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The Story Is with Elex Michaelson
U.S., Iran Launch New Strikes Amid Tensions Over Hormuz; Search for Flood Victims Continues Along Nepal's Riverbanks; Massachusetts Senator Markey Wins Democratic Nomination; USPS Whistleblower Claims Plans for Vote-by-Mail Hidden from Public; Hong Kong Activist Joshua Wong Pleads Guilty to National Security Case; U.S. Says Chevron to Expand Operations in Venezuela; Army Secretary Went Directly to Trump to Complain about Hegseth; Survivors Grapple with Catastrophic Flooding Aftermath. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired September 02, 2026 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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LESLIE SHEDD, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: At the local level, making sure that people get a chance to weigh in. But any politician that tells you that they're never going to have data centers come in, that are trying to appease their people and not being honest with them, they're lying. If you like your A.I., you like your cell phone, you like your, you know, smart TV, we've got to have data centers that power all of this. And any politician who tells you differently is a liar.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I don't -- I got to see if there's a data center on Palm Beach Island.
(CROSSTALK)
SHEDD: There is. I'm going to find the story there.
KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.
BLACKWELL: We got to see that. All right.
FINNEY: How big is it? That's what I want to know.
BLACKWELL: Karen, Leslie --
SHEDD: I'm going to find the story for you.
BLACKWELL: Thank you both.
And thank you all for watching. "THE STORY IS WITH ELEX MICHAELSON" is next.
ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Elex Michaelson live in Los Angeles.
Coming up on THE STORY IS, tensions boil over in the Middle East while the U.S. and Iran are once again trading fire.
The death toll skyrocketing in Nepal. CNN's Anderson Cooper is on the ground following the aftermath of those devastating floods.
And an explosive new report describing chaos inside the United States Postal Service. How efforts meant to prevent voter fraud could affect this year's midterm elections.
ANNOUNCER: Live from Los Angeles, THE STORY IS with Elex Michaelson.
MICHAELSON: And we begin this hour with live pictures right now from Thailand, where it is just after 11:00 in the morning, and the USS Abraham Lincoln is docked for the first time in eight months. That ship setting a modern day record for the most days at sea during combat in a blockade. Some 5,000 crew members finally getting a chance to touch ground.
There's been controversy about this ship, reports of not enough supplies, reports of somebody potentially trying to take their own life. President Trump has talked about this. They have now replaced it in the region with the USS George Washington.
This part of the stop as the USS Abraham Lincoln makes its way back home. Its final destination, San Diego here in California.
Speaking of that region, we're also following developments on a new series of strikes between the U.S. and Iran. U.S. Central Command says that the strikes were prompted by a, quote, "attempted attacks" on commercial shipping in the strait and American service members in the region. They come after the first escalation over the Strait of Hormuz in a month just days earlier.
President Donald Trump threatened Iran that, quote, "They will be hit again at a much harder and higher level if they retaliate," and later wrote that he couldn't care less if Tehran signs a, quote, "worthless agreement over the Strait of Hormuz," and urged Iranians to rise up and fight.
U.S. Central Command released this video on Tuesday with a list of Iranian targets it had hit in those strikes, including air defense sites, radar systems and communication sites. Iran said it had launched missiles towards Jordan in retaliation. This video here from social media shows what appears to be an Iranian missile exploding in southern Jordan.
The Jordanian armed forces confirmed it has intercepted at least 10 missiles launched from Iran, and another three fell in remote locations.
Joining me live in studio right now is Benjamin Radd, a political scientist and senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations.
Welcome back THE STORY IS. Good to see you.
BENJAMIN RADD, POLITICAL SCIENTIST: Thank you. Good to be here.
MICHAELSON: You have a piece that you wrote a few days ago on X. We want to put the headline up on the screen. It says, "The U.S. and Iran are shooting again, but the strategic situation hasn't changed."
What do you mean by that? Because I know one of the main points you make is that don't mistake activity for movement.
RADD: Activity is what we've seen in the last 48 hours. Rockets being fired, both sides taking shots at each other. The facts haven't changed, meaning the stalemate is still there. The blockade is in place. The Strait of Hormuz is still constricted. Those facts haven't changed. So this exchange of fire doesn't necessarily tell us that anything is moving in any direction in the big picture.
MICHAELSON: So for movement, you said there's three things we want to focus on.
RADD: Yes.
MICHAELSON: Iran, China and Russia, and the Gulf States. So let's go through them. Let's start with Iran, including the leadership within Iran.
RADD: Right. So the President Pezeshkian was at a regional conference in Kyrgyzstan, where he made a statement indicating that they're willing to go back to the June MOU, the memorandum, the terms that were in place, that they're willing to do that if the U.S. agrees to meet those conditions. That's an interesting shift. In that audience, you have President Xi, you have Putin, who are there, indicating that maybe the Russians and the Chinese are also pushing for a resolution based on those June terms.
And then on here in the United States, the situation basically, is that, you know, the president has been pushing the economic angle here. We saw Secretary Bessent's comments last week, increasing sanctions, increasing economic pressure there.
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And then you have the Gulf States. Are they willing to tolerate what we saw the last 24 hours? Additional incoming fire. Is there tolerance for that? Diminishing. Are they willing to strike back even harder? So those are all things we want to watch for and see how will they indicate any actual movement.
MICHAELSON: I mean, in terms of President Trump, we just saw his post. I mean, it did sound like he sounds too optimistic about this, calling it a worthless deal.
RADD: And not only that, but indicating that he'll double down on what the U.S. has been doing, applying the economic pressure, keeping the blockade, what with the George Washington now there to be able to do that.
MICHAELSON: So you mentioned China and Russia, that they were there for those comments. And are we seeing any actual movement in terms of what they're doing? Not only what they're saying, but what they're doing? RADD: What we're not seeing is them coming to bail Iran out
economically, necessarily, with the increased sanctions. Now, we've seen the head of Iran's central bank today said that they can free up $2 billion in foreign reserves to basically keep their economy afloat. Where is that coming from? That's going to be harder to do with this new round of sanctions in place. It doesn't look like the Chinese or the Russians want to come to the rescue. So that was interesting. But the fact that the President Pezeshkian felt comfortable making that statement in front of those men there really tells us that maybe that's where their mood is shifting to.
MICHAELSON: You mentioned Scott Bessent, the secretary of the Treasury. He made some news with this comment today. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: We could see the Iranians are trying to use the Strait of Hormuz as a choke point. It's not a choke point for the U.S., but it is a choke point for many other countries. And -- but, you know, that will be bypassed in two years. In two years, the Strait of Hormuz will be like a worthless piece of water, that the oil will be going on pipelines across land.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Worthless piece of water. Those comments made at a meeting of foreign leaders that's happening right now in North Carolina. What does he mean by that? And does that make sense?
RADD: One -- about a third of the world's crude oil goes through the Gulf. That can go through pipelines. But liquified natural gas cannot. That needs to actually go in cargo containers. There's no pipelines that can carry that. But what the secretary there is saying is that Iran, you've got two years before your one big piece of leverage expires. Its shelf life is basically 24 months. So you might think you have leverage now. That's going to diminish over time as countries find other ways to get this cargo out of there. So it's a good negotiating tactic to say you better make a move now.
MICHAELSON: Although, of course, President Trump originally promised this as a war that would last for weeks, not necessarily two plus years.
RADD: Right. That too.
MICHAELSON: Benjamin Radd, from UCLA, thank you so much. Always great to have your perspective.
RADD: Thank you.
MICHAELSON: Now to this. Oil prices are surging amid the new U.S. strikes in Iran. Oil futures climbed another 2 percent on Tuesday after a jump on Monday. Let's see where the oil markets are trading right now. You see that it's up. Brent crude oil, also the worldwide exchange both up for the first time on record. Gas prices have stayed above $4 a gallon every day in August, according to AAA. President Trump met with nearly a dozen oil executives at the White
House on Tuesday as we look live at the White House, where it's just after midnight. A White House official told CNN that they discussed expanding U.S. refining capacity, and the president emphasized that he wants to see lower gas prices for consumers.
Rescue efforts are still underway nearly one week after a massive landslide triggered deadly floods across parts of the Nepal-China border. For many, including those women and children, narrow escapes to safety were decided by just a few split seconds as raging waters washed away entire communities. The United Nations estimates that disaster has left behind more than 2.4 million tons of debris.
International aid agencies are racing to reach some of the hardest hit flood zones that have been cut off by the damage to major infrastructure. Authorities say more than 1,000 people have been killed between the two countries, and at least 4400 people remain unaccounted for. The scale of this destruction is making it difficult for many families to learn the fate of their missing loved ones.
CNN's Hanako Montgomery joined Nepali police as they search for victims along the country's flooded river. Here's her report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Down in Nepal's plains the river gives up its dead. Floodwaters carried them far from where they were last seen, scattering them along the riverbanks.
Right now, we're on a search and recovery mission with the Nepali police. They found hundreds of bodies that have washed downstream from the Himalayas in this river. So we're just going to go and see if we can find any more human remains that might need recovering.
(Voice-over): Using sticks to probe the tall grass, they search for what the floods left behind. They find nothing. So the search continues downstream.
They say they found something. I'm just going to put on my mask here in case it's a body. We found an animal carcass, and you can tell that it's been here for a few days. It's pretty badly decomposed.
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(Voice-over): The police tell us the same is happening to human remains.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): These scenes are very heart- wrenching, but we're keeping strong and working.
MONTGOMERY (voice-over): The places to search seem endless. And what they do recover, they bring here. A center where photographs of the found dead flicker across screens. Families stare at image after image, looking for a brother, a son, or for this man, his sisters.
KUMAR POKHAREL, BROTHER OF MISSING WOMAN (through translator): I'm still hoping that they come back. We're looking for them and contacting all possible places, but we haven't found any leads.
MONTGOMERY (voice-over): The police tell me over 800 people were reported missing at this center alone. Just 12 were returned to families. Some, he says, are so badly decomposed they're unrecognizable.
SUB-INSPECTOR HARL SHARAN DHAKAL, POLICE OFFICER (through translator): The situation is very challenging. We're getting dead bodies, body parts, and we don't have enough people who are able to do this work.
MONTGOMERY (voice-over): Reunited holds a different meaning here. Finding remains confirms an unbearable truth, but an end to the search for some families, allowing them to lay their loved ones to rest. But they're considered the lucky ones. The hundreds who can't be identified are brought deep into the forest to a freshly dug mass grave. Numbers are assigned for the unnamed, with the bleak hope that using collected DNA samples one day someone will come looking for them.
Back at the river, the police find what they're looking for.
When we were with the Nepali police, we didn't find any remains, but the same team they called us and they told us they found two bodies in the river. And now begins the really painful process of identifying these people and then reuniting them with their families.
(Voice-over): Behind every missing person is a family still waiting and behind every recovered body, the enormous task of learning who they were.
Hanako Montgomery, CNN, Nepal.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: Wow, what a story. Hanako, thank you for that.
THE STORY IS in Massachusetts, where voters have picked their nominees for the November midterm elections. The marquee matchup in this primary is a generational battle in the Democratic race for U.S. Senate.
My favorite time. We can say election night in America. We can play the music. CNN can project that 80-year-old incumbent Senator Ed Markey will once again get the Democratic nomination. Markey has served in Congress since 1976, when the country celebrated its 250th anniversary. Now we're doing our -- yes, our 200th anniversary. Now we're in our 250th. He described his victory as a testament to the power of the progressive movement. He has been a staunch supporter of Medicare for All and transgender rights.
Markey defeated U.S. House Democrat Seth Moulton, who is 47 years old and has argued it's time for new leadership. Senator Markey responded to questions about his age by saying he's always been the youngest guy in the world when it comes to ideas. He will now advance to the general election as the favorite in Massachusetts, a reliably liberal state. Democrats are losing that state. They're having some real problems. He is predicting a so-called blue wave across the country in the November midterms.
So let's bring in our political panel. Melanie Mason is the California bureau chief for "Politico" and co-author of "Politico's" "California Playbook." And Peter Hamby is chief national correspondent for "Puck News" and host of the brand new podcast, "2028 Focused: The Making of a President," just announced today, I believe.
Welcome back, both of you, two of my favorite panelists. The gang is back together and we're talking about Massachusetts. Let's listen to some of Senator Markey tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ED MARKEY (D-MA): Because tonight is a testament to the power of the progressive movement. It is a progressive movement fueled by young people demanding more from their leaders. And it's your voices that are the ones we need to hear right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Peter, you've been doing a lot of look into the Democratic brand, part of it has been that they've had some older folks, but the 80-year-old ran against the 47-year-old, and he cleaned his clock.
PETER HAMBY, CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, PUCK NEWS: He's winning by 30 points or so right now. It's a total blowout in Massachusetts. Seth Moulton, his younger challenger. I think the challenge here was that Moulton, member of Congress, former now, was running on generational change, but didn't offer a lot of ideas that separated him from Ed Markey.
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And in a state like Massachusetts, Markey was just the more progressive candidate, as he liked to point out there. He was a little bit of a Johnny-come-lately to the progressive movement. He redefined himself in 2018 by embracing the Green New Deal and, you know, hanging out with AOC. He was long, you know, he voted for the Iraq war back in the day. He was kind of a backbencher in the House, but he was running against Joe Kennedy in that race and defined himself as a progressive. And he's kind of stuck that way.
I think the lesson is that you can't just be younger. You have to be differentiated with an idea. Maybe your brand is somewhat different. In the House races, too. Richard Neal won in the First District, Stephen Lynch in the Eighth. These guys are all in their 70s. But they are ranking members of committees, and they're poised to take over the chairmanship if Democrats win back Congress.
That's very important. And so no one was able to make the case that we should kick those guys out and put in someone different.
MICHAELSON: Well, and we saw this, Melanie, we've seen this in the in presidential races that Bernie Sanders, who was the oldest guy in the room, often won young people. Bernie Sanders was behind Ed Markey in this race as well. Sometimes it is the power of your ideas. That's the argument tonight.
MELANIE MASON, CALIFORNIA BUREAU CHIEF, POLITICO: Well, I mean, the narratives were busted tonight, I think. Right? I mean, I do think that there was a sense of like, you know, the younger candidate is always going to be the progressive. But as you said, we know that that's not necessarily the case. I think that the idea that the establishment is always on the run everywhere in these Democratic primaries, we just -- we know that that's not the case.
And so I think it's a good check for us as political journalists that while we are seeing trends across the country, they are not monoliths. And I think that Massachusetts reminded us tonight.
MICHAELSON: Yes. And Massachusetts likely to support a Democrat going forward as well. Meanwhile, another story making headlines tonight. We want to put this up on the screen. Some reporting from CNN here. And the headline reads, "USPS whistleblower describes new plans for voting by mail hidden from the public." Concerns about President Trump's plan to restrict vote by mail.
Here is the response from the Postal Service. Put this up on the screen. "The United States Postal Service has spent months developing a U.S. federal ballot mail portal to provide election officials with a simple, secure, and efficient way to share lists of individuals receiving ballots by mail in their respective states." They go on to say this, "This work at all times has been conducted in a manner consistent with court orders."
But lots of states are suing, more than 20 states, including the state of Colorado. Earlier, we spoke with the secretary of state from Colorado, Jena Griswold. Here's some of that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENA GRISWOLD, COLORADO SECRETARY OF STATE: We are 63 days away from election day. Ballots for overseas and military voters literally goes -- they go out in three and a half weeks. And to have this type of uncertainty before such a major election is unacceptable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Is this plan, Melanie, is this practical? Is this reasonable? Give us some insight on what's happening right now when it comes to these states.
MASON: Look, in some ways, I think that there's a real question about how workable this is, how much this will actually be put into place by election day. But in another sense, I don't think that matters because Trump in some sense has already accomplished what he wanted to do, which is inject uncertainty, inject a lack of trust into this vote by mail system. I mean, we saw that that was what he did in 2020. It just sort of like cede the sense that there was something fishy about these elections, that it was stolen, and that that really grabbed hold of people.
And so I think just by, you know, this being out in the ether, I think that it makes Democratic voters panic. I also have to think that Republican, you know, Republicans on the ground must be seething right now because all they have been trying to do for the last two cycles is get their voters to vote by mail again.
MICHAELSON: Right.
MASON: They have been trying to convince them that that is the better way to do it. And here we are with the president saying that this is unreliable and he's going to try to stop it. I think that you're going to see Republican voters act accordingly.
MICHAELSON: And that's always been a tough message, Peter. We've all talked with Republican officials when they've come out to places like California and said trust the system. It works great. Vote by mail. And then we're like, what about the president? And they said, well, you know, trust the system.
HAMBY: I mean, I think 30 percent of the country voted by mail in 2024.
MICHAELSON: Including the president.
HAMBY: Correct. In Florida.
MICHAELSON: He did, too.
HAMBY: Look, North Carolina is a good example here. North Carolina sends out ballots on September 4th. That's in three days. Like they're trying to change the rules. I think Secretary Griswold is totally right just because that's the precedent in our country. Don't mess with election rules right before elections. It's just -- I'm getting whiplash from all of the court challenges here. You have a U.S. district court in Massachusetts, the judge there ruling that they had to pause this, that got overruled by the Supreme Court. Then it got paused again.
I am not going to assume that the Supreme Court would ever get in the way of what Donald Trump wants to do at this point.
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I have a hunch, though, given the uncertainty here and all the competing rules and all the jurisdictions and all of the states, like they have to come up with a ballot samples and outlines like now for voting that's about to start. Will the Supreme Court let this proceed, this new rule with this portal? It's all very confusing of course.
MICHAELSON: Very confusing.
HAMBY: But it's hard to -- that's the point. It's so confusing before the election. If the Supreme Court lets Trump go ahead with this, if it gets to that point, that would be remarkable.
MICHAELSON: Well, and it kind of seems like this is why we have a Supreme Court to weigh in on something like this when there is so much confusion and so many different rulings all over the place. We'll see if they do.
We don't know if that's going to happen, but I do know that you both are sticking around. We're going to talk more about what's happening right now with the military and President Trump especially interesting.
Peter and Melanie are going to be coming back with us.
Also still ahead this hour, the latest on the Lindsay Clancy trial and what could happen if the jury does not reach a verdict. So far they have not been able to.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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MICHAELSON: The jurors in Lindsay Clancy's murder trial are expected to start their fifth day of deliberations on Wednesday, after failing to reach a verdict on Tuesday. Clancy's defense argues that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and is not criminally responsible for killing her three kids in 2023.
The 12 jurors deliberated for about six hours on Tuesday. At one point, they sent a note to the court saying they were unable to reach a unanimous decision. The judge directed them to continue deliberating to try to reach a verdict. This process has been going on for some 23 hours over the course of four days.
If the jury remains deadlocked, the judge may decide to declare a mistrial. Clancy's defense team was asked about that possibility.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: But if you have to retry this, do you think that your client is emotionally prepared to do it again?
No.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You don't think she is? Would you do anything different in the second trial if you have a second trial?
KEVIN REDDINGTON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I don't know.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: No?
REDDINGTON: I'll think about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Now to some breaking news in Asia. Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong faces more time in prison after pleading guilty to foreign collusion in his second national security case. The 29-year-old was a leader in Hong Kong's 2019 pro-democracy protest. He's already serving nearly five years in prison after pleading guilty in a landmark subversion trial in 2024. He could face an additional three to 10 years behind bars, or possibly even life in prison. Ivan Watson is live in Hong Kong.
Ivan, what more can you tell us about what just happened in court?
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Sure. Well, this concerns Joshua Wong, who at one point was a teenage pro-democracy activist, kind of the poster child for protest movements in Hong Kong in years past. He's been in jail for years now. And a judge announced that he pleaded guilty for the crime under Hong Kong's National Security Law of Collusion with Foreign Forces.
That means that he could face up to 10 additional years in prison. He's already been in jail for years. Now the prosecutors, what they say is that they accuse him and another individual, pro-democracy activist who is in exile, Nathan Law, of holding meetings with foreign officials like then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, then Senator Marco Rubio, and lobbying for them to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and Chinese officials.
This was a particularly tumultuous time here in 2019, when there were huge pro-democracy and anti-government protests here that sometimes, oftentimes turned into violence with clouds of tear gas on almost a weekly basis here. That has all come to an end since China imposed a national security law here in 2020.
Now, Wong's lawyer has said, hey, he pleaded guilty. He urged the judge to try to cut the sentence in half, saying that effectively Wong has learned from his mistakes now. There has been a tremendous amount of criticism of the prosecution of Wong and other pro-democracy activists in the city over the course of the last five, six years from the U.S. government, other Western governments, as well as human rights groups.
The Hong Kong government put out a statement insisting that freedom of commenting on and criticizing government policies remains uninhibited as long as they do not violate the law. Going on to say, quote, "The lawful exercise of free speech must not be conflated with taking actions to collude with a foreign country, to impose sanctions, to harm one's own country." The Hong Kong government and the Chinese government say they brought stability back to this international finance hub.
I might point out, Elex, as somebody who's lived here for more than a decade, this is a city that used to have a much more vibrant free press, opposition political parties, regular protests and demonstrations on the streets. Much of that is gone. Much of those politicians and activists are either in jail or have been forced to flee into exile while many of those independent newspapers and media outlets have been shut down by the authorities -- Elex.
MICHAELSON: It is remarkable how much has changed so quickly.
CNN's Ivan Watson live for us in Hong Kong. Thank you, Ivan.
[00:30:03] Still to come here on THE STORY IS, new escalation in the conflict between the U.S. and Iran. We'll talk about the politics of that war with our panel, next.
Plus, we'll get into the Trump administration's move to finalize what it is calling the biggest oil deal in world history. How could that impact you and your gas prices?
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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MICHAELSON: Welcome back to THE STORY IS. I'm Elex Michaelson, live in Los Angeles. More now on one of the top stories we're following this hour.
The U.S. military launching new strikes on Iran Tuesday after the war escalated following a weekend exchange of fire. Iran, in turn, carried out its own launches of drones and missiles over Jordan, Bahrain, and Kuwait.
All this comes amid a threat from President Trump that the U.S. has held back, quote, "the biggest attack of them all."
And as we see ramped-up tensions in the war with Iran, we're following new reporting on the leadership shakeup at the Pentagon and a new nomination from President Trump.
On Tuesday, the president nominated acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao to permanently lead that branch of the military. Cao is a retired Navy captain and former Republican Senate candidate from Virginia. He has served in the acting role since Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth abruptly fired the previous Navy secretary in April.
Cao's nomination will require Senate confirmation. It comes as we are learning new details about outgoing Army Secretary Dan Driscoll.
He reportedly complained about Hegseth directly to President Trump last week before handing in his resignation. "The Atlantic" reports that Trump was, quote, "surprised" when Driscoll told him how many generals and other top officers had been fired, pushed out, or passed over for promotion under Hegseth.
According to one source, Driscoll's exit did not come as a surprise, given the months of friction between him and Hegseth. Here's some of what Hegseth has said about military culture in the past.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses.
Frankly, it's tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. No more beardos.
I'm authorizing a new screening program for testosterone deficiency.
And by addressing these health markers early, we're keeping you on the leading edge of lethality and giving you the same level of support that you give this nation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: CNN has previously reported that Hegseth has fired more than two dozen senior officers, pushed out a Navy secretary he clearly clashed with, and reportedly intervened in promotions across the military branches, directly shaping leadership.
A Republican congressman who is retiring from his seat says he shares Dan Driscoll's concerns about Pentagon leadership and the exodus of military officials under Hegseth.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DON BACON (R-NE): I think we should all be concerned when the secretary fires so many senior general officers and admirals. Three stars, four stars.
And not only three and four stars. He's redlined, which means he's crossed out, a lot of one-star promotees and two-star promotees. And it's a significant number.
And yes, the Constitution gives him that right to fire and hire who he wants, but it doesn't make it morally right; and it doesn't make it wise.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Meanwhile, the U.S. energy secretary, Chris Wright, is heading to Caracas, Venezuela, to finalize what the White House touts as the biggest oil deal in world history.
That deal would give the U.S. majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil reserves and would significantly expand America's current reserves.
The Trump administration also says U.S. oil giant Chevron plans to expand its operations in Venezuela. Company officials are expected to join Wright on his visit in the day ahead.
Our panel is back right now: Peter Hamby from "Puck" and Melanie Mason from "Politico."
Melanie, is this sort of an acknowledgment that the president's first war this year is helping to ease the pain of his second war this year? I mean, because the Iran War obviously has caused so many problems for gas prices. And now, the president touting how this will help lower gas prices. MELANIE MASON, "POLITICO": I mean, it certainly shows some -- some
recognition on the president's part that he has to at least acknowledge the pain that people are feeling at the pump.
And remember, he hadn't really been doing that. He had been so skeptical of affordability as an issue.
So, I think even trying to sort of sell this as something that will lower oil prices, at least shows a bit of a shift.
But I think we also need to be realistic. Any deal, if this goes through, we're not going to see that ramp up in time for the midterms. We're not going to see it for years in terms, you know, Venezuela's oil infrastructure has to really be, you know, transformed and brought up to speed.
So, I think it's -- it's a political announcement. I'm not sure how practical it is.
MICHAELSON: Yes. Anybody that's watched "Landman" on Paramount+ has some has some idea that this stuff doesn't happen fast in terms of oil infrastructure.
PETER HAMBY, "PUCK NEWS": It doesn't. But if you've watched "Landman," too, you understand the value of U.S. oil and gas production --
[00:40:08]
MICHAELSON: Yes.
HAMBY: -- especially over the last decade, has soared. That has inoculated the United States somewhat, unlike other parts of the world, from relying as much on gas imports from the Middle East.
Now, gas prices are up basically a dollar over last year, including in many battleground states in this country. But we have been inoculated a little bit, because we've been able to rely on our reserves here.
We got into Venezuela in a bunch of groundbreaking, scary, rule- breaking ways. But expanding the pot of energy isn't necessarily bad.
It is -- Venezuela right now is a very strange situation. It's kind of a U.S. puppet state.
MICHAELSON: Yes.
HAMBY: We're going over there. It's unclear whether Delcy Rodriguez, the president, actually has the authority to just sign these oil leases over to not just Chevron, but a company where the United States has a stake. The Pentagon has a stake.
It's all very murky. It's clearly unprecedented. But yes, President Trump clearly helps -- thinks it's going to help protect us from relying on Middle East oil.
MICHAELSON: I mean, is it possible that two things are true at the same time? That one, this feels like modern-day colonialism, but two, it's kind of good for the United States of America.
HAMBY: It can be. Look, like Hugo Chavez nationalized his oil fields in 2007. It cut off the rest of the world from a huge amount of oil. I think that's partly right. That's partly right.
MICHAELSON: Yes. Let's -- let's talk about what we also just heard about with this big fight between Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Driscoll, and lots of folks in the military. Obviously, this class of culture.
So far, President Trump siding with his secretary of defense, or he would call secretary of war, Pete Hegseth.
MASON: Which we've seen. Right? I mean, he does tend to stand with his cabinet secretaries. And I think that, if anybody is in the doghouse, we won't necessarily see it until a little bit of time has passed, because President Trump does not want to look like he's caving to -- to the mob or caving to liberals.
But I do think we're in a moment now where we're going to be finding out so much more about Secretary Hegseth's Pentagon than I think we even have in the last, you know, year or so.
I think we're finding out not just about the generals that he has been firing, the Army secretary that he's firing. But, you know, these online influencers that he has allegedly hired as special government employees.
I think that there's just so much to the operations of the Pentagon. And I think so much, at it's his time in the spotlight. That's potentially a precarious spot for a cabinet secretary to be.
MICHAELSON: And of course, the military so much a part of President Trump's base and protecting the troops so much of what they talk about.
HAMBY: He loves that Pete Hegseth goes on television at every turn and says all the MAGA things, like the -- the montage you just played, and defends the war in Iran.
There's a really important backdrop here, though, a very important Washington story. My colleague Julia Ioffe at "Puck's" done some really ahead-of-the-curve reporting on Dan Driscoll.
He's friends with J.D. Vance. They went to Yale Law School together. Dan Driscoll is also very much a Washington kind of operator. He talks to reporters. He's a -- he's a comer.
In Trump's Washington, Pete Hegseth is much more of a rough-around- the-edges attention magnet; insecure. Didn't like that Dan Driscoll was being quoted in articles as a possible Hegseth successor one day.
The -- you know, Vance has tried to broker a peace between these two behind the scenes, Julia, my colleague reported. And so, there's a little bit of a Vance-Hegseth tension going on that I think is an important element of this Driscoll story, too. MICHAELSON: Really interesting.
Peter, Melanie, sticking around for the top of the hour. We'll see you with more.
Also coming up here, Ukrainian children are starting the new school year in bomb shelters. One school in Kyiv has moved its classrooms underground so students will no longer have to run to safety during Russian air assaults.
Russia's relentless attacks have killed at least 53 people in the Kyiv region alone since Thursday. Despite that, Russian President Vladimir Putin claims Moscow is open to what he calls, quote, "concrete peace talks."
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VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Of course, we want it, as well, but not to freeze; to end the war and achieve lasting and complete peace throughout Ukraine and Europe. And we are ready to engage in this negotiation process with anyone who is willing to do so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: (AUDIO GAP) -- says his country is ready for peace, adhering to U.S. requests to pause strikes on Moscow and St. Petersburg in late August.
Meanwhile, Russia's military is showing no sign of backing off its war goals. It launched a deadly air assault in the Kyiv region overnight Tuesday with a barrage of jet-powered drones and ballistic missiles.
Still ahead, CNN is on the ground in Nepal, speaking with survivors of last week's deadly floods.
[00:45:00]
We'll take you there next.
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MICHAELSON: Let's take a look at some of today's top stories.
The CNN projects that Senator Ed Markey has won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. The 80-year-old incumbent is a progressive who fended off a primary challenge from moderate House Democrat Seth Moulton.
[00:50:03]
Markey will now seek a third term. Moulton, who's 47, said it was time to make way for a new generation of leaders who can regulate technologies like A.I.
The fourth day of jury deliberation in Lindsay Clancy's murder trial ended without a verdict. On Tuesday, the jury told the court that they were unable to reach a unanimous decision, but the judge directed them to continue deliberating.
Lindsay Clancy's defense says she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and is not criminally responsible for the killing of her three children in 2023.
Jurors return for a fifth day deliberations in the hours ahead.
President Trump says an agreement with Iran, quote, "isn't worth the paper it's written on," and he's urging Iranians to, quote, "rise up and fight."
It comes after the U.S. launched a new round of strikes on Iran on Tuesday. Iran retaliated with strikes over Jordan, Bahrain, and Kuwait.
More than a thousand people have been killed, with thousands more still missing, after flood waters overwhelmed the border region between Nepal and China last week. Those who survived are still grappling with the devastating aftermath.
CNN's Anderson Cooper is in Nepal and brings us a closer look at the reality people there are facing.
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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): It's been one week since disaster struck, and in Trishuli, this is the end of the road.
Once a bustling market, now soggy and cement-soaked, it looks like a wasteland.
The river is running fast. The water is still high. Residents and visitors stand and stare.
BIBHU RAJ ACHARYA, NEPALI RESIDENT: This water source has been a life for people living here. And by that, I mean they've been living here for generations and generations.
COOPER: Looking at the water today, does it look different to you?
ACHARYA: Yes, it does.
COOPER: In what way?
ACHARYA: Well, it makes me sad. It makes me sad and emotional, as well. Because this is one of the sacred water resources that we have.
And, you know, when -- when you mourn for somebody in your family, once they have died, people go up across this river, and then they do all the rituals over there. So, this is kind of like a holy river cross.
(CHANTING)
COOPER (voice-over): Buddhist monks came from Kathmandu to pray and offer blessings.
Traffic snarls on broken roads. A jackknifed truck is hardly noticed.
A local school bus driver, Chhiring Tamang, saved the lives of some 50 children, picking them up just before their school was destroyed, and crossing a bridge before it was washed away.
CHHIRING TAMANG, BUS DRIVER (through translator): After two minutes of me crossing the bridge, the flood came on my side. Kids started screaming after seeing the flood.
They were shouting. One kid fainted inside the bus. They were asking me to drive faster.
On the road, there were people running like ants to save their lives. After I drove near the uphill, I could see the flood is already ahead of me.
I reached a higher location, and I felt safe with the kids. I took a long breath, and then I continued my duty of dropping the kids, came back, and parked the bus at the police station.
COOPER (voice-over): I asked him what it feels like to be a hero.
TAMANG (through translator): It's a sad time for me. I have lost my nephew. He was working in the same school. I'm very sad that my nephew is dead.
My nephew called me before I crossed the bridge. This was right after I informed the principal regarding the flood. He told me, "Uncle, where are you? This flood coming in the river."
He was a helper at the school. He informed me to not go to the school. He lives in the same school with his family. He had a daughter, and his wife is disabled. They are safe now. They have nothing left, as my nephew was my only breadwinner of the family.
COOPER (through translator): Later, he showed us a photo of his nephew. His name was Tridam Lama (ph). There are many heroes here, but even they have heavy hearts.
Anderson Cooper, CNN, Trishuli.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: You feel for him. You can see the emotion in his eyes.
Our colleague Will Ripley is also there. We'll check in with him in the next hour here on THE STORY IS. We'll be right back.
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[00:59:07]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, (EXPLETIVE DELETED)! Oh, no, bro. We are cooked. We are fried.
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MICHAELSON: Heavy rain has hindered search-and-rescue efforts after flash flooding at the Grand Canyon.
Muddy floodwaters and debris swept into campgrounds and sparked frantic rescue missions for dozens of people in recent days.
Specialized teams from U.S. Border Patrol have joined the search for a man missing after Saturday's flash flood. Fifty-three-year-old Timothy Smith is the only person authorities are still searching for.
Crews are using helicopters, boats, drones, ground personnel, and a dog team to try and find him.
Smith and two friends entered the Grand Canyon together Friday for a hiking and fishing trip near the canyon floor. Forty-two-year-old Brent Rosenkranz and 46-year-old John Giusti were killed in that flood.
In a joint statement, Rosenkranz' family says he was a husband and father of three sons who dedicated much of his life to teaching and mentoring young people.
Giusti's family remembered the comic book fan as a real-life superhero for his commitment to helping others.
