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The Story Is with Elex Michaelson
The U.S. Military Has Launched Strikes On Iranian Targets In Response To Tehran's Attack On American Forces In Jordan; New Secret Service Emails Reveal How Case Was Built Against James Comey; Challenging Weather Fueling Fires In France And Spain; Man Found Guilty In Terrorism Trial Over Salman Rushdie Stabbing; Rising Attacks On Christians In Jerusalem; Republican U.S. Senators Take Aim at Dr. Anthony Fauci; BTS Will Not Submit Music for Next Year's Grammy Awards. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired July 30, 2026 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VALERIA LEON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Their lucky duck changed everything from surviving day by day to dreaming about what comes next.
KARLA GOMEZ, MERLIN'S OWNER (through translator): I want to pursue the business side of this. I want to start making clothes for ducks.
LEON (voice-over): Valeria Leon, CNN, Mexico City.
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ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks for watching the first hour The Story Is. The next hour starts right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from Los Angeles, The Story IS with Elex Michaelson.
MICHAELSON: I'm Elex Michaelson live in Los Angeles. Coming up, the story is striking Iran. New video shows the aftermath of U.S. strikes across the country after President Trump vowed to, quote, hit them hard.
The story is attacks on Christians in the Holy Land from Jerusalem to the West Bank. CNN's Clarissa Ward looks at how extremist ideology and nearly three years of war are reshaping Christian life.
And the story is pleading the fifth more than 100 times. Dr. Anthony Fauci refused to answer questions. Now Republicans are escalating their investigation in the COVID pandemic. My panel, Brian Tyler Cohen on the left, Katie Zachariah on the right here live to discuss.
Tonight, the top story is in the Middle East. That is where the U.S. military resumed strikes on Iran after President Trump pledged to hit the country, quote, very hard.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Very hard, because it's our turn to hit them. They know it's coming. They're asking us not to do it, but they nevertheless took a shot. So it's our turn. We're going to hit them very hard.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Iranian state media reports that explosions were heard in several locations across southern Iran. CENTCOM says the, quote, heavy wave of strikes, unquote, has now wrapped up. Dozens of targets were hit, according to CENTCOM, including military command centers and missile and drone facilities.
This video, which has been geolocated by CNN, shows smoke rising after a strike in western Iran. State media also released this video from an Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz. It says that rescue operations are ongoing after U.S. missiles struck a residential home. Officials say two children have been pulled from the rubble and the search is now on for three other family members.
With all this underway, oil prices are reacting after the U.S. and Iran resume strikes. Prices down right now, but earlier they shot up in one of the sharpest spikes of the five month war with Brent crude futures rising more than 8 percent to push the benchmark well above $90 a barrel.
Meantime, stocks closed sharply lower after the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady. The Dow tumbling more than 2 percent and had its worst day since April of 2025 as investors worry that the Fed was not acting quickly enough to bring down inflation.
Joining us live is Democrat Kevin Mullin, who represents California's 15th district in the House of Representatives. He joins me live from the Bay Area. Congressman, welcome to the story is for the first time.
REP. KEVIN MULLIN (D-CA): Good to see you, Elex.
MICHAELSON: You speak about the cost of this war for Americans. Based off of where we are right now, what's the best option on the table for the U.S. and Iran?
MULLIN: Well, let's face it, there aren't very good options at the moment. We're $37 billion into this. I'm old enough to remember when this war was only going to be a few weeks. It was called an excursion by this president. This is a war in search of a rationale.
And I'm concerned that at the end of the day, we're going to lose treasure, we're losing lives, and we're not going to be any closer to real peace in the Middle East. And the president knows this is costing him domestically, right? Six in 10 Americans are opposed to this war. His domestic politics are eroding even as we speak. Gas prices continue to go up. People are being hit in the wallet. So, I don't know that this president has any kind of an end game that
is discernible. And it is deeply unpopular and problematic. And you saw that in the House just the other week when we passed yet another war powers resolution dealing off a little bit of Republican support. So that's indicative of the level of popularity not only of this war, but the president himself.
MICHAELSON: But what do we do? Obviously, the war is unpopular. Obviously you think it was a mistake to go in, but we're there. So what do we do now? How do we get out of this?
MULLIN: Well, I wish I had the answer to that. The reality is we have to end this war. And when my party, the House Democrats, take control of the House and have the gavels and restore our Article 1 Powers of the purse and can actually bring some accountability and, and look to bring this war to an end.
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That will certainly be helpful. But I'm concerned that we may wind up with nothing better than, you know, the Obama JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, which at least we had that in place and there were some parameters there, and international inspectors and so forth. This president may wind up with something much weaker as a -- as a measure just to, you know, proclaim victory and walk away.
But clearly this is a President that had no strategy, no plan and no clear rationale, really. And you see that in the lack of public support by the American people. So we in the Congress --
MICHAELSON: You could end up with a situation where you end up with no deal at all and the Strait of Hormuz closed and the U.S. having spent billions and billions of dollars and ending up in a worse position than where we started off.
Let's talk for a moment about another issue.
MULLIN: That's right.
MICHAELSON: Self-driving cars, which are becoming more and more common across the country. And there's been a series of incidents in your district in the Bay Area recently where the self-driving cars have gotten in the way of emergency vehicles.
You just introduced new legislation in the House this week in the most concise language possible for people that may not be tech experts. What does your legislation do?
MULLIN: Well, we are going to create a national uniform protocol with local input from public safety officials. We're going to create a 24/7 hotline with immediate response from these AV companies, these autonomous vehicle companies, and we're going to create something called geofencing, which would prevent these autonomous vehicles from going into crisis areas when there's a public safety action happening or special events where, where there are very large crowds. But essentially this is to address what is a growing problem out
there. You know, this technology, these autonomous vehicles. In my district, the San Francisco Peninsula, we're a proving ground for this technology. This is incredible technology under normal conditions, but we're concerned about the abnormal conditions that exist. And these public safety officials need to get these vehicles out of the way. There are unplanned stoppages.
There are numerous examples where there was an active shooter, a manhunt happening, and a vehicle got in the way. There was a natural gas explosion where a vehicle was impeding a utility truck from responding. And in San Francisco, we had a July 4th incident where the vehicles were overwhelmed and there was a power outage where these vehicles were completely confused in intersections as the power went out.
So this is really going to take federal, state and local input to develop this national protocol. But we've got to get in front of this. This is technology that's going to save lives over time. But in the meantime, we've got to get to a better place in terms of the interaction with public safety. So we have the mayor of San Francisco that the fire chief --
MICHAELSON: Yes.
MULLIN: -- very much supportive of our efforts. So, we're going to -- we're going to push that, hopefully in a bipartisan way.
MICHAELSON: It'll be interesting to see if Republicans get behind this and to see how Waymo responds to this. This is such a big issue around the country as more and more of these cars spring up. And when they're at their best, they're pretty amazing. We just got to get it right.
Congressman Kevin Mullin joining us from the Bay Area. Thanks so much for being with us.
MULLIN: Thanks, Elex.
MICHAELSON: New court filings revealing new details about the government's effort to build yet another case against former FBI Director James Comey, which he asked a judge to dismiss earlier this week. It stems from Comey's Instagram post showing seashells that spell out 86 47. Of course, the number 86 often refers to getting rid of something. Trump is the 47th American president.
Comey's caption cool shell formation on my beach walk. He was charged with threatening the life of the president. Nearly a year after that post, the documents reveal federal law enforcement secretly tracked Comey's cell phone, despite concerns that doing so might be legally questionable. We've also learned the Secret Service agents who interviewed Comey were ordered to send their notes to President Trump directly ASAP.
Comey denied making any threat, saying that he understood the term 86 to be restaurant jargon and that it falls within free speech protections. He also accused the government of selective and vindictive prosecution.
Ukraine is bracing for a possible second wave of Russian airstrikes after an earlier wave killed at least seven people.
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Kyiv residents rushed to take cover in shelters and subway stations. Here's some video of that, including this dog in one of the shelters. All that after officials said that Russian missiles targeted the capital and two other cities. As far as we know, at least one person was killed in Kyiv and six others died in central Ukraine, where officials say more people could be buried under rubble.
Ukraine's air force later saying that another wave of strikes was on the way towards the capital. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had warned that Moscow was preparing a massive attack.
The story is in Europe, where emergency officials in the E.U. warn that Greece and Italy could soon face the same type of wildfire threat that Spain and France have been facing. Officials on the Greek island of Lesbos advising residents to evacuate their homes in some coastal areas after a fire broke out there. On the island of Crete, two firefighters died while trying to contain a wildfire there.
Meanwhile, the weather remains a concern in Spain and France. Going into the weekend, France should see a slight dip in temperatures, maybe some thunderstorms near Bordeaux, but it still will be very hot and any wind or lightning could mean more flames spreading in that region.
Joining me now from Bordeaux is Sarah Coates, a correspondent with CJTN. Thanks for being with us live.
What is the latest on the fires as France wakes up this morning? How is the government responding?
SARAH COATES, CGTN CORRESPONDENT: Certainly a very, very delicate situation. We've been here on the ground for the last week or so covering these wildfires and it has been incredibly difficult. This morning we've woken up, not sure if our camera is picking this up. Behind us, there really is a thick blanket of smoke right over the city of Bordeaux.
We've been out in this fire zone for the last eight days. And this fire, despite it being stabilized this morning, it is still burning out of control. There have been more than 42,000 acres of land already burnt. This is when you put it into perspective, more than four times the size of Paris.
Now there are so many firefighters mobilized on the ground. But it really is important to point out that they're being assisted by really by the local community, by the farming community here in France. There have been hundreds and hundreds of farmers that have really come from right around the country. They've been bringing their heavy machinery, their water tankers, their earth moving equipment, and they've been cutting in fire rates right around this region to really try and stop the spread of these flames.
So certainly a lot of caution this morning, a bit of optimism given that the temperatures have now really dropped back from the sort of hundred degree Fahrenheit range that we saw yesterday. There were a number of departments under red and orange alerts. But what we are feeling on the ground this morning is a bit of a cooler change coming through.
It doesn't feel as windy. So of course, this will have a huge impact on these fires and really hopefully stop the spread. But once again, a lot of concern. We really are seeing a lot of solidarity here on the ground around this Bordeaux area. People are chipping in where they can, setting up --
MICHAELSON: Yes.
COATES: -- stalls or food stands on the side of the road, really trying to help these people on the ground who have been fighting these flames.
MICHAELSON: Well, the whole world is paying attention to these fires and it's good to hear, Sarah, some good news as France wakes up this morning. Thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate your reporting.
Ahead on the story is.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a fundamentalist understanding of the possession of the land. The land was given to the Jews and that needs to mean all of it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: CNN's Clarissa Ward takes a look at how an extremist ideology and nearly three years of war have reshaped Christian life in the Holy Land.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:18:23]
MICHAELSON: The man accused of stabbing author Salman Rushdie is now looking at a potential life sentence. Hadi Matar was found guilty of federal terrorism charges on Wednesday. That's almost four years after he attacked Rushdie at an event in western New York state. The author was slashed 15 times, lost his right eye, but he survived.
Prosecutors say that Matar was responding to Iran's long standing call for Rushdie's death over his book, the "Satanic Verses." Some Muslims consider it blasphemous. Matar is already serving a 25-year state sentence for attempted murder.
From Jerusalem to the West Bank, Christian communities have been facing a surge of intimidation and violence. CNN's Clarissa Ward travels to the region to explore how these attacks are threatening the survival of these ancient communities.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For 2000 years, Christians have been in the Holy Land. That presence now under mounting pressure as attacks on Christians rise.
In Jerusalem, spitting at clergy, vandalizing holy sites, harassment and intimidation are almost daily occurrences. While in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence and economic pressure are pushing Palestinian Christians out.
April 2026, a nun is thrown to the pavement by an Israeli extremist just outside the site of the Last Supper. The Israeli government strongly condemns the attack and the suspect is arrested.
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REV. ANTHONY GIAMBRONE, PROFESSOR OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, ECOLE BIBLIQUE DE JERUSALEM: This is where two of the quarters meet, Christian and Jewish. And so it's always been a friction point.
WARD (voice-over): Father Anthony Giambrone teaches at the same school as the nun who was attacked. He has lived in Jerusalem for 10 years.
WARD: Does anyone have any sense of what the motivation was here? I've heard some speculation that maybe he was disturbed individual or?
GIAMBRONE: He could be disturbed, but he's filled with an ideology as well that I think doesn't want to accept her presence here.
WARD: Help us understand that a little bit better.
GIAMBRONE: Yes, well, I mean, it's obviously a long history. It's very important to say that that's, you know, that's an extreme view. I think there's increasing concern that it's an extreme view that's getting mainstreamed. It's a fundamentalist understanding of the possession of the land. The land was given to the Jews, and that needs to mean all of it.
WARD (voice-over): According to the Religious Freedom Data Center, from April to June of this year, reports of incidents against Christians in Jerusalem rose by 70 percent compared to the three months before October 7. Though the spike may partly reflect more people coming forward to report.
The fallout has embarrassed the Israeli government internationally. In April, it appointed Arab, Israeli, Christian diplomat George Deek as special envoy to the Christian world, the first such position in Israel's history.
GEORGE DEEK, ISRAEL SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE CHRISTIAN WORLD: Attacks on Christians, on Jews, on Muslims, or anyone based on their faith or their ethnicity is immoral, illegal and unacceptable. We should, however, be able to distinguish between serious incidents that require serious action and the false narrative that this is somehow representative of the Israeli state, Israeli society, or Christian life in Israel.
The reality in Israel is that Israel remains the only place in the region where the numbers, the Christian community in Israel is actually growing.
WARD: There is a sense that these types of incidents and this type of bigotry and this ideology has been allowed to continue with relative impunity.
DEEK: I acknowledge the fact that there is a rise in extremism in Israel, just like we see a rise in extremism I think across the world we see. We can do more and we should do more. And it is my task to make sure that we will do more.
WARD (voice-over): But just 20 miles away, the government is enabling Israeli settler extremism.
WARD: So we're driving now to a town called Tayibe in the occupied West Bank. And it's been coming under attack from settlers for some years now. But those attacks have really intensified in recent months.
WARD (voice-over): Palestinians of all faiths are struggling, but Christian Palestinians are leaving faster than most.
RONALD BASSIR, CHRISTIAN PALESTINIAN: There is no work, no money, my children want to buy something for 20 shekels and I don't have any to give them. For God's sake.
WARD (voice-over): It doesn't take long for us to come across Roland Bassir. His cement factory has come under attack this morning by settlers, as it does most days.
BASSIR: Look here they are running after me.
WARD (voice-over): He shows us videos he has compiled over months of settler extremists chasing him out of his factory.
BASSIR: Can't you understand, this is our place.
WARD: Do you have any idea why they are doing this?
BASSIR: I don't know. They want to take over everything. Yesterday I told him I'm from Taybeh. He said, this settlement is mine. Taybeh is mine. If I have the opportunity to leave, I would leave. And not stay in this town, because there is no future for me or my children.
WARD (voice-over): Down at the damaged factory, the Israeli police and army finally arrive, four and a half hours after Bassir says he first called them. But minutes later, without even getting out of their vehicles, they turn around and start to leave.
BASSIR: See you later. Bye, bye.
WARD: So they came.
BASSIR: And you saw it. WARD: They seem now to be leaving.
WARD (voice-over): As we drive out of Taybeh, we see a young settler grazing his sheep in the town's olive groves.
WARD: Hi. Hi. Excuse me. My name's Clarissa Ward. I work for CNN. Can I ask you some questions? Do you speak any English?
Hello, do you speak English.
[01:25:00]
WARD (voice-over): He ignores our attempts to speak with him in Hebrew and begins to film us.
WARD: This is a Palestinian town, Taybeh. It's a Christian Palestinian town. I'm just wondering if you can explain why you're here or what you're doing here. This is not your land.
So you can see he took a video of the whole thing, did not say a single word to us, and we're right here, right outside of Taybeh.
WARD (voice-over): Reverend Munther Isaac says that since October 7th the situation has become untenable.
REV. MUNTHER ISAAC, EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH: Christians are part of the Palestinian people. Whatever happened to all Palestinians happens to us. The issue with Christians is that because our numbers are small, we became a very vulnerable community. So every family that leaves, we feel its impact.
WARD: Do you feel that the church is doing enough to protect Christians here?
ISAAC: Churches around the world are saying many good things. What we need is action to put pressure on Israel to stop the settlement activities and to reach a settlement with the Palestinians.
WARD (voice-over): For now, that seems a distant prospect. Without decisive action, the erosion of Christian life in the Holy Land will continue. The question is whether there is political will to change it. Clarissa Ward, CNN, Jerusalem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: Clarissa continuing her extraordinary reporting in the Middle East. Up next, a heated hearing on Capitol Hill. Dr. Anthony Fauci pleading the fifth repeatedly at one Republican senator threatened to hold him in contempt of Congress. Our panel live to break down the pal ticks of COVID on the left, Brian Tyler Cohen. On the right, Katie Zachariah.
Plus, what Republican is merging as surprising president candidate? Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [01:31:16]
MICHAELSON: President Trump's pick to be Attorney General appears to be in trouble, as two Republicans are threatening to withhold their support. The Senate Judiciary Committee has postponed a vote on Thursday on Blanche's nomination.
The concerns center around the Justice Department's $1.8 billion so- called "anti-weaponization fund", and a deal struck in May that would give President Trump, his family and their organization immunity from IRS audits for prior tax issues.
Also on Capitol Hill today --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I respectfully decline.
I respectfully decline.
I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Dr. Anthony Fauci taking the Fifth more than 100 times during a contentious hearing focused on the COVID pandemic. The Republican Senator, Rand Paul, had touted the hearing as a chance to get answers about the COVID cases. But it actually did little to advance his claims that Fauci covered up the origins of the virus, especially because Fauci didn't say anything.
Paul says he'll seek a vote on holding Fauci in contempt of Congress. Fauci, meantime, argued that Paul's, quote, "obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution" justified his refusal to answer questions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. FAUCI: The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, quote, "behind bars", unquote.
I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Let's bring back our panel.
Brian Tyler Cohen is author of one of the bestselling books in America "The Day After: How to Wield Power in a Post-Trump World". And Katie Zachariah, senior communications adviser for Truth Social and Trump Media. Welcome back, both of you.
Katie, let's start with you. Republicans clearly frustrated by Anthony Fauci not answering questions. Here's some of the way they responded.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): You forced people to watch their loved ones die alone over the phone. It's disgusting.
SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): During the pandemic, you got rich, didn't you? You got rich while people were dying.
SEN. BERNIE MORENO (R-OH): Here I am, sitting in front of you six years later saying, who the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) do you think you were for doing that?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Similar, similar feelings?
KATIE ZACHARIAH, SENIOR COMMUNICATIONS ADVISER, TRUTH SOCIAL AND TRUMP MEDIA: Absolutely. Look, I lived in California over the pandemic. I had four kids. I was pregnant with my fourth. And I would have loved to never see Anthony Fauci on that screen again.
He absolutely -- all of his guidelines closed down schools, mandatory vaccination, masks, all of it absolutely not scientific. And I think history will prove him to be a huge fraud.
He destroyed so many lives. And I can't understand why they brought him forward, knowing that he would just plead the Fifth. This is where I take a little bit of division from the party.
It's like --
MICHAELSON: Well, that was Rand Paul's decision and he didn't have to do that.
ZACHARIAH: And I love --
MICHAELSON: Yes.
ZACHARIAH: I love Rand Paul and his book, and he's been going after Fauci for a long time. And we knew we weren't going to get answers. We didn't get answers then. We are not going to get answers now. And he's not going to be prosecuted because he has a blanket pardon from Joe Biden.
So this looked like a little bit of a dog-and-pony show.
MICHAELSON: I mean, it was a dog-and-pony show, wasn't it?
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BRIAN TYLER COHEN, AUTHOR, "THE DAY AFTER": Look absolutely. I mean, we know from these Republican senators and how they've spoken that they were just looking for their moments on TV. And the fact that they have to do this by going back to 2020 and the pandemic is a testament to the fact that they can't run on anything right now.
And so they had to try and relitigate some issue that they thought was beneficial to them six years ago.
Look, the pandemic is over. I think that people are looking forward at this point. Maybe that's a controversial statement to make that people actually want to look forward.
But the reality is that if Republicans had anything better to run on, they wouldn't have to relitigate what happened six years ago.
MICHAELSON: But Brian, weren't there a lot of mistakes made during the pandemic that people have not really been held accountable for on any side? All sorts of mistakes --
COHEN: Absolutely.
MICHAELSON: -- that President Trump made, mistakes that Gavin Newsom made in closing down beaches, mistakes in terms of the guidelines, mistakes in terms of masks.
Some of it probably made in -- most of it made in good faith, people making mistakes. But there's really been no moment of reckoning for anybody involved in all of this.
COHEN: Yes. I mean, absolutely. If you have a once-in-a-generation pandemic, mistakes are going to be made. But when you have -- when you have a situation like this where they're trying to trot out somebody who has dedicated his entire life to public health, who is invaluable in combating the AIDS epidemic, and trying to vilify him because the right-wing needs a scapegoat in this country.
And, by the way, refuses to look at Donald Trump's culpability in all of this. The guy that was standing on national television and suggesting that people inject disinfectant as a way to kill the virus.
I mean, it puts on full display that this is not a serious investigation to look at what happened. This is just a crusade to try and vilify somebody as a boogeyman in the same way that they vilified Hillary Clinton and George Soros and Hunter Biden. There's always somebody that's to blame for these problems.
MICHAELSON: Harvey Levin calling it McCarthyism, what's happening against Fauci. You're shaking your head.
ZACHARIAH: Well, listen. I think a bipartisan approach could be a lot of mistakes were made, and someone needs to be held accountable.
My kids were told they had to wear masks, so I took them out of school. And kids don't learn reading when their teachers are wearing masks and when they're reading masks.
These are actual things that happened when people are not able to see your mouth. And Dr. Fauci didn't care about that. Anthony Fauci didn't care about any of this.
And one book I would recommend is "The Real Anthony Fauci", which I read cover to cover. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote this book, and it really talks about why Anthony Fauci should never have been trusted with any of this in the first place.
And I think there has to be accountability, but there won't be because of this pardon, which is why I called it a dog-and-pony show.
But I do think people deserve answers. The gain-of-function research was done in a Wuhan lab and it was leaked, and this was under Fauci. This is -- this is not conspiratorial anymore. This has all come out.
MICHAELSON: Fauci disputes that himself. But there's some intelligence that suggests that that is what happened, but that is -- that is part of it. But we did not get a clear, definitive answer on that today.
We did get some answers from CNN in terms of a new poll. And it shows that that President Trump's support is eroding, not only with the general public, but among Republicans.
Look at this number. Feelings about the rest of Trump's second term. Right now among Republicans, just 19 percent say they're enthusiastic. In April of 2025, that number was 38 percent.
So an interesting moment, Katie, because I know that there's been so much conventional wisdom about in 2028, the Republican nominee is going to be JD Vance or Marco Rubio.
But is it possible that Republicans are starting to look beyond Trump at other options?
ZACHARIAH: Well, as I said earlier, there was a poll a week ago that showed an 83 percent approval rating for President Trump.
And then to your --
MICHAELSON: Among Republicans.
ZACHARIAH: Republicans.
MICHAELSON: Yes. And now it's at 78 percent.
But I mean, look, we know that there has been some slippage and his overall number is down. We also know he's very popular among Republicans, which is why all Republican primaries, it seems like he seems to be dominating.
ZACHARIAH: Yes, he's dominating on the endorsements. However, I think as we look past the midterms, there are definitely some candidates to watch out for, which is you have JD Vance, you have Marco Rubio.
And I'm starting to see kind of the surge of Governor DeSantis, especially in this. Anthony Fauci testimony. He was one of the leading governors that handled the COVID pandemic well. Not closing beaches, not closing schools, not forcing masks. And so you see a commentary starting to develop where he's able to
actually stand on a state that is well governed. And I think that we, the Republican Party, has three great candidates with the vice president, our secretary of state, and then also a wonderful potential candidate out of the state of Florida.
MICHAELSON: The governor of Florida.
What do you think about this idea that maybe even the Republican Party may be looking to try to move beyond Trump?
COHEN: I mean, look, the reality is Republicans have full control of government right now. Any one of these other Republicans in any other branch of government, in any other cabinet position, anybody not named Donald Trump also has the power to speak up. None of them do. They own all of this.
[01:39:46]
COHEN: All of these governors, including Ron DeSantis, who refuse to come out and speak against what Donald Trump is doing, refuse to speak out against these tariffs, refuse to speak out against the war in Iran, refuse to speak out against hiding the Epstein files, suppressing these files, refuse to speak out about the rising inflation rates.
That puts on full display the fact that they're fine with it. Or its more important for them to pledge allegiance to Donald Trump than to actually deliver for their own constituents.
So, yes, there is going to certainly be a stink -- a particular stink on somebody like JD Vance or Marco Rubio. But, you know, the rest of these Republicans who are going to run in 2028 also have the ability to speak out. The fact that none of them are willing to is a testament to the fact that it is more important to show that they are -- that they're going to be willing to kowtow to Trump than to deliver for any of their constituents.
MICHAELSON: We've got one minute left, Katie. Do you think that the governors stink right now?
ZACHARIAH: The governors across the country stink? Is that what --
MICHAELSON: He's saying Republican governors all smell bad.
ZACHARIAH: Oh. Well, I think we're having across the Democrat Party, I think we're having some major issues with the Democrat Socialists of America rising up, kind of filling in this void that I think perhaps the Democrat Party is missing.
And so this -- this really off-the-cuff group is emerging and really taking out some establishment Democrats.
But what I also think is Middle America just wants to be taken care of. The grocery prices down, gas prices down. And I think that as we head towards the midterms, we -- I want to see the Republicans for on my side and maybe for the Democrats on your side, but I want to start seeing my Republicans work harder in Congress.
MICHAELSON: Politicians are so unpopular right now that there may be an opening for outsiders on both parties. But first, we got to get through those midterms.
COHEN: Jon Stewart, we're ready for you.
MICHAELSON: Brian, Katie, thank you so much. Thank you so much.
You're a bestselling author, maybe you, Brian, who knows? Katie, who knows?
You're watching THE STORY IS. For our international viewers, "WORLD SPORT" is next. For our viewers in North America, I'll be right back with why BTS is boycotting the Grammys.
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MICHAELSON: Members of the K-Pop supergroup BTS say they will not submit any music for consideration at next year's Grammy Awards. It comes about a month after the recording academy announced a new category for Asian Pop for the first time.
BTS says that they, quote, "hope that music can be heard and loved for what it is, rather than being divided by region or language".
For more, let's bring in journalist and cultural critic Rebecca Sun. Rebecca, welcome back.
So what's the sort of background here? What's going on?
REBECCA SUN, JOURNALIST AND CULTURAL CRITIC: Yes. So like you said, they -- the Grammys announced a new category for Asian pop performance. And this coincidentally comes as BTS has just made their musical comeback.
They've been on military hiatus for several years. And so, you know, they're sort of primed. All of their fans are ready. Like, oh my gosh, BTS is going to finally win their Grammy.
And then the recording academy is like, oh, just by coincidence, we have this like new Grammy just for Asians. And so, you know, the band, every member put out this unifying statement on their social media saying, and it was very coded. They basically said something like, we hope everyone can enjoy our music regardless of country or language.
MICHAELSON: Because if you enter the Asian category, then there's other categories that you can't enter, right?
SUN: No. I mean, so the CEO of the recording academy made it very clear that it doesn't disqualify you from submitting for other things.
But I think that there's a context as a history of the recording academy sort of changing categories in a way in which I think the perception is it's marginalized certain people.
So Beyonce finally wins Album of the Year for "Cowboy Carter", and she wins Country Album. And then the next year, the Grammys are like, ok, now we're going to have two categories, traditional country and contemporary country.
You know, Bad Bunny wins Album of the Year. And, you know, this year, now the following year, they're like, there's a new category for Latin Song of the Year.
You know, I'm not making direct accusations. I'm saying there's a context and a pattern that people are perceiving.
MICHAELSON: Which has been sort of this accusation that these categories are created to keep them in those groups instead of sort of everybody together. And that's some of the frustration.
The idea of it sounds like it could be inclusionary, but it's actually exclusionary. At least that's what some people are saying.
SUN: Right.
MICHAELSON: And it comes at a time where we -- music is having this interesting moment when it comes to the monoculture or lack thereof.
So back in the day, we all would listen to music on the radio and kind of hear the same songs. And now we're not because people have their Spotify playlists. They're over here. They're over there. They're watching stuff on YouTube.
And so there's this interesting story on CNN.com right now that caught my attention. It's called "The country pop sensation you might not have heard of."
Her name is Ella Langley. And, and I want to put this quote from the write up on the screen. "It's spent 15 weeks at Billboards number one, making Langley just one of three women to earn that honor as solo artists and breaking the records previously held by Whitney Houston for "I Will Always Love You" and Mariah Carey for "We Belong Together". She's leading Taylor Swift and Drake in the charts.
So there's some people that are all about Ella Langley, and there's a lot of people in this country who have never heard of this person.
SUN: Yes, absolutely. This is the death of monoculture. This is what you get when you have media fragmentation, the trade-off of being able to curate everything, your entire media diet, according to your tastes, is that everybody's in a silo, right?
Like it used to be that I listened to the radio exclusively. Then I only listened to the radio in the car. Now I don't even listen to the radio in the car. I have my Spotify playlist.
MICHAELSON: Right.
SUN: So you just might never cross paths with what your neighbor is listening to.
MICHAELSON: And so you're not being exposed to that kind of music, potentially. You're only getting what you want. And sometimes it might be good to have somebody give you a suggestion --
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SUN: It goes for art and it goes for information as well.
MICHAELSON: Right. And that's part of the challenge also for the Grammys now, in trying to figure out how to reward all of this as well. You said that Artists of the Year now, it's going to -- there's more years that you can enter?
SUN: Yes. So as a response to the fact that it's harder for new artists to break through universally -- Best New Artist. Now you can submit up to four times for that category as opposed to three. They're giving you like an extra year because, you know, nowadays you might just spend like three years in SoundCloud --
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MICHAELSON: Yes.
SUN: -- before you hit the radio -- MICHAELSON: Rebecca Langley (SIC) may be the new artist, best new
Artist of the Year. Rebecca, thank you.
Next on THE STORY IS, Barack Obama releases his annual summer reading list. We'll check out a few of his favorites.
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MICHAELSON: Former president, Barack Obama, just dropped his annual summer reading list. Among the books is "Kin" by Tayari Jones, a story of two people facing the impacts of racism in the Jim Crow era of the 1950s. "Whistler" by Ann Patchett is a novel about the choices people make and the choices that are made for them. And "Transcription" by Ben Lerner follows a 45-year-old man who travels to Providence, Rhode Island to interview his former professor and mentor.
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MICHAELSON: The late U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham laid to rest on Wednesday at a funeral attended by friends, family and lawmakers in his home state of South Carolina. A horse-drawn carriage carrying his casket to the First Baptist Church in Columbia. Military pallbearers carrying it inside. Graham died on July 11th at the age of 71.
Let's take a look at the stories that we are tracking for the day ahead.
The nomination of Todd Blanche to be the next U.S. Attorney General appears to be in jeopardy. The Senate Judiciary Committee has postponed a vote on Blanche for Thursday. Two Republican holdouts on the panel want written assurances that the Justice Department's anti- weaponization fund is dead.
A severe storm system moving through the southeastern U.S. is expected to weaken in the coming hours. It brought dangerous flooding and record rainfall to some areas. Parts of New Jersey saw an entire month's worth of rain, while one city, New York, got more than twice its average rainfall for the entire month of July.
The goalkeeper who stole millions of hearts during the World Cup, will arrive in South America in the coming hours. Cape Verde's goaltender has reportedly reached a deal to join the Chilean Club Colo-Colo, pending a medical exam.
The 40-year-old free agent stunned crowds with his brave defense against Spain in their first match. He helped Cape Verde hold the eventual champions to a nil-nil draw.
Tomorrow on THE STORY IS, nine-time Olympic gold medalist Caleb Dressel will be with me talking about the national championship he just won this week and the upcoming Olympics here in L.A., where he wants to swim in a football stadium.
I'm Elex Michaelson. I'll see you tomorrow.
Thanks for watching THE STORY IS.
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