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Opening Ceremony Underway After Attack on French Rail Lines; Park Fire has Exploded into California's Largest Fire of the Year; U.S. Arrests Alleged Cartel Leaders in Texas; One-on-One with USA Flag Bearer and Tennis Star Coco Gauff. Aired 3:30-4p ET
Aired July 26, 2024 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:30:00]
MARK ESPER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I mean, most countries have criticized Israel's conduct. I have said that I think Israel needs to do a far better job in terms of reducing civilian casualties and with the delivery of humanitarian aid, while I completely agree that they need to dismantle Hamas, neutralize Hamas, and do a number of other things. So I think his statement in that regard is true.
You know, I think when he says that if he were in office that this war would have never happened, October 7th would have never happened, clearly that's too hard to determine and we'll never know. But I think that is true with regard to his claim about the PR situation.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Secretary Esper, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it.
ESPER: Thanks, Brianna.
KEILAR: And ahead, French rail lines sabotaged just hours before the Olympics opening ceremony, and this is leaving hundreds of thousands of people stranded. We'll have new details on this huge, coordinated attack.
Plus, CNN talking one-on-one with the USA flag bearer and tennis phenom Coco Gauff about her long-awaited Olympic debut.
We'll have that coming up.
[15:35:00]
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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The opening ceremony at the Paris Olympics is now underway, but it's been a trying day as rainy weather and what officials are calling a coordinated sabotage on France's train system interrupted, stranding hundreds of thousands of passengers. Investigators say cables were taken apart and set on fire on three high-speed railways. Workers say that fixing the damage is going to take several days.
CNN international correspondent Melissa Bell has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The organizers of Paris 2024 believed they were ready for anything. But it was at 4 a.m., hours from the opening ceremony, that coordinated sabotage and arson caused chaos.
PATRICE VERGRIETE, FRENCH DEPUTY TRANSPORT MINISTER (through translator): Today, all the information we have clearly shows that it was deliberate, the simultaneous nature. Everything happened at the same time. Everything now points to the fact that these were arson attacks, particularly the timing, which is more than suspicious.
BELL (voice-over): Security in Paris is tight, with authorities keeping to make sure that things go smoothly. But this was one attack carried out simultaneously across the country that was impossible to imagine. No particular group has yet claimed responsibility.
BELL: These are exactly the kinds of images that the organizers of Paris 2024 had hoped to avoid, with French authorities warning that it is 250,000 travelers likely to be impacted this Friday, 800,000 over the course of the weekend.
BELL (voice-over): The latest drama likely to dampen the spirits of the French, many of them heading off on family holidays, even as Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo believed that enthusiasm for the Games had finally gripped the country.
MAYOR ANNE HIDALGO, PARIS (through translator): I felt that the enthusiasm arrived a little before, during the passage of the flame in Paris on July 14th and 15th. The Olympic flame was paraded in Paris and there were people everywhere. Children, elderly people, all social classes. Everyone was really happy. And I said to myself that it's the magic of the Games working.
BELL (voice-over): The opening ceremony will still go ahead as planned tonight along the River Seine, despite the train attack and the threat of rain. Whether it will further dampen spirits could depend more on the weather than the turnout.
Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: Our thanks to Melissa for that report.
Thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate amid a raging wildfire in Northern California and high winds and dry air are threatening to make this much worse. An update just moments away.
[15:40:00]
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KEILAR: Right now, some new images of the catastrophic wildfire that has just rapidly exploded into California's largest fire of the year. It's called the Park Fire, and it has torched more than 164,000 acres. It has forced people to evacuate in Northern California.
And just take a look at this time-lapse video. It shows what is called a fire tornado or a fire vortex. This was taken in Butte County last night.
And the man suspected of starting this fire has been arrested and is facing arson charges. CNN's Camila Bernal is in Chico, California. She is on scene with the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's an effort that is around the clock, 24-7. You know, we see the firefighters here, about 1,600 personnel trying to stop these flames. But they are just so fast and spreading so quickly.
That's why we're still having containment be so low. And that means there's just so much work to be done. It's hard to see when the sun comes out, but the flames are here behind me, and you see that thick smoke.
We've been seeing just how fast it moves hour by hour. We've had to drive to catch up with the flames to make sure that we're getting to sort of the edge of the fire.
But you mentioned that 42-year-old man who was arrested. Authorities say they have witnesses that actually saw him pushing that burning car about 60 feet. So just a very unfortunate situation for the people in this area. I also want to point out that they also updated the number of structures that have been destroyed, more than 100 already.
And so officials really trying to evaluate what this fire has done and what it could continue to do to this community. There's people who are under evacuation orders. We saw how some of the local authorities helped these people get out of this area yesterday, and we were told that at least three firefighters also had heat-related injuries. They were taken to the hospital and released.
These men and women are just here 24-7.
[15:45:00]
You see some of them here behind me with the chainsaws and just, again, working to try to contain these flames, but it is going to take some time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEILAR: All right, Camila Bernal, thank you for that report -- Boris.
SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour.
SpaceX says it fixed its failure to launch problems with the Falcon 9 rocket and plans to launch it from NASA's Kennedy Space Center overnight. The company's team said the Falcon 9 failed to launch on July 11 because of a liquid oxygen leak from a crack in a pressure sensor's sense line.
SpaceX says it aims to launch the Falcon shortly at 12:21 a.m. Eastern time from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.
Also, Boar's Head is recalling 200,000 pounds of deli meat because of concerns over listeria. Two people have died, 34 have gotten sick in 13 states, linked to the recall. It includes liverwurst and sliced deli meat, including ham and bologna.
And some new research shows a starter home is now going to cost you more than a million dollars in about 237 U.S. cities. Zillow is reporting that it's all part of why it's so hard to afford a home right now. Many of the high prices are concentrated in California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Massachusetts.
So in just a few years, Coco Gauff has gone from a young rising tennis star to a phenom, and now an Olympic flag bearer next to LeBron James. CNN has a one-on-one conversation with her, and it's coming up.
[15:50:00]
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KEILAR: Two alleged Mexican drug lords are now in U.S. custody after one essentially set a trap for the other. They're leaders of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, accused of flooding America with fentanyl, cocaine, and other drugs for years.
SANCHEZ: Let's get the latest from CNN's Polo Sandoval. And Polo, this was a so-called lure operation. Help us understand what that means and the complexity around a sting like this.
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, Boris and Brianna, the prevailing theory, or at least the prevailing theme in this, is betrayal. It is a theme that you will find in that ever-evolving story of the Mexican drug cartels just south of the border. Essentially, what you have here are these drug leaders that have to make that decision. Are they hunted down by U.S. authorities, or do they choose to cooperate with them? And by multiple accounts, it seems that this is an example of the latter.
In this case, a law enforcement official that's briefed on this investigation telling CNN that they believe that it was actually the son of Joaquin Guzman, who we all know as El Chapo, who actually cooperated with authorities and provided some inside help to actually track down and to actually capture Mayo.
In this particular case, what we understand is that Mayo was lured onto a small Cessna plane yesterday morning, departed from Hermosillo, Mexico, with a destination in just north of El Paso.
Now, at one point, that plane eventually landed there, that he was told that they would be flying to visit a property, potentially for purchase, that he was unaware that that plane would be met by U.S. law enforcement, which was the case. That is when Zambada was immediately arrested here. Now, in terms of who he is, he really is sort of that member of that last generation of, or the older generations of these drug lords. He was very low profile. It was, in fact, very difficult to even find recent photos of him.
I re-read a piece from 2010 in which he actually offered a Mexican magazine an interview, and he spoke of that persistent concern that he had about being captured, even going as far as to tell the reporter back then, saying that if he were captured, he would even consider taking his own life. So that's certainly important.
And then another thing to look out for in the coming days, certainly in the coming months, Boris and Brianna, is what potential repercussions we may see south of the border, because this is a significant void that he leaves behind, which means that we are likely to see a power struggle, perhaps even bloodshed among some of these cartel infighting because of what went down yesterday.
SANCHEZ: Some serious intrigue there. Look forward to seeing a documentary about that, I'm sure, soon to come regarding this capture. Polo Sandoval, thanks so much.
Still ahead, the Olympic opening ceremony underway. We're going to hear from one of the American flag bearers, Coco Gauff, about the moment she found out she'd appear alongside LeBron James as we watch live pictures of the opening games from Paris.
[15:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: The Paris Olympics are now underway, and we're getting our first look at these flag-waving athletes being ferried down the Seine River. That's never happened in the history of the Summer Games.
KEILAR: And leading the team, USA delegation Coco Gauff and LeBron James. They are the flag-bearers, and CNN's Coy Wire got the chance to talk to Gauff one-on-one ahead of that flag-bearer honor. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Have you started the process yet that you will be repping your country alongside LeBron James?
COCO GAUFF, TEAM USA FLAG BEARER: No, I like, I don't know when I'm going to meet him, but I'm like already like stressed about it, really.
WIRE: So you've never met him before?
GAUFF: No, no, I've never met him before. I'm excited to meet him and I'm excited to be flag bearer alongside him. There's no other athlete I think I would have chosen to do this with. WIRE: You talk about the racket has the potential to change the world. As divisive as times are right now with everything going on, what do you make of it all? And also what are your hopes for the game's potential ability to bring people together? That's what sports can do.
GAUFF: Yes, I just hope that me being a person representing Team USA and I think all the, I don't want to speak on behalf of all Olympians on Team USA, but I feel like majority of them will agree that we all just want to promote positivity through our game and through our sport and through our competing.
And I think that we all just want to show how passionate we are and share that passion with the supporters that we have that hopefully have a lot of success too.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[16:00:00]
SANCHEZ: Our thanks to Coy Wire for that report. The king of the world, LeBron James, the front of the boat.
KEILAR: She's nervous about meeting LeBron.
SANCHEZ: That's so interesting.
KEILAR: I mean, LeBron's nervous about meeting you, Coco. Don't you think?
SANCHEZ: Also, if you look at that picture of him on the boat, it looks like some people are nervous about being on the boat. It seemed very jam-packed.
KEILAR: I'm nervous about them being on the boat.
SANCHEZ: I feel like they just should've walked or done something different.
KEILAR: Less people on the boat, maybe?
SANCHEZ: Different boats? Look at his face. Does that look like joy on his face? We wish Coco and the rest of Team USA the best of luck in chasing the gold.
"THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.
