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CNN This Morning
Biden Faces Fresh Wave Of Democratic Defections As Campaign Tries To Press Forward; Gunman At Trump Rally Had Drone In Car, Possibly To Scope Out The Site; Services Begin Slow Recovery After Faulty Software Update Causes Global IT Crash; Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee Dead at Age 74; A Russian Court Sentences Wall Street Journal Journalist Gershkovich to 16 Years Imprisonment; Tiger Woods Struggles As He Misses Cut at British Open. Aired 6-7a ET
Aired July 20, 2024 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to CNN This Morning. Saturday, July 20. I'm Victor Blackwell.
AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Admiral Walker. And here's what we're working on for you this morning.
A tale of two campaigns President Biden is fighting nearly three dozen calls from within his own party to end his reelection bid while former President Donald Trump and running mate J.D. Vance hit the trail together for the first time today.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's been really wild. It's crazy. It's crowded. And I have anxiety right now.
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BLACKWELL: Yes, you want the only one. Businesses, hospitals, schools, airlines, frustrated fliers, all trying to get back on track this morning after one of the largest cyber outages in history caused gridlock around the world. What started it and how standards are already taken advantage of this confusion.
WALKER: And sobering statistics on women's health in the US. We go inside the new report revealing where you live can mean the difference between life and death.
BLACKWELL: President Biden flouting his return to the campaign despite calls for him to end his reelection bid. More than 30 Democratic lawmakers now publicly urging him to step aside including a dozen new names on Friday alone. A source says the president is seething and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said some of her close allies are joining those calls. But the President insists he is staying in this race. He issued a
statement yesterday. He says he looks forward to hitting the campaign trail next week after recovering from COVID.
WALKER: Meanwhile, former President Trump returns to the campaign trail today. He and his vice presidential running mate J.D. Vance are holding their first joint rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It'll be Trump's first rally since last weekend when he was injured in an attempted assassination.
And unlike that rally, today's event will be indoors. CNN's Camila DeChalus joining us now. Camila, let's talk about Biden's team and you know what they're saying. I mean, they're putting the foot down saying that there's he's staying in the race at least right now he is.
CAMILA DECHALUS, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right. President Biden's team is doubling down saying that he has no intention of stepping out of this race. Now, privately and publicly public, his campaign officials have acknowledged that these last few weeks have been a little rough. But they have expressed confidence in the President and his ability to win a second term and office. Take a listen to his campaign chair who spoke on TV yesterday.
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JEN O'MALLEY DILLON, BIDEN CAMPAIGN CHAIRWOMAN: I'm not here to say that this hasn't been a tough several weeks for the campaign. There's no doubt that it has been. And we've definitely seen some slippage in support, but it has been a small movement. And you know this the reason is because so much of this race is hardened already.
The American people know that the President is older. They see that they knew that before the debate. Yes, of course, we have a lot of work to do to make sure that we are reassuring the American people that yes, he's old, but he can do the job and he can win.
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DECHALUS: Now, Victor, as you mentioned, President Biden himself put out a statement yesterday saying that he's looking forward to hitting the campaign trail next week to really get in front of the American people and sell that message of what he's done in the past. And why he should be reelected for a second term.
But it is worth noting with the chair who just recently spoke that even in a private call that she had with campaign staffers, she had one big message and that was ignore what people are saying, ignore the polls and really focus on the voters at hand. Those are the people that are matter and winning their vote over and really proving why Biden should be elected for a second term. That is what's really at stake here.
BLACKWELL: Despite their insistence that the President is staying at the top of the ticket. We have new reporting this morning about the process to replace Biden, if he does step aside. There is growing consensus, though, that whatever process happens at the vice president would likely be the nominee. What do you know?
DECHALUS: That's right. There are mounting calls from several Democratic lawmakers and elected officials that saying that Biden should step aside. And when these conversations are happening, there's a bigger debate about who would actually replace him if he steps down.
And what we've been finding in the reporting is that a lot of lawmakers and democratic officials say that the likelihood is that Vice President Kamala Harris should step in and take his place.
[06:05:05]
And a lot of that reasoning they found is that even in these last few weeks since the first presidential debate performance, she has really stepped up and really stayed loyal and fiery and her speeches really reaffirming that she firmly believes that Biden can win and really emphasizing what is at stake here.
She said the same thing time and time again, about how she believes that the former President Donald Trump poses a great threat. And really when asked if she has the votes to even go and become the Democratic nominee, a lot of people have pointed to her portfolio saying that she has done the work she has served her time in Congress. She has these relationships that really make her the likely candidate. Victor, Amara, back to you.
WALKER: All right. Camila DeChalus, thank you so much. Joining me now to discuss further a Sophia Cai, National Politics Reporter for Axios. Sophia, good morning. Good to see you.
The list of congressional Democrats for Biden to step aside that is growing. It is now more than 30. It includes Zoe Lofgren. Representatives Zoe Lofgren a very close ally, a former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. What's the -- what are the conversations sounding like? Is there this feeling of perhaps in a -- inevitability considering you have leaders in the party who are either privately expressing concern or orchestrating this pressure campaign from behind the scenes?
SOPHIA CAI, NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, AXIOS: Yes, I think Nancy Pelosi is called to Biden was huge. I mean, that's someone who's been very close to Biden for a number of years. And of course, her allies like Adam Schiff, and Zoe Lofgren, as well, we have many senators, you know, a few yesterday who came out and I think those conversations, those public statements from senators, you know, they are playing a huge role here in potentially urging more members of the House and more Democratic senators to come out. And I think that's bound to influence some of those private conversations that President Biden is having with his aides and with his family right now.
WALKER: We're also seeing reporting specifically from the New York Times, that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, she had this closed door meeting, indicating that she wants to see a competitive process of an open primary to find a new candidate, basically bypassing Vice President Kamala Harris as a new Democratic presidential nominee if Biden were to step aside.
I want to listen to what Representative Lofgren said on MSNBC about a potential open primary. Here she has.
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REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA): There will have to be quick steps, I don't think we can do a coronation. But obviously, the vice president would be the leading candidate. I think kind of a mini primary, maybe a vetting hosted by former presidents, including Obama and Clinton would be helpful and help focus the attention and whoever emerges, including Kamala Harris would be a stronger candidate.
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WALKER: What would that process look like, Sophia?
CAI: Yes, I think we're not quite sure yet. But I think what Zoe Lofgren is doing is she's laying the groundwork for when and if President Biden decides, you know, that he should have someone else run, that there is a process and, you know, setting those seeds so that people have an idea that people other than Vice President Harris kind of decide whether or not to raise their hands. And I think that's something that the Democratic Party is really grappling with, because on the one hand, you've got these calls for President Biden to leave.
But, you know, we know that he also was learned from 2016 and 2021, he felt like he was discounted out. And so you know, there is still a possibility that he doesn't and I think, you know, if he doesn't, then, you know, you have this situation where you have these very vocal calls in the Democratic party for him to leave, but he doesn't that could fracture the party in a serious way.
WALKER: Even as we're hearing from sources that, you know, Biden is in a contemplative stage at this point amidst these calls for him to step aside. We've been hearing from campaign chair, Jen O'Malley Dillon, she spoke on MSNBC Friday, you know, saying that Biden is absolutely staying in the race. She also said this about what the campaign has been hearing from voters. Listen.
No sound, OK. We don't have that soundbite. But basically, she's saying that, you know, the voters that they've talked to said that they are sticking with Joe Biden that that is baked in, it's a movement that's strong because they know, Joe Biden, and she also said that they have multiple pathways to victory.
What is the data showing and are there multiple pathways to victory?
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Because that's not what this the conversations are sounding like within the Democratic Party, right?
CAI: Yes. So right now, I mean, in a lot of the six swing states that matter, Trump is ahead. Of course, voters and I'm hearing from voters on the ground, you know, a lot of Democratic voters, they will ultimately reluctantly vote for Biden if they have to. And they may also go with, you know, whoever the Democratic nominee is. I think ultimately there's about six people, including Joe Biden, who would have to make the choice of whether or not Joe Biden steps aside and everyone else, including everyone on his campaign, including senior members have to really leave the option open. They have to say that we're going full steam ahead until the very moment that President Biden and if he decides to step aside.
WALKER: Sophia Cai, good to have you this morning. Thank you so much.
BLACKWELL: We are learning new details about the shooter who tried to kill former President Trump just one week ago, investigators have now discovered that Matthew Thomas Brooks had a drone and they believe crooks may have deployed that drone for reconnaissance of the grounds the day of the Trump rally, and that would have given Brooks an overview of the rooftops of buildings nearby and how they connect, which would have helped them find the perfect spot to fire shots to where the podium.
CNN's Kyung Lah takes a closer look at the final moves the shooter took before attempting to assassinate former President Trump.
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KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hours before the attempted assassination, Thomas Brooks begins his day scoping out the rally cite sources tell CNN. He arrives mid-morning and stays for 70 minutes and drives more than an hour back home where he picks up an AR type rifle. His father later tells authorities he thought Brooks was going to the shooting range. Brooks buys ammunition at a local gun shop and travels back to the rally site.
5:10 p.m., local police first spot Brooks around the same time he seen in this video obtained by CNN affiliate WTE walking outside the perimeter of the rally in front of the building he would later climb. At 5:33 p.m. the motorcade for former President Donald Trump arrives as the eager crowd awaits.
About 15 minutes later, Pennsylvania State Police notified the Secret Service of a suspicious person and share a photo of crooks counter snipers are alerted, according to a congressional briefing by law enforcement, but officers lose sight of him.
Moments before Trump walks out counter snipers can be seen facing opposite directions. Trump takes the stage at 6:02 p.m. his team was not informed of the suspicious sighting. Two minutes before the first shot. The counter sniper on the building closest to the shooters location adjusts his position.
On the ground outside the perimeter, people start reacting to movement on the roof of a nearby building. A uniformed officer can be seen walking toward the building.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, someone's on top of the roof. Look. There is right there. Right there. See him.
LAH (voice-over): About 10 seconds later, a separate counter sniper team on the southern building turns around 180 degrees to face the shooters building on the ground. People alert law enforcement.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Officer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come up here. He's on the roof. Right here. Right on the roof.
LAH (voice-over): Seconds later another video shows an officer walking backwards apparently looking up a man approaches and points to the shooters location. The officer turns and walks out of frame. At the same time two counter sniper teams are captured in these photos aiming in the direction of the shooter. Realizing the danger the crowd outside the perimeter starts rushing away.
On the other side of the field, a counter sniper can be seen peering through his scope at the direction of the building where the shooter is.
Shots are fired at 6:11 p.m., Trump is injured. The gunman is taken out seconds later on his body law enforcement find a remote transmitter to detonate explosives that were later discovered in his car along with a drone, a tactical vest and more ammo.
LAH: Investigators also found the shooter cell phone on his body. It had a screenshot of the livestream of the rally. It was taken 10 minutes before the shooting. The search engine of the cell phone also show that he had looked up articles about prominent U.S. politicians, both Democrats and Republicans. Amara, Victor.
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BLACKWELL: Kyung Lah, thank you very much. The fallout from one of the biggest cyber outages in history is still being felt across the world this morning. When everything from airlines hospital, banks could be back fully online and the new scam warning you need to know about.
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WALKER: Plus, remembering Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, we're going to look back at a veteran lawmaker's life legacy and outspoken advocacy for black Americans.
BLACKWELL: American journalist Evan Gershkovich is sentenced to 16 years in a Russian penal colony on espionage charges, why it's being slammed as a sham conviction and what it could mean for other Americans being held in Russia.
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WALKER: Recovery is slow after Friday's worldwide tech meltdown businesses, government agencies, health and emergency services, banks and schools around the world are all scrambling to recover. Now United Airlines says most of its systems are back up but the disruptions continue. And this morning more than 12,000 flights are delayed according to FlightAware. More than 1,000 have been canceled. BLACKWELL: Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike is blaming their flawed
software update for taking Windows customers offline. It says that bug is so ingrained each affected device will need to be manually rebooted by an administrator to delete the offending file by hand. CNN's Jason Carroll explains the wide reach of what could be the largest IT outage in history.
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JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A computer glitch that cascaded around the globe stopping everything from banks to airplanes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm so upset right now. There are eight people in my party, eight people. $456 a ticket and they're giving me $100 back. That is it. And we're screwed. This man is getting married.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: anxiety. When I want that I got straight anxiety with all these people because I was one line couldn't find my flight. I was like going to do something wrong.
CARROLL (voice-over): Anger at airports in the U.S., Canada, Asia and Europe, as major carriers struggled to deal with the fallout of what had happened.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's been really wild. It's crazy. It's crowded. People cursing, yelling.
CARROLL: Confusion at banks, as some financial systems were impacted overseas, disruptions at United Kingdom's national health system and others around the world as well as broadcast networks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A major global IT outage is impacting many of the world's largest companies, including us here at Sky News.
CARROLL: All due to that massive global technical outage linked to CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity provider. The company CEO apologized for the incident saying it was not a cyber attack. Instead, he says a defect in a software update CrowdStrike was doing crashed Microsoft Windows causing the outage. He also says a fix has been deployed.
GEORGE KURTZ, CROWDSTRIKE CEO: We've been on, you know with our customers all night and working with them. Many of the customers are rebooting the system. And it's coming up and it will be operational because of, you know, we fixed it on our end.
CARROLL (voice-over): The Department of Homeland Security is working with CrowdStrike and Microsoft to fully assess and address system outages. Meanwhile, 911 services taking a hit in jurisdictions across the country, impacting states such as Alaska and Arizona.
CARROLL: The cancellations continued throughout the early evening here at Newark Airport. CrowdStrike CEO says that it will be a lengthy process before things get back to normal. He also offered full transparency into how all of this happened, and says that the company will take steps to try and make sure that something like this does not happen again. Victor, Amara. (END VIDEOTAPE)
BLACKWELL: All right, Jason, thanks so much. Let's bring it now former NSA intelligence analyst and founder of Binary Defense, David Kennedy. David, good morning to you.
I think some of the frustration that a lot of people expressed yesterday was that the people that they were interfacing with at the airports at the bank, at the hospitals didn't know what to do. Would you have expected better contingency plans for something like this?
DAVID KENNEDY, FOUNDER AND CHIEF HACKING OFFICER AT BINARY DEFENSE: This is probably one of the very first issues that we've seen that has been this catastrophic. And we're talking billions of computers worldwide. The simple, just rebooting the computer isn't all the steps that is actually necessary to be taken, you actually have to reboot it into safe mode, you have to delete these files, you have to be, you know, somewhat technical -- technically savvy to actually address and fix these computers.
And I think a lot of these companies were caught off guard. I mean, you think about United, for example, that was mentioned, you know, they have thousands of gates that they're going to have to manually go to, and fix all of these computers individually. There's just not enough people, you know, at those airports, at those locations to go and do it, then you have companies that have hundreds of thousands of endpoints, they're going to have to reimage all of those computers to get them back again.
So it's not just as simple as rebooting. There's a lot more steps and complexities in this. They're involved. So no, I don't think that this was unexpected beat from the response side, because we've never seen anything like this before. It's one of the largest outages in the history of computers. You know, we kind of witness history yesterday, unfortunately.
BLACKWELL: CrowdStrike says that this was not the result of a hack. It's a glitch in an update. But what opportunities do hackers or malicious actors see in what happened yesterday?
KENNEDY: Because this was such a high profile large outage.
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You know, attackers are already taking opportunity with this by going and registering websites like CrowdStrike updates, CrowdStrike crash, and then they're calling up individuals or sending emails saying, hey, you're affected by the CrowdStrike, you know, outage, go here and download these files to fix your computer or go to this website and enter in your username and password so that their stolen, they can try to go after your banking information.
We see these low bar types of attacks where there's something really big happening in the media that everybody's aware of. But they may not know all the specifics. I was at a family reunion yesterday, and I had you know, family members asked me, what was this CrowdStrike thing that we're hearing, I heard Microsoft was hacked.
So the information that people are getting are sparse and don't necessarily know the details. And hackers take that as an opportunity to then go and coax individuals into either doing some sort of online fraud where they're trying to go after your bank accounts, or they're having you download malicious code and under your computer, and then from there accessing your system. So it's very opportunistic at these times.
And we're seeing these happening right now as we speak. I mean, there's domains being registered, websites being registered almost every minute now to take advantage of the situation.
BLACKWELL: So your advice to people is don't click any of that. I mean, is it possible that any individual computers are affected by this are impacted by this? Like my laptop?
KENNEDY: Yes, that's a great recommendation. So CrowdStrike is never going to call you directly. This is definitely impacting enterprise level type customers, not individual personal -- individuals. So don't believe anybody that's calling you up on the phone or sending you an email saying you're impacted by the CrowdStrike data breach. You are not the companies and organizations, the enterprises that have full IT staffs are addressing these on your work computers, not your personal computers.
It's definitely something that I would not recommend clicking on. And it's definitely to be malicious at this point in time.
BLACKWELL: Is there -- since you worked at the NSA, is there a unique security threat, national security threat, by having all of these companies get their cybersecurity from CrowdStrike? I mean, the estimate I read this morning was with 20,000 different clients to have just one servicer.
KENNEDY: Victor, I'm glad you brought this point up because it's such a weak point in our entire IT infrastructure and how we run technology and technologies integrated into everything we do. A few years ago, we saw Russian cyber attacks against a company called SolarWinds, which had some of the biggest companies in the world, Microsoft, Cisco, you know, you name it, they had pretty much access to almost any organization out there because we're so reliant off of these third parties.
And that's really where our major vulnerabilities in our infrastructure not just from a cyber attack perspective, as we saw Crosstrek (ph), right, the operational aspects of things that keeping things up and running one little tiny configuration change, which by the way, you know, users of Crosstrek (ph) had no ability to block, right. These are forced updates that come through over protocol configuration changes. There was no ability to stop this, this thing from actually happening.
Our over reliance on third parties and how a lot of really large organizations are handling pretty much all of the data, all of our infrastructure, all of our critical infrastructure. I mean, I still know hospitals that are out energy companies that are still trying to recover. I mean, this is, you know, catastrophic in many ways.
Our over reliance on these third parties are some of the biggest vulnerabilities that we have both from a cyber attack perspective, and the massive outage that we see today. And it could have been much, much worse.
I mean, you know, think about it, if they couldn't recover, if it hit critical infrastructure, like our water treatment facilities, energy grid, things like that, it could have been even more catastrophic. So we're just seeing the beginning of this, but we're also seeing the major vulnerabilities that we have in our IT infrastructure and our cybersecurity defense.
BLACKWELL: All right, David Kennedy, thank you for the insight and again at home if someone sends you a link and says you're impacted by CrowdStrike, click here --
KENNEDY: Don't click it.
BLACKWELL: -- do not click it. Thanks so much.
KENNEDY: Thanks Victor.
WALKER: A longtime Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas has died. She was an outspoken advocate for African Americans and she played a major role in the effort to recognize Juneteenth as the national holiday. We have details on her inspiring life, next.
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BLACKWELL: We are following breaking news from overnight. Texas Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee has died. Congresswoman Jackson Lee spent decades advocating for women and black Americans.
She played a major role in establishing Juneteenth as a national holiday. She frequently spoke out against police brutality and advocated to prosecute police misconduct. The congressional black caucus released a joint statement overnight calling Jackson Lee a patriot and a fighter to the very end.
They go on to say, "words cannot express the sense of loss our caucus feels for our beloved friend". House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries remembered her as an accomplished legislator, passionate public servant, loving mentor and wonderful friend.
And on CNN last night, her colleague and fellow Texan, Representative Al Green, had this to say.
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REP. AL GREEN (D-TX): She had a work ethic that all who knew her admired. You could not help but admire her work ethic
(END VIDEO CLIP) AMARA WALKER, CO-ANCHOR, CNN THIS MORNING WEEKEND: Congresswoman
Jackson Lee announced in June that she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She was 74 years old. Widespread outage -- outrage, I should say in condemnation after a Russian court convicted American journalist Evan Gershkovich for espionage, in what the U.S. has called a sham trial.
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Now, Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in a maximum security penal colony.
BLACKWELL: Efforts from leaders including Secretary of State Antony Blinken have ramped up to get the "Wall Street Journal" reporter and other Americans detained in Russia released. CNN's chief global affairs correspondent, Matthew Chance has more on the closed-door trial and verdict.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ahead of the verdict in the Russian court house, cameras jostle for a glimpse of the U.S. journalist in his glass cage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
CHANCE: After finding him guilty of espionage, the judge asked Evan Gershkovich if he had any questions about the 16-year prison sentence he's been handled. Looking thin and tired, the "Wall Street Journal" reporter answered no, the critics say his guilty verdict was inevitable and underlines how politicized Russia's judicial system has become.
A strongly worded statement from Gershkovich's employers called it "a disgraceful and sham conviction that comes after his 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained and away from his family."
(on camera): Let me see if Gershkovich is in there, hi, Matthew from CNN. Is that you holding up all right?
(voice-over): It's been a saga which has seen Evan Gershkovich, now 32 makes several tightly-controlled court appearances since being detained and accused of gathering secret information on a Russian tank factory for the CIA. Allegations denied by Gershkovich and the U.S. government.
There are other U.S. citizens held in Russia --
PAUL WHELAN, FORMER U.S. MARINE IMPRISONED IN RUSSIA: I'm innocent of any charges --
CHANCE: Like Paul Whelan; a former Marine sentenced in 2020 to 16 years for spying and also designated by Washington is wrongly detained. Dual citizens Ksenia Karelina, an amateur ballerina from L.A. and journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, also in custody.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm PSC Gordon Black(ph) --
CHANCE: As our Gordon Black(ph), a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, and U.S. school teacher Marc Fogel. Critics suspect the Kremlin has been collecting U.S. citizens as bargaining chips for a future deal. But even now, that deal could still be months or perhaps years away.
(on camera): Well, the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken says the U.S. government is working every day to bring home Evan Gershkovich and other wrongfully-detained Americans held in Russia. It depends on what the other side wants in return. Blinken says playing down concerns that Moscow could wait for a Trump presidency to make a deal. Matthew Chance, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLACKWELL: Matthew, thanks so much. A new report on women's health reveals there are significant differences in reproductive care from state to state. We know some of that, but there's more you probably don't know. We'll have the president of the group that conducted this study to tell us more after a quick break.
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WALKER: Women in the U.S. face a growing number of threats to their health, and a new report suggests a lot of it comes down to where you live. Now, the reward -- excuse me, the report reveals that life expectancy for American women is the lowest it has been in nearly two decades since 2006, and the increase in deaths is from preventable causes.
The report reveals that states in the northeast score the highest, while the poorest performers were spread across the southern half of the country. Joining me now is Dr. Joseph Betancourt; President of the Commonwealth Fund. Dr. Betancourt, thank you so much for your time.
I mean, it's stunning to hear these words that life expectancy for U.S. women is the lowest it has been in two decades. And that the health of women here in this country, one of the wealthiest in the world is in a perilous place, as your authors write. Why? What is the cause of this?
JOSEPH BETANCOURT, PRESIDENT, THE COMMONWEALTH FUND: That's a great question, thank you for having me and appreciate the coverage of this important report. You know, for over 20 years, the Commonwealth Fund, non-profit, non-partisan foundation has been measuring state performance on a variety of healthcare measures.
This year, we chose to really look at issues related to women, a scorecard focused exclusively on them. We looked at 32 measures, access, quality, prevention, affordability. And as you mentioned, the numbers are troubling. You know, the big picture story here is that women's health and the
United States is in a very fragile state, and I think we found without a doubt that where you live really can be a predictor of your health outcomes as a woman.
We looked at a variety of different factors here, and certainly as you mentioned, we had some top performers, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, low performance, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Texas, and really trying to distinguish the difference between them to figure out what are the reasons why certain states perform better than others? And certainly, I think three things jumped to mind.
One, without a doubt, states that focused on assuring that all their citizens had health insurance, including expanding Medicaid, did better than those that didn't. Second, we found that those states that actually prioritized women getting the full spectrum of healthcare services, including those related to reproductive health did better.
[06:45:00]
And finally, maternal health is a major issue and a major challenge for our country. Our maternal mortality rate is at the highest compared to any other developed nation. And those states, that again, invested in maternal health workers, prenatal and postpartum visits, post-natal, depression screening invested in maternal health tended to do better than those states that performed poorly. And as you mentioned again, we're able to map out those states very clearly.
WALKER: Yes, it sounds like a lot of it comes down to access, and it looks like there's quite a bit of access, you know, for good health systems in these northeast states as you mentioned. When it comes to the highest maternal death rates, they were in Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, whereas Vermont, California and Connecticut had the lowest rates.
We have been reporting on high maternal death rates in this country. We know it's even worse for black women. Why do we see again this geographic disparity? Again, does it come to state laws and access as we keep saying?
BETANCOURT: It's a great question. I mean, I think we looked at women's health more generally. And then, of course, looked at issues related to reproductive health. And certainly, the maternal health statistics in general look very troubling, but these trends are concerning.
And our foundation, we certainly look at policies and issues that might contribute to these trends. And so, from an evidence-based standpoint, fundamentally, as you mentioned, the risen(ph) total death are the highest in the Mississippi Delta region, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee.
And we didn't know that those four states did have abortion restrictions prior to the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision. They now have full abortion ban. So, many may say, well, why does that matter? We've also seen, concomitant with that, a bit of an exodus of maternal healthcare providers from those states, creating maternal health deserts and certainly without the care that women need, we see these poor outcomes in those states.
WALKER: How much does Medicaid coverage play a role?
BETANCOURT: Medicaid coverage plays a very significant role. You know, there's ten states that have an expanded Medicaid, yet all ten of those states are on the lower 50th percentile, and many of them are at their lowest performance. Certainly, we understand that having coverage is absolutely essential.
Medicaid plays a very large role, and Medicaid expansion is critical. Certainly, those states that have expanded Medicaid, we might believe that if they did, would see improvements in many of these statistics.
WALKER: So, the Commonwealth Fund, your group collected this data, why did you do so? What will you do with it?
BETANCOURT: Yes, so, you know, we have a long history of measuring state health performance, and it's really critical to us, because at the end of the day, these reports, very detailed, very evidence-based, ultimately provide what we believe is a blueprint for federal and state health policymakers to identify gaps and hopefully engage in efforts to improve them.
And so, we hope that state and federal lawmakers, those really committed to help policy, those absolutely committed to ensuring that women across our nation get the best healthcare, and have the best outcomes. You could look at our findings and identifiers where they can make a difference.
And certainly, we talked about Medicaid expansion. We talked about investing in maternal health and addressing those big disparities, especially for women of color and those of low socio-economic status. You know, those issues are critical. Primary care, I'm a primary care doctor, investing in the primary care workforce is critical. So, I think any lawmaker will find a series of areas that they could pretty quickly engage in around improvement.
WALKER: Yes, dramatic changes need to be made to improve women's health. Dr. Joseph Betancourt, appreciate you, thank you so much.
BLACKWELL: Brutal conditions are challenging the world's best golfers at the British Open. But one of the biggest names in the game will not be playing this weekend. Andy Scholes is joining us with more next.
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[06:50:00]
WALKER: Well, Tiger Woods tied a personal record at the British Open, but not in a good way.
BLACKWELL: Andy Scholes joins us now with more. He had two rough days. ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, two rough days, and
further, guys, for the third straight major -- now Tiger not going to be hanging around for the weekend. Tiger missing the cut at the Open Championships, just second time in his career, he's missed the cut at three straight majors.
So, Tiger ended up 14 over after his second round, so that tied his worst 36-hole total in his major championship career. Despite the struggles, Tiger, he got that standing ovation as he walked up the 18th fairway, and he did remain positive about his progress.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TIGER WOODS, PROFESSIONAL GOLFER: I've gotten better even though my results really haven't showed it. But physically, I've gotten better, which is great. And so, I seem to keep progressing like that, and then, eventually, start playing more competitively, and starting getting into the competitive flow again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: As the third round is underway right now, everyone chasing Shane Lowry, Irishman carding a 2 under 69 in windy conditions on Friday to give him a two-shot lead over Dan Brown and Justin Rose. Lowry, he did win the Open back in 2019 when it was played in Northern Ireland.
All right, back state-side, Alicia Gray making some history of the WNBA all-star weekend's opening night in Phoenix, the Atlanta dream star putting on a show, winning both the 3-point and skills competition. She's first player in league history to capture both events on the same night, Gray takes home a check of more than $115,000 for sweeping those events.
Now, Caitlin Clark meanwhile, opted not to take part in the 3-point contest, saying, no, she needed a break. But she's going to be on the floor tonight in the All-Star game, and for the first-time ever, she will be teammates with rookie rival Angel Reese.
[06:55:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAITLIN CLARK, INDIANA FEVER: It's going to be fun, I think obviously as two rookies, like getting to share this experience for the first time. Like super rare to be here as a rookie, and then they had two of us here. I think it's just really great overall. I think obviously the fans are going to be very excited about it, but I'm excited to share the court honestly with everybody.
ANGEL REESE, CHICAGO SKY: Yes, I'm looking forward to it, everybody can wear their get-along shirts together for one day at least. So, I know a lot of people are going to come and watch and see all of us. But there's not a lot of talent within both rosters, other teams, so, they're in for a good one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: We found out they sold those shirts there --
WALKER: Yes --
SCHOLES: Clark and Reese, they will be on the WNBA All-Star team. They will be taking on the U.S. national team tip-off from Phoenix tonight, 8:30 Eastern. All right, finally, when was the last time you went to the shopping mall, guys?
BLACKWELL: Betting at it --
SCHOLES: Well, Arena Football League fans, they had to in order to watch the championship game. So, Arena Bowl XXXIII taking place in the middle of New Jersey's American dream shopping mall. The Billings Outlaws beat the Albany Firebirds 46-41. But how about that, guys? You get yourself a little Cinnabon, maybe build the bear?
WALKER: Oh, my God --
(CROSSTALK)
BLACKWELL: Build the bear.
(LAUGHTER)
BLACKWELL: I am not -- build the bear and admit it.
WALKER: Aren't you Andy? So Andy --
BLACKWELL: Build the bear --
WALKER: -- some pretzel --
SCHOLES: Oh, yes, get yourself --
BLACKWELL: Yes --
SCHOLES: -- a pretzel and maybe a great American cookie.
BLACKWELL: Go to the KB, pick you up a get-along T-shirt --
WALKER: The KB?
BLACKWELL: KB Toys.
SCHOLES: Oh, KB Toys --
(CROSSTALK)
WALKER: It's been a while since --
SCHOLES: Love (inaudible).
WALKER: -- I've been to shopping. Well, Andy --
BLACKWELL: Thanks, Andy --
WALKER: Thanks for that, walked down memory lane. Anyway, well, President Biden vows to stay in the race despite a growing number of Democrats calling on him to end his campaign. How the Biden administration is responding -- after a short break.
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