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The Story Is with Elex Michaelson
Iran Rejects 45-Day Ceasefire, Demands Permanent End To War; Artemis II Crew Returning To Earth After Lunar Fly-By; Interview with Former NASA Astronaut Danny Olivas; Michigan Defeats UConn 69-63 for Men's Championship Title; Interview with Former NBA Star Lamar Odom. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired April 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 ANCHOR: Dominating South Carolina, 79 to 51 in Phoenix, capping off a stellar season of 37 wins, just one loss. Every one of UCLA starting players finished the game scoring double digits. One of those starters, guard Kiki Rice, helped lead the charge. She spoke to CNN earlier today and said she's proud of their team's accomplishment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIKI RICE, GUARD, UCLA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL: Yes, you know, this is absolutely fantastic feeling. This is what I came to UCLA to do. I came to help this program get to finals four, is win national championships. And to be able to go on such an incredible note on my last game of my senior year, it just felt so special. And I mean, it's incredible to now be a part of the fantastic legacy that is UCLA sports and, you know, adding to that UCLA women's basketball legacy as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: And the celebrations continued back here in LA where fans gathered on campus Sunday night to greet the team. A hero's welcome for the new women's national champs. Congrats to the Bruins.
And up ahead, I sit down, speaking of basketball, with retired Lakers and reality TV star Lamar Odom to discuss his new Netflix documentary called the "Untold: The Death and Life of Lamar Odom." The film chronicles his highly publicized overdose back in 2015 and his struggles with drug addiction. We discussed his rock bottom moments and the message from his mother that helped spur his decision to no longer use.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAMAR ODOM, RETIRED NBA PLAYER: And she said, Mook, if you ever go to prison, it's probably when I stopped dealing with you. And I -- and I just replayed that message over and over and over and over and over again when I was sitting in that jail cell. And I said, you know what, I had enough of this and I'm going to, you know, check myself in the rehab.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Our viewers in North America will get that story in our next hour of The Story Is, which starts right now.
The Story Is deadline looming. President Trump warning he could attack Iran's power and bridges within the next 24 hours. The Story Is coming home. NASA astronauts speaking out after rounding the far side of the moon. Retired astronaut Danny Olivas is here live in our studio.
And The Story Is back from the dead, my one-on-one interview with basketball great Lamar Odom, a decade after surviving 12 strokes and six heart attacks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from Los Angeles, The Story Is with Elex Michelson.
MICHAELSON: A lot going on right now, but the top story once again in Iran and President Trump warning that Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're giving them -- we're giving them till tomorrow, 8:00 Eastern Time. And after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Stone Ages. Yes, Stone Ages.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Meantime, sources tell CNN that Israel has approved an updated target list of energy and infrastructure sites in Iran. President Trump has also called a recent 45 day ceasefire proposal, a significant step, but not good enough. Iran reports that Tehran has rejected the proposal. And an Iranian source says the Strait of Hormuz will not return to its previous conditions unless the war is permanently stopped. And despite all this, President Trump says there has been some progress.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I can tell you that we have a active, willing participant on the other side. They would like to be able to make a deal. We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me. And part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Meanwhile, U.S. gas prices have climbed to 412 a gallon, according to Triple A's latest figures. More increases could be on their way. You look down price of gas here in California, 5.93. In LA County, 6.05. President Trump says the U.S. and not Iran should be gaining financially from the strait of Hormuz.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, are you allowed to -- or are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tolls for passage through the strait?
TRUMP: Us charging tolls?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Iran.
TRUMP: What about us charging tolls?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that something you're considering?
TRUMP: I'd rather do that than let them have them run. Why shouldn't we? We're the winner. We won. OK?
They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of, oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water. All right. No, we -- I mean, we have a concept where we'll charge tolls. OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: CNN's Ivan Watson live in Hong Kong.
Ivan, I know you've hearing from Iran on all of this. But first, let's start with that concept of tolls. Give us some details of what Iran is doing with the Strait of Hormuz and how much money they're now charging.
[01:05:07]
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. Well, we've reported that there have been some ships that have gotten through from the previous pre-war peak of 140 some odd ships a day passing through. And the reports are that some countries are paying some $2 million a tanker to Iran for passage through the Strait of Hormuz. So that's a source of revenue that did not exist before a little bit more than five weeks ago, February 28, when the U.S. and Israel began this war, before the commercial shipping was free and nobody was generating revenue off of the passage through here. And Iranian sources have told CNN that officials have said that any kind of post war deal, if we reach that point, will definitely involve continuing to make money, a toll, in fact off of the passage of commercial shipping.
MICHAELSON: Meanwhile, where are we in terms of diplomacy, in terms of any sorts of deal right now?
WATSON: Well, look, we are counting down if were to take President Trump at his words, towards a dramatic escalation of what is already a huge regional war that is costing the global economy billions of dollars a day. In President Trump's words as of 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, if there isn't a deal, the U.S. and Israel are going to start attacking Iranian bridges and power plants. And Israeli officials have told CNN that they've drawn up a list of targets. They're waiting for President Trump's order on this. Now Iran's Deputy Minister of Youth and Sport has put out a statement on X where he's calling for effectively human shields around plants. He's invited all youth, cultural and artistic figures, athletes and champions to this national campaign starting at 2:00 p.m. local time on Tuesday for them to be around power plants across the country, with every belief and taste, we will stay stand hand in hand to say attacking public infrastructure is a war crime. And that is what a number of international legal experts have said. If you attack civilian infrastructure, this is a war crime. President Trump is kind of dismissed that.
If in fact Iran goes ahead with that, then that's a serious question. Would the U.S. and Israel potentially kill civilians in addition to destroying power plants? It's -- that's a scenario I haven't imagined as of now. There are still diplomatic initiatives underway. Iran kind of rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal that had been made by other countries in the region and instead responded with a 10 clause plan for ending the war completely.
And that would call for -- among those clauses are ending regional hostilities, establishing a protocol for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz reconstruction and the lifting of sanctions. Some other developments we've heard from Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the former supreme leader who was killed on the first day of the war. He eulogized Iran's top intelligence official, confirming that he'd been killed by an Israeli strike, one of a growing list of Iranian officials and commanders who've been killed throughout this. And Israel has claimed to have bombed Iran's largest petrochemical plant. Part of what Israel says is a campaign now to attack Iran's industrial base, basically economic warfare, which Israel's defense minister says this plant in particular generates billions of dollars for Iran.
So an expansion of the conflict and a sign that industrial targets, economic targets are very much on the table. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. And whether or not President Trump sticks to this latest deadline, he has shifted the goalposts when he's issued similar deadlines in the past, throughout the past five plus weeks of war. Elex.
MICHAELSON: Yes, we're less than 24 hours till the latest deadline. Ivan Watson live for us in Hong Kong to start things off. Ivan, thank you.
Joining us now to dive deeper into all this is Gissou Nia, director of the Atlantic Council's Strategic Litigation Project. Welcome back to The Story Is. We talked to you a few times here before. You have deep contacts in Iran. What are people on the ground saying to you, the ones that you can talk to?
GISSOU NIA, DIR. OF STRATEGIC LITIGATION PROJECT, ATLANTIC COUNCIL: Yes. I mean, one thing I should say at the outset is that we now are in the 38th day, approaching the 39th day of a total Internet shutdown in the country. According to NetBlocks, a group that monitors Internet shutdowns, this is the longest a country -- a government, has ever shut the Internet down for a country ever globally. [01:10:19]
MICHAELSON: And we know they had done it before during the protests and the uprisings when you were here before talking about that was another issue.
NIA: Absolutely.
MICHAELSON: Yes.
NIA: Back in January and February, there was a brief reprieve, and then when the strike started, they shut it down again. So I should say it's difficult to get information, but the information we are getting is from activists who have Starlink. It's from people who can play around with VPNs and are tech savvy and can connect, and also from people who speak to their family in one to two minute phone calls.
And what we're hearing is a mix of things. There were a lot of people that did support military strikes on regime officials after the massacre because they were worried about what the regime would do to them. But the tide has really shifted as Iranians have started to realize that there might be broad attacks on civilian infrastructure, things that would, you know, attack water treatment that would make it difficult for Iranians to be able to access clean drinking water. There's concerns about electricity being shut down. And the threats from President Trump are not helping the mindset.
So I'm actually hearing a lot of fear now.
MICHAELSON: It's interesting, President Trump was asked about this during the press conference today, and he said, we hear from people on the ground that are civilians that tell us, we want you to bomb, bomb our neighborhoods. And we -- you know, that they are encouraging this sort of thing because they're so desperate, in his words, for liberty that they're willing to have their neighborhoods destroyed.
NIA: I think a lot of things can be true at once. And it's a complex situation. There are people who fear what will happen if the regime stays in power. So if there's a leaner, meaner regime and the country is also devastated --
MICHAELSON: Yes.
NIA: -- from these military strikes, I think a lot of things can be true at the same time.
MICHAELSON: Because President Trump has talked about this idea of regime change, but you say it's not really regime change. There's some leaders of the regime that have been changed, but it's still the same regime, led perhaps by the Ayatollah's son. We don't really know because we haven't seen him. You believe that it's important to encourage dissent, encourage defection. How do you do that?
NIA: Yes, I mean, one thing that we should say is that at the outset of this, there was really this idea that there would be regime change. That's what President Trump stated. That's what people like Senator Lindsey Graham was talking about. Things have really shifted now. And I don't hear as much about what is the plan to actually encourage this and also not just through kinetic means.
There seems to be this idea that if civilian infrastructure is targeted, that somehow regime officials will give up. Well, they haven't really cared about what's happened inside the country or to the people. So that's not going to be an incentive. What needs to happen is some sort of money incentive to these individuals, a plan to get them to leave Iran to publicly renounce the regime.
We have to get creative. But I think the emphasis really needs to be on getting this regime out of power.
MICHAELSON: Money incentives to the current regime to get them to give up power, is that what you mean? Or money incentive for people to fight the regime?
NIA: I think for mid to lower level officials and people who quite frankly are only in this for the money.
MICHAELSON: Yes.
NIA: If the IRGC stops getting paid, I think we'll start to see a lot more defections.
MICHAELSON: This concept of war crimes and the potential of the bombing tomorrow being a war crime, first off, do you think it is? And secondly, does it really matter in terms of, obviously you don't want that to happen, but is there anything that can happen in terms of consequence for that?
NIA: I would definitely say that there is no strategic benefit to this. So putting aside the humanitarian and, you know, the altruism, but like there is no strategic wartime benefit to this. A lot has been discussed about how these places are dual purpose or they have a dual use. Let's be clear, you cannot create humanitarian catastrophe that is not proportionate. So it will never be lawful under the laws of war.
And it would be a war crime because it would cause mass civilian harm.
MICHAELSON: But nobody to prosecute the war crime.
NIA: The challenging thing is that the International Criminal Court has been dismantled --
MICHAELSON: Yes.
NIA: -- partly by the Trump administration and the Islamic Republic is not a member of the International Criminal Court. So justice is possible in different ways, but it is challenging and becoming even more challenging in our world today.
MICHAELSON: Gissou Nia, thank you for coming in and sharing your views. We appreciate it.
NIA: Thank you.
MICHAELSON: Iran says four of its army officers were killed in the U.S. mission rescue that doomed airman. Meanwhile, President Trump is threatening to jail the journalists who reportedly leaked information on that story. CNN's Jim Sciutto has more on that mission actually happened.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With the missing U.S. pilot now safe President Trump declared Sunday militarily one of the best Easters ever.
[01:15:06]
TRUMP: In the United States military, we leave no American behind. We don't do it.
SCIUTTO (voice-over): A U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down during a night mission over southwest Iran on Friday, forcing its two U.S. airmen to eject, leaving them wounded and stranded. The jet was from the 48th Fighter Wing out of Royal Air Force Lakenheath Base in England. According to a source briefed on the executive summary of the search and rescue operation, U.S. search and rescue teams extracted one of the airmen shortly after the crash. But the fate of the second, a colonel, remained uncertain. For a harrowing 24 hours, he evaded Iranian forces, scaled a mountain ridge and awaited rescue.
PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: When he was finally able to activate his emergency transponder, his first message was simple and it was powerful. He sent a message, God is good.
ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: This is a full colonel. So this is somebody who's, you know, 45 plus years old, probably went to SEREs School a long time ago, who climbed 7,000 feet, uses his transponder, does it all on a broken ankle. I can't wait to see this guy.
SCIUTTO (voice-over): Due to the terrain and hostile Iranian forces in hot pursuit, senior officials describe the operation as one of the most challenging combat search and rescue missions. The CIA helped deploy a campaign of misdirection to confuse Iranians over the airman's location and condition.
JOHN RATCLIFFE, CIA DIRECTOR: We deployed both human assets and exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service in the world possesses to a daunting challenge comparable to hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert.
SCIUTTO (voice-over): CNN has learned that the elite Army, Delta Force and Navy SEAL Team 6 were among the hundreds of special operators and intelligence personnel involved in the mission. The president said the massive undertaking involved 155 aircraft, including four bombers, 64 fighters and 48 refueling tankers. Because of the Iranian sand at the landing site, several of the aircraft could not take off again and had to be destroyed. GEN. DAN CAINE, U.S. JOINT CHIEF'S CHAIRMAN: This was an incredibly brave and courageous mission and a testament to the courage, skill and tenacity of the Joint Force and our leaders. And especially a daylight option. Having the guts to try means so much to so many.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: Our thanks to Jim Sciutto for that.
Still to come, scientists on Earth are thrilled about what Artemis II is discovering. We take you live to outer space and you see him standing by live here in Los Angeles, Danny Olivas, retired NASA astronaut who helped to test the current heat shield. His unsights next. We go to break though, with live pictures from outer space. That's the Artemis.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:22:27]
MICHAELSON: The four Artemis II astronauts are heading back to Earth after traveling the farthest from earth than any human has ever traveled and seeing sights no human has ever seen before quite like this. The crew has completed a lunar flyby, circling around the far side of the moon and taking pictures of its previously unseen surfaces from that angle. CNN's Ed Lavandera has been in Houston monitoring it all day and tells us about it now.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For roughly seven hours, the crew of Artemis II made history flying around the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. Witnessing up close, well, 4,000 miles away, some of the areas of the moon that have never been seen by human eyes and documented with thousands and thousands of photos that the crew took turns snapping as they were flying around the Moon. And what really struck out was listening to the descriptions that the astronauts were sending back to Mission Control where they talked about the various colors, the browns and the greens that they spotted on the Moon's surface, the terrain and the ruggedness of some parts of the Moon as well, different craters that had never been seen before. All of these types of descriptions were just simply riveting to listen to.
And on the end of the day where they come around the moon and they see a solar eclipse that at one point they could see the sun lighting up the backside of the Moon, the Earth's glow lighting up the front, the Moon was completely lit up. And Victor Glover, one of the astronauts, described this as a moment like straight out of science fiction. They had a conversation with the president of the United States and this is what and how they described what their day was like.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REID WISEMAN, ARTEMIS II COMMANDER: Proud to be a part of. I have to tell you, as we came around the near side of the moon, seeing all the sights that we've seen from Earth for all of our lives, but we're seeing them from a different perspective. And then we started to get a glimpse of the -- and we saw sights, oriental sites that no human has ever seen before, not even in Apollo. And that was amazing for us.
And then the surprise of the day, we just came out of an eclipse where the sun, moon and the entire dark moon about that big right out the window that were watching, we could see the corona of the sun and then we could see the planet train line up and we hit Mars. And all of us commented how excited we are to watch this nation and this planet become a two planet species.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAVANDERA: Now the Artemis II crew is on its journey home and that is a journey that will take another four days. The crew will splash down off the coast of California Friday night.
[01:25:08]
Ed Lavender, a CNN at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
MICHAELSON: Let's get some more insight from somebody who knows a thing or two about this. Former NASA astronaut Danny Olivas. Welcome to The Story Is for the first time. Thank you for your service to our country.
Let's talk about the historic significance of this day. This is a day that will go down in history.
DANNY OLIVAS, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: Oh, absolutely. In the 4.5 billion years of this planet, living species from this planet have never ventured this far. So it is quite a historic event. Human beings, further than any other human beings have ever traveled before. And top it all off, the diversity makeup of the crew is just -- is phenomenal because it truly does represent the diversity of our planet, of our species.
MICHAELSON: I mean, that is quite a way to phrase it, which I haven't really heard today in four and a half billion years, nobody's ever gone farther. So it really is quite a historical milestone that we've all just witnessed together.
OLIVAS: Absolutely.
MICHAELSON: And it also gives you perspective on the size of the moon, the size of the Earth. You're one of the only people on Earth that has gone through this, part of that rare astronaut club where you actually get to see the Earth from outer space. How did that change you?
OLIVAS: Well, I was a lot closer to it than the Artemis II crew.
MICHAELSON: Yes.
OLIVAS: There's no doubt about that, from the International Space Station. But, you know, it's a breathtaking event. You know, when you're in that vantage point, you get an opportunity to see the planet in all of its beauty. And more importantly, what you don't see are the things that we see every day. And that is kind of the people. You don't see the species, but you know that the species is alive and thriving on this planet. You also understand and appreciate that the Earth is our home and come to an appreciation that it's a place that we have to cherish and protect. And certainly as a species, you know, you kind of look back on the Earth and really reflect that, you know, you certainly wish that our species could learn how to get along together, because when we work together, we can accomplish phenomenal things. Like --
MICHAELSON: Yes.
OLIVAS: -- going to the moon, like building the International Space Station.
MICHAELSON: Right.
OLIVAS: Right? Rather than the things that divide us and cause us to have sorts -- all sorts of grief between us.
MICHAELSON: Well, that's the whole concept of the International Space Station, too, right, which you got to spend time there and see that and you work with different countries on this and --
OLIVAS: Sixteen countries across our globe is what made the International Space Station the phenomenal project that it is.
MICHAELSON: Yes, so you've had all this thing. Just when you describe that the Earth that way, it made me think of like, most of us have been on airplanes where you look down and you get the perspective, and that gives you a different perspective of the planet. And then to think about how much higher you are up there and to think it is such an amazing thing.
So the big challenge that is coming up for them now, they kind of done the hard part of the mission, except for coming back. And the hardest part is the heat shield when they're going to be flying back to the planet. Because this is called Artemis II. Artemis I did not have people because they wanted to test all this stuff. They didn't think it was safe to test people.
And they noticed some problems with the heat shield in Artemis I. Thank God there weren't people there, right?
OLIVAS: That's right, yes. So the heat shield material that was used is actually very similar to the heat shield material that was used during the Apollo mission. They made some slight modifications to the manufacturing of it and to the design of it. And those subtle changes was -- were enough to cause it to behave differently on Artemis I rather than kind of wearing away through the -- like a thermal erosion, we refer to it as ablation, it actually experienced cracking. And so rather than losing this ablating material kind of gradually, we started losing chunks of material.
MICHAELSON: Yes.
OLIVAS: And that's a bad thing. You don't want that to happen, right? MICHAELSON: Right. And so -- and so they hired you, they brought you in to look at this and to try to fix the problem.
OLIVAS: Well, so they had a team of NASA scientists and engineers that are already looking at the problem. They came to me and said, hey, we want an extra set of eyes just to make sure that we're, you know, dotting all the I's and crossing all the T's and we're asking all the hard questions. And then after I came on board several months later, we formed an independent review team and we conducted our own independent assessment of NASA's handling of the heat shield anomaly. And ultimately that report was produced to NASA with an understanding of the different options that NASA had in front of it. And that's the decision that they made, was to fly the heat shield as is, but instead change of trajectory.
So basically the trajectory is a big factor in what caused the heat shield to behave the way that it did. So they still expect that it's going to have some anomalous behavior coming in. It will crack, but it's not going to crack to the same extent that it did before. And we had plenty of margin on Artemis I, and we feel like there's going to be plenty of margin -- I'm sorry, plenty of margin for Artemis II and the astronauts.
MICHAELSON: What's that going to look like on Friday? What should we expect?
[01:29:47]
OLIVAS: Well, you know, So for the crew, they're going to probably see out the top window, they'll see sparks. They'll see things that are coming off the vehicle. those are not intended to be large pieces of material. They're going to remain small.
Most of the ablation or the cracking that's going to occur will likely occur around the shoulder region of the heat shield. Maybe some in the acreage area.
But for the most part, it should be a relatively straightforward. once the vehicle starts coming in, essentially it's going to continue to absorb heat until its down deep enough into the atmosphere that when it does a very small loft at the very end, it will be down deep enough that the -- that the need for the heat shield will pretty much be mitigated at that point. And it will make the rest of the way all the way to the splashdown.
MICHAELSON: And the splashdown happening here off the southern California coast, probably near the San Diego area.
OLIVAS: Pacific Ocean -- absolutely. Absolutely.
MICHAELSON: It would be amazing to see. Friday night is when that's expected.
OLIVAS: Yes.
MICHAELSON: And so long term, you know, there's this idea of potentially having a moon base.
OLIVAS: Yes.
MICHAELSON: What's the value of that?
OLIVAS: Oh, I mean, so much more than people can possibly imagine. So we have been on the -- in the lower earth orbit for -- it will be 30 years by the time ISS finishes up its work. And there we have learned how to live and work in space for long duration. Ok, that's been a stepping stone that will take us to the next destination, which will be the moon.
We will learn how to mine the resources of the moon. And now why are we going to do that? Well, guess what? If we want to go to Mars, there's not a whole lot of, you know, hardware shops at Mars, right?
So you're going to have to figure out what you're going to, you know, do when you get to Mars and make use of the resources that you have available to you. So that in-situ resource utilization is going to be a big component of it.
And also the life support systems to be able to, you know, keep human beings, you know, comfortable and alive and thriving in that environment. You know, you don't want to make a mistake on Mars, which is anywhere from 7 to 9 months, you know, away. And then a two-and-a- half-year mission based on orbital mechanics.
You know, you'd rather make the mistakes if you're going to make them on the moon where it's just a, you know, a couple day ride back and forth to and from the moon.
MICHAELSON: Wow, that's crazy to think about all that. And there's a really beautiful moment today I want to get you to weigh in on.
NASA's Artemis II crew shared this emotional moment in space, as they requested to name a crater on the moon after the late wife of Mission Commander Reid Wiseman. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEREMY HANSEN, ARTEMIS II MISSION SPECIALIST: So at certain times of the moon's transit around earth, you can -- We will be able to see this from earth.
And so we lost a loved one. Her name was Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie. And if you want to find this one, you look at Glushko and it's just to the northwest of that, at the same latitude as home. And it's a -- it's a bright spot on the moon.
And we would like to call it Carroll.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Carroll Wiseman was a nurse in a newborn intensive care unit. She died in 2020 at the age of 46 after battling cancer. She left behind her husband and her two daughters, Ellie and Katherine. The crew embraced in a hug after the dedication, and a moment of silence was observed in NASA Mission Control. The astronauts also named another crater, Integrity, for their Orion spacecraft.
What did you think of that moment? I know it's so emotional for so many.
OLIVAS: Oh, absolutely. It was emotional to me when I heard that as well. I certainly was not expecting that.
And a lot of people think of space exploration as, you know, science and hard engineering, hardware, rockets and all sorts of things that are very complicated and complex.
But the fact of the matter is that human exploration, space exploration is -- is a -- is a -- is a human endeavor, right? It is -- it's because of our emotion, because of our creativity, because of our -- of our bonds and our desire to want to push humanity further so that we learn more about, you know, where we are in this, in this cosmos. And even fundamental questions like why we're here and how we even got here to begin with.
And so this is -- was a nice, very poignant moment of humanity, I think, you know, basically reflecting on the fact that this is indeed a human endeavor.
MICHAELSON: And, you know, my favorite show, "Star Trek", is ultimately about an exploration of humanity.
OLIVAS: There you go.
MICHAELSON: And that's really what it's all about. And by the way, they actually pulled it off today to boldly go where no one's been before.
OLIVAS: Absolutely. Sure did.
MICHAELSON: They made it happen today?
OLIVAS: Absolutely.
MICHAELSON: Danny, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
OLIVAS: Thank you very much.
MICHAELSON: The party is going strong right now in Ann Arbor, Michigan after the Wolverines won their first men's basketball title in decades. Our Coy Wire just spoke one on one with the coach.
Look at that picture. Wow. We will speak to the coach when we come back.
[01:34:37]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) MICHAELSON: Michigan held off UConn to win their first NCAA men's basketball championship title since 1989. The Wolverines claimed their way to a 69-63 victory over the Huskies, coming out strong in the first half. They were led by Elliot Cadeau, the newly-minted Most Outstanding Player of this year's final four.
And this shot from Michigan guard Trey McKenney broke a lot of hearts. UConn tried to come back in the second half, closing some of the gap, even getting within four points inside the final minute, but not enough to secure what would have been their third national title in four years.
Again, number one, Michigan winning their first title in 37 years. Big, big party tonight in Ann Arbor. Look at the streets there. Everybody out.
[01:39:46]
MICHAELSON: CNN's Coy Wire caught up with head coach Dusty May right after the big win in Indianapolis.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Waiting to say hello to you. There they are, Coach. look at this.
DUSTY MAY, HEAD COACH, MICHIGAN WOLVERINES: They've been here for us all year. We appreciate them. They turned Chrysler into an amazing home court environment. We're going to take it to another level next year.
WIRE: Special group of young men, special group of young men. What will you remember most about this team?
MAY: How awesome their personalities are and how hard they worked for this.
WIRE: You started carrying clipboards, the video guy. What does this moment mean to you, Coach? Does it feel real?
You know, you lead with love. You lead with kindness. What can the world learn from what's happening in your locker rooms?
MAY: When you have a group that believes in each other through the ups and downs, and they never waver, the great things can happen.
WIRE: And last thing for you, Coach, what do you have to say to Wolverine nation?
MAY: Love you guys. Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: How cool is that? Great job by Coy and his photographer there. One of the biggest names in the WNBA is changing teams. The Chicago
Sky have traded two-time, all-star Angel Reese to the Atlanta Dream in exchange for Atlanta's first round draft picks over the next two years.
Reese led the WNBA in rebounding last year and has averaged 14 points per game in her first two seasons. Reese says she's beyond grateful to be moving to the Dream. The Dream's head coach praised her saying she will thrive with her new team.
Coming up for our viewers here in North America, I'll be back with an emotional interview with Lamar Odom about cheating death. For our international viewers, "WORLDSPORT" is next.
Thanks so much for watching us here on THE STORY IS. And again, shout out to Coy Wire. That was the entire time with the crowd, the whole thing. That was cinema.
[01:41:39]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Laker Games. It was the center of the universe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lamar was living a rock star lifestyle.
LAMAR ODOM, FORMER PROFESSIONAL NBA PLAYER: That first hit of cocaine was amazing.
You unlocked the vault that you can't really control.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He did love Khloe but he wanted to be on reality TV.
ODOM: When you're calling your addiction, there's always going to be embarrassment.
I was out all night partying. I didn't want to stop.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: A new Netflix documentary called "Untold: the Death and Life of Lamar Odom", tells the inside story of his overdose more than a decade ago. After a wild night partying in a brothel outside of Las Vegas, Odom suffered 12 strokes and 6 heart attacks and yet somehow survived that experience.
Lamar Odom joins us now from New York.
Welcome to THE STORY IS and congrats on the film. It's really moving.
ODOM: Oh, thank you. I appreciate you. MICHAELSON: It is so personal and probably painful to relive a lot of
this. Why did you want to do this? Why did you want to put this out to the world?
ODOM: Well, you know, Netflix is probably the biggest content distributor in the world. So it's an amazing opportunity. And to heal from and hopefully I can help a lot of people heal who suffer from the brain disease of addiction.
MICHAELSON: Was there a moment for you where it finally snapped of, ok, I'm ready?
ODOM: I think, my last stint in rehab, which was about, I think 40 days ago, 60 days ago, maybe -- a little bit more than that. Maybe a little less than that.
I had an incident when I was driving my car like way too fast and I was going into Las Vegas and I was ten minutes away from my destination and I just, uh, clipped a marijuana cigarette out.
I was driving with a friend who came and got me from Las Vegas. He had fell asleep. And I got pulled over and I spent 14 hours in jail.
MICHAELSON: Wow.
ODOM: And I remember when my mother was -- she worked in Department of Corrections on Rikers Island. And I remember I was going to my father's house in the Projects in Brooklyn.
And before I got out the car, my mother called me, she -- my family pet name was Mukha. And she said, Muk, if you ever go to prison, it's probably when I stopped dealing with you.
And, you know, I just replayed that, that message over and over and over and over and over again when I was sitting in that jail cell and I said, you know what? I had enough of this and I'm a, you know, check myself into rehab and -- for marijuana.
And I learned -- I learned a lot about the addictive mind and how it works and how insane it can be.
MICHAELSON: We hear from your ex-wife, Khloe Kardashian, about the efforts to hide your condition and receiving a phone call from a woman who was having an affair with you in a Big Bear Hotel room.
Here's some of that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KHLOE KARDASHIAN, LAMAR ODOM'S FORMER WIFE: I'm calling him again. He's missing. I can't find him.
And then out of the blue, I get this call and I'm like, hello? And she's like, hi. He just keeps wanting money and drugs and I got to get off this ride. So will you come and pick him up?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: So Khloe stood by you for months during and after your hospitalization. Do you regret the way you treated her at all?
ODOM: Well, she was an incredible, you know, helpmate. And, of course, in my sober mind now, of course I do.
I would never want to hurt any woman, especially the woman that I'm married to. And that goes for my daughter, you know, my aunt and my girlfriend now, and you know, that will never happen again. Those actions again. Those were actions of a, of a diseased brain at work.
MICHAELSON: In the documentary, you remember a dream where Kobe Bryant talked to you about the afterlife. What did he say to you?
ODOM: Well, he said, the afterlife is not what people make it up to be. It gives me purpose now. And, you know, I understand it a little bit more now that we have to live our best lives now, because, you know, only time, the only person that knows our time on this earth is God himself.
[01:49:48]
ODOM: And, you know, I've just been, you know, taking everything and just learning from it and, every bit of strength that I have, you know, I owe it to The Man upstairs.
MICHAELSON: And we know that you want to be a coach next. And we hope that you get that opportunity.
ODOM: Yes.
MICHAELSON: And real quickly, what does the word "survivor" mean to you?
ODOM: Resistance, perseverance. Being able to take a loss and bounce back from the loss. And that's what I hope the documentary, does for a lot of people who are, you know, ashamed, because there's a lot of shame that comes along with addiction.
I have a great relationship right now with my two children that are still here on earth. And just, you know, tend to make every day my best.
MICHAELSON: Yes. Well, we love you, especially as us Laker fans especially are grateful to see this. Congratulations again and congratulations on the sobriety.
We'll be back with more of THE STORY IS right after this.
ODOM: Thank you.
[01:50:56]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) MICHAELSON: As Artemis astronauts made history on Monday, going farther into space than any human in history, they got a special wake- up call from the legendary astronaut, Jim Lovell.
He was one of the first astronauts to orbit the moon aboard Apollo 8 and led the Apollo 13 crew to safety after a disaster in space. Remember, he was played by Tom Hanks in the movie.
Lovell died last year at the age of 97. But before his death, he recorded a message for this crew.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM LOVELL, FORMER APOLLO 13 COMMANDER: Hello, Artemis II. this is Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell. Welcome to my old neighborhood.
I'm proud to pass that torch on to you as you swing around the moon and lay the groundwork for missions to Mars for the benefit of all.
It's a historic day, and I know how busy you'll be. But don't forget to enjoy the view.
So Reid, Victor, Christina and Jeremy, and all the great teams supporting you good luck and godspeed to all of us here on the good earth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: What a moment. Tomorrow here on THE STORY IS, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass live in studio. Plus the stars of "Hacks" -- Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder.
See you tomorrow.
[01:56:31]
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