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The Story Is with Elex Michaelson

Trump - Some Things Could Come From Govt. In Guthrie Case; Nancy Gutrie, Savannah Guthrie's Mom, Missing Nearly A Week; Trump Won't Apologize For Sharing Racist Video Of Obamas; Lawmakers Can Start Viewing Unredacted Epstein Files Monday; Trump Hails Very Good Nuclear Talks With Tehran; Suicide Bomber Kills At Least 32 People In Pakistan; Companies Spend Big To Win Viewers With Super Bowl Ads; Report: Some Brands Pay $10M For 30-Second Ad; Lindsey Horvath Won't Challenge Karen Bass For LA Mayor; Fire-Juggling Unicyclist Holds Up Traffic, Escapes a Ticket; Aired 1-2a ET

Aired February 07, 2026 - 01:00   ET

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

[01:00:00]

ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN HOST: -- vibes from the 1990s. The video also includes cameos from Cillian Murphy, Domhnall Gleeson, Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Lewis Capaldi. They were all guests with Swift on the U.K.'s Graham Norton Show while she was promoting the album.

Thanks for joining. The first hour of "The Story Is." The second hour starts right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "The Story Is" movement at Nancy Guthrie's house. Investigators descend on her property after a potential new note from her captor emerges.

"The Story Is" the Super Bowl of advertising, a look at the best ads on Sunday and how much they're going to cost.

And "The Story Is" data protection, how a new law in California could become a national model.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from Los Angeles, "The Story Is" with Elex Michaelson.

MICHAELSON: And thanks for watching "The Story Is." I'm Elex Michaelson. We begin with new developments in the case of Nancy Guthrie, mother of today's show anchor Savannah Guthrie, a new message connected to the 84-year-old's disappearance. And late tonight, President Trump suggesting on Air Force One that the government may soon have something to add.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We have some things, I think that will maybe come out reasonably soon, from DOJ or FBI or whoever that could be suspect -- yeah, could be definitive.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MICHAELSON: Investigators are back at Guthrie's home after a second message was sent to local news station, KOLD, on Friday. They're a CNN affiliate. It was immediately forwarded to law enforcement, who are now probing its authenticity. An anchor for that station who saw it and said she thinks it's a response to the family's plea for the return of her mother now been missing for nearly seven days. That anchor talking with CNN tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARY COLEMAN, KOLD ANCHOR, SAW 2ND COMMUNICATION IN GUTHRIE CASE: We did get some information from them. I'm going to read some of my notes here. So I don't speak incorrectly, but they say that this is not the same IP address, but it appears the sender used the same type of secure server to hide their IP address. So that's all that we know about the sender at this point, which unfortunately really isn't much, and this new note does contain something that that the senders seem to think will prove to investigators that they're the same people or person who sent the first note.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: So authorities return to Guthrie's home within an hour of receiving that communication. Our Ed Lavandera has been in Tucson on the ground for us all week. He's back there once again tonight. Ed?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Elex, the law enforcement presence we're seeing in Nancy Guthrie's neighborhood is much larger than anything we've seen all week. Federal investigators have been going through her property. Once again, we've seen them putting down evidence markers as well as searching on top of her home's roof. This comes as what has been an incredibly dramatic week for this neighborhood.

For nearly a week, the desert neighborhood where Nancy Guthrie was abducted from her home has felt frozen in sorrow.

LAURA GARGANO, NANCY GUTHRIE'S NEIGHBOR: You see that there that's called a pack rat nest.

LAVANDERA: Laura Gargano has lived around the corner from Guthrie for 11 years. She's tried to help investigators searching her home security cameras, hoping to find the clue that could identify the culprit who abducted her 84-year-old neighbor. But she says it doesn't feel like enough.

It's also like a helpless feeling, right? Like there's not much you can do. Or do you feel -- do you feel that?

GARGANO: Yeah, I think that there are some people who feel that way, for sure. I definitely feel that way. I wish there was something more I can do. And it almost feels like time is standing still right now, that it almost feels inappropriate to go on and continue with our lives. LAVANDERA: Investigators keep scouring the neighborhood, returning day-after-day, looking for any evidence that will bring them closer to bringing Nancy home.

There are no videos or photographs that you guys have been able to release. Does that mean you're not getting anything that is of true value?

SHERIFF CHRIS NANOS, PIMA COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: We're still in the process, right? But so far, we've gotten some things back, but there's nothing that's that you would say, aha, this is it. So we're just working. It says -- these things are done in an hour on law and order. This is real world, and it's just take some time.

LAVANDERA: This is not a television show, and it's time that stretching longer as each day goes by with no word of Nancy's whereabouts. For neighbors like Shirley Harvey, it's hard to make sense of a tragedy that hits so close to home.

What has this week been like for those of you who live around Nancy Guthrie?

SHIRLEY HARVEY, NANCY GUTHRIE'S NEIGHBOR: There's still no news. So I think the general consensus is people are in shock because we still don't know where she is.

LAVANDERA: She says they're haunted by what's happened to their neighbor taken from her home in the middle of the night while those around her slept.

HARVEY: And I can't even imagine how she would cope with something like that.

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What she would even do? And how it would affect her if that happened to her in the middle of the night, it's just a very unnerving thing to happen to somebody, especially an elderly woman.

LAVANDERA: Another day passes, investigators keep returning to the rolling hills in this neighborhood, searching for a clue that might be hiding in the desert brush, while everyone desperately waits for this dreadful moment to end.

This search started just after we learned of the second message being sent by the alleged ransom author to the affiliate KOLD here in Tucson. It's not clear if this search is connected to what emerged in that message, or what exactly investigators have found here, but it's once again, another significant night of law enforcement presence in this neighborhood. Elex.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Ed Lavandera in Tucson. Ed, thank you. Joined now live by CNN Law Enforcement Contributor, Steve Moore, a retired Supervisory Special Agent with the FBI. We've talked to Ed every night. We've talked to Steve every night since this has happened. Steve, what do you make of the flurry of new activity at the house today, including folks on the roof.

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: Well, first of all, hi, Elex. The -- what I make of this is, is not so much that it's related to the second demand note, I believe what it's more indicative of is the FBI is going back to square one. That's not necessarily a good sign for the investigation as a whole, but what they're doing, I believe you know, just judging from what I know about the Evidence Response Team and how they operate, this to me look like a very broad based crime scene investigation.

They're starting over. They don't -- they aren't satisfied with whatever forensic was done by local law enforcement. And this -- this goes from mapping the entire property, literally with surveying equipment, right down to checking every single thing with magnetometers, things like this. So I think this is them going back to square one and building their case over again.

MICHAELSON: Based off of your experience. Do you think that these apparent kidnappers are experienced criminals?

MOORE: Well, they might be experienced criminals, but they're not experienced kidnappers. I can't think of anybody who's not a European terrorist in the 80s that has successfully pulled off a kidnapping more than once. I can -- I can't think of anybody offhand who's done a successful kidnapping. Every single kidnapping like this you see, is somebody's first try addict, and the FBI catches them just about every time.

So number one, they're by definition amateurs, because I'm absolutely certain they've never done this before. And number two, the way they're going about this really shows some misconceptions about how kidnappings work. They think that you take the person and while they're gone, you say you give us this money or we'll harm this person, and the money comes.

No, no, no, no, that's not how it works. You need proof of life. You need hope that you'll get them back before anybody will even consider money coming your way. So they missed job one, prove life and give hope, and then maybe you can give instructions for where the money goes.

MICHAELSON: Based off of what you know, based off of doing this for so many years, what's the most likely scenario of what's really happening here?

MOORE: I've wrestled with that, and I've been talking back and forth with other agents, and it runs the gamut from something bad happening early on, and we're now just in in fugitive mode, trying to find these people, to people who are really over their heads in this and don't know what to do and need to figure out how to get somebody to give them money. So it runs the gamut from something very horrible to something where there's still some hope.

MICHAELSON: Well, let's hope there is some reason for hope, because we are all praying for and thinking about that family this weekend all around the world. Steve Moore, thank you for your analysis every night this week. Really, really appreciate it. Have a great weekend.

MOORE: Thank you.

MICHAELSON: President Trump speaking out tonight as he faces bipartisan backlash for posting a racist video depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I looked at the first part, and it was really about voter fraud and the machines, how crooked it is, how disgusting it is. Then I gave it to the people, generally, they look at the whole thing. But I guess somebody didn't. They posted and we took it down.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A number of Republicans are calling on you to apologize for that post. Is that something you're going to do?

TRUMP: No, I didn't make a mistake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: President eventually removed the post after was up for 12 hours. I warn you before we show you it. Clearly, many people find it disturbing. We want to show it, though. So you know what was posted on the account of the President of the United States. You can see the faces of the Obamas put onto the bodies of apes. This was all part of a larger thing where they put faces of other prominent Democrats on the faces of different animals, you see in The Lion King, and then Donald Trump was The Lion King. But of course, there were no apes in The Lion King.

The President's decision to delete the post came after the White House initially doubled down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It was a meme that was posted by a staffer on the President's Truth Social account. It was from The Lion King video depicting, as you pointed out, different Democrats as different animals. I think Kamala Harris was depicted as a turtle in this video meme. the President did take it down. He spoke with lawmakers today out of respect for them, including Senator Tim Scott, the post was removed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: CNN's, Kevin Liptak has more on the reaction from the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: President Trump is refusing to apologize for a racist video that appeared on his Truth Social feed and depicted former President Barack Obama and the former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes. This video sent the White House into damage control mode for most of the day on Friday after it appeared on the President's feed around midnight.

Initially, the White House tried to downplay it, the Press Secretary calling it fake outrage before the video was taken down and the White House blamed a staffer. Now, late Friday, the President offered more of an explanation of how all of this happened. He said that he had viewed only the beginning of the video, which included debunked claims about voter fraud and voting machines before the racist image of the Obamas suddenly appeared at the very end.

The President said he had passed along the video to a staffer who also did not watch the video to the end and then posted it online. The President said, "Somebody slipped and missed a very small part," but the President again declining to apologize, even though a number of Republicans had been calling on him to do so. The President had created something of an uproar, including from members of his own party. The Senator Tim Scott, who is the only black Republican in the Senate, said it was the most racist thing he had ever seen come out of the White House.

The President said, "I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine." He said it was a strong post in terms of voter fraud. And he said, "Nobody knew that that was in the end." If they would have looked, they would have seen it, and probably they would have had the sense to take it down. The President claimed that they took the video down "As soon as we found out about it," although it had remained on his page for nearly 12 hours. Kevin Liptak, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: So in our last hour, I spoke live with legal and political strategist Katie Zacharia on the right, and podcast host Brian Taylor Cohen on the left. Here's how they reacted to the President's post.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATIE ZACHARIA, LEGAL AND POLITICAL STRATEGIST: President Trump made it very clear. He put out a video on the Georgia fraud, and within that video was an unedited portion of a reel that went up and should have been clipped by his staffer. When he said, I didn't see it. He just made the statement on Air Force One. I didn't see it. The staffer was supposed to clip it. It wasn't clipped. I took it down right away.

MICHAELSON: He didn't take it down right away. He took it down after 12 hours, and the White House doubled down on it for that entire town.

ZACHARIA: Took it down when he realized the content of it.

MICHAELSON: So, if -- if -- so is it racist? You didn't answer the first question. Is it racist that the that image itself?

ZACHARIA: The image ties into a greater AI whole video that was made on the Lion King. So and --

MICHAELSON: Where in the Lion King was there an ape? I don't remember that character.

ZACHARIA: The entire video. We can watch it if we want to pull up the -- the AI video from the reel that had this whole AI video of all of the animals period the end. And President Trump won a historic -- the Hispanic Latin vote by a historic margin, the most any other Republican has in history, the most black voters since the 1960s, he's not racist time and time again.

[01:15:00]

He was on stage with Nicki Minaj the other day. I mean, this man is not racist. He made it very clear what happened in that statement. I stand by that. And I watched both that clip and the AI clip of the Jungle Book or the Lion King -- excuse me, with the music. And I thought, this isn't racist.

MICHAELSON: Brian?

BRIAN TYLE COHEN, HOST, NO LIE WITH BRIAN TYLER COHEN PODCAST: Look, I think the reason that Donald Trump did this, that he engaged in this whole process where to your exact point. We didn't see an apology for hours and hours and hours and hours, is because he is a small petty fragile man who cannot take responsibility for his own actions.

And the second reason, frankly, is because he is a racist, and we have seen Donald Trump engage in racist activity in the past, numerous times. We watched as Donald Trump took out a full page ad in the New York Times calling for the execution of five black kids for murdering someone who they did not murder. We saw Donald Trump start his political career by denying the citizenship of the first black President.

And right now, we're watching a secret police force rove around the country so that they can round up brown and black people for the crime of being brown and black in this country. And to claim then that Donald Trump is somehow not racist, is just to deny what we can all see with our -- with our own eyes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: There was more to that, which you can check out on my YouTube page later on tonight.

Starting Monday, Members of Congress will be allowed to review unredacted versions of the Jeffrey Epstein files at the Department of Justice. It's a live look from Capitol Hill, where it's now 1:16 a.m. in the morning Saturday. Now all this is according to a new letter from the DOJ, which was obtained by CNN, lawmakers are asked to give 24 hours' notice of when they'd like to review the materials. They will not be allowed to bring in outside electronic devices, but they can take handwritten notes.

Latest Epstein file release includes a 2006 flight manifest from his private plane that lists current U.S. Secretary of the Navy, John Phelan as a passenger. Phelan was one of 13 passengers on the flight from London to New York. Other passengers include Epstein himself, French modeling agent Jean-Luc Bernal, a close associate of Epstein's. He died in French custody in 2022, while chart facing charges of sexual assault and rape of a minor. Six other names on the flight manifest were redacted. Phelan has declined to comment.

Wall Street was down earlier this week, then Friday happened just ahead we'll take a deep dive into why the Dow reached an all-time high.

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MICHAELSON: President Trump taking a bit of a carrot and stick approach following Friday's indirect nuclear talks with Iran. Hours after the meeting in Oman, he slapped new sanctions on Iranian oil and some vessels that carry it. But he still is pleased the talks. Tehran met very good, while also putting Tehran on notice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The results today were with Iran. It was a meeting. We're going to meet again early next week, and they want to make a deal. Iran as they should want to make a deal. They know the consequences if they don't, they don't make a deal, the consequences are very stable, so we'll see what happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Iran's Foreign Minister described the talks as a good start. He said Iranian diplomats will now report back to Tehran before deciding on next steps.

A suicide bomber killed at least 32 people and injured 169 others at a Shiite mosque in Pakistan's capital of Islamabad. A warning to our viewers, the video you are about to see may be disturbing to some. This is the aftermath, bodies covered in blood, surrounded by shards of glass and debris. One worshiper said Friday prayers had just started when they heard gunfire followed by a loud explosion.

The Islamic State Group has claimed responsibility for the attack on its telegram channel. Here's what the country's Interior Minister said about the suspect.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TALAL CHAUDHRY, PAKISTANI INTERIOR MINISTER (translated): We have collected information about the terrorist who carried out the attack. He is not an Afghan national, but he has traveled to Afghanistan several times. And we have gathered all information from the forensics of his body parts that we found on the spot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: At least 400 worshippers were inside the mosque at the time. This was the deadliest attack in Pakistan since 2023.

Good news here. The Dow hit a historic milestone. Friday, crossing 50,000 points for the first time. The index soared 2.5 percent as Wall Street rebounded from this week's sell off. The NASDAQ rose more than 2 percent. CNN's, Richard Quest has more on what was really behind all of this. Richard?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Was there a particular reason why on this Friday, the market came out of the gate, rose sharply and stayed up and even gained towards the end to close this record at over 50,000. Not particular, any single reason. And if you look at the other indices, you see a similar response. Dow Jones, S&P 500, NASDAQ. The NASDAQ up over 2 percent. The reality is that the markets have been worried all week about the amount of money companies like alphabet and Amazon were spending on AI, $100 billion with seemingly no great return in the near future.

And then on this Friday, the sentiment turned round. The selling had been overdone. There is still a great prospect for huge AI gains and those who are prepared to invest, and that's the reason we saw this phenomenal rally in the market.

[01:25:00]

Out of nowhere, a complete surprise in a week where things had been dour and depressed. And once again, the market proved it can rally. Richard Quest, CNN London.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Always love Richard. This weekend is the moment NFL fans have been waiting for Super Bowl 60. The Seahawks, the New England Patriots set for championship rematch more than a decade in the making. We'll preview the big game and the buzzy commercials to watch for next. Ryan Patel standing by live to take us through the best and worst commercials. What are the big trends and how much is it going to cost these companies. Stay with us.

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MICHAELSON: The 2026 Winter Olympics officially underway in Italy. The opening ceremony kicked things off Friday night with a three and a half hour celebration paying tribute to the country's rich history, art, and culture. We saw Mariah Carey, Andrea Bocelli, and others singing the full competition heats up in the hours ahead with five events awarding medals on Saturday. U.S. skiing superstar Lindsey Vonn expected to take on another training session in the coming hours. Three time medalist is determined to compete in her fifth Olympics despite tearing her ACL a week ago.

Also on Saturday, U.S. figure skater and two time world champion Ilia Malinin is expected to make his Olympic debut. Another highlight of the day will be men's downhill skiing as the fastest skiers on the mountains get their moment to shine.

Now to the other live major sporting event of the weekend. This is a picture right now from Santa Clara, California. You see the Seahawks and Patriots. Levi's Stadium is set, normally the home of the 49ers, but now the host venue for the NFL championship game the Seahawks and Patriots facing off in a rematch from 11 years ago, not many people left on the teams from then. CNN's, Andy Scholes has our preview of the big showdown.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN WORLD SPORT: The Patriots and Seahawks continuing their prep for Super Bowl LX here in the Bay Area as we head into the weekend. Now the Patriots trying to make some history on Sunday become the first team ever to win seven Super Bowls, Seattle. Meanwhile, they're trying to win their second and we know all eyes will be on the quarterbacks come Sunday, Drake May and Sam Donald, and both say they are relishing the moment.

DRAKE MAYE, PATRIOTS QUARTERBACK: I'm really excited. A chance to play in, in this game is your dream come true, and what you work for all year long. Still don't know. You know as much as a lot of people do it here, but trying to figure out what's at stake and how much work needs to put in to come up with -- come up with wins in the win column.

SAM DARNOLD, SEAHAWKS QUARTERBACK: I've just learned a ton throughout my career, and every single year I just -- I do what I can to make sure that I don't get ahead of myself, and I take it one day at a time, because I feel like that mindset has proved successful for me in every aspect of life. Whether it was growing up, high school, college, and now here on the biggest stage. I'm just continuing with that mindset.

SCHOLES: Now Sunday's game is being dubbed the Malcolm Butler revenge game, because the last time these two squared off, Butler intercepted Russell Wilson on the one yard line to win the Super Bowl for the Patriots. And earlier this week, I caught up with Butler, who ran me through what he was thinking on that last play.

MALCOLM BUTLER, FORMER PATRIOTS CORNERBACK: When I got in the game. I'm like, man, what can I do? I really can't do nothing, if they run the ball. I'm not going to make that tackle, right? I'm not going to make that tackle. Excuse my lie. I damn near wanting to leave from the corner back position and go in the box and play linebacker, but I said, I'm just going to do my job. And I went against the odds. They did too. It didn't work out right. God, made a move like he was going to do something, and I said I'm going to something too. SCHOLES: And the Patriots are going to be wearing white jerseys and white pants on Sunday. It's combination they've never worn in the Super Bowl. They are 4 and 2 in Super Bowls when they wear white jerseys with blue pants. The Seahawks, meanwhile, they're going to be in navy blue jerseys and pants. They're actually 0 and 2 in Super Bowls when they wear that combination. So if you're superstitious, over the past 21 years, the team wearing white jerseys is 16 and 5. So that's definitely good news. If you're a Patriots fan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Well, many people will be tuning in for the game on the field. Some will be watching the Super Bowl. For the commercials, Pepsi brought its famous Pepsi Challenge taste test, out of hibernation for new Super Bowl ad. This time featuring a polar bear, which, of course, longly has been associated with their rival, Coca Cola, now discovering its love for Pepsi having a bit of an identity crisis. Companies are expected to send millions on ad campaigns to try to capture attention during Sunday's big game.

Joining me now to break down the ads and more is Ryan Patel, Senior Fellow at the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. Ryan, welcome. Great to see you. I like you so casual, looking good. So what do you -- what do you think of this ad, that's one of your favorites, right? The Pepsi ad.

RYAN PATEL, SENIOR FELLOW, DRUCKER SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT: Listen, it is going to be one of those underestimated ads. Here's why. Pepsi came out swinging like they came out in a Super Bowl ad you never, ever, most ever, put your competitor in the ad. They put coke in there. So you talk about the confidence that they had to spend on that, and obviously you mentioned going after the polar bear, which associates with coke. This wasn't just a generational this is all generations that they went after, and that to me stood out really boldly for Pepsi to create this pep -- Coca Cola wars again.

[01:35:00]

And I think I love it. I'm here for it because they spend a lot of money and they're betting on themselves.

MICHAELSON: That's like if Miller Lite had the Clydesdales drinking their beer instead of Budweiser or something, right?

PATEL: And I can assure you, when you think about businesses spending 10s of millions of dollars on this. In the back room, they're going do we want to do this? Do we not want to do this? This is going to create attention for them as well. What do we do? And so I think it's great to see how it turned out. Not that it was a really playful ad.

MICHAELSON: One of the ads getting a lot -- a lot of attention so far is this ad for Xfinity, featuring the old cast of the original Jurassic Park movie. Here's some of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't get Jurassic Park back online without.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoa. This place is awesome, by the way. You should have plugged this in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: And so they basically, like, redo the plot of Jurassic Park, if all of a sudden the Wi-Fi worked. They brought back Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum, and they paid for the rights and the music and everything.

PATEL: Yeah. And part of that is that you were setting up like your storytelling, watching it, and that was the solve of the problem. It was very subtle. How they did that, right? It wasn't like the product was in your face. It was like, oh, you're watching your story. Oh, by the way, we can fix this. Yeah, and get people to think about, what did you fix? How do you fix it? It's, it's a great way of also creating the nostalgia that you have for this that Jurassic Park is giving for everybody.

MICHAELSON: But also a good ad, because sometimes you have a great concept that's funny, but doesn't necessarily sell your product. But this is a great ad for Xfinity, right?

PATEL: That's a great ad, because we're talking about it. Now we were talking about it, we also know what they do, right? That's the difference.

MICHAELSON: Well, and speaking of that, Google's got something really moving. Here's that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's my room.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, it's next to mine and watch.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: So this is explaining their home AI, and it's basically like a mother and their child looking at moving into a new house, and I teared up watching this.

PATEL: I think, and we think of Google, they haven't spent too many big ads all around the Gemini. This is one of the -- I think the third or fourth that they have done the last couple years. And you just said it. People are talking about AI commercials and robots. They try to humanize this, right? Of like, how can it be more human and be able to integrate into your life. And for me, this is about the product, but it's more than the product. Is about how we are going to use a society. I think is what Google is also putting out there about an education process of how it can be used. I thought we see a lot of these other ads good this weekend that we're going to see try to do that hit that moment.

MICHAELSON: So let's talk about just some of the stats in terms of what we're -- what it's going to cost for companies to get a 32nd ad. We'll put that up on the screen. It's about $10 million for 30 seconds. Last year was $8 million. Back in 1967 it was about $40,000. I'm talking about rate of inflation there is that worth the money?

PATEL: Well, it's funny. What they're chase -- you know what they're chasing us. They're chasing that every dollar they spend is they'll make $5 back. It's kind of been the -- the metric that people are doing, and the question becomes, why are they doing this? And it's the Super Bowl has over 120 plus million people watching it. More than almost a third of the U.S. population is watching this. They're putting all their eggs in one basket to be able to do this.

MICHAELSON: And it's and -- it's one of the only times on any broadcast where people watch commercials. Now, not a lot of people watch stuff live. They'll fast forward through commercials, or they're in other places where they don't see it, but here people sit and watch the commercials. But it's different than the way it was years ago, because it used to be, you would wait to see the ad for the first time this week. All these ads already out there, right? And they would be exciting to be surprised by an ad during the Super Bowl. Now, a week earlier, they're on YouTube.

PATEL: Yeah. And you know what it is? I would say three letters, ROI they're trying to really stretch out that money that they're spending that 10s of millions of dollars to get everyone's attention. I think there's a couple brands that are trying to maybe relief, kind of set up for the Super Bowl, but people are trying to get out there across all the multi-dimensional platforms.

MICHAELSON: And it's amazing when you think of the first ever sort of Apple Super Bowl ad back in 1984 that got so much attention, largely thought it was the greatest ad of all time that only aired once, never aired again, and certainly wasn't previewed beforehand. Now, not only we've seen them on YouTube and all the rest of it, and we're talking about in advance, we'll be seeing these ads for weeks on -- on over and over again, but if you spend 10s of millions of dollars to do it with the actors and everything you can imagine. What it costs to get Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern and everybody. It's crazy.

PATEL: You mentioned it. They end up spending more money.

MICHAELSON: Yep, all right, Ryan. Thank you so much.

PATEL: Appreciate you.

MICHAELSON: Enjoy the game on Sunday.

PATEL: You too.

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MICHAELSON: Be sure to join us on Sunday. So CNN is going to be live on the field myself, Andy Scholes cohosting a post-game show from Levi's Stadium, talking to the players live on the field. So watch the game. If you're watching on NBC, when they go to the Olympics and you're bored, switch over to us. 8 o'clock on the West Coast, 11 o'clock on the East Coast. 4:00 a.m. in London.

Coming up, California recently launched a first of its kind system in the U.S. that aims to simplify privacy rights and reduce spam and risk of identity theft. This could be a model for the whole country, and could change the way this all works. Chris Mattmann, the expert in AI joins us live to break it down. Stay with us.

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MICHAELSON: Some breaking news here in Los Angeles, Lindsey Horvath, the LA County supervisor who was thinking about running for LA Mayor, just announced that she is not going to run. We've got a statement from her we want to put up on the screen. It reads this, "After much prayer and many honest conversations with my family, friends, and partners in this work, I have decided not to enter the 2026 mayoral race." Tomorrow, by the way, is the deadline to decide whether to challenge LA Mayor Karen Bass, who is already in the race.

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There is a big effort from a lot of folks who do not want to see Mayor Bass reelected to try to find someone to run against her. Rick Caruso passed on that. Lindsey Horvath now passing on it. We will see if anybody gets into the race tomorrow. Bass's poll numbers are not great to lead the second largest city in the country, but yet there has not been a major elected official who is willing to challenge her. We'll see what happens in the next 24 hours.

All right, let's talk AI now. The Dow hit a new all-time high on Friday. The Blue Chip index soared over 1,200 points hitting 50,000 points for the first time ever. This was a sharp rebound after tech stocks dragged Wall Street down. Earlier this week, investors were selling them off. They were getting spooked about AI and what it would do for business, but now they're not as spooked, at least not tonight.

Let's get into AI and privacy concerns with Chris Mattmann an International AI Expert and the Inaugural Chief AI Officer at the University of California, Los Angeles. Chris, welcome back to "The Story Is." Great to see you.

CHRIS MATTMANN, INAUGURAL CHIEF AI OFFICER, UCLA: Elex, likewise.

MICHAELSON: So you said that there's a particular AI model that Wallstreet was excited about today. Tell us about it.

MATTMANN: Yeah, it's Claude from anthropic and it's a large language model, Elex, and the thing with Claude is that each one of these large language models have different capabilities. Like you were talking about with Ryan, like Google as an example in the Super Bowl ads. Google is really known to be really good with images. Google's Gemini, OpenAI, ChatGPT is what you chat with, and people know that they're very familiar. But Claude is actually what you code with, if you're using AI to do coding that Wall Street investors everyone got really excited, because it has a very powerful capabilities for coding.

MICHAELSON: OK. And so that is why this. We see this, this market bump today.

MATTMANN: Every -- every other week, Elex, it seems like there's a new popular large language model or AI model. And yes, that's exactly why you saw the bump. Is that Wall Street got really behind Claude. There's a lot of bullish runs related to that. And it just seems to change everybody.

MICHAELSON: Use all of them.

MATTMANN: You have to, right? If you code, if you generate images, if you chat, you just end up having to use all of them.

MICHAELSON: That's interesting that there isn't sort of one central one. We'll see if that develops over the years, as that moves forward as well. There's a thing that happened here in California that I know you're excited to talk about, called the DROP Act, which is now in effect, want to put up information on the screen to sort of explain what we're talking about. This is a first of its kind system in the U.S. residents can request deletion of their personal info, and then data brokers must register with the California privacy protect agency. That's a lot of words describe what that actually means in the most simple terms possible.

MATTMANN: Yeah, no problem, Elex. So since 2013 it's been come really apparent that companies collect a lot of data on consumers. The way that we used to describe it in sort of the big data era was Amazon knows you're pregnant before your mother in law does, because there's a gift registry, you buying certain things, all of these things. And so those data brokers through this law, through the drop, which is data removal, opt out platform or drop. The idea behind it. SB362 which drop implements, is that these brokers if you make a request to drop, need to delete your data. They need to remove you, your digital presence. And it's very similar to GDPR in the European Union, which basically is a request for companies to delete you from their data system.

So the way DROP works is, you have these data brokers, they have to register per the law with the state of California. You as a consumer go to this drop site. You put in some information, some basic information about yourself, and then come August of this year, those data brokers need to remove you, delete you from their systems.

MICHAELSON: Yeah, we have that information up on the screen right now. So how, how does that work? Because you tried it, right? You went on the site. How did work? What do you think?

MATTMANN: It was easy and simple. It's made by California's digital service, which is part of their chief technology office with the Governor and things like that. It's a very simple web form for about less than five minutes of your time to remove your records from places and to make it harder, to make the opportunity cost harder for these companies to join data on you when. And we know data is the fuel for AI. It's not just technology, but AI is going to be training on this. So to remove your records from it, it's very powerful ticket to the consumer, and it's something that everybody should be thinking about doing. It's five minutes of your time. MICHAELSON: What's the website?

MATTMANN: It's -- I believe it's ca or drop.privacy.ca.gov.

MICHAELSON: OK, interesting. And this could be a national model that other states implement or other countries implement, depending on what happens here in California. Chris, thank you for explaining it to us. I needed that.

MATTMANN: Thanks for having me on Elex and by the way an announcement, I'm not running for LA Mayor so.

[01:50:00]

MICHAELSON: Maybe I am. Should I run? I don't know. We'll be right back.

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MICHAELSON: We're getting our first look at one of the French crown jewels that was damaged during the heist at the Louvre Museum last October. In this case, it is the actual battered crown of a French Empress. Look at that. The thieves dropped it on the pavement during their get away, leaving it crumpled, missing a golden eagle and short 10 diamonds. Top jewelers are now in a bidding war to restore it, eight others, stolen treasures still missing. How much would you shell out for a 5-inch, 500-year-old drawing of a foot? Well, if it's this sketch, believed by Michelangelo himself. The answer for some is more than $27 million that's what it fetched at auction at Christie's in New York.

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It's believed to be one of the Italian masters long lost works, a study for one of his large frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. Christie says only 50 sketches for those magnificent murals are believed to exist. After a bidding war, it went for 20 times the estimate is now the most expensive Michelangelo work ever sold at auction.

Drivers in Colorado were treated to a Las Vegas style circus show right in the middle of the road. It was courtesy of a fire juggling unicyclist. Commerce City Police Department says their drone recorded the act as bystanders phoned it in. Performance was cop submitted "Quite good and quite illegal." The police say they enforced the rules at this intersection. This time they let the performer away without handing him a ticket.

One last reminder to join me and CNN Sports Anchor, Andy Scholes for a live post-game show from the field at Levi's Stadium on Sunday. Enjoy the Olympics. Enjoy the Super Bowl. We'll see you from Santa Clara Sunday and right back here on Monday. I'm Elex Michaelson. Have a great weekend.

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