIP: Kevin McCarthy has really elevated her in so many ways.

JENNINGS: Yes.

PHILLIP: So, it really only enables this kind of behavior.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Yes.

PHILLIP: John.

MATTINGLY: I mean the whistleblowers - like it was very interesting testimony. That's just -

PHILLIP: Yes.

MATTINGLY: And it just gets in the way of everything. And you guys keep trying to act like we're going to pull the - we're not pulling up the damn photos.

[08:45:03] PHILLIP: All right, John Avlon and Scott Jennings.

JENNINGS: Thank you.

PHILLIP: Both of you, thank you.

MATTINGLY: Thanks, guys.

PHILLIP: And the 2023 Women's World Cup is officially underway. The United States is trying to become the first country to win that tournament for the third time in a row.

MATTINGLY: And two of the most anticipated movies of the summer come out this weekend. John Avlon definitely doing the double feature, "Barbie" or "Oppenheimer." Who's going to win in the box office battle?

PHILLIP: I vote "Barbie."

MATTINGLY: I think "Barbie" wins. I want to say "Oppenheimer" a lot more.

AVLON: Ah, yes.

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MATTINGLY: The Women's World Cup, it's officially underway in New Zealand. The U.S. plays their first match tomorrow against Vietnam. Now, the U.S. team is trying to make history this year, become the first county to win the tournament three consecutive tournaments in a row, men or women. In order to get there, though, the team is going to have to beat an expanded field of 32 total teams. More than ever before. More talent than ever before across the world as well.

Joining out now, the host of "The Cari Champion Show" on Amazon Prime Video, Cari Champion herself.

Cari, I have to say, I just work under the assumption that the U.S. is going to win because we're awesome. However, the team is very different. It's a lot younger. They've had a lot of injuries. And the competition is a lot better. Is that fair?

CARI CHAMPION, HOST, "THE CARI CHAMPION SHOW" ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO: That is a fair and accurate analysis. In fact, of the 23-team roster, 14 of those players are newbies.

[08:50:04]

Newbies. Can you imagine?

So, I will say this, what they lack for in experience they make up for in talent. We have such a great group of young women. Some of the storylines you should be looking out for and some of the players you should be paying attention to, someone like Trinity Rodman. She's 21 years old. She was the youngest drafted player at 18 years old to go to the professional soccer league here. And last year she was -- became the highest paid soccer player actually in the league.

Obviously, her father is Dennis Rodman. And people are associating the two. But I think she's going to play with a little chip on her shoulder to prove that she is not only her father's child - and they don't necessarily have a great relationship -- but she's a great athlete in her own right.

PHILLIP: Yes, that is definitely something to watch.

So, Cari, I want to switch topics here because you're out in LA. So you're - you're going to give us the inside scoop on this.

This weekend we have really basically this double header of blockbusters set to open in the box office, "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer." A lot of households, including maybe Phil's household, maybe mine, are split over whether they're going to go see these movies, maybe separately, maybe together. Why do you think that this has really sort of tapped into something, maybe touched a nerve in our, you know, public life here? I mean people really are kind of excited to get back into the theatres it seems.

CHAMPION: Yes. I think that this movie in particular, it's really weird, right, because I'm here in Los Angeles and the backdrop is, you can feel there's this palpable attitude towards what's happening in Hollywood amid the writer's strike, as well as the actor's striking. And you can feel this sense of, OK, yes, I do want to support this film. It's so amazing. And I want to talk about the marketing. It's genius. It's everywhere. You can't go anywhere without seeing it.

But I also know that people feel like, yes, I'll go to the movies, this will get me back into the summer movie fling because we haven't had one in a while, especially since Covid. But I think there's definitely this feeling of, I'm torn between the two. You want to support, yes, and then families want to go and watch. But we're very well aware, I think in this day and age, society is very well aware of what's happening in Hollywood and so many people feel a little bit torn between supporting the writers and actually going out and seeing the film.

And I'm not quite sure what you were alluding to, but it is -- there is this excitement because they have built so much into it. I think it was a $200 million marketing campaign for "Barbie" specifically.

PHILLIP: Yes, and, you know what, the films are made and actors are in them and I think to some extent supporting the films might mean also supporting those actors who are a part of it too.

Cari Champion, always great to have you on. Thank you so much.

MATTINGLY: Well, coming up, one what -- one - one what - one lucky winner in California -- I'm so mad I can't even speak that I didn't win.

PHILLIP: I know. The disappointment is palpable in your voice.

MATTINGLY: Record Powerball jackpot. While the rest of us wonder when we'll get that lucky. Harry Enten is here to - I mean you're all I need. I don't need Powerball. You're going to give us the morning number. That's the same thing. It's roughly equivalent. So is your dancing. It's - no, over there.

PHILLIP: Oh, good moves, Harry.

MATTINGLY: Stay over - don't - do not.

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[08:57:37]

MATTINGLY: Well, after 91 days and 38 consecutive drawings, bad news.

PHILLIP: Don't sound too sad.

MATTINGLY: Unless you're one of these people. There's finally a new Powerball winner. It happened. The single winning ticket worth more than $1 billion was sold in California. It's the third largest jackpot in Powerball history. But if yesterday wasn't your lucky day, Friday still could be. That's when the next drawing for the relatively paltry $720 million - why would you even settle for that?

PHILLIP: I would -- I would take - I would take that, $720 million.

MATTINGLY: You'd take it? OK. You'd take it. Here's the problem with that, though, your odds of winning are actually worse.

PHILLIP: OK. All right.

MATTINGLY: But I don't know how to explain that, so that's why we brought Harry Enten.

PHILLIP: You know, I - yes, I need Harry for this one. Sorry.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Yes, I'm glad I can play -

MATTINGLY: Just how much worse? How much worse?

ENTEN: Yes, I'm glad I can play some role for you too.

MATTINGLY: Give us the number, Harry.

ENTEN: All right, this morning's number is, your Mega Millions odds of winning the jackpot is 1 in 303 million. That's somehow worse than the Powerball, which was 1 in 292 million. I don't know math that well, but 1 in 303 million doesn't strike me your chances of winning are that good.

PHILLIP: Yes, it seems bad.

MATTINGLY: That's why you're the numbers guy.

ENTEN: That's why I'm the numbers guy.

And let me tell you, it's actually become harder to win over the last few years. They made the jackpots harder to win by many millions to get more of your money. Look at this, 10 extra mega balls were added back to the Mega Millions jackpot in 2017. The Powerball, they added 10 extra regular balls back in 2015. That's why these jackpots have gotten so high because they've added extra balls.

PHILLIP: Wow.

ENTEN: They know math, even if you two may not know math as well. At least you, Phil.

PHILLIP: I would never have guessed that adding - just adding 10 extra balls would make it nearly impossible for anyone to win the lottery.

ENTEN: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Can I ask you, what's more likely than winning the lottery in terms of things that could happen to you?

ENTEN: Yes. OK. All right. So your chance of winning the Mega Millions jackpot is 1 is 303 million. How about the chance of a shark killing you during your lifetime. It's 1 in 4 million. Still pretty bad odds of that happening, but it's still much better than your chance of winning the Mega Millions.

MATTINGLY: I'm so mad at you.

ENTEN: How about - how about the chance of Phil growing up to be my height when he's older. Look at this, the chance of being at least 6'2" is 1 in 20. So, Phil, I have good news for you. Maybe in the upcoming years.

PHILLIP: You are - Harry -

MATTINGLY: Get away from me. I literally looked at the bottom of this slide and knew where you were going.

PHILLIP: Harry, you are stone cold, my friend.

MATTINGLY: And I am so cold blooded.

ENTEN: Attack (ph).

PHILLIP: Cold blooded.

MATTINGLY: Not only am I not a billionaire, but you've just come and just -- frontal assault.

PHILLIP: It's been - it's been a tough day for Phil.

[09:00:01]

MATTINGLY: A tough day for Phil.

PHILLIP: Yes.

ENTEN: But it's been a wonderful time being with you two. PHILLIP: All right.

MATTINGLY: Thanks, buddy.

ENTEN: Thank you.

PHILLIP: Thanks, Harry.

All right, well, "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now. Don't go anywhere.

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